“You can’t starve yourself, Celeste. It won’t help—”
“I would gladly eat if given the opportunity,” I snap at him, furious at his ridiculous assumptions. At this entire macabre joke they’ve obviously played on me.
He frowns.
“Are you telling me you haven’t been fed?”
“I’m telling you what you already know. That I’m a prisoner. Kept here against my will. Thirsty. Hungry. Cold. And abused. You can hardly be surprised that I passed out.”
His eyes narrow a fraction and he straightens. “One moment.”
He disappears around the curtain that’s been drawn around my bed. Through the dull roar ringing in my ears, I hear him speaking in low tones in a language I don’t understand. There’s a scrape of a chair and hurried footsteps that recede quickly.
When he returns, his expression is strained.
“Food will arrive shortly,” he says.
I muster the energy to glare at him. “Do you want a thank you for not starving me?”
“I apologize for your mistreatment,” he says quietly.
When I don’t answer, he merely continues to study me.
I fidget underneath his heavy gaze, telling myself it’s my hunger making my heart flutter and not the way he watches me. Or the fact that he’s alive after all.
“I don’t understand,” I begin.
Footsteps sound, and I tense as a woman I’ve never seen before enters carrying a covered tray.
“Děkuji,” Dr. Livingstone tells her.
She sets it on a cart beside my bed then slips out again without a word or glance in my direction.
Dr. Livingstone wheels the cart over until it’s positioned just right and then pulls the lid off the tray.
“Eat.”
Steam lifts from the hot rice and vegetables. The scent of garlic bread hits my nose, and it’s all the encouragement I need.
The food is bland but filling, and I devour the meal under the doctor’s scrutinizing watch. When I’m done, my stomach feels settled, and the dizziness has passed, but anxiety takes its place as my thoughts drift to the twins.
Hopefully, they’re all right.
“Better?” Dr. Livingstone asks.
“Yes,” I say, because in some ways I am. In others, I’m worse. “Can I go now?”
His brows lift. “I thought you’d welcome the break.”
I cross my arms. “I should get back to my treatment. I don’t want to shirk the responsibility of my own healing.”
His brows lift higher.
“You asked me to think about my future,” I say. “I’m committed to a future that involves getting the hell out of this place. Whatever it takes. If that means painting your dead body during group therapy, so be it. You won’t break me.”
A shadow passes over his features.
“Is that what you saw?”
“How could I see anything else? The blood was everywhere. Even if it wasn’t real, I don’t know how you’ll get the stains off the floor.”
Just thinking about it horrifies me all over again. Underneath the disgust is fury. Whatever game they’re playing with my mental health, I hate them for it.
“Celeste.”
“What?” I snap.
He presses his lips together and, instead of answering, he grabs my hand and presses it to his chest, then his cheek.
“Feel this? I’m real. I’m alive. Whatever you think you saw, you’re wrong. It’s all right.”
The feel of his solid form underneath my hand is both reassuring and unsettling. I bite my lip and, when my stomach flips in nervous pleasure, I yank my hand away again.
“But you were dead,” I whisper. “I saw your blood. So much blood.”
“You saw an illusion.”
A hallucination. He doesn’t say the word, but I know he’s thinking it.
“It’s a trick,” I say in a hard voice. “Meant to mess with me.”
“Celeste, it’s clear there is more going on here than simply your grief over losing your sister.”
Rage courses through me, burning me from the inside.
“Yes, manipulation for one,” I say. “Whatever game you’re playing with me, it won’t work. I’m not crazy. And I’m certainly not a witch. This is such bullshit.”
“Who told you you’re a witch?” he asks, and something about the sharpness in his words has me treading carefully.
I hesitate.
Behind the doctor, a nearly transparent figure flickers against the curtain.
Estelle puts her finger to her lips and shushes me, then vanishes.
I look back at the doctor and paste on a sweet smile. If they’re going to play games with me, I’ll play them right back.
“You did, Doctor. Don’t you remember?”
He frowns.
Before he can contradict me, I yawn widely and stretch my hands over my head. “If Sir is going to punish me, I’d like to get it over with. The food has made me very tired.”
“We don’t punish our patients,” he says.
“Of course. You’ll probably call it teaching me a lesson.”
I yawn again. This time for real.
My lids droop, and I realize too late that while the food wasn’t poisoned, it was probably laced with some kind of drug meant to manage any outbursts I might have when I saw the doctor alive.
“We can talk again after you’ve had a chance to rest.”
Through the haze of exhaustion, I am very aware of the doctor’s arms around me as he carries me out of the curtained room and down the hall. At the door leading downstairs, I’m handed off, and Nurse Schmidt’s angry scowl swims into view. Her grip isn’t nearly as gentle as his.
They exchange a few terse words, and then the doctor is gone.
Nurse Schmidt shoves through the door leading to the stairwell, and the moment we’re alone, she dumps me unceremoniously onto the floor.
I grunt, coming awake suddenly as I hit the ground with a painful thud.
“I don’t carry. You walk or you crawl. Your choice,” she says.
I groan, climb to my feet, and shuffle down the stairs with Nurse Evil looming behind me.
As we near my cell, I’m careful not to look over at the twins, but their presence in the shadowy cell across from my own is unmistakable and offers a comfort I didn’t expect.
“Sleep while you can,” Schmidt says ominously and then stalks away.
The moment she’s gone, I hurry to the bars separating us and search for the twins. They both step forward wearing matching expressions of worry and fear.
“What happened?” Dean asks.
“Did they hurt you?” Declan adds.
I shake my head. “I passed out from hunger,” I explain. “When I woke up, I was in a clinic of some kind. Dr. Livingstone was there. He brought me food and—”
I stop, unsure how to ask them what I want to know. Or maybe I’m worried about the answer.
“Did he hurt you?” Declan asks again, and there’s a promise of violence in his tone. A promise to protect.
But his question tells me everything I need to know. What I saw wasn’t real. Or at least it wasn’t what they saw.
“No. He’s been much kinder than the others,” I say.
“No one here is kind,” Dean mutters.