Who the fuck were these clowns?
“Are you insane?”
“No, Paul,” Amber informed him. If she’d been an ice-cold bitch before, she was positively frigid now. “You’re going to do what I said. We have…” She checked her watch. “Less than twenty minutes before they start rounding on the rooms. The minute they realize he’s not in his, they’re going to trigger the alarms.”
“Then send him back to his fucking room.”
“Oh, you coward.” Not to be dissuaded, Amber grabbed my arm. “Do the swap and meet me at the south doors.”
She didn’t wait for Paul to say anything, just tugged me along. I stumbled, and she dug her fingers into my biceps. The sharpness of her nails stung, but I moved woodenly, hopefully neither of them would see the phone.
Once we were in the hallway, she guided me past the doors to the VIP wing and into another area. She used her card to open it.
“Move it,” she ordered in a shrill tone. “We don’t have all day. I can’t believe you’re just wandering around here.”
Every stumbling step I took slowed her down and incensed her more. I wasn’t even sure where she was going. I hadn’t made it down here, but it was definitely less friendly than my hall or Boo-Boo’s.
All of a sudden, she paused at another door and yanked it open. “Here. In you go.” She tried to shove me, but I just glanced off the wall and staggered away. It gave me a glimpse inside the room. I wasn’t sure who was more surprised. Me or Bodhi. Fortunately, Amber didn’t seem to catch on.
“Dammit,” she snarled, yanking my arm and this time the phone slipped. It hit the floor and skittered all the way into Bodhi’s cell. Because his room wasn’t a treatment room, it was definitely some kind of cell. “What the hell was that?”
Bodhi now stood in the doorway to his “cell” and he looked from her to me. I focused on him briefly. Bodhi in the community room was kind of funny, standoffish, but funny. Bodhi in group therapy was certifiable, but I liked him. This Bodhi?
The sweat slicking my back made my shirt stick to me. Bodhi wasn’t focusing on me anymore, he was looking at the nurse as she tried to drag me forward. I wasn’t moving. In fact, when she hauled particularly hard, I yanked my hand away and she stumbled backward. The next words out of her mouth were going to be shrill.
Not that I needed to worry. Bodhi just grabbed her by her head and twisted hard. The crack of her neck echoed loudly in the hall. The nurse dropped, lifeless eyes staring and her mouth open in a silent scream.
Huh.
Bodhi looked down at her then at me. “I’m keeping the phone.”
Nodding slowly, I gave him a thumbs up. “What are you going to do with her?”
The other man looked thoughtful, then dragged her body over his shoulder. “They have drain cleaner here.” He wandered off with her. Even closed his door behind him.
Yeah.
Skip.
I made it two steps before I paused and glanced back. “Bodhi?”
The other man turned to walk backwards, but kept moving. “Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
He grinned and gave me a little salute. “Not my best work.”
Right. Don’t laugh.
I abandoned this particularly gloomy region of Pinetree and hurried back to my room. I barely made it. Literally collapsing on my bed as the door to the room opened. I jerked up, a sweaty, stinking mess as another of the orderlies—a guy name Gary? Yeah, didn’t know, didn’t care—came in.
Fuck.
I almost welcomed the pills, cause it came with water. Still didn’t swallow them, even if my heart was racing.
Course, now I also needed to find another damn phone.
Bodhi wasn’t in the community room that day. Neither was Paul. A couple of the nurses talked about Amber missing her shift, but no one seemed to think anything was wrong. The weird thing was all the surveillance.
The section she’d dragged me down where Bodhi’s cell was, it had cameras everywhere. How did their security not notice? I’d been damn sneaky, but there was no way I should have been able to make it back to my room this morning unseen.
When Boo-Boo showed up, she moved slowly, her eyes were out of focus and I wanted to kill all over again. She didn’t even see me as she wandered through. I waited for her to pick a place to sit—instead of one of the tables, she went to the sofa in front of the television.
Ignoring the puzzle, I walked over to sit with her. She didn’t even look at me and I kept trying to study her without staring. This was bullshit. I’d left her only a few hours before, what happened?
Halfway through some house renovation show, she gave a little shudder then glanced at me. “Freddie?”
“I’m here, Boo-Boo,” I told her quietly, careful to talk out of the side of my mouth. “You okay?”
“No,” she admitted and that made my whole heart just drop. “I thought you were a dream again.”
“Yeah?”
“But you’re not naked.”
I grinned. “I could fix that.”
Not here. Preferably. But if it would make her smile.
“No, it’s okay,” she said softly. “At least I know you’re real.” That little hint of disbelief in her tone made me sick. “They took me to the floating place and the white static.”
The floating place?
I didn’t know what those were. Goddammit. I needed another phone or to talk to Liam. We needed out of here. But I didn’t think we could afford to wait for Liam or Rome to “visit.”
“Are we still getting out of here?” There it was again, that hint of fear lacing the question, like she wanted to believe but it wasn’t true.
“Yes,” I promised.
“How?”
“I’ve gotten into and out of more places I didn’t belong than I can count, Boo-Boo. Keep fighting for me. We’re getting out of here.”
Maybe tonight.
I knew some of the layout of the place from my nocturnal wanderings. But the grounds were extensive. Depending on when we got out of here, we’d have to hike a bit—unless I could steal a car. Modern cars were not easy to hot wire. In fact, some were downright impossible. You needed code keys and shit.
Wait—what if Amber had a car?
Shit, what if she did. When would they notice it in the lot? Yeah, definitely needed to get out of here tonight. The next day at the latest.
“Freddie?”
I glanced back at Boo-Boo, her eyes were huge. Well, her pupils were, huge and completely blown. The darkness swallowed up the brown. How she wasn’t squinting, I had no idea.
“I’m here, Boo-Boo.”
“You won’t leave me, right?”
“Never. I promise.”
Relief slid across her face and she sank into the sofa. I was going to seriously fucking kill them all.
In fact, we’d already started that.
That night on the way to her room, I was careful to not stop anywhere. I wanted a phone or something, but not this time. Probably not the best idea, after everything, to sneak back in there. But no way in Hell was I leaving her alone. She’d been so damn sad this afternoon when she wasn’t just drifting away.