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If Alek was talking, he would have said, “How could you not remember that it’s Vlad the Impaler?” but he wasn’t talking and he wasn’t sure if he would ever talk again.
He’d already said his last words. He shouldn’t be here.
“Scratch that then. Poe, maybe? You give me telltale heart vibes. Or… you could just tell me your name. I’ll figure it out eventually. Someone is bound to address you while I’m around. We’re locked inside the same cage, aren’t we?”
Alek said nothing.
“No? Give me some time to think about it, then.”
After looking furtively from side to side, Briar leaned close. Her bottom lip had bloomed a rosy red from where she’d chewed on it. Before Ian, Alek might have entertained the idea of passing his time in purgatory buried inside Briar’s various holes, but bisexual as he once was, the only way he swung anymore was Ian’s way.
Briar moved fast, snatching the spork from his hand and shoveling several heaping spoonfuls—sporkfuls?—of eggs into her mouth before dropping the spork on his plate.
“There. Now it looks like you’ve eaten some. You don’t want to call their bluff when it comes to eating. There’s this feeding tube they’ll threaten you with and the threat isn’t empty.” She tapped the side of her nose. “Ask me how I know.”
When he didn't, Briar rose from her chair.
“Wait,”he said, surprising even himself.
She stopped and wrapped her hands around the back of the chair. Her nails were trimmed short and scuffed with peeling black polish.
“My name is Alek.”
She flashed a grin. “Alek, huh? Are you sure you don’t want me to call you Vlad? Especially with that accent…”
His responding smile snuck up on him before he could catch it.
“It was nice to meet you, Alek.” Then, as if Briar knew a return exchange of social niceties would be too much for him, she left.
He watched as she navigated around the scattered tables, squeezed through a gap between a group of people in her path, and disappeared down the hallway that led to the living quarters. She didn’t stop to talk to anyone else along the way. No one tried to talk to her either. Was she real? Or was Briar another fox?
40
ALEK
DAY TEN OF PURGATORY
Dr. Dhawan wore a black silk top that knotted at her neck, a rather insensitive choice. Alek would give anything to feel the tight embrace of a knot tied around his neck and here she was flaunting a business casual noose in front of his face.
It was the first time he’d seen the doctor without a computer screen separating them. He preferred the digital experience. It was easier to hide.
“How are you liking it here?” She crossed one linen-clad leg over the other.
Her pants were the color of the crust of crème brûlée. Alek could hear the hollow scrape his spoon would make. Crème brûlée reminded him of the blowtorch to truck keys incident, which led his thoughts back to Ian and he was not thinking about Ian.
“It certainly appears nice enough,” she said.
He followed her gaze to the modern windows that made up nearly every westward-facing wall. Miles of ocean stretched to the horizon, the water sparkling beneath a cloudless sky. Theview might have been picturesque if it wasn’t marred by the chain link fence with barbed wire curled around the top.
The irony of building a mental hospital on top of a cliff of rugged coastline to taunt its patients with a perfectly lethal method of dying was not lost on him.
“You’ve missed three appointments in a row,” she said.
“Apologies for the no-show.”
She smiled, and up close, in all the high definition that reality had to offer, he realized that her asymmetrical smile was not a quirk. She couldn’t move the left half of her face.
“It’s nice to hear the sound of your voice again. I was told you’ve become willfully mute.”
