Page 59 of Crash

“Then I’ll wait until you’re ready, baby.” I kiss her head, listening to her breathing as it slowly evens out.

* * *

Ezra sits in an old metal chair, twirling a dagger between two claw-like fingers, staring at her next victim, debating on how to torture them.

Libby and her two fuckheads sit tied to chairs, mouths gagged. That’s what Makenna and Jackson were doing when they weren’t in the hospital earlier, hunting these fuckers down. Erasing the last bit of the Walsh mafia line. Makenna used to be Makenna Walsh before she escaped and met Jackson. She should be the one to kill off her family tree, but she feared she couldn’t. So, guess who it gets passed to? Ezra.

“Technically, this is Jasmine's kill,” Ezra muses, watching her prey squirm with a twinkle in her eye.

“We both know Jasmine does not want anything to do with this.” I toss the joint to the ground, stomping on it.

“So, I have free rein? I got some new throwing stars I’ve been dying to try out.”

Sometimes when I watched Ezra, especially during situations like this, I felt sad for her. She doesn’t even realize that she isn’t built like that rest of us.

“Yeah.” I smile. “Whatever you want.”

She grins.

CHAPTER 36

EZRA

Everyone wants in the crazy girl’s mind. Until the demons skin you alive, the darkness so murky and thick, it drowns you from the inside out, polluting your soul. It will snap, bend, and break your mind until you’re screaming from the terrors of the unknown. Yeah, everyone wants in the crazy girl’s mind, until they arrive and leave without sight.

I know I’m different, my brain functions on an almost animalistic level. I know that mine is learned. I wasn’t born this way, maybe slightly off, but nowhere near the level I am now. I see the pity in their eyes. Everyone except my dad who had this job before me. He knows what it’s like to drink tequila with your demons as you bond over crime.

Easton says I have free rein, but I don’t. If it was up to me, I’d inject them with epinephrine, slowly peel the skin from their muscles and tissues. Fun fact: you can survive without your skin. Not for long, of course.

Then I would release them into town, giving everyone a lesson on the human anatomy. Then I’d hunt them down like animals, string them up in front of Town Hall. Mayor Cling would love that, the fucker. He owes my family money, anyway. Might catch him in a more giving mood. But sadly, this is all hypothetical. I talked it over with my dad in his study; he liked it but declined, unfortunately. This had to be handled discretely, he said.

“What to do with you? What to do with you?” I sing.

My prey shift uncomfortably, would probably beg if they could. Snapping my fingers, I stand up. “I’ve got it.”

Easton watches me, eyebrows raised. “I vote we bury them alive.”

I scoff. “That’s too cliché. Think bigger and brighter.”

“What’s your idea?” he asks, lighting another joint.

“Meat grinder.”

Everyone wants to be in the crazy girl’s mind.

Until they don’t…

CHAPTER 37

JASMINE

I like the grip socks. The depressing pale, dead blue they come in. How they stop mid-calf. I don’t love the sterile walls, the bleak white, chipped tile floors, or the fact that I can’t use a knife to carve my less-than-Gordon-Ramsay-perfect chicken. If he was here, he’d shut this kitchen down and call everyone a fucking idiot. Which they were since I was here for PTSD, not suicide.

Since arriving at Sun Ville Meadows, I’ve had a complete change in my medication. Stronger antidepressants, high-dose mood stabilizers, and anti-anxiety pills. They could have just given me Zoloft and called it a day, but apparently each problem needs a cure.

While in the hospital, they tried everything to keep me out of here. Poor Nurse Mary and Easton sat by my side through every panic attack, every nightmare, and every time I woke up in complete darkness and lost my mind.

I have new triggers now. Darkness, small spaces, and the smell of dirt. All very unethical, but I’m trying to stay positive. I don’t want to die anymore, not even a little. I’m actually more fearful of that than anything else now. All I want to do is live and that change in mindset started as soon as I woke up in the hospital. Most people would wait to come to that realization until they left the psych hospital, but I won’t be losing any more of my life to what some consider a step back. This is me fighting for another day, to slay my demons and rise above them. So, although I am here, for now, I’m living. And just the feeling of wanting to live, to not have the dull ache in the back of my mind telling me I want to die, feels so freeing.

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