28
TRAP
LONDON
What does it mean to be liberated?
Throughout my career as a psychologist, I’ve counseled countless patients, each one mentally shackled, constrained by internalized limitations. Even those with the most disturbed personalities, who believed themselves utterly free, were governed by a crippling psychosis.
Strip away our matter, and we exist purely in thought.
We are all manifestations of thought, defined by the characters we form within ourselves. Every new moment, every path we choose and journey we embark upon, is first conceived in thought. This thought here, this is my transformation.
I’m being christened by darkness.
I’ve stared into my own reflection and glimpsed the unvarnished truth, undistorted by the images our minds create. When confronted with that raw honesty, you either accept it or you fracture.
No one can withstand the absolute destruction of their mind.We’re not tempered glass—we’re fragile shards, and I’m cracking.
Have I used my skills to break the minds of six patients? Did I place the murder weapon in their hands? Or has Grayson shattered my mind?
Which reality is true?
My bare feet pound against the earth as I race toward the edge of the woods. Grayson’s house looms tall and ominous against the night sky, its lights forming a refracted halo in the crisp air. I use the faint glow to guide me toward the fence.
I’m almost there.
Static erupts, crackling through the dark. “Touching the fence will end the game too soon, love. You don’t want to do that.”
I pant, my chest tight, as I stare up at the razor wire. I can hear the electricity humming along the metal fencing.
Bastard.
I glance around, desperate for another escape.
“There’s only one way out,” Grayson’s disembodied voice says. “And that’sin.”
The mouth of the garden maze lies before me, enclosed by towering walls of vegetation.
“This is madness,” I whisper to myself. “What if I refuse?” I shout into the darkness. “What if I just sit right here all night?”
The chirring of crickets is my only answer.
“Shit,” I mutter, burying my head in my hands as I inhale a searing, bone-weary breath. The ache in my back feels as if I’ve been cracked in two, the lower half of my body a snarled web of pain.
Atonement. A thought that comes to me on a frantic note, a scream slicing through the night. Somewhere within this maze, a man awaits his fate, one of Grayson’s victims. What has he done to deserve this? Is he even worthy of saving?
Who has the right to make that choice?
I never signed up to be a savior. I’m definitely no hero. Yet I refuse to become the vile creature Grayson has painted me to be.I can’t.My father’s blood doesn’t course through my veins.
I have a choice.
I yank the skirt up, freeing my ankles, and sprint toward the entrance of the maze. I took an oath as a doctor—I can’t allow gravity to pull me into the blackest hole…not yet.
Fire snakes a blistering trail through my lungs as I reach the latticed opening, halting just inside to catch my breath. I brace my hand against the wall of green. Thorns bite into my palm, and I wince.
The screaming is louder now, sending a shiver crawling along my spine. A faint glow brightens the sky above the tallest hedges, and I know that’s my destination.
