Page 17 of Devoured
She laughed at her own joke. Isaac shifted slightly, and I caught something in his expression—the way his eyes tracked her movements, ready to steady her if she stumbled.
“I’m Marion.”She thrust out her hand. “Marion B. Jordan. Haven’t figured out what the B stands for yet... maybe Beautiful? Blessed? I’ll ask my husband Michael B. Jordan when I see him.”She said it completely straight-faced, like it was fact. “They probably got me down as Marion Washington or some other boring shit in their files.”
Her hand hung between us.
That’s when I noticed: her nails were bitten down to the quick, dark grime packed underneath like soil in cracked earth. Old track marks dotted the inside of her arm, faded but still visible.
I looked at her hand. At the story it told.
I didn’t take it.
Her grin faltered—then snapped back, sharper this time. “Oh, okay. I see how it is. Too good to touch the crazy girl?”She glanced at her fingers. “That’s cool, that’s cool. Give it a week though. You gonna have dirt under your nails too. Nobody stays fresh in here. The showers be cold, the soap feel like rocks, and after a minute? You just stop caring.”
“Marion.”Isaac’s voice came soft, like handling glass about to shatter.
She turned toward him. The manic glint in her expression faded. Her shoulders dropped slightly, something almost tender ghosting across her face. “I’m being good, Isaac. Just making friends.”Then she turned back to me, lowering her hand. “Though apparently our new celebrity prefers to keep her distance.”
“Come on, Marion. She’s just careful. It’s her first week,”Isaac said quietly, a hint of British accent softening his words. He adjusted his glasses and gave Marion a gentle look that seemed to calm her slightly.
“We’re all careful at first,”Her eyes pinned mine. “Then this place teaches you that careful don’t mean shit. But hey—you burned your husband alive, right? So maybe you already knew that.”
“We should go.”Isaac touched my elbow lightly. “Dr. Varnar doesn’t like to wait.”
Marion’s expression darkened like a blown fuse. “No, he doesn’t.”She looked at me with something like pity. “Word of advice, firestarter? Whatever he asks, whatever he wants to know—lie. Lie like your sanity depends on it. Because it does.”
Isaac’s grip on my elbow firmed, guiding me forward.
As we walked away, I glanced back. Marion had returned to her place on the floor, but she wasn’t watching me.
She was watching Isaac.
Her expression was bare, something vulnerable and raw I recognized. Not quite love. More like the desperate hope that grows in places starved of kindness. And Isaac kept glancing back too, quick guilty flickers he tried to bury. He ran a hand through his ginger hair, trying to look casual about it, but the gesture gave him away. He liked her… and she liked him too.
After the whole Marion thing, the silence between us felt jagged. I needed to break it.
“There was a woman in the North Wing last night when they took me to my room,”I said. “Margaret, I think the orderly called her. How is she?”
Isaac’s expression tensed. “Margaret... she’s not here anymore. She got released, I think. I’m not around night shifts, but that’s what I heard.”
“At night?”Even as I asked, the vision slammed into me—Margaret standing perfectly still while that blade came down. The gore. The way she hadn’t even tried to run.
I staggered, and Isaac caught my arm.
“Are you alright?”
I shook my head, trying to clear it. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
He didn’t answer. Just quickened his pace and reached a large wooden door.
At Varnar’s office, he knocked twice.
Dr. Alan opened the door, but she looked different from yesterday. Her hair was mussed, lipstick smudged, blouse untucked on one side. She smoothed her skirt with jittery hands. Behind her, I saw Varnar moving away from his desk, adjusting his tie.
“Zahra.”Her smile was off today. All the maternal warmth from yesterday was gone. “Right on time.”
She looked at Isaac, and something passed between them. Cold. Heavy. Like shared secrets kept under duress.
“Thank you, Isaac. I’ll take her from here.”
