Page 47 of Mara
Both Gianna and I flinched. I wouldn’t admit that I was terrified of the sound.
I shook my head, walking over to my sister and reaching for her. “C’mon, Gigi. Let’s get you fixed up.”
My sister grabbed my arm, her eyes pleading. “Mara, please. Save my baby. I didn’t know I was pregnant for longer than I even realized, and now this baby is almost twenty-three weeks, and I just feel like a complete failure as a mom for not protecting him.”
I furrowed my brow. “Gigi. Him? You know it’s a boy? Everything is going to be fine. You got the mommy nerves already.”
Gianna rubbed her tiny belly, so much unequivocal love shining in her eyes. “I don’t know for sure until my next appointment, but I have a feeling.”
It was easier to sneak my sister into a room at a high-security asylum than it should have been. I even got a high five from one of the guards. I kept Gianna far from the recreation hall and steered her pregnant ass right to an assessment room.
It still had the usual bars like the other areas, but this was farther away from the other patient rooms and separated by the nurses’ wing station. We used the nurses’ wing to perform phlebotomy and administer daily medication doses. It was nothing like most hospitals, but it kept us separated from the patients.
Armed guards escorted us whenever we had one of the patients outside their rooms, unless it was to the recreation hall or one of the activity stations.
Everything was set up like a child’s sensory play group. Often, these humans had regressed to a childlike state. It made them easier to manage, but also made their outbursts that much more dangerous.
A grown man who had the strength of benching three hundred pounds, throwing a bitch fit equivalent to an angry toddler…it was always a recipe for someone ending up injured.
“Mara, this place is terrifying…and it smells like blood.”
I smiled sympathetically. She wasn’t wrong, though. I guess I must have gotten used to it as part of my everyday life. It always smelled like bleach and blood. There was no mothball scent, unlike in normal hospitals.
Luckily, the overwhelming scent of bleach killed the stench of urine and feces…most of the time. The patients were dangerous, and more often than not, there was bloodshed, whether it was from self-harm due to them over-scratching their skin until it bled, or punching walls to remove the spirits from the surfaces.
“Mara, I need to talk to you.” I couldn’t see her mouth all that well, and my hands were busy with the instruments.
I was carefully sewing the laceration on her head. I had already reset her nose and placed a splint to help her nose stay in proper alignment as it healed.
“Gi, we can chat later. I am focused on your wounds, and I can’t keep stopping to look at you. Your stitches are going to look like Frankenstein.”
Gianna quieted with a sigh, allowing me to finish in peace. Part of why I chose to work in an asylum was the silence. I know most people assumed it was screaming and people running around daily.
But it was actually silent.
Most of the patients were in a constant battle with their own demons inside their heads. There was very little time that people actually had conversations with you.
Alice had the dead to keep her company, Dubi had his monsters, Jack and Reginold were always whispering to the love of their lives, never realizing they were only a few cells apart from one another. Silence was one thing I thrived in.
I was born in silence.
I would likely die in it. Just pure, blissful quiet. Life was nothing but fucking noise. It was only right that death offered us peace and quiet.
“I have rounds, Gigi. I have been away longer than I should have. I will be back as soon as I finish my intakes, okay? I will be on the other side of the asylum. It’s safer for you here. You will be locked in, too.”
Gianna hesitated, holding my hand as if to keep me there, but finally she let go. She looked so sad, and I promised myself to hold tight as I could get back to her.
“And Gi, I will get those answers you wanted. I’ll bring the ultrasound cart in here, and we’ll find out if your hunch is right about your little one.”
Gianna got teary-eyed, smiling as they fell. I wanted to stay, but the hospital was a constant clock, and when pieces weren’t completely in sync, it was a recipe for disaster. Disasters often occurred when patients stepped out of line because their routine had been disrupted.
I had already been gone an extra hour than my usual break allotted for, and my arm hairs tingled with the anticipated chaos. One thing was certain…I had to get the work shit done because my sister needed me, and just like every other time in my life, I would put myself aside and be everything I could be for her.
Iwatched the camera footage of Wellard. Mara was fussing over Gianna’s injuries, taking slow and careful precision to put her back together again. It was damn near poetic that this woman spent her whole life putting her sister together piece by piece, only to be the ultimate reason she would finally break.
“Fluffy, I have a little present for Gianna, but I need your help.”
Fluffy crawled along my forearm, his poking feet sinking into the outer surface of my skin and leaving a nice sting in their wake.
