Page 15 of Perfect Sin

Damien smiles. “I was so wrong to plan for you to marry anyone else,” he says to me. “Sin is the gift that just keeps giving. Here I thought I was going to have to play dirty, and Arthur Whitmore just hands me the election.”

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

“I’m going to get your husband back and make sure everyone knows how far Whitmore will go to destroy a marriage.”

Cookoo's Nest

Sin

I crackmy eyes open and I’m greeted with sterile white walls and the overwhelming scent of disinfectant. The last thing I remember is looking for Damien and feeling a sharp sting on the back of my neck.

I find my jacket draped over the end of the small twin sized bed I’ve been dumped on. Searching through the pockets, I come up empty. As I suspect, my phone has been taken.

The room is spartan, no decorations, and only the most necessary furniture. A metal bed, with a thin mattress, a small chest of drawers and a sink with a small mirror over it. There are two doors. One of them has a window crisscrossed with tiny wires embedded in the glass. I stumble my way to the other door and find a shower and a toilet inside.

Since I’m there, I use the facilities and take a quick shower. There’s still a fog trying to draw me back under, but I push it aside. The weak stream from the shower head doesn’t do much to negate the effects of whatever drug was pumped in my system, but the cold water makes it a little easier to think.

Not knowing where I am or the layout of the building is going to be a problem. I can only hope Lucien figured out what happened and can formulate a plan to spring me from this place. Until this drug is out of my system, I’m compromised and won’t be able to free myself.

The towel hanging near the shower is scratchy and small, but I haven’t allowed myself to get attached to the luxury I was surrounded with at the Whitmore’s. The more clearheaded I become, the more sure I am that Arthur is the one that orchestrated this. Damien doesn’t benefit from locking me away.

In the dresser, I find several pairs of scrubs. No buttons, laces, or anything I could use as a weapon are present in the room. As dreary as it is, I’m leaning more to this being a psychiatric facility than some kind of prison.

I dress in the paper thin clothing in time to hear a knock on the door. A man wearing a white lab coat walks in, confirming my suspicion. Prison guards don’t wear suits and lab coats.

“Good morning, Jackson. I’m Doctor North. Do you know why you’re here?”

“Because my biological father is a controlling dick who doesn’t like the fact I’m different than how he wants me to be?”

He blinks several times. I suppose he wasn’t expecting such a lucid and crass response.

“No, I was referring to the trauma that has guided your recent life choices. This is a deprogramming facility.”

“Ah, I see he’s been spreading that line to more than his social circle. So how does this work? Let me guess, I can leave here as soon as I sign the papers annulling my marriage.”

Again with the blinking, so I guessed that right too. “Well, your father alleges you only married the girl under duress. Once we help you to see that, you will be free to go home and start over. Surely the opportunities available to you are more than enough to sway you.”

I cross my arms. Lucien better act fast, because the thin hold I have on my temper is going to snap eventually.

“And what if my father is wrong, and I did not get married under duress? Am I to stay here forever?”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s fairly simple, doc. I met a girl. Said girl was arranged to marry some douche, so her brother and I snuck her out of the house and ran away with her. While we were hiding out, I fell for her and convinced her to marry me. Tell me, where is the duress and brainwashing in that scenario?”

He flips through the notes on his clipboard. “None of this makes sense.”

“What, that I’m completely sane, and yet here I am being forced to do something I don’t want to do? If anyone is trying to brainwash me, it’s you.”

“I– it’s time for group therapy. We’ll continue to discuss why you think your parents are out to get you later.”

“Ah, looks like you found a new explanation to make yourself feel better for violating my rights. The mark of a true sociopath. Perhaps we can discuss your need to kowtow to the upper crust when we meet. If you speak to Arthur before our session you can tell him if he thinks this facility can hold me he hasn’t been listening to what I’ve been telling him.”

“Are you threatening me?” he sputters.

“That’s how you took that? What kind of facility is this? I don’t threaten, doc. To do so would be to give my target a chance to evade me. If I act, you’ll never see me coming.”

He continues to stare at me without moving. Looks like I already broke the doctor. Pathetic.

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