Maybe this will be for the best, I thought as she animatedly chatted and led me to the first patient’s room, automatically maneuvering me around the puddles that were yet to be cleaned up. Despite Roxy’s distracting story about what happened the night before, I couldn’t help but notice the puddle was tinged with a hint of red.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Itold myself to calm down as my hands shakily reached for the handle of the door. My heart pounded audibly, and a knot held tight in my chest. I peeked back once more. Brett was still down the A wing, cleaning 4A. Another resident had apparently flew the coop. Two in less than a week. Eerie. But I didn’t have time to ponder over it.
I’d come to my shift half hour early. I needed to see him. Red and brown had lurked in the shadows the night before, although they didn’t make their presence known. I could feel them, though, as if they were residents in my apartment, in my mind, in my nightmares. I could feel them twisting my dreams into sinister sights of horror, my gasping and sweating when I awoke signs that all was not well.
Anna would be arriving any moment. She could be at the asylum already, so often did she report for work at odd times as if to keep an eye on the place. If she caught me, it was game over once more. I pushed forward, driven by the knowledge that I needed to see him to get answers.
He was at his desk drawing when I went in. Not having much time, I jumped to the chase.
“Tell me about the Ambridge Farm,” I murmured.
He looked up, pausing with his pink crayon. A new color to add to my collection. I was simultaneously thrilled and terrified.
“Little Blue, all the cats. Little Blue, all the cats.” His eyes were bloodshot as his gaze pierced into me. I stood tall.
“Please, I don’t have much time. Tell me about the farm. Did you kill the boy there?” I didn’t know what I expected, but I was desperate for it to end. “Please, I want to help.”
I stepped closer to him, and he actually backed away as if he were afraid of me. As if the tables had turned.
“I want to find them, to give them peace. Help me help you.” My words were pleading, shaky.
His body quaked now as tears fell from his eyes. He stared at his pink drawings despondently. “It won’t end well, Jessica. They told me.”
He turned and looked at me then, suddenly, and the pitiful stare he gave me sent shockwaves of guilt and fear through me. He gawked calmly, and for the first time, I thought I could see a glimpse of the man he was not all that long ago.
I reached toward him, stopping myself before touching him. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. I want to help.”
We stared for a moment, and then I realized I was out of time.
“Can I have those?” I asked, reaching for the drawing. I felt like a masochist, offering myself as a lamb to the slaughter but needing answers.
“He’s a fighter,” he said before turning back to the blank sheet before him.
I folded the single sheet. I’d caught him in the middle of drawing.
“How many are there?” I asked.
“Four.” It was a simple answer. I couldn’t possibly know if it was true, but I had to believe him for now.
Red, Brown, Pink, and Blue.
I turned my back on 5B, who was still drawing with a calmer demeanor now. He was quiet, sunken back into himself. In another life, with other opportunities, what could he have been? And in another life, in another scenario, could we have been in opposite places? I realized that the difference between sanity and insanity was hair thin, subjective, and easy to misinterpret.
I slowly opened the door, peeking down the hallway. The coast appeared to be clear. Hurriedly, I locked up and dashed toward the stairwell, the drawing shoved into my pocket as I headed to my new floor. As I was opening the door to the second floor, though, I screamed at the sight before me.
“Jessica, sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. I was just coming to see how you were doing on the second floor.”
Anna stared calmly at me from inside the second-floor door. Did she know what I’d done? Where I had been?
I smoothed my ponytail and nodded. “Fine thanks.”
“Good. I’m glad. Have a good night down here,” she said, passing me as she headed up the stairs. I turned to wave at her, my heart pounding. She didn’t say a word or let on that she knew anything, instead prancing up the stairs to her domain.
I exhaled as I headed to the desk, the picture burning in my pocket as I got to work.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Life on floor two seemed simpler, easier, in many ways. Still, my mind raced as I pondered over what I was missing on floor five. I felt sick being away, the pull of the patients strong despite their proclivity to violence and uncontrollable irrationality. In my bones, I knew I didn’t belong on floor two. Which was crazy to complain about. The floor was like a cruise compared to the top floor. Most residents had activity time in a common area. They had the right to visitors. They were easy and calm, soft elevator music even playing during the day. At night, they were decidedly quiet and peaceful. Occasional screams rocked the floor, but I’d been at Redwood long enough to be used to that. And other than the puddles here and there, things were manageable.
But halfway through my shift, there was a knocking on the door inside 1A. I shuddered, remembering my encounter with him early on when I’d been sent to floor
