From the midst of the bashing, I hear someone move up behind me. Hands touch me. A whisper feels my head from a voice I’ve heard before. The only voice in the world that can instill fear in me and make me curl within myself.
“I thought you were dead,” I whisper before I crumple to the ground.
Chapter 32
Maddie
I wake up with my face pressed against a moist surface, cold, sick to my stomach, and disoriented. At first I think I’m in the freezer again, but when I push up, I’m blinded by the sunlight. My body groans in protest and I instantly collapse back onto the muddy ground covered in dead leaves. I just lie there, refusing to believe what’s around me. Trees, the sky, the sound of a river flowing.
I’m dreaming. I have to be dreaming.
“A forest. How…” I trail off with my eyes shut. “I can’t… I don’t even…” I try to let my mind travel back to last night, but all I can remember is going into the back room, the guy coming in after me, then blacking out as if I were wasted. It makes no sense since I only had one shot of tequila. I have a way higher tolerance for alcohol than that, which makes me instantly want to point my finger at the one thing that has made me blackout before.
“You’re getting stronger,” I say to Lily. “You took over when I was awake.”
I don’t move for a very long time, waiting for Lily to say something to me, but she doesn’t. Finally, I sit up, relieved to see that at least this time I don’t have blood on me. Although, I do have a few bruises forming on my hips and scratches on my arm. For a minute, I wonder if maybe the guy raped me then dumped me out here to die. The thought makes my mind race, my adrenaline soar, but from somewhere inside me, there’s a sense of peace, telling me not to worry. I try to remember what happened. But all I can see is darkness and once again I’m left trying to conjure up a reason on my own as to what happened during my lost time.
After sitting for a while, I manage to get to my feet and check my pocket for my phone, but it’s gone so I stagger through the trees and mud. I don’t even know where I’m going, what woods I’m in, how deep I am in the trees. I could walk for miles and be going in a circle and never know it, but I’m not worried about that. There’s a spark of recognition in my mind and it feels like my feet are following an invisible path, like they’re my compass, guiding me toward wherever it is I need to go. Maybe I subconsciously remember hiking out here last night. And I luck out. After walking for about five minutes, I hear the sounds of cars. There’s a road nearby. Even though it hurts, I pick up my pace, tripping over my feet and bumping into trees. I’m getting closer, the sound of the cars becoming more defined, when suddenly it happens. A split second before it occurs, my mind registers that it’s going to happen but before I can respond, I trip over something solid and fly to the ground face first in the dirt, my nose slamming against a rock. Blood drips out of my nostrils and runs down my chin as I roll over, terrified to look, because I know what it is
A dead body.
Lying in the dirt. Face up. Eyes open. Wavy hair matted with dirt and smothered with blood, along with his polo shirt, missing the top button. The man from the bar that got rough with me is dead by my feet. And I can’t remember last night. Again. I can’t do anything, but check. Putting my hand into my pocket, my fingers brush a small, smooth object. I don’t take it out, already knowing what it is. Tears burn at my eyes, my heart thuds violently.
Run!
I get up with zero hesitation and run like hell through the forest, but moments later I stumble over something unexpected. Another body. Oh God no. I know him, too, by the tattoo of the dragon breathing fire on his wrist.
Don’t look back. Don’t scream. I let my legs carry me through the trees until I stumble out of them and into the street. The sight of it sends a chill up my spine, a jolt of recollection up my body, as cars zoom up and down the street and I almost run straight into traffic. There’s a water tower in the distance and I can almost feel the key in my hand.
Pitter-patter… pitter-patter… I can feel the rain falling… if I don’t get up and run fast, I’ll never escape it, the place hidden in the trees.
I walk like a zombie in a trance across the street, step by step, my eyes fixed on the water tower that I’ve seen before when I was lying in the street six years ago. A couple of cars honk their horn but I don’t so much as flinch, stepping into forest on the other side. I let my sub-conscious be my guide, hiking through trees and bushes for what feels like hours, robotically, my mind and feet numb, until finally the trees open up, then I stop and look up at the white building, shielded by half-dead trees, the roof caved in, some of the siding charred, just like the cabin where Ryland lives.
Only this isn’t a cabin.
This is the Beleview’s Mental Institution. Or it used to be anyway. Until I burnt it down. The memory comes to me, hot and fiery like the flames that burned half the building down. I lit a match.
I lit a match.
“You did it because I let you—because I wanted to escape this place,” I say, stepping out of the shelter of the trees and crossing the open toward the building. I can see some of the images in my mind. The screams. The shouting. The way the ground burned my bare feet and how I ran through the forest, trying to escape the doctor who chased me down... the blond haired doctor wearing a white coat. I ran for hours until I reached the road… then the car hit me… I lay in the road, the man leaning over me, unafraid, even though I was trying to hurt him, like he understood what I needed, what I was on the inside. How he struck a match to light his cigarette… just like Preston does every time he lights candles…
“Jesus, he was there.” I pause at the entrance of the building. It’s boarded up with a No Trespassing sign on it, which I disregard and step inside. There’s debris on the floor, papers sticking to everything, several doors lining the walls… the last one was mine… I can remember… yet I can’t… “I was here.” I walk down the entrance, tracing my hand on the walls, remembering. “I was locked up here… and I found a way out… I got a hold of a match… from my therapist… Preston… he was my therapist back then.”
The memories move over me in waves, Lily silent, giving me time to put it all together. I burned this place down with Preston’s matches, because he was my therapist back then, had me locked up in here, and it was the only way to get out. I let Lily do it—let her take control and escape because I was too afraid to. Preston was the one in the road… I can almost see his face. The way he lit a match, smoked his cigarette, let me strangle him. “Why, though? Why was I here to begin with? And why are they trying to keep all of this hidden?”