Page 42 of Heart of a Killer

I’m still staring at Benji and the shadow when Skylar grabs my hand from my lap, and a low throbbing pain ignites in my legs.

“Are you okay, Brie? You’re bleeding,” she whispers, pointing to my thighs.

I glance down and see five crescent moons of maroon outlined in contrast to my tan scrubs. I shake my head, trying to escape the blaring siren’s aftershocks.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Skylar’s eyebrow quirks up at me, skeptical, but she goes back to eating her puddling.

We remain that way, in silence, along with everyone else in the cafeteria. We all are a bit shaken up. The sounds and lights were enough to set us all back a few steps. I guess we will be doing double the therapy this week.

One of the female orderlies hollers that it’s garden time, and everyone gets up slowly. We all walk in the halls with our feet dragging as if through quicksand.

When we make it outside, I pull out one of my cigarettes. My fingers tremble, and I hold my wrist to stop it. Skylar’s shoulder presses up against mine to get warmth while she looks at the other patients in the yard. They are playing a makeshift soccer game with a bouncy ball and using two trees as the goals. Since she is preoccupied, she can’t see how my hand shakes as I light the cancer stick. I draw in a deep breath, inhaling the nicotine to calm my nerves.

We stand like that until our break time is over. We are ushered back for medications and bedtime.

“Will you come to see me later?” Skylar asks before we have to break apart and go our separate ways.

“I’ll try.”

I don’t want to give her a definite answer because sometimes I have to get away and out of this place. The music room is a no-go for me since banging up my hands, but the roof is always an option.

She looks down at the floor, disappointed, before sheepishly saying, “Okay.”

For someone older than me, she doesn’t have a strong background in relationships. She seems to always be nervous and a little clingy, but I like it.

I grab her chin and force her to look up at me. “I said I would try, okay?”

“Okay,” she huffs.

We separate to our rooms for lights-out. A small crowd of patients gathers outside a door down from mine. It hits me that it’s Sam’s room, and my legs move faster. I’m weightless and hovering outside the crowd. I don’t remember pushing past the bodies to reach the front, but here I am. What I see has my heart racing, and my stomach churns with nausea.

Sam lies on the floor in front of a wall covered in blood that looks hours old by the dark brown color. The words written on the wall spark recognition in my brain.

Criss-cross, leather straps

3 marks the spot

Circle that, don’t look back

Or you might get caught

3 knives in your back

your blood runs cold, cold, cold

3 rats down your back

They scurry as they come, come, come

Close your eyes, and you’ll hear

The echoes of their screams

You better run before they come

Or you’ll see them in your dreams.

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