What did you tell Kennedy?
What did you say about her?
He's been different since the day room. Since he stood at the door and watched me touch her and couldn't do anything about it. The anger is still there—in the rigid line of his shoulders, the way his fingers curl when I walk past—but it's mixed with resignation now.
He's starting to understand that this isn't a competition he can win. Not because I'm better than him. Because Hope has already made her choice, even if she doesn't know it yet. She chose the first time she walked into my cell and looked at me. Every session that ran long, every question off-script, every inch she leaned closer instead of away.
She chose when she let me touch her with Gage standing at the door and didn't say stop.
Kennedy can recommend whatever he wants. The board can deliberate. Gage can offer her everything I can't. A front door. A restaurant. A life that doesn't come with a case file.
None of it matters. Soon I'll be free if all goes to plan.
I walk to my cell and lie down on the narrow bed and close my eyes. I gave Kennedy too much today. I know exactly why, and I don't care.
Chapter 18
Hope
I've started timing my rounds differently.
It's not something I planned. Not something I decided one morning over instant coffee, staring at the facility map and working out the most efficient path through Ward C. It happened gradually—a shift here, a detour there—until one day I noticed my clipboard notes had developed a pattern.
Every route I take now passes his door.
The drive to Greenridge has changed too. I used to listen to true crime podcasts, taking mental notes on investigative procedures and documentation gaps. Now the podcasts play but I don't hear them. Instead I replay conversations—the low rumble of his voice sayinggood girl, the way my name sounds when he's the one speaking it.
Hope.
I've heard my name thousands of times, from parents and professors and colleagues and friends, and none of them made it sound the way he does. I catch myself smiling at red lights, touching my lips in the parking lot before I go in, standingoutside his door for three extra seconds and checking my reflection in the reinforced glass window.
I don't have a word for what this is. I just know it's constant, and I don't want it to stop.
My reports have gotten longer.
Week thirteen's documentation runs forty-seven pages before I add the appendices. Cross-referenced medication logs, incident reports with highlighted contradictions, a detailed timeline of the sedation spiral that kept Jude under for seven days—doses escalating without documented justification, "behavioral stabilization" cited seventeen times without a single specific behavior identified.
I spread the pages across my kitchen table at midnight, coffee going cold beside me, and I see what I've built.
Not a report. Not for him—that's Kent's job. This is a systematic dismantling of every protocol the facility claims to follow, every standard they pretend to meet.
The restraint procedures are the worst. Protocol requires documented authorization within four hours. Seven of Jude's isolation episodes show authorization stamps dated days after the restraints were applied—backdated so sloppily that the timestamp fonts don't even match.
I photograph everything, make copies, store the originals in four separate locations, because I've worked in institutions long enough to know how files disappear.
The facility thinks they're building a case against me. They don't realize I'm building one against them.
The letter arrives two days after I file the supplemental report on restraint authorization gaps. Plain envelope, internal mail,my name typed across the front. I open it standing in my kitchen, still holding my morning coffee.
RE: Professional Conduct Assessment — Turner, H.
Ms. Turner,
This letter serves as formal notification that concerns have been raised regarding your professional conduct during your assignment to Greenridge Psychiatric Facility. These concerns relate to the following areas:
Frequency and duration of contact with Patient #247 (Chadwick, J.) exceeding documented session parameters
Reports containing language potentially prejudicial to facility operations
