She’d told the story plainly. She’d explained it in great detail. And these fucking retards couldn’t focus long enough to hear it all. No, they were too busy in their own fucking heads planning their own words. What will we say to help this poor crazy girl? Instead of listening. Why bother listening when you know you’re right?
Dominic pulled her into his arms, bound up in the straitjacket, shouting profanities at him. He petted her hair. “Shhhh, baby. I know it’s confusing right now, but we’re going to make this better. I know you don’t mean any of this.”
Like hell I don’t. Like fucking hell. She wanted to spit on him, but she caught herself in time. Maybe he was right. Maybe she would regret all this later, but the only moment that existed was now. And now there wasn’t enough space in the universe to contain her simmering, lonely hatred.
She felt puffy, her hair clinging to a tear-streaked face, driving her past the point of rational thought. She couldn’t raise her arm to get it off her skin. It felt like an eel slithering down her cheek. “M-my hair,” she managed. She was filled with so much rage toward her husband she couldn’t bring herself to ask him to do something for her. The rest of the words wouldn’t come. Just: my hair.
Large hands—incongruous working in law—brushed away the strands that clung to her face. Warm lips pressed against her forehead. “Shhhh. Don’t. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
Chapter Eleven
Nicole tried to stay calm in the car and calm in the hospital waiting area while they checked her in. The stakes had risen. If she couldn’t manage a reasonable approximation of rational, she might never escape this place.
Oh, the doctor said just a few days. He made it sound like no big deal. Like a sinus infection. We’ll give her a few drugs; she’ll be good as new. She’ll come home, and it’ll be something you manage like diabetes. But things would be normal again. Just like before.
If anybody in this hospital was ill, it was her parents and Dominic for believing such lies. They could keep her twenty-four hours without her consent. The doctor would file the requisite paperwork for more, or he’d wear her down and get her to sign herself in. A day would become a week, then a month, then a year. If she didn’t lie, she’d never get out of here.
No. August is coming.
As she thought it, she worried it wasn’t true. What if he didn’t find her? What if he got too hungry, fed from someone else, and didn’t need or want her anymore? Once he crossed that line, maybe she’d become more trouble than she was worth to him.
What if he wasn’t real?
She sat next to her husband, rocking herself and whimpering, while Dr. Cronan finished the admissions process. Her thoughts had fallen down a crazy spiral.
She turned to Dominic so fast she almost fell out of the plastic bucket seat beside him. “You can stop this. Please, take me home. I’ll never talk about August again. I-I’m not crazy. I got confused. Please. Please. Don’t you love me?”
“You know I love you, but I’m not equipped to keep you from stabbing yourself with every sharp object you come across to prove you can magically heal. What if you accidentally did real damage? What if you hit a major artery? This is too serious, Nicole. I don’t think any less of you. It’s no different than any other disease people get.”
“I’ll never get out of here,” she whispered.
“Look at me.” He spun her awkwardly toward him, holding her steady so she didn’t lose her balance. “I love you. I will protect your rights. You’re not going to be locked away forever. Just a few days, while they decide the best drug to put you on. If you had a bad reaction, wouldn’t you rather be in the hospital where they can help you?”
He knew how she felt about drugs. She barely would take a painkiller when her head was splitting. “Don’t let them drug me. Please. I’m okay. I don’t need the drugs.” But they both knew there would be drugs.
He looked at her sadly.
In spite of everything, she wanted to cling to him, but she couldn’t wrap her arms around him—as if he were a mere projection of her mind. Like he was the delusion. Before she could hyperventilate from thinking about her confinement, Dr. Cronan turned from the front desk with a non-threatening bedside manner smile on his face.
The fact that he could lock her up in the looney bin and still smile mildly, told her everything she needed to know about him. If August ate him, she might dance in the blood.
“Come along, Nicole, let’s get you settled in for the night. Everything will seem better in the morning.” Together, the doctor and Dominic helped pull her to her feet.
Her husband leaned in to kiss her, but she turned her head away. “If you kiss me right now, I swear to God I’ll press charges for assault. If I’m crazy and tied up, how can I consent to anything?”
He pulled back, and she was almost happy by the hurt look in his eyes. The feeling caught her off guard. The two of them had never been that couple. The couple that snipped at each other and said hateful things. Had it only been the relative ease of their life that had made their relationship so perfect? How strong was their love if it couldn’t withstand the simplest obstacle? She wanted desperately to love him right now, but he was the enemy, participating in keeping her in the hospital against her consent. He’d betrayed her when he should have been her partner.
The thought stole through her mind, August never would have done this. She tried to smother it out of existence, but it was already out there, laughing like a Cheshire Cat.
As Dr. Cronan led her away, she didn’t look back. All three of them were dead to her right now. She couldn’t stand to call forth the image of their faces in her mind. They were all free. They were all sane and normal, and no one wanted to tie them up or give them drugs. No one wanted to control their life and fuck their consent because they’d been deemed incompetent.
When the gate closed behind them, Dr. Cronan said. “Let’s get this off you. I know it must be terribly uncomfortable. I’d panic in it, too. Are you calm enough for that?”
“Yes, doctor.” Her voice droned out of her like she’d already been drugged. Like those sticky substances were flowing through her veins attaching to her thoughts and morphing them into something more acceptable. Something for the greater comfort of society.
“Are you going to hurt yourself?”
“No.” Like she’d tell him if she were planning it. How stupid did he think she was?
As he unbuckled the jacket, the anguish of the situation hit her. Sick or not, there was no escape. Getting Dominic to believe her had been the only hope she had of getting him to run with her.
The doctor led her to a small desk where a woman sat with a bunch of tiny paper cups filled with pills. He spoke quietly to her and then turned to Nicole with a paper cup with an orange pill in the bottom, and a second cup filled with lukewarm water.
She took a step back and shook her head. “No… I don’t want to take that.”
“It’s a mild sedative to help you sleep. We’ll talk about your treatment plan tomorrow.”
She shook her head again. “No.”
“Yes. Now you have to let us treat you. We’re trying to help you get better. The more you resist, the harder this will be.”
Men in gray scrubs appeared in her peripheral vision. They stayed in the background but were ready to spring into action if she caused trouble.
“Please, I don’t like drugs. If it’s a sedative, I should be able to choose if I want to take it or not. Am I not here for delusions? These aren’t related issues.” She tried to sound reasonable, But the panic climbed up her throat wrapping around her voice box like a constricting snake until her speech came out high-pitched and nearly too soft to hear.
“You need to sleep so we can work tomorrow. It’s a big day and we don’t have a lot of time to sort you out.” He meant before no one could legally keep her here. Unless he could convince them she was sick and get an injunction from the courts to commit her long term.
“I know my rights. If you start g
iving me shit I don’t need for the hell of it, I’ll sue the hospital.” As she edged back, the doctor and orderlies moved forward, boxing her in, squeezing out her escape.
“Please, let’s do this the easy way,” he said as if he were helpless to stop the big hospital goons from making things hard and ugly.
She knew she should take the pill. She was in a hospital. She’d be fine. But the horror of the little orange circle was too great. Her mind locked down around her choice, the stubbornness rising like steel walls around her, as her body tightened in response, everything clinched, every muscle, her mouth pressed into a firm line.
“Don’t come any closer to me,” she warned after a minute. “Do you know what crazy is, Dr. Cronan? Crazy is forcing someone against their will to take a drug. Crazy is locking them up because you don’t understand their experiences. This is crazy.” She was sure he was breaking about thirty rules already, though he’d pretended to operate by the books while signing her in.
She’d tell Dominic. Assuming he even believed her. After all, can a delusional patient be trusted to testify to the facts of their abuse? Her family had some pretty vivid imagery of when she’d stood poised with a letter opener at the ready to slice her skin to prove she had magic powers.
“Nicole… ” Dr. Cronan and the orderlies ignored her warning to stay back. Why couldn’t August have given her useful powers? Like spitting acid.
“My husband is an attorney. You can’t do this. I know my rights. This isn’t 1922. You can’t treat patients like this.”
“You’ve proven you’re a danger to yourself and others. The law says I have twenty-four hours.”
In her mind, she saw it all fail and go terribly wrong before she acted, but she was an animal backed into a corner, her lizard brain enacted, concerned with survival. Her instincts screamed life or death. Fight or flight. They’d eliminated the flight option. This was the scenario they’d created.
She tried to barrel through the doctor and orderlies, managing to slip between two of them. But they were too fast. They dragged her to a room with gray walls and flickering florescent lights.
She struggled and screamed as they strapped her down to a bed. “No! You fucking psychos! Is this how normal, civilized society is supposed to behave? Strapping people down? August is going to kill every one of you when he gets here,” she shrieked, crazy-person spittle coming out of her mouth.
Her eyes widened as the needle moved closer. “Please… please don’t do this. I’ll be good. I’ll calm down. I’m fine. I’ll go to sleep on my own. Please, please… ”
She winced and tried to pull away from the pinch, then their faces grew fuzzy and everything disappeared.
***
She’d been in the hospital for three days. It was an hour into her daily session before Dr. Cronan shook his head and said, “You must have the constitution of a horse. I’m surprised you’re so alert after the tranquilizers we gave you.” They’d drugged her each night.
Nicole sat in his office plotting a hundred ways to kill him. But outwardly she was quiet, submissive, because she’d seen the results of overt rebellion. If she didn’t heal so fast, she’d have bruises. That would have been a lawsuit. No way would her husband approve of the way she’d been manhandled. She wasn’t some homeless vagrant without family or friends to defend her.
They’d see how competent she was when they lost their government funding.
The second day Dr. Cronan had kept her in his office for hours without food, wearing her down until she agreed to sign herself in for a week. Just a week. She was afraid they would try to keep her longer if she voluntarily signed in for any length of time, but surely Dominic wouldn’t let them keep her longer. He’d promised.
In the daylight, with the bright afternoon sun streaming in the window, August felt like a dream. She’d been sure he would come for her, but now… after three days? Why hadn’t he come? He would be aging rapidly by now.
As if reading her mind, the doctor said: “I see your vampire hasn’t shown up to bust you out yet.”
She couldn’t tell if he was mocking her. Then she decided he wasn’t. He had a deeper strategy to employ.
“I don’t know why he hasn’t come for me.” Because he’s not real. This is the truth. This awful place and drugs and doctors.
“I think you do know. He hasn’t come because he can’t come. He’s a figment of your mind. Something in there is firing wrong and giving you images and memories of things that never happened. I know it’s frightening, but we have a drug called Risperidone that I believe might help. Alternatively, there is a new drug on the market that was just approved that has shown a lot of promise in clinical trials.
Before we checked you in, you said you were telling us because you wanted to get away from him. Don’t you see? That’s a cry for help, a plea to stop the delusion. Whatever need or purpose he was filling for you has ceased. Now he’s become frightening—something you want to get away from.”
Nicole stared out the window. That wasn’t right at all. It wasn’t as if August had started out as a fantasy romance hero vampire, sweeping her off her feet, showing her the world and buying her fine things. He’d kept her locked in a cellar for two months when she’d first refused his advances. It had only been later that he’d made any effort to make her life with him more bearable.
But the doctor, like the rest of them, remembered what he wanted to remember, only what fit into his pet theory.
He shuffled through his notes, made a few hmmms and mmm-hmmms and then looked up, his gray gaze boring into hers. “I see you’re skeptical.”
Brilliant assessment. She crossed her arms over her chest and squeezed her mouth tighter. They could inject her with whatever they wanted, but they couldn’t make her participate in this.
“Delusions are slippery things, Mrs. Rose. It’s not always happening in real time. You said he kept you for two months in a cellar. That doesn’t mean you spent two solid months having that part of the delusion. If you had, don’t you think your husband would have noticed something was wrong? No, the delusions may have started much later in the time line of what you gave me, then, as a self-protective measure, your brain retroactively filled in earlier memories to hold the fantasy together and to aide you in seeking help. It got too big for you. And that’s okay.”
Dr. Cronan seemed to think the brain was a mystical element. She wasn’t convinced, and the expression on his face said he knew it.
“Let me try it this way. If you had been kept in a dark cellar for months with other prisoners, if you’d watched a vampire kill people in front of you… those kinds of experiences would cause symptoms you don’t exhibit. Post-traumatic stress, for example.”
“I-it’s the bond. He can use it to protect me.”
Now it was Dr. Cronan’s turn to be skeptical. “I think that’s as far as we can get today. I’m going to start you on the Risperidone this evening. If you do well the rest of the week, you can go home. Think of this as a vacation, a safe space where August can’t reach you.”
“I want to go home now.” She sounded like a preteen enraged by a minor unfairness, instead of the gravity of what it was. They’d kidnapped her like August had. At least the vampire had a compelling reason to need her to see things his way. They only needed the comfort of keeping their view of reality in place.
“You can go back to your room, Mrs. Rose. I’ll check back in with you later this evening. Don’t forget dinner at five.”
The last thing she wanted to consume was factory-separated chicken nuggets and green Jell-o. How could modern medicine claim authority on anything about health if they were feeding patients artificially colored gelatin and chicken by-products as if it were the elixir of healing?
Nicole lurched down the halls like a zombie, back to her room, the room they’d put her in after the first night strapped to the bed. She had a roommate named Stacy who pulled and ate her own hair. The girl had bald patches but couldn’t stop. Of all the compulsions to have.
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Nicole wasn’t sure why such a minor mental disorder should require hospitalization, but from what Stacy said, it interfered with her work and life, and her parents were driving her around the bend. So this was revenge healthcare—where she was the one getting revenge.
At least it was working out for someone here.
Nicole sat on the bed, staring out the window. Unlike Dr. Cronan’s office, this window had bars. In his office, it was almost like normal life. She could nearly pretend she was here of her own free will. But in her room, the bars on the window reminded her that this was prison without due process.
She’d managed to keep the doubt out of her head for most of the day. She’d had an answer for every objection Dr. Cronan had posed to her vampire story, but now, alone, it began to gnaw at her again like a rat working its way through a wall, tunneling through to the truth.
Why hadn’t August come for her? She’d thought he’d come for her the first night, or at least the second. But three days without feeding? Except when she’d run away, he’d fed every night. It wouldn’t be hard to find her with the bond now stronger than ever. Worst case scenario, he could force Dominic to tell him where she was, then erase the interrogation from his mind.
And yet, the only real thing right now was Nicole Rose sitting in a mental institution, plagued with stories nobody else believed—just like Uncle Chuck.
Inside the stark gray room, she was less sure of her version of events. Maybe she’d taken the bullets out of the gun and done something with them but didn’t remember. A hazy sort of memory floated to her mind of her doing just that. But was it a real memory, or visualizing what it might have been like… like a story someone has told you over and over about your life that you think you remember, but really only visualized. Her mother used to tell her stories of things she’d done when she was a toddler. She didn’t have memories from that far back, but she could picture them in her head after hearing them so often. Side by side those pictures were as real as any true recollection.