Page 30 of Heart of a Killer

Brie’s face is pink and lit up as if she just had the best orgasm of her life. She doesn’t even know what all Alex is capable of. Bouncing around on her tippy toes, she is completely dressed and ready for bed.

I’m still stunned and standing in the shower naked, and it’s then that she genuinely looks at me with her head cocked to the side.

“What’s wrong, trailer trash? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

That’s precisely what happened. I’ve seen a ghost. Does Alex remember me? Does he recall that I ran away, that I killed his mom? Is this his punishment for me? Or is he just warming up?

* * *

“Wake up.Wake up. It’s time to get up,” the orderlies yell with each door they open.

Shivering from the moisture that coats my skin, this new medication they have me on has been giving me the worst night sweats. In this freezing place, it’s not helpful or enticing me to get out of this warm bed. I wrap the covers more tightly around me just to have an orderly snatch it off me and yell for me to get up.

All the patients get up and follow the routine for the day: dress, medication, breakfast, therapy, more medication, lunch, more therapy, more medication, garden time, then bedtime ... the cycle repeats itself in a slow torturous monotony, and sometimes I want to scream. On other days it does feel like a relief. I’m lost in my mind and dissociating from the people around me on those days. My mind is a better escape.

I get dressed and step out of my room to fall in line with the crowd of patients waiting in the hall. Spotting Brie right off the bat, I weave through people to get to her. Once I’m at her side, I grab her arm to get her attention.

“Oh, there you are!” Her chipper voice rings in my ears.

She is always the morning person, always happy or in a scathing mood. There’s no in-between with her.

“Why is everyone just standing around? Shouldn’t we head to the cafeteria?”

“Yeah, I was just wondering the same thing. No one has ever acted like this the whole time I’ve been here.”

Brie begins to stand on her tiptoes to try to see over the other patients’ heads, attempting to see what has everyone rubber-necking this morning.

Strange. I wonder what the hold-up is and why no one is moving. The crowd is swarming with a low whisper that sounds like a beehive. There’s a constant buzz in the air.

“All right, people get to moving. It’s time for your medication, then breakfast.” The crowd still meanders until the orderly screams, “Move it!”

Then the bodies around us begin to move in a swarm, moving in sync like an amoeba, just a bunch of living, breathing parasites.

When Brie and I finally make it to the door in the hall that everyone is gawking at, we peer in, and I can’t help the audible gasp that escapes my lips.

“Holy fuck,” Brie whispers beside me. “Is that Patricia?”

I can’t pull my eyes away from what I’m seeing.

She is on the floor on her back, eyes facing the ceiling, and they are vacant of life. That’s not the part that’s astounding; her mouth is stuffed full of ice cream sticks. So much so that I can see the lumps formed in her throat. Dried blood coats her mouth, running down in streams to her chest. There is no way she could have done this herself.No fucking way.

“Move it, ladies,” commands an orderly from behind us.

Brie grabs my hand and pulls me up to the medication pick-up line. While I’m in a daze, replaying the image of Patricia’s cold, dead, mutilated mouth in my head. Only one here comes to my mind, who could have done this...

Alex.

* * *

“Hey,look, I’m sorry about last night. I was in my feelings and wanted to prove something to you, to myself ... I don’t know,” Brie utters low under her breath as she looks down at her shoes, kicking at a piece of linoleum that’s peeling at the edges underneath the table. She absentmindedly stirs the potatoes on her plate.

“What are you talking about?”

“Last night in the bathroom. I just wanted to show you that I’m, you know ... Ugh, gah, fuck it. Forget I said anything.” She scoffs before looking at me.

Brie isn’t good at expressing her feelings. You have to keep picking at it before she finally caves.

“No, Brie, tell me. Please.”

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