Except for the escapes, the only time she could actually breathe, time had ceased meaning anything at all.
This wasn’t going to go well at all. Josh Todd spoke to her in a low voice, but she lunged past him and threw herself at the orderly.
She hated him and this place. Hated the visitor too, who’d promised her too much and then didn’t come through for her.
So what was the point of sitting here like a good girl, telling them, “Oh no, I don’t need to go outside—I’ll just stay here.”
The next time she left, she wasn’t coming back. The decision had been made but it would be on her own steam.
The orderly was coming with a dose of tranquilizers and she didn’t want them. Even though the other man told her to take them, that they would help with the escape, she wouldn’t submit.
Nothing inside of her ever truly would.
Chapter 3
This wasn’t going well. Jinx grabbed her and she fought less in his arms. But she still fought, which brought more orderlies and more drugs and she ended up strapped to the bed, drugged to the gills and unresponsive.
And it was all his fault. Guilt, his familiar friend, rushed over him as her glazed eyes stared up at him.
You promised, they told him. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, they added for good measure.
“We’ll get out,” he murmured, squeezing her hand as his heart broke for how she’d had to live. He couldn’t imagine, although now he understood the dark look in Stray’s eyes when he talked about his time in solitary captivity. The people who worked here didn’t know how lucky they were—another few months and an episode like that would’ve killed them all. Might’ve come close today if not for his strength.
“Can I push her in the wheelchair?” he asked. “She needs sunshine. Fresh air. And she wasn’t violent until you gave her the drugs.”
The young female doctor was sympathetic but firm. “She’s hurt a lot of people. Her anger comes out of nowhere, so this is best for her as well.”
No, it wasn’t, but the humans wouldn’t know that. “Okay, then. I’ll just sit with her.”
“I’m sorry for what you saw, but she’s sick. She’s in the best place she can be.”
That was the biggest crock of shit and for a moment, Jinx thought about shifting and watching the woman shit her pants. Instead, he walked back inside and heard the door lock behind him.
Gillian was pointing weakly to the window.
“We can’t escape through it,” he told her.
But she shook her head.
“She’s looking for the notepad,” the ghost said clearly, and Jinx couldn’t ignore it. He’d tried to since he walked in, and the woman had been pleasant enough, sitting on the windowsill in the hospital johnny, her hair tied in a neat bun. She looked to be about forty, was clearer than a lot of the ghosts he’d seen, which meant she’d been around long enough to cement her place in this world.
And that was not a good thing.
“I’m Lynn, by the way,” she told him.
He walked to where Lynn had pointed and found that the windowsill was hollowed out underneath. He stuck his hand inside and pulled out a small pad of paper with an orb that could only be the moon drawn over and over, until thousands of orbs blended together to show how long she’d been trapped here, waiting.
His heart ached for her. “I won’t leave you here another second.”
Gillian blinked, but didn’t truly believe him, made evident by her whispering, “I won’t go anywhere with you.”
“You will. And you’ll be better for it.”
She rolled her head wearily to the side.
He’d rather remain here strapped to the bed if it meant her freedom. And he did remain there for hours, checking in with Jez several times and getting no response, which was typical.
When visiting hours ended, they’d have the cover of an early winter’s night and hopefully Jez would take his place in the car or else Jinx was leaving him here.
He glanced around the rest of the room. There was a pile of well-worn paperback books in the corner, stacked up, obviously not thought of as dangerous.
It was clear they were loved. They were stacked carefully, all their spines showing. She’d been as careful as possible with them, and he didn’t know if bringing them would make things worse or better.
Instead, he took a picture of the stack.
There was nothing else here of value. He shoved the moon drawings into his back pocket and looked up at Lynn. “What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“Have you seen anything out of the ordinary here?”
“Like me?”
“Like a monster.” He bit back the word freak because somehow monster was less scary.
“Oh, that. There was one here, but it’s gone. It left last night after those people came looking for it,” Lynn whispered conspiratorially, confirming his intuition. “It was one of the meanest-looking things I’d ever seen.”
Great. For all he knew, it had followed Marley home. And that left him with only one job here today. “Just one?”
“All I saw.”
“What exactly did it look like?”
“Smelled like sulfur. It was a black blur and it ran by too fast for me to see. It growled.”
He would have to get Gillian the hell out of here with a distraction. He needed Kill. The man could manipulate minds, so it was either that or a violent breakout.
Brother Wolf would prefer the latter for sure. But Rifter would have his head. And still, they were running out of time for any option to remain viable.
“There’s a side door right here,” Lynn murmured. “If your friend opens it from the outside, you can walk out.”
“And leave you here?”
“I help,” Lynn said.
“You don’t want peace?”
“I’d rather give it to them.” It reached out and ran a hand over Gillian’s hair and the wolf murmured something, smiled. “I’ll pull the alarm. You go.”
Jinx owed Lynn more, but he couldn’t force her to cross over. He waited for the alarm to blare and the mass confusion that followed.
Gillian was crumpled in his arms and she remained that way until they reached the Dire mansion.
Chapter 4
After Vice left, Rogue couldn’t bring himself to do much of anything. He paced the floor, realizing he might never want to lie down again ever, and especially not on that damned bed.
First order of business—burn the bed. Well, once the rest of the Dires knew he was up and functioning because they’d definitely notice a bonfire in the middle of the backyard.
Still, he turned it on its side, because he could. It felt so damned good to actually move, to stretch, to have total fucking control of himself again.
He glanced down at the healing wounds on his arms and chest, cursed the mare and rolled the stiffness
