Eyes Wide Open Read online

  Lawson had said the upper floor was accessible only by a secure elevator. Since Austin hadn’t seen any stairwells or elevators he had to assume it was in a secure section of the building.

  He might force his way in, or he might get killed. Regardless, he had no force. No gun, no knife. Even if he had a weapon, he didn’t have the skill to use it.

  What he did have was his brain. Problem was, his brain was fried.

  He paused at the door marked RECREATION ROOM and peered through the long rectangle of reinforced glass set in the middle of it. Inside, about two dozen patients sat around the room in various stages of disinterest. Some stared blankly at a TV on the far wall while others rocked to a beat that played only in their heads.

  He was about to step in when laughter to his left drew his attention. A man dressed in white scrubs emerged from the patient room two doors down from his own. He wheeled a gurney through the doorway and guided it into the hallway, followed by a second attendant.

  On the gurney: a patient, face to the ceiling. A girl, vaguely familiar even from this distance. His heart rate quickened.

  He stared, uncaring that he was in full view. It was a psych ward, after all, and he was just another patient. The details of the girl became clearer as they drew close.

  Young. Dirty-blond hair. She lay beneath a white sheet that was cinched taut. Her arms lay at her sides on top of the sheet. Four straps crossed her body—one across her upper chest, one at her waist, one at her thighs, one across her ankles.

  A leather mask covered the lower part of her face. His mind completed its circuit of recognition as they drew abreast.

  He knew this girl. Her name was Alice.

  Time crawled as his eyes met hers. The gurney’s squeaking wheels and the distant sounds from the recreation room fell away as if the entire world had been plunged underwater.

  The words she’d spoken in the basement loomed in his mind. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. I know.

  She stared at him without expression, unblinking, neither sad nor frightened. Just… there. She seemed to be looking both at him and through him at the same time.

  His eyes flitted to the wristband cinched on her left wrist as they passed. He could see it through the bedrail. MICHELE MILLER.

  After admitting Christy as Alice, Fisher had readmitted Alice under a new identity.

  Or had he?

  Austin dismissed the thought as the attendants made their way down the hall. Just another patient to be transported.

  Austin wanted to run after them and rip the mask from her face. To ask her which way was out. How he could get to Christy. How they could get their lives back. He just needed to know the way, and the simple answer was locked in that damaged mind of hers.

  But he couldn’t. Not now, not yet. Now he could only stare after them and wonder where they were taking her.

  The question had barely formed when the answer crystallized.

  The attendants pulled to a stop at the end of the corridor, in front of the double doors marked ADMISSIONS. One of the attendants waved his hand in front of a small black pad next to the door. An electronic lock. A loud buzz echoed through the narrow hall and the doors automatically yawned wide.

  An anxious twitch needled every nerve in Austin’s body. He could barely keep his feet from launching him into a sprint.

  Wait, Austin. Just two more seconds…

  The men passed through and the doors eased shut with a pneumatic hiss.

  Go…

  He covered the distance to the admissions doors in long strides, hoping he wasn’t drawing undue attention from hidden cameras. He slowed to a stop in front of them.

  Twin narrow windows were set into the doors, steel-mesh-reinforced glass. He leaned close, then stepped aside so the attendants wouldn’t see him if they looked back.

  The men stood in a shallow alcove to the left of what appeared to be the admissions office. In front of them: a polished steel door, inset deep in the wall.

  An elevator.

  They were taking Alice to the second floor.

  One of the attendants waved his wrist in front of a black pad identical to the one in the hallway, then punched the elevator button.

  The secure access required some form of keycard, though Austin hadn’t seen the man use one. A chip in the man’s skin?

  The elevator doors parted and the men pushed the gurney into it. Alice was slipping away.

  As the doors eased shut, something in Austin’s mind shifted. It came in an instant, unbidden and unexpected, as if a fog that had hovered at the fringes of his mind now pushed deep into his thoughts.

  So close. He had been so close to her that he could’ve reached out and touched her.

  He heard the mechanical hum of the elevator as it rose. Watched the glowing red digit above the door as it changed then stopped.

  Alice was gone. Right now they were wheeling her onto the upper floor, where they’d locked Christy away from the rest of the world. From him.

  Austin stepped away from the door and leaned against the wall. Stared down the long hallway that stretched in front of him, lost in thought.

  The fog in his mind thickened into darkness as the situation settled on him. Hope was slipping away. Every moment they spent behind these walls diminished their chances of escape. His control was beginning to slip and he felt powerless to gain any traction.

  Still, his mind swept through new thoughts that had been out of sight until now and began connecting the dots methodically. The hall, the recreation room, the sight of Alice restrained, the elevator. The security measures…

  Like a mirage taking shape in the distance, a thought formed. A solution. However fragile, he clung to it as if it were a lifeline.

  It was bold in its simplicity, but it might work.

  He stood unmoving for a full minute, lost in his thoughts, considering his options. It could work. It had to work.

  Then again, it might not. And if it didn’t…

  Austin settled on his course of action, took a deep centering breath, faced the recreation room, and started walking, a whirlwind of objections crowding his mind. He shoved them to the edge of his consciousness and moved forward. One foot in front of the other. He knew what he would do.

  He pushed into the recreation room and stood inside the door for several moments, watching. Fourteen patients all dressed in blue scrubs sat throughout the room. Most slumped in metal folding chairs on the left side of the room, staring at a cartoon playing on the flat-panel TV that hung halfway up the wall.

  A nurse on the far side of the room offered a smile, then returned to her conversation with a patient. No other staff members in the room at the moment. Two sets of double doors flanked the room, the one behind him and a pair on the opposite side of the room.

  To his immediate right, a young patient sat motionless in a wheelchair, staring straight ahead with vacant eyes. The boy he’d seen yesterday. His name dangled at the edge of Austin’s memory. Jacob.

  Austin walked past the boy and crossed the room calmly, feet padding softly on the linoleum floor. A strange sensation hatched somewhere deep inside his gut. It swelled with each step, feeding on the adrenaline that drove him forward.

  The nurse glanced up when he stopped in front of her.

  “Can I help you, sweetie?”

  Her name was Claire, according to the name badge clipped to her pocket. She was a slight woman huddled next to a patient at a squat table, overseeing a crayon drawing of a purple dragon and a unicorn. Two cups filled with markers and pens sat in the middle.

  Austin reached for a blue ballpoint pen. “Just need one of these.”

  “Why, sure. Help yourself.”

  “Thank you.” He slipped the pen into his pocket, veered left, and made his way toward the TV, eyes fixed ahead.

  Odd how detached his body felt. Everything seemed to move at half speed. The better part of his logic began to suggest that what he had in mind would end very badly. But it presented no reasonable alternative,
so he ignored those thoughts and followed his intention.

  Without breaking stride, he grabbed an empty folding chair with one hand as he passed by it. Dragged it loosely behind him as he rounded the first row and angled for the wall.

  Last chance, Austin. Are you sure? A chill cascaded over his scalp.

  He stopped in front of the TV and gripped the back of the chair with both hands. In one smooth motion, he lifted it and, jaw clenched, swung it with as much force as he could put behind it. The chair came forward hard and fast, and the impact shattered the TV screen.

  He spun around and stared at the horrified faces. The room filled with gasps and cries as fear swept over the fragile-minded patients. A girl pressed her hands to her ears and rocked back and forth. Another pointed at the TV with a trembling hand, shouting something Austin couldn’t understand. Others pulled at their hair, peace shattered by the angry man.

  He screamed full-throated and flung the chair away. It ricocheted off the wall with a deafening clang and unleashed chaos. Now patients were scrambling, trying to get up. Trying to escape.

  Adrenaline surged through his veins, and Austin surrendered to the surge of emotion that raged inside him. He was on a rollercoaster, plunging—too late to turn back now.

  He strode toward Jacob, quickly now, intent. The boy just stared at him, unaware it appeared. All the better.

  The nurse rushed to the back of the room and jabbed her thumb against a red button. A security alarm.

  A tremor took to Austin’s hands and his lungs heaved thick breaths as he picked up his pace. At the exit next to Jacob, he stepped over to the red box housed in a Plexiglas case on the wall. He flipped the safety case open, wrapped his fingers around the white lever, and tugged down.

  The fire alarm’s deafening scream shrilled above the din, and patients scattered, driven by the unbearable sound.

  Austin crossed to Jacob, rounded the wheelchair, and gripped the handles.

  “Come on, Jacob. Let’s go for a ride.”

  The boy didn’t respond.

  The doors banged open as he backed into them, pulling Jacob into the hallway. He swung the chair and pushed down the hall, heading in the same direction of the ill-fated escape attempt he’d taken yesterday.

  Austin moved with measured steps that matched the drumbeat of his heart. For the moment he felt the thrill of perfect control. Strange how intoxicating it was.

  They’d just taken the turn and sped to a quick clip before any sign of pursuit reached him—the sounds of the rec room’s door crashing open, and running feet.

  So… This was it.

  He spun the chair around and faced four attendants all focused on one thing: Stopping him before he caused any more damage—to himself or others, especially Jacob.

  The fire alarm fell silent; someone had shut it down.

  Austin slipped the blue pen from his pocket, gripped it tightly with his fist, and pressed the sharp point against the side of Jacob’s throat.

  “No farther,” he said evenly.

  The attendants slowed, but they didn’t stop. They spread across the width of the hallway and moved steadily, arms at their sides, palms open and forward, wide stance.

  “I said no farther!”

  Austin grabbed a fistful of Jacob’s hair and jerked his head back. Pressed the pen deeper until he felt the resistance of the windpipe against the ballpoint. The boy didn’t resist. Made no sound.

  “I swear. If you take another step, he’ll die.” Austin’s voice sounded strangely distant to himself. “I’ll punch him so full of holes…”

  The attendants stopped, eyes locked on Austin, but none of them spoke.

  His hands were shaking, and he couldn’t stop them. Again, the voice of logic told him he was going too far. But another told him he hadn’t gone far enough, and the second voice rode the crest of his adrenaline.

  He jerked the pen away and gripped the wheelchair handles with both hands. Began backing down the hall toward the exit doors at the far end. Then spun around and pushed the chair at a full run.

  They gave chase, but he rounded the next turn safely and headed toward the doors that opened onto the reception room where he’d picked the lock yesterday.

  Behind him, they made gains. Didn’t speak, didn’t attempt to restrain him.

  Halfway down the hall, he spun to face them again, pen back at Jacob’s neck.

  “Stay back!”

  They pulled up, eyes on him, still spread across the hall. Still no warning, no urging him to stop. It was almost surreal.

  Austin started backward, feet shuffling across the hard floor as he pulled the wheelchair. Every few steps he’d glance over his shoulder. Except for them, the hall was empty. Why wasn’t anyone trying to cut him off from the other direction?

  Within seconds he’d closed the distance to the reception area’s double doors.

  “Come closer and I’ll push it into his throat,” he said.

  They pulled up, ten feet away now, still unfazed by his threat. Why?

  He glanced down at the boy, who stared forward unaffected except for tousled hair, which fell across his freckled face. A thin smear of blood had formed where Austin nicked the boy’s pale skin.

  Could he have pushed it into the boy’s neck? He was playing a role, but how far would he have gone?

  He pushed the thought aside and reached back for the door.

  A sudden rush of jagged heat entered his body and climbed his arms the moment his hands connected with the door’s cold steel handles. White-hot light exploded behind Austin’s eyes. A million needles pressed against his skin as electricity coursed through his body.

  He felt himself convulse. His jaw locked tight. His legs gave way beneath him and he crumpled to the hard ground.

  His vision narrowed. Darkness crowded the edges of his sight.

  Then the world simply disappeared.

  EVERYONE HAD voices in their head, right? Thoughts were just unspoken words. If someone invented a speaker that could be hooked to the brain and give voice to every thought, the whole world would sound like a crowded auditorium before the guest of honor took the stage.

  Christy remembered taking a bus downtown to city hall once to sign some emancipation forms that would give her full autonomy as a minor. She was seated two rows from a woman who kept mumbling to an imaginary person in the empty seat beside her. “I’m so glad I’m not like you. If they knew what kind of person you are, they’d lock you up.” On and on.

  The rest of the bus sat in an uneasy silence, staring at the oblivious woman. After getting off the bus, Christy headed into city hall, pondering what she’d just witnessed. Poor woman has totally lost it, she kept thinking. I’m glad I’m not like that.

  She suddenly became aware that, instead of only thinking the last sentence, she’d said it, unaware of the others walking down the hall. She’d actually said, aloud, “I’m glad I’m not like that.”

  The only difference between her and the woman everyone regarded as plain crazy was that Christy kept most of her thoughts to herself, whereas the woman seemed either unable or uninterested in doing so.

  The whole world was full of incessant, often crazy, often cruel and judgmental thoughts that were rarely given voice.

  The chatter whispering through Christy’s mind told her that she had to get a grip or she really was going to lose it. This is crazy, I’m not insane. I’m not Alice and I’m not fractured. This is all a mistake.

  Something was on the verge of breaking, and when it did, she would collapse into a mumbling heap of subhuman insanity.

  But strapped in a wheelchair, wheeled first into the elevator and then onto the second floor, she was so acutely aware of the unspoken thoughts that she wondered if she had already lost it.

  She knew it wasn’t true. That her thinking was only the consequence of a tragic series of errors in an inhospitable environment. But her grip on that certainty was slipping.

  The facility’s second level was dimensionally similar to th
e first floor—wide halls in a U shape with doors on either side. But the hall floors were tiled in a glistening black-and-white checkerboard pattern. The walls were spotless, shiny-white as if only freshly painted. And the doors were made of polished aluminum, giving the appearance that the whole floor was germ-free.

  The wire-mesh reinforced windows on each door were too high for Christy to see through from the wheelchair. She could only imagine the worst, but those, too, were only thoughts.

  The attendant who transported her didn’t say a word. She asked him where the other patients were as they rolled down the hall, but he kept silent, which only filled her with more uneasy thoughts.

  He angled for a door near the end of the hall, turned her chair to face it, then stepped around her and unlocked it by passing his wrist in front of a small black pad on the wall. She looked back down the hall. The steel elevator doors at the end made her think of a vault door.

  Austin might be more intelligent than most, but his mind wasn’t going to break down any doors. She was on her own. More than anything, she hated herself for being alone, like she’d always been.

  The attendant wheeled Christy in, freed her arms, and left without taking the wheelchair with him. The lock on the door snapped into place as the door closed.

  A thick silence settled over her like a heavy blanket.

  She looked around the large room, lost. Pressed white sheets covered a single bed to her right. The walls were shiny, like the walls in the hall. Same checkerboard tiled floor. Just past the bed, a door, maybe to the bathroom or a closet. One small chest of drawers beside the bed topped with white Formica.

  To her left, the room ran twice as wide as the one downstairs. In the extra space sat a large white desk with a brushed-nickel lamp. One high-back chair behind the desk and one smaller chair facing it. A whiteboard on the wall behind the desk. A mirror on the adjacent wall. Likely unbreakable.

  Christy sat in the wheelchair for several long minutes, unsure what she was meant to do. Even less sure she wanted to do anything at all.

  The ceiling vents were narrow. No way out there. Nor would there be a way out anywhere. She couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d built this place to house deranged psychopaths or insane sociopaths.