Page 20 of Beautiful Deception

“Right!” Kimberly snaps her fingers in triumphant and looks up at Dr. Kian. “You said you were coming from the mental hospital!”

“Of non-violent patients,” he defends, his thick chest swelling with an exasperated sigh as they vilify his contention with skepticism.

“How sure can you be?” Joe asks, his eyes pinched in annoyance.

“Can you prove you aren’t the escaped patient?” Dr. Kian fires back, and the daring statement throttles Joe’s confidence in defending his assumption.

“Aren’t you being unprofessional, doctor?” Kimberly intervenes to save the young man, who has his face buried in the collar of his sweatshirt.

“I have no obligation to non-patients,” he explains as he offers his arm toward me. “Words hurt. Watch them carefully.”

“Come, Maya.” He takes me away, his veiled smile quashing my attempt to untangle the entire mess that just occurred.

The way I soak in the speckled sunlight and daggers of breeze sharpened by his towering frame is surreal. He leads me to one of the few empty rooms and burdens me with wild implications. Still, when Dr. Kian’s gaze passes over the crown of my head, my body barricades itself—trapped and helpless, yet conscious to know a presence lurks and stares in silence among the placated murkiness.

“Finished?” Dr. Kian asks the pitch-black space.

“There aren’t secret rooms.”

Remo turns on the ceiling light from the opposite side of the room, the eccentric style and placement of the light switch adding to the eerie atmosphere.

“What are we doing here?” I question after a detailed scan of the room.

It’s vacant and not being used for storage, yet it’s spotless, with no dust bunnies in the corners. The thought of this being a torture chamber sends a tidal wave of terror through my heart, and when it crashes into my heart brutally, a gasp bursts into a cough.

“Breathe slowly,” Dr. Kian advises as he pats my back deftly.

Tears sting my eyes as the pounding in my ears lies stagnant in my head, singing until their stares turn oppressive and burn the whispers of sweet nothings in my head.

“You like being in the loop,” Dr. Kian reiterates after another pat on my back, a little lower toward my waist as his fingers clamp over the curve.

“I examined Peter’s wound, and it was self-inflicted. While he wasn’t coherent enough to tell me what happened, I did see signs of hallucination.”

Remo nods in agreement and closes the distance with his long legs. “I checked his other wounds. They’re self-inflicted, too. And, there are no hidden passages or evidence of restraint.”

“It’s possible his hallucination is heredity,” Dr. Kian explains, his brows fixating on the deliberation in his eyes. “If it’s not, I’d like to be responsible for your meals and drinks, Maya.”

I agree with the idea. Dr. Kian, Remo, and Junnie are the only ones I can trust at the moment. Junnie has never been in a kitchen her whole life, so she’s a sitting duck like me without their help. They’re nice to Junnie, just enough to be friendly without hovering over her like they do to me.

An outpouring of wooziness festers in my blood, twirling in my veins as my body nearly falls in love with the difference in attention between us. It’s not much, a teasing sentiment that they care for me more than others.

“I can’t rule out intentional poisoning.” Remo runs his fingers through his hair, messing up the strands, and lifts them away from his face. “No one is safe until I find the culprit.”

“You sound positive it’s one culprit.” Dr. Kian’s glasses snare the faint ruddiness from the lamp as the muscles lining Remo’s forearms go rigid.

“I’m good at my job,” Remo responds calmly, unaffected by the amiable query.

“I feel much safer.” Dr. Kian chuckles with an attentive twist in his pensive gaze.

The air thins, yielding under the tension between them as one smiles like the epitome of a venomous viper and the other stares like a hungry, pacing jaguar.

And then, it’s directed at me.

“Can I leave early?” I barely get the words out before they flee cowardly into the harrowing silence.

“You didn’t see the forecast before coming here?” Dr. Kian raises an eyebrow and reaches over my head to brush down a bent strand of hair.

“No?” I’m not sure if I saw the first two days or the entire week, but there were a few snow symbols on the weekly forecast.

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