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Greg turns the badge, searching for Collymore’s key card.
“She bloody well pinched it,” Roark says. “So… she’s outside, then?”
“We search the trees,” Greg commands, walking quickly for the back door as we follow him.
The door is slightly ajar, the key card abandoned. We didn’t notice because we were following the blood. She couldn’t have been gone for long, which gives us time to look for her.
“Don’t call out her name. There’s no fucking signal out here so we can’t call each other, so yell out only if you find her and it won’t startle her,” Greg continues as we walk silently through the garden and towards the forest. “She is going to be scared, and Lennon possibly won’t recognize you if she’s in an altered state. Calmly continue trying to talk to her. Let’s go find her. Spread out.”
Taking a deep breath, we all choose a direction, and start searching, most of us using the natural light of the moon.
Lennon
My lungs are on fire as I run. There’s blood drying on my arms and legs, but I don’t believe any of it is mine. My hand continues to hold the now comfortable weight of the knife as I pump my legs, but a part of me worries I’ll fall and accidentally impale myself.
Forcing myself to slow down, I gasp for breath, struggling to quiet my breathing.I cannot go back. I cannot be used as a weapon.
Looking down at the knife in the darkness, I ask myself if I could just end this all myself. I tried to kill myself with a weapon much like this, and was stopped from doing it. Did that man know they’d use me to kill people?
“Nothing is what it seems,”he said. I don’t know what that means!
Starting to wheeze now in panic, I push my fingers through my hair, ignoring the smearing of the blood. My socks are long gone now, as they were covered in blood and Colly. Swallowing hard, I have a hard time feeling bad he’s dead. He wanted to rape and use me too, the only leash that kept him from doing it was Xav.
I vaguely remember attacking Nurse Ratched, but then Xav and Derek’s dad and Colly made a run for it. I ran after them, jumping onto Collymore’s back and stabbing him in the spine. He fell to his knees, skidding, before throwing me off.
What’s another bruise for a little revenge?
Beginning to walk again, I look up at the sky. The moon is behind the one cloud I can see. That’s just fucking perfect. I don’t know where I’m going, but I know movement will keep people from finding me. At least I hope it will.
Hidden Hills was on a skeleton crew tonight because Xav had an experiment he didn’t want anyone else to witness outside of my core torturers. Everything he’s done to me, appears to be so he could burrow deep into my brain.
Pulling my hair hard to ground my spiraling thoughts, I grit my teeth to hold in the scream begging to be released.
“I’m an experiment,” I whisper to myself before tripping on a root. Shrieking in surprise, I catch myself on my knees.
I still have the knife in my hand and I look down at it.
It wouldn’t have to hurt… much.The cloud moves away and shines on the pretty red leather hilt as I press it into my thigh.
Pain is relative, and I have lived through more than I even remember during my stay here. If I can’t get out of this place, I’ll die instead.
I cannot go back into those walls… I didn’t kill Nurse Elaine and I heard her scream as I ran after Colly. I have a feeling she’ll be very vindictive in her punishment.
I did kill her fuck buddy after all.
Talking myself into getting up and moving again, I start to stand. But, as I look up, there’s a man silently watching me. Surprised, I scream. All of the pain, anger, and exhaustion is pushed into that one expulsion of sound.
“Lennon,” he says harshly. “Stop, it’s me. I’m here to help you.”
Staring at him, I hold the knife against my thigh, half hiding it from him. It’s dark enough even in the moonlight that he may be able to see the blood telling the world of my sins.
I know this man. He’s the one who helped Xav torture me, while stealing my right to breathe from me, and then arrogantly robbed me of my death as well.
Why is he here? The darkness is meant to be mine.
“I’m not going back,” I tell him carefully. “I won’t be a weapon. I won’t let Mr. Xav use me.”
He stands there, not taking a step closer. “Do you remember when I told you not everything was as it seemed?” he asks. At my nod, I see the beginning of a smile twitching on his lips. “What if I told you I was here with Derek, Roark, and Turner to take you away from this hell? Would you trust me then?”
