“I’m good.”
Marc gave me a small smile as he sat forward. Dressed in a polo shirt the color of something that got into a fight with a winter green mint and lost, Marc was way too damn cheerful. He had prep school vibrations, big money, heavy spender, and not one fucking clue about the real world, written all over him. “Mr. Cleary, that’s not how this works. Everyone who comes to group has to share. It doesn’t have to be deep.”
Right.
“How about I share, that I don’t want to share with a bunch of fucking strangers in an overpriced hotel for crackpots and madmen?”
“Crackpots and madmen,” Julius repeated with the best cackle. He could give the damn Joker a run for his money. “Crackpots and madmen.”
The therapist sighed. “I understand this can be difficult…”
That was the point I tuned him out and just stared stupidly past him at the wall. He asked me a few questions, most of which I ignored.
When he said, “Is self-harm something you’ve struggled with for a while now, Mr. Cleary?” I checked back in.
“What?”
“Self-harm,” Marc repeated. “You were very interested in what Mr. Bodhi offered.”
I snorted. “If I was interested in self-harm, I wouldn’t be asking him how he’d do it. Besides, he’s got a lot of creative ways to kill folks. Didn’t you hear the one about the ropes and the hangman’s noose? I like to admire art. Too many artists aren’t even acknowledged until they’re dead.”
“Thank you,” Mr. Bodhi said and I nodded.
“You’re welcome.”
The fact Marc, the cheerful therapist, ground his teeth hard enough it made the muscle in his jaw twitch was just a point in my corner. Yay me.
Thankfully, he moved the fuck on and I could daydream through the rest of the session. I’d gotten to spend some time with Boo-Boo twice now, but she didn’t seem to grasp that I was here.
That stung.
Not as much as it would when I figured out what they were doing to her. The marks on her arms were the ones that worried me the most. I had two long silvery scars from my wrists to my elbows. You could barely see them. One was hidden under a tattoo, but not the other. I found myself tracing that one as I waited for her to show up.
The midday pills were harder to get rid of. I ended up swallowing one. That sucked, but at least it took the edge off some of my anger. Not all of it. Nope. But some. They brought Boo-Boo in late, I almost didn’t think she’d make it.
Instead of talking though, she just stared. They hadn’t angled her toward the windows like they normally did. Course, the grandmother wasn’t with her. It was the cunt from earlier that morning. Amber or something. Whatever. She didn’t even engage the lock before she walked away with her phone in her hand.
What. A. Bitch.
Yeah, I’d work a little harder at fucking up her days. The older woman was over in her corner talking to the wall. Chester was at a table with a puzzle, but he was just staring at the windows. Right. Okay. I wandered over to Boo-Boo. Her empty stare went right through me.
Yep, really gonna make these fuckers hurt. I wanted to get Boo-Boo out of here, but I had to get her off whatever they had her on. I pushed her right up to the table with Chester, then dragged a chair over to sit with them.
“We doing the puzzle then, man?” I asked him, but Chester just twitched in his chair. Kind of like how Boo-Boo twitched in hers. And the Nutter Lady twitched and talked to the wall. The other patients in the room were either zoned out or just staring at the television. Some were doing both.
The orderlies and the nurses were behind their desk or just not around. Nurses like Amber just played on their phones. One of the other orderlies came in with another newcomer—no wait, that was Bodhi. Huh. Breakthrough in group, I guess.
“Boo-Boo,” I said as I reached for a puzzle piece. “Gonna need you to shake this shit off. That pretty pussy of yours isn’t doing us any good stuck in this hell hole.” While I didn’t focus on him, I kept track of Bodhi as he settled at a table not far from mine.
We locked eyes for a brief moment and he pointed a finger at me. Yeah, I nodded. Still me.
“Not gonna kill ya,” the guy mouthed and I shrugged. Good for him. He didn’t look at Boo-Boo either.
Meant he got to keep his eyes. I liked crazy. Just not near her.
“I wish you were here,” Boo-Boo said, softly. “I mean, I don’t. I know you’re not, Vaughn. But I miss you guys.”
“They miss you too,” I said. “Wake up and help me and we can get out of here.”
For a moment, awareness seemed to flicker in her soft doe eyes. The darkness sliding into them didn’t offer any kind of comfort. Sick as it might be, I preferred it to the emptiness. The darkness we could fight. The emptiness would swallow us.
“Freddie,” she said on a soft exhale. “I had a dream about you.”
“Was I naked?”
For a moment, the corners of her mouth twitched, and I swore my heart slammed into my ribs in desperation to get one real laugh, one small smile, something that told me Boo-Boo was there. As it was, I wanted to kill every single person in here. They should be really happy I didn’t have my knife.
I was going to have to put something together.
“No,” she said, then hesitated. “I don’t think so anyway.”
“Did I do anything fun in your dream?” I managed to put a couple of the puzzle pieces together. I didn’t even know what picture I was building, I just looked for the pieces that matched.
“You talked to me.”
“Cool,” I said. “I like talking to you.”
A faint smile curved her lips and I had to drag my gaze off her, because even if I was supposed to be vacant and stupid, staring would get noticed. Not that anyone seemed to care that I was just sitting here talking to her.
“I like talking to you, too.” A long sigh. “I wish I was there with you.”
A part of me wanted to scream that she was with me. But… “What are they doing here, Boo-Boo? Why don’t you want to be here?”
“Because they want me to forget. I don’t want to forget.”
Lainey said something about that. The Ball-Cracker had definitely been on to something. “What do they want you to forget?”
“Freedom.” The weight of the world hung on those two syllables. “Birds. The clubhouse. M—” She stopped abruptly and put a finger to her lips. “No, can’t say his name.”
Whose— “Raptor?”
All at once her pupils seemed to shrink a little and she looked at me. Really looked at me. “Don’t say it,” she said in a rush whisper. “Please. They said I’ve been traumatized. But if he finds out about him—he’ll kill him.”
Who?
Her uncle.
The threats.
“We saw the pictures, Boo-Boo.” It was a risk.
“Please,” she whispered, fucking begging me. “He thinks I’m his. If he thinks anyone can take me away or will help me—he will hurt them. He’ll hurt you.”
I’d really love to see him fucking try.
“Shh,” I said, covering her hand when she reached out to me and I slid a puzzle piece into her fingers. “We’re going to put all the pieces together, see?”