Page 42 of Wicked Vile King
"Laurier," the guard says like he doesn't need to give anything but my surname to identify me around here. He's right.
"Room 613," she says, gnawing angrily on a piece of gum. "Cleaned it special this morning."
Yeah fucking right.It'll be a miracle if shit and piss isn't smeared on the padded walls.
"You heard her," one of the fuckers says, shoving me from behind, and it's a testament to my reaction time that I shuffle forward with the impact and don't face-plant.
We walk down the halls that I know well, the metal doors pockmarked with rust and the linoleum splitting and peeling from the floor. One after another, the doors to the rooms are closed. I can't see if there's anyone inside, but I know there is. The doors are always shut when someone's locked inside.
"Doc's gonna have fun with you," one of the fuckers walking me home says as we turn left at the end of the hall. He goes into the first room on the right as the other one chortles stupidly like it's the funniest shit he's heard all day. I realize I don't know where the other two went, but that's what happens when they put blinders on with the face mask.
I step inside the shitty room, and a moment later, the man who wishes he could fill each and every one of my nightmares arrives. He's just as tall and lanky as he was the last time I saw him, weeks ago. He's a skeleton sheathed by thin skin, blemished by age spots and wiry gray hairs. He's still got all his teeth, though, and he uses them when he sees me, a smile curling his thin lips.
"Saint," he says like we're old friends and I'm here on a day trip, "what did you do this time, boy?"
I know from experience he doesn't care about my answer, so I exercise my right to keep silent. I don't give a fuck if that's a thing in here or not because I made it one. I never give the old fuck answers. If I did, he'd just use them against me, like he does to those stupid or naïve enough to tell the truth to his questions.
"He got a new girl good in the dining hall," one of the guards says for me. "The screw went through her hand and out the other side."
The Butcher whistles in appreciation, and the guard flinches at the description. Even with the blinders on, I can see what the crazy fuck is thinking, that he'll skip therapy this time and take me to the electric chair or sensory deprivation or any of the other shit his sadistic ass likes to inflict.
"A screw, huh?" Dr. Boucher says, turning toward me. "Where did you get that, Saint?"
I look over at him from beneath the face mask and keep my mouth shut long enough it's gotta sting his fragile ego. I'll pay for it later, and by the time I get out of here, he'll have thought he's fixed me on the road to rehabilitation again.
"I don't remember," I say with a grin behind the plastic, "have you checked your ass?"
A moment later, my head hits the padded wall, and it's not soft like you would expect. It's just enough to make sure you don't kill yourself by ramming your skull into the wall over and over again. The world wavers but doesn't drop.
I smile at the impact.
It doesn't matter. It's worth it to open up the Butcher instead.
"Grab him," the doc says, siccing the guards on me.
In two seconds flat, they have me pinned to the wall.
I capture flashes of it.
The doc sliding his hand into his lab coat and pulling out a syringe.
Him again as he unhooks the cap with his teeth and spits it on the floor.
"Don't worry, son," he says. "You'll feel better now."
Then he jabs the needle into the side of my throat and whatever's in it hits my bloodstream quickly. The face of the devil is all I see before the world fades, erased.
12
WILLOW
It's been one week, seven whole days since I had Saint put in the hole. I've gotten the hang of my schedule. I stay in my designated lane and take the meds Dr. Cross prescribed me four days ago. I keep my head down, and I'm okay, I guess, for the most part anyway.
They had to bring a surgeon in to stitch my hand back together, but luckily, the screw missed the nerves and the bones. It still hurts, and I haven't grabbed anything with it, not yet, but it's getting better with each passing day. Trixie called me crazy after everything went down, but now I'm a legend, the one who got a lord dethroned during her first week on campus. But like all legends I guess, some are revered, and some are abhorred, and I'm somewhere in the middle.
The girls hate me for it.
The guys can't believe it.
