Mirrors (7 page)

The simple truth of it hit Austin. Needled him.

“So tell me, who is better off? You… or Jacob?”

Austin looked across at the boy. His serene eyes were void of any concern, any confusion, any anxiety. There was a gentle air of peace about him, but what Austin really saw behind those eyes was a detached human with a broken mind.

“He’s not all there,” Austin said.

“Not fully human, is that it?” Fisher said.

“Not really, no.”

“You think a body part, like a leg, makes you more human than someone who doesn’t have it? If I were to remove your leg, you would be less than you are now?”

The gloves loomed large in Austin’s mind. With them, a saw.

“No,” he said.

“No. Are you your hands? Your face? Your brain? Or are you something else?”

“I’m my mind.”

Fisher regarded him for a while, staring directly into his eyes.

“So then Jacob, with less of a mind, is somehow less human? I don’t think he would appreciate your opinion, frankly.”

“He can’t even process my opinion.”

“Maybe not. Which perhaps gives him an advantage over you. He’s at peace.”

Fisher began to pull on the surgical gloves.

“Let me ask you a very important question, Scott.” Fisher’s eyes drilled him. “Given the choice, would you rather be in perfect peace, or would you rather be right?”

Austin’s mind spun. He did want peace. In fact, being right gave him peace.

Or did it? Actually, in all honesty, the need to know answers with absolute certainty kept him in a constant state of low anxiety.

“There are two ways we can do this,” Fisher said, pulling on the second glove. “I can sedate you and treat you while you’re unconscious, but I think it would be far more effective if you face your fears now. My data sets indicate that a willing entry into therapy has a markedly positive influence on patient outcomes.” He released the tight elastic latex glove and let it snap loudly on his arm.

“Your choice.”

Austin’s heart rate was at a full gallop, and he seemed powerless to calm himself. He realized that his knees were bouncing nervously, but he no longer cared about appearances. He only wanted out of this chair, out of this madness. The idea of being sedated terrified him. Images of catatonic patients filled his mind. No mind, no self.

His anxiety raged unchecked. Part of Fisher’s argument made some absurd kind of sense, which only pushed Austin deeper into fear. The man wanted him out of the way. Fisher wasn’t going to kill his body, he was going to kill his mind, which was worse.

“Nothing? So be it,” Fisher said. He removed a vial and syringe from his lab coat pocket. Uncapped the syringe and carefully drew a clear liquid into it. Tapped the side to remove the air bubbles.

“Please…”

Fisher looked at him. “Please? Please what?”

“Please don’t do this.”

“No sedation?”

His mind didn’t seem to be processing his choices properly. He knew that he was already giving himself over to fear, but he couldn’t stop it.

“No,” he said.

The man nodded lightly. “An excellent choice.” The edge of his mouth nudged into a faint smile as he capped the syringe.

“Let’s help you find perfect peace, shall we?”

Fisher walked behind his wheelchair and rolled him toward the corner, where a dental chair waited. No, not a dental chair. This one had circular head restraint with bolts above it.

Austin saw the contraption and knew immediately what Fisher intended. He was going to secure his head in that device and surgically fix his brain. Permanently.

Terror unlike Austin had ever felt swept down his body in sudden, unrelenting waves. His arms were fastened to the chair, but that didn’t stop the tremor in his hands.

“You’re going to lobotomize me?” His voice was high and it cracked.

“Far too rudimentary,” Fisher said, wheeling him. “We’ll use an advanced procedure—a single small-gauge needle through your right nostril up into the brain. The chemicals I inject will kill the appropriate matter. Clean.”

Austin’s mind stuttered as his grip on his own awareness began to dissolve. The tremor spread up his arms and consumed his entire body. Swallowed him whole.

A high-pitched ringing screamed in his ears as Fisher’s voice faded to a muffled drone. His chest heaved uncontrollably, sucked at the thick air in long draws. He was going to die.

In the sliver of the space between two breaths, the world around him slowed as his mind collapsed. Austin saw himself as though he stood outside himself. The room. Fisher. Jacob. The pulsing of his heart hung in the air like the sound of a distant drum that came from nowhere and everywhere at once.

He blinked.

Unbidden, a swell of rage rose from somewhere deep inside and shook him. He screamed, ragged and full-throated. Every fiber in his body strained, stretched taut to the breaking point.

Driven by a primal instinct to survive, Austin violently threw his head back, then pitched his weight up and backward with only one thought in mind.

No.

No, he would not die.

No, he
could
not die.

There was no calculation in his movement, only raw impulse, but that basic drive to live followed a logic of its own, previously unknown to Austin.

The momentum carried Austin up off the seat and over. The ceiling came into view, then Fisher’s body.

The movement was so sudden, so forceful, so unexpected that it caught Fisher flatfooted. Before he could move, Austin’s knee slammed into his face, crushing his nose with a loud crack.

With a grunt, Fisher dropped to the ground.

Austin’s trajectory carried him over, then stalled. He crashed to the tile floor, facedown, arms still strapped to the wheelchair, which was now above him.

He gasped in pain. He was on his knees with the wheelchair on his back and Fisher was behind him, momentarily stunned, but the large man would quickly recover and crush him.

Then kill him.

Austin jerked one leg under his torso and shoved up. He staggered to his feet. But he could hear Fisher’s heavy breathing, wheezing, another grunt. The man was getting up!

Blinded by rage, Austin whirled, taking the wheelchair with him. He roared, as if by the sound of his voice alone, great strength would flood his body.

He was halfway through his turn when he saw Fisher, just pushing up from the floor, blood streaming from his broken nose. The man’s hand was at his face, feeling the flow of blood.

Only then did it occur to Austin that he actually had a weapon in his hands. At his back.

The wheelchair.

It was metal. It was heavy. It was already swinging around behind him, strapped to his arms.

Austin threw all of his weight into his turn and spun through and around.

The wheelchair connected with a jarring thud, jerking Austin to an abrupt halt. He couldn’t see what impact the contact had made behind him, and he had no desire to twist and look. He only wanted to get away.

But when he tried to run, he found that the wheelchair was snagged.

He twisted viciously, pulled it free, and staggered forward. Only when he’d taken three full strides did he glance over his shoulder and see the damage he’d caused.

Fisher was on his knees, staring at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. Blood ran from a gaping hole near his right temple. He didn’t seem capable of moving.

Austin caught his breath and spun back to face the man, stunned. For a moment they remained fixed, staring at each other. Something about the man’s eyes sent a chill down Austin’s spine. Why wasn’t he pursuing?

Fisher’s body tilted forward and then fell face-first onto the hard floor with a sickening thump. Blood seeped from the wound in his temple and began to pool around his head.

Unconscious?

Austin twisted his head around and looked at the wheelchair strapped to his arms. At the right wheel, the protruding chrome brake-lever was slick with blood.

His heart plowed through three heavy beats.

And then he knew. He knew as much as he’d ever known anything in all of his life.

Heaving with exertion and panic, Austin slowly faced the director of admission’s prone, unmoving form on the floor.

He had killed Fisher.

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