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“Did you fall for one of them?” she shouts. I keep walking, speeding up and looking at nothing other than those doors to the red barn. “Gray, stop!” she snaps.
No.
The sound of her heels stop, and I half breathe a sigh of relief, as I keep moving. Sadly, it’s only a few seconds more before I feel her hand on my shoulder again. It tugs, twisting me back to her, and I find her with her heels in her hands rather than on her feet. “You did, didn’t you?”
She stares. She stares long and hard like she used to when we were kids and I’d had my hand in the cookie jar that was off limits. “You fell for a test case, didn’t you?”
The chain twirls in my fingers, hidden in the depths of my pockets like Hannah is hidden in the depth of my thoughts. “She’s not one of them,” I mutter, turning to walk again.
“Why is she over there then?” she calls.
“Because I can’t have her near me.”
I might as well have not bothered saying it at all for all the volume I managed to get out. I don’t even know why I answered her. I probably should have just said no, or ignored her suggestion and made her feel foolish for even proposing it. I haven’t. Stupidly. Maybe I can talk her out of me. Use logic and rationale to dismiss the notion of feelings when I shouldn’t have any. At least she’s not Malachi with his tormenting and pushing. Beatrice is nothing but facts and figures. Harsh, systematic, and judgemental. Just like me.
My feet stop, mind whirring over the possibilities of doing just that, and then I shake my head and move again. Annoyingly, I don’t want to talk her out of me. I want her lingering there, want the memories lodged in even if there isn’t anything other than it. I’ll bury it. Bury it all and keep moving until I get my answers and then maybe there will be something else for me one day.
“Gray?”
The sight of one of the horses being led outside makes me smile slightly, watching as the small form leading it walks alongside. A sigh falls from me. That’s something else I haven’t reconciled my feelings for yet, let alone begun trying to understand what I’m supposed to do going forward.
He looks over and holds his hand up, waving at me with a smile on his face. Riding. I could go for a ride, forget everything for a while and take some time, refocus.
“Gray?”
I sigh again, watching as she comes to the side of me and puts her shoes on again, her hand leaning on my shoulder to balance herself. “What Beatrice?”
“I don’t know. Just … I’m here.”
I nod. I know that.
It doesn’t help.
Chapter 12
Hannah
Idon’t know where the fuck I am, but I’m not staying here a minute longer.
These people are either insane, or demented, or possibly both, but no way am I one of them.
My feet move me slowly away from the ruckus still carrying on, and I back up to the far wall and check the exits. Shouting and screaming still echoes around the room as women are dragged and carried out of this space into others. White coats on some men, blue uniforms on women. It’s like a fucking sanatorium, not a therapy centre.
I flick my gaze back to the only two who seem remotely normal still looking at their plates of food, and then realise that they can’t be either. Who the hell just sits there in the middle of all this and barely moves, let alone doesn’t react to glasses flying around their heads? And the other one at the back of the room certainly isn’t. Rocking back and forth, now muttering to herself about someone not being anyone’s.
I plant myself in a quiet corner, unsure how I get out. Three doors. One back into the corridors, one to the kitchen by the look of it, and one that possibly leads outside. With all the commotion, I edge the perimeter in the hope that I can make it without fighting or arguing until I get to the main one. The handle pushes down, nothing happens. Locked. A quick scan of the people in uniforms and I notice key cards on chains dangling from their waists.
Hmm.
At the next rally of bitching and screaming from one of the women, I scoot forward, get in the way of the attack, and hold my hands up to one of the men. “Please stop,” whimpers out of me, as something shoves my back. “I shouldn’t be here and I need to get out.”
He looks me over, and then dives to the side to catch the one behind me, giving me enough time to swipe the key card from him before being manhandled. The loose chain snaps in the middle of the uproar, and regardless of the hands shoving me sideways again, I gain some balance and head straight for the entrance way again.
One swipe and the door buzzes and clicks, as more screams and shouts ring out in the space. I slip through the open door, letting it close behind me, and run through more corridors and hallways. Another door, another swipe of the card, and I aim directly at the light filtering in from a window in the hope that it leads me to the outside.
Passing a man in a glass booth, I tear round more corners and finally find an exit door. Freedom. I look left and right once I’m outside, no idea where I am or what I do now. The wind whistles slightly against the tall line of trees surrounding the drive, and there’s nothing but fields between me and that other big house. There must be help there, though. I’ll be able to make a call, find a cab. I don’t know, but either way I am not going back into that madhouse.
I jog quickly, covering my arms against the wind at the same time, and shrug the hoodie up over my head. Cold out here. November, I think. Or maybe it’s not anymore and it is December now. Time seems to have slipped away from me. Days and weeks have blended into nothing more than darkness and light, if there was any ever real sense of light at Malachi’s.
