Page 68 of Exile
"Hi, Avery," she says, turning her attention to Dr. Smith with a small light-hearted laugh. "You're right, Chris. She's made incredible progress."
"I—" My brain struggles to compute the situation, planning to circle back to her comment. "What's going on?"
Dr. Smith gestures for me to take a seat next to her. "You asked me to try to get Meg here for you. That's why I've been absent."
Meg?
"So you didn't have explosive diarrhea?" It slips out unfiltered, and for a second, it's hilarious to see him become flustered. It's bewildering and concerning, watching as he scrambles to recover, attempting to form words.What the fuck?
His cheeks redden slightly and when he avoids glancing back at Margie again, it dawns on me why.
Oh, my fucking God. He likes her!
Holy shit. I absolutely called it during my first session when I likened them to each other, how they'd have cute little babies with perfect hair and wear tuxedoes instead of onesies. I just didn't think it would ever actually happen since they wouldn't have contact with each other… except for now.
Except for me.
Fuck. I'm a matchmaker. A fucked-up version of Cupid if he had three psychos as weapons instead of arrows.
Margie laughs softly at the obvious fumbling mess the psychiatrist has become and I decide to go easy on him, giving him a few seconds to compose himself as I sit beside her.
She smiles at me warmly. "You're looking well, Avery. How are you?"
"I can't believe you're actually here," I tell her. "How?" I direct the last part to Dr. Smith, deciding he's had long enough to pull his shit together. I need answers.
"It took some coordination," Dr. Smith grunts, messing around with some paperwork on his desk. It's obvious he's not actually looking for anything in particular though, just attempting to appear important. "I knew Arthur would try to avoid signing it if I presented it to him straight up. So, I buried the form in a pile of other requests and waited until he was too busy to actually check what he was approving. I've spent the past two days with Meg getting ready so that we could bring her in straight away before he realizes."
I nod sharply. "And no one has noticed yet?"
"Arthur is away at a meeting this morning," Dr. Smith confirms. "I cornered him late yesterday to sign off on everything. He was in such a hurry to leave that he didn't read anything. Then, we scheduled this appointment for this morning when we knew he'd be absent from Lilydale. But he will be returning at lunch, so let's make this productive."
I have no idea how to process any of this, and now with the urgency lingering over my head, I'm suddenly a flustered mess. At least I'm not as much as a hot messy expressy as the psychiatrist though. He stills looks a little green at the diarrhea comment.
"How much do you know?" I ask Margie, turning back to her. "They are horrible here—really horrible."
Her face saddens. "Chris filled me in about the procedures in place. I'm so sorry, Avery. I truly had no idea."
It's clear she's racked with guilt. It's in her tone and expression, as if she's placing some of the blame on herself for talking this place up. But she wasn't to know—no one did. They made sure of it.
"It's not your fault," I tell her confidently. "You did the best you could to advocate for me and you stayed with me until the very end. Well, to the start of my journey here. The concept was too good to be true. But people like Alexander Dale, they deliberately enticed the community to believe this facility was a place of refuge. No one would ever expect that it was actually a living nightmare."
Okay—I'm probably being a touch dramatic. But I'm not going to downplay my experience here. If we're going to try to get outside help, they need to know the truth. Everything. Because nothing about this is going to be simple. I have no doubt that Alexander and Arthur have covered all their bases. Everything about that fucking contract is legal somehow. They twisted reality to fit their agenda, so we need to think like Damon—find a loophole and exploit it.
"You were hurt," Margie states gently, laying her hand atop of mine. "And from what I understand, others are being harmed as well."
I glance over at Dr. Smith, for once relieved that he's broken doctor-patient confidentiality. Sure, I'll give him shit later for his lack of ethical behavior, but this time, he's done a good job. "It's true," I confirm. "Which is why we need to get this facility closed down once and for all. We'll all die in here if we don't. And if we survive, there will be nothing left to save. I didn't survive all that before just to have everything taken away from me now."
Both of them stay quiet at my words. I didn't expect such a reaction from them. Staring at them in turn, I'm surprised to find tears in Margie's eyes and…pridein Dr. Smith's. It makes me feel oddly pleased and uncomfortable at the same time. Fuck—why can't I just take a compliment? All I ever wanted was to be told someone was proud of me, and the moment someone is, I want the ground to open up and swallow me whole.
Stop looking at me.
Fuck.
"Avery," Dr. Smith says when I face away from both of them, clearly having a minor mental spiral. "It's okay to acknowledge—"
"Here's the plan," I interject, cutting him off. "We need to figure out a way to bring this to the attention of people who care. I don't know—authorities or something?" I trail off. "Isn't there an organization that deals with investigating human rights?"
He gives me a glance of annoyance, before shifting into concentration. "There are agencies that deal with ensuring facilities are compliant with regulations. But it may be difficult to prove that what they are doing is non-compliant, especially when the contract in place is held by the government."
