Chapter Text
October 2004 Helena
“You won’t control me!” Talon screamed as the staff dragged him down the hall. His bald head reflected the bright halogens in the ceiling tiles. The needle was still sticking out of his neck, the heavy sedative hadn’t kicked in yet.
Helena paid close attention when Nurse Halverson swiped her card in the electronic lock that opened the door to the corridor. Hollowmere had recently upgraded from the keypads that previously flanked the metal doors. She counted the seconds before the nearly indecipherable click signaled the door was unlocked.
Beside her, Damon was focused on the way the lights flicked above as the door slid open. They both believed the draw to open any of the maximum security doors was too much for the outdated electrical system of the institute.
“Fuck you...rotters...we know you’re using us as rats...” Talon’s chin dropped to his chest as his words died out.
The nurses and HCAs, or healthcare assistants, as they had all been schooled to remember, drug Talon’s limp body through the opening. Helena counted the seconds until the door sealed shut again. Twenty-four today, two seconds slower than the beginning of the month. She pulled out her journal and noted the time.
To anyone else, her journal looked as expected, as though someone completely barmy kept it. Fools. Neither she nor Damon was quite as mad as Hollowmere wanted, not yet anyway. The pages were filled to the brim with calculations, symbols, sketches, notes, and her own thoughts.
However, it was written in code: ciphers, anagrams, semordnilaps, and words hidden within other words. To Helena, anagrams were fun. She loved creating new words or phrases from old ones. It still surprised her that, aside from Damon, no one noticed how many semordnilaps she used. How could they not see the words if they were spelled backward? She lost count of how many times she’d written “star” to mean “rats,” as they were all Hollowmere’s lab rats.
“Forty-eight seconds,” Damon whispered.
Helena noted the time that the power draw had affected the lights. She had taught Damon two of her ciphers so he could keep notes if she was put into isolation. He was fabulous at anagrams and semordnilaps; it was part of how they spent their time when they were stuck in the day room with naught but paper and pen.
“Longer than last month, seems to get longer each time,” she replied.
“But only for the max security wing and admin areas.”
“True, but we have to find another exit, and we know it’s in the admin wing.”
Damon sighed and drummed his fingers on the table between them. “They’ll only catch us again.”
Helena’s head popped up. She narrowed her eyes at her best friend, the man she loved more than herself. They didn’t use labels or claim each other, but it wasn’t necessary. At least not in her mind. Damon was the only one for her—her partner in all things. Her rock, the one she schemed with, the one who made her feel as close to whole as she could ever be. He was the counterweight to her fire, the one who would argue with her until she calmed, until reason surfaced again. Her courage sometimes burned too hot, driving her into rash choices, but he steadied her.
They studied side by side, quizzing each other on what scraps of academics they could recall, determined to keep their minds sharp. They went to group therapy together, shared meals, and spent every moment permitted in each other’s company. But sometimes, she wanted to smack him. His bouts of defeatism wore her thin. She could be brave enough for both of them, but only if he stood with her. She needed his strength as much as he needed her fire.
“If they do, we’ll find another way.” Helena smacked her pen down on her journal.
His gray eyes, like winter skies just before the snow, drifted to meet hers. He quirked a dark brow. “Are we doing this again?”
“If you mean try for our freedom, then yes. Because we agreed never to stop unless we were dead. We promised.” Helena hated that her tone turned pleading, but it hurt every time he lacked faith in them.
Damon slid his left hand forward, fingertips brushing hers as he checked whether any of the remaining staff had noticed. They weren’t supposed to touch each other unless given permission.
“Helena, I didn’t mean it like that. You know that. It’s just...don’t you ever get tired of failing?”
“We are not failing,” she seethed. “We are learning what didn’t work, until we find what does.”
“And I am helping, as I always do and always will. I’m with you. You have me until our last breath. It’s just...I can’t be without you again. We can’t fail this time.”
Her chest hurt and her stomach grew heavy, like it suddenly filled with lead. He was afraid, but not of the repercussions of getting caught, at least not for himself. He just didn’t want to be separated again. Every attempt they had made, save the first two, to escape, they had been put into isolation for weeks as punishment.
Helena reached for his hand, to hell with the rules, and clasped it. “We won’t. We both agreed we wouldn’t do anything this time without being sure. It’s us against the world,” she reminded him and squeezed his hand.
The corner of his mouth lifted into his trademark smirk before he squeezed back. “What would I do without you?”
Helena released him and sat back. “I’d imagine you’d waste away here like the others.”
Her eyes swept the room, taking in the patients, each deemed not of sound mind. She was convinced some of them may have been perfectly sane upon arrival, unlike herself, and was driven off the trolley by too much time at Hollowmere. Talon wasn’t wrong; they were all lab rats.
What she and Damon couldn’t figure out was what exactly they were doing to them and for what purpose. It was challenging enough to constantly seek escape and avoid punishments from the mostly cruel staff. Trying to puzzle out the how, why, and for what purpose was too much, even with the seemingly endless hours they had each day. ,
Damon yawned. That and the constant exhaustion, physical pain, and headaches, it was a herculean effort to get through each day and night. Dr. Ketteridge reminded them daily that they needed proper rest, given they both had the same degenerative condition.
“Up you two, time for your meds,” the male HCA barked at them. “You both have PT today.”
Helena closed her journal and drew a deep breath. She hated the endless regimen of medication. Yes, it kept them functioning, but only just. Many of the pills left them forgetful, moody, exhausted, dizzy, and nauseated. Thinking slowed, muscles cramped without warning. Some days, the treatment felt worse than the condition. The infusion of Neurolase was horrible.
“Don't get your knickers in a knot, Bart. We know,” Damon said with his usual sarcasm toward the staff.
Chadwick glared at Damon. He hated that Damon wouldn’t use his full last name, Bartholomew, though not as much as he hated Damon himself. Damon treated the staff with open disdain, insisting he was their better. When asked why during a group therapy session, he’d declared it was his birthright. After that, some of the other patients began calling him “Prince.”
“Don’t start with me, 9965. I’ll forget your Temazepam and Prazosin tonight,” he snapped back at Damon.
Their patient numbers had been assigned upon admission. Damon’s was 990605, though most people skipped over the extra zeroes. Hers was easier, with fewer zeroes to stumble over. From what they could tell, the 99 marked the year of admittance, while the remaining numbers represented their birthdays. Only the doctors bothered to pronounce every digit.
Damon stiffened. Helena stood up. They needed to comply because Chadwick would keep their pills tonight. They both barely slept and suffered horribly from nightmares. Without their pills, they would never rest, and the pain in the morning would be agony.
Of course, the HCA wasn’t finished. He leaned in, right into Damon’s face. Helena tensed as Damon flexed his hands, his knuckles cracking. Her heart raced, and the fictitious one that lived beside hers beat along with it.
“I might even forget your morphine,” Chadwick sneered.
“Fuck you, Chad,” Damon grunted, rising and knocking his chair back. Chadwick hated it when Damon used his first name. Worse still, shortened it on purpose. Standing at full height, Damon towered over the HCA. Even diminished, his strength left him leaner and more toned than Chadwick.
Gazing at Damon, she understood why the others feared him. His eyes were sharp as ice, as if a single glance could cut you open. She pictured him drenched in blood, his own and someone else’s, wearing a grin that should have terrified her, but instead thrilled her. She imagined his long fingers closing around her throat...
“Let’s just go. We—we don’t want to be late,” Helena interjected loudly to stop the confrontation and to retrieve her mind from her daydreams.
“Don’t bother me again, 9965, or I’ll forget her meds too.” Chadwick stomped to the double doors that led to the medical part of the institute.
Damon’s eyes flicked to her, concern softening their icy edge. He might clash with the HCA out of mutual animosity, but he would never drag her into it. A gentle wave of love and comfort washed over her, as if he had hugged her without touching. She smiled at him, resisting the urge to take his hand as they passed through the doors.
October 2004 Damon
Damon bolted up, heaving breaths, but didn’t cry out. He had learned over the years. The night staff was crueler than the day, and that prick HCA was still there. Agonizing chills racked his body. Cold, he had never felt in reality seeped into his bones. He shivered in silence to not wake his elderly roommate. Regardless of how disturbing his dreams were, he couldn’t let anyone see his fear.
Fear made someone a target.
He gulped down air as he clutched the sheets and blankets around him. Not real. None of that had ever happened. He was just having another psychotic break. There was no such thing as magic or magic schools or tyrannical madmen who wanted to take the only thing he needed to live.
Besides, he reasoned, whatever he thought he had to have in his dreams, he didn’t—and still he breathed. He wouldn’t call it life, but existence. And he couldn’t let go because something was missing. Something so vital it gnawed at him day and night, whispering to go. Leave. Find it.
Damon shook his head. He would never be released from Hollowmere Institute. Regardless of what the doctors said, he didn’t buy into their bullshite. No one ever left Hollowmere. Patients could check in anytime, but they would never leave, not unless it was in a coffin. Although he had only been there since he was a teenager, when his mind fractured, it felt like a lifetime. Some of the old-timers had been there since they were teenagers, too, and his roommate, Harold, was pushing eighty. Harold had been at the asylum since 1942.
No one left.
He lifted his shaking palm and ran it through his hair. It was past his shoulders now, pale locks falling into his face again almost immediately. Damon rubbed his hand over his heart, trying to soothe the nagging ache, but it never left. He couldn’t recall a time when some part of him didn’t feel missing. A ghostly th-thump, th-thump pattered beside his heart.
No. Fuck no, he couldn’t handle this after those dreams of constant freezing darkness. Flying monsters sucked his soul out as he desperately tried to cling to her.
His skin warmed just from the thought of her. His faceless, perfect woman. The one he felt in his dreams. He couldn’t see or hear her, but he could feel her, taste her. His pulse picked up. She wasn’t real, he understood that. Just another delusion, but gods, he adored it. Couldn’t get enough of the fantasy. It was the only time he felt right, the only time there was hope. Th-thump. Th-thump. Faster now, matched by another phantom pulse racing with his.
He was having an episode, but he didn’t want it to stop. Not when he was alone, thinking of her. His skin tingled with the memory of her touch in dreams; he didn’t mind the sensation, even if it was nothing more than a fabrication of his mind. One of his many problems. His doctor claimed he had invented the idea of being connected to someone because he was desperate for intimacy. Something about his parents never hugging him enough.
Most of his childhood and memories of his parents were a blur. Another lifetime. There was before he was a monster and after. The rest didn’t matter. In his opinion, anyway. He was in Hollowmere Institute because he was a bad man who had done terrible things, driven by his delusions. He had hurt people. Killed people. Even if the memories were gone, lost to some psychological condition, the evidence remained. And that was enough to damn him.
Damon remembered fear. Crushing fear, raw desperation, and beneath it, a rage so sharp it burned. Sometimes, that rage clawed its way back, and he knew, without question, that he was capable of murder. He belonged in Hollowmere. Everyone knew it.
His dreams only confirmed it. They were terrifying, yes, but they carried fragments of something real, pieces his mind had buried. Clues. Even if they were dressed up in nonsense—magic, spells, monsters—they felt truer than anything he could remember while awake.
He slowly lay back down and stared at the ceiling. Was Helena alright? She’d been given the medication that was withheld from him as punishment. But sometimes, like him, even with pills, her nightmares slipped through. They had both struggled with bad dreams as long as they had known each other.
They were admitted on the same day almost five years ago. She was catatonic and he was in a fugue state, so neither of them recalled any details, but they both knew their admittance date. Perhaps it was because of that they had become instant friends.
Chills racked his body again, agony twisting through him. Not just because he hadn’t been given morphine either, but because of their condition. The arsehole HCA had no idea what he and Helena had been up to. Idiots. Months ago, they had stolen several medications in case a nurse or HCA refused to give them. Hidden all over the institute, they hadn’t touched it—yet.
Damon knew he was in mild withdrawal, made worse by his condition. Foley, another patient and former heroin addict, had explained drugs, addiction, and withdrawal. According to Foley, Hollowmere kept him higher than he had ever been when free. Damon had never used drugs before becoming a monster, so he couldn’t say if Hollowmere’s “good stuff” was actually good.
Helena had suggested skipping the pills Foley identified as addictive once a week—not only to see if they were addicted, and discover the difference for themselves personally, but also to maintain a hidden backup supply. Unfortunately, they were.
Damon wasn’t sure what he would do without Helena. She was the only light in this dark, dreary place. They dreamed of freedom, but didn’t believe they deserved it. Their hands were covered in blood, though neither could recall the incidents. They shared psychosis but learned to lie about it. Otherwise, they would be separated again, a fate neither could bear. Two weeks apart had felt like a lifetime. Every day without her made him weaker, his joints aching, the trembling so bad he needed more medication to endure the deterioration.
The ghostly pulse settled, and the thumps fell into a relaxing cadence. His own heart and pulse calmed to match the pacing. He closed his eyes. Damon couldn’t tell anyone; it would only make him sound more barmy than he already was, but he loved it when that happened. It was as though someone was hugging him without touching him at all.
Damon had no idea what pills he took anymore; there were too many of them, too often during the day. He no longer fought them, unless it was that twat Chad. The will to combat the rest of the staff dwindled over the years as his physical state continued to decline. Both he and Helena had a degenerative condition that made their bones and muscles weak. Given how much they had in common, he may have believed they were related, except they looked so opposite.
He was tall, currently abnormally thin, pale as the dead, with hair and eyes devoid of any real color. Helena swore she loved his grey eyes, saying they reminded her of winter, fresh snow, and warm fires. He, however, found them uninspiring, not nearly as impressive as her warm brown ones. Her irises had mesmerizing golden flecks, visible only in sunlight or up close.
In contrast to his cold coloring, she was warmth—radiant heat. Her skin had paled over the years, but retained a light olive tone, sprinkled with delightful freckles. He had spent hours memorizing the patterns of them, noting which constellations they reminded him of. Damon didn’t know why he knew so many constellations, but he could name more than fifty. Her gorgeous, wild curls bounced around her whenever she moved or spoke, often entrancing him so much that he missed what she said, which irritated her.
Damon irritated his best friend constantly, and he loved it. The way she would huff and puff at him, lecture him about listening when all he wanted was to hear her talk. And he did. Helena’s interests were vast, and she battled the staff daily for more reading materials because she burned through the books they provided too quickly. Brilliant and quick-witted, she ran circles around everyone, much to the nurses’ chagrin.
Helena was also a troublemaker. Her bravery got them into more than a few difficult situations. The last time they had been separated was when they snuck out at night to break into Dr. Vale’s office. Thankfully, when they were caught, she let him speak because she was a terrible liar. He had told them they were being intimate, and Nurse Halverson believed him. Helena wasn’t thrilled with his fabrication, but it kept them out of solitary confinement.
Damon wanted her constantly. He tried every chance he got, but living under constant observation rendered most efforts moot. In the five years they’d been there, the most he had managed was snogging and occasional groping. He was a grown man who fancied his best friend, yet had to pretend they were teenagers. Gods, he wanted her. Craved her. Desperately.
A scream filled his ears. Not unusual. As long as it wasn’t Helena’s, he didn’t care. It was shrill and high-pitched, probably Medea again. Medea’s night terrors caused her to be violent and scream throughout the night. Damon tried to focus on the peaceful heartbeat beside his.
An odd metallic scraping along the wall made his eyes pop open. Fuck. That wasn’t Medea. The chill that had only recently receded crept over his skin again, only this time it was from fear. This horrid place was haunted. Naturally, he was told specters weren’t real, only another delusion, but they could sod off. His palms covered his ears.
This was the only way...
The bloody whispers again.
No. No. Bloody hell no!
Her blood will suffice...
Damon grabbed at his hair and pulled.
No.
Not real.
None of it is real.
October 2004 Helena
Sunlight sliced through the window, burning through her eyelids. Helena groaned from her stiff limbs. Mornings were brutal most of the time. She wiped at her eyes and exclaimed when she poked one of them because of her trembling hands. She dragged herself into an upright position, resting her back on the headboard.
Beside her was her morning tray. Seven pills, a medicine cup of liquid, and a bottle of water. With a sigh, she tossed the chalky pills into her mouth and gulped half of the water. Because she had been so well-behaved for the last month, they let her take her morning medication by herself. Well, not quite; they had cameras in the corners of their rooms.
She hurried the liquid medicine to her mouth and gagged on the bitter, thick liquid, and then drank the rest of the water to rinse the taste out of her mouth. Seconds later, a jolt of alertness spiked in her. When she saw the round pink pill, she knew her foggy mind would be clear and her tremors would disappear earlier today. She loved that little pink pill; it kept her sharp. She had almost a whole bottle of it stashed away now.
Helena got up and ambled through her morning routine, purposely moving more slowly and acting as though she felt as weak as most days. She and Damon had agreed that, even when they had good days, they wouldn’t reveal it to the staff. Only each other.
Sitting at breakfast, she sipped her coffee and tapped her lips. There were more whispers last night, which of course those rotters wouldn’t acknowledge. Helena heard voices in her head all the time; she thought perhaps some of them were memories trying to surface, but she couldn’t be sure.
“You have to eat,” Damon gestured to the ungodly amount of eggs on her plate.
She frowned but put her coffee down. They had no choice in what they ate, though it was packed with protein and calcium, both desperately needed by their bodies. Her glass of orange-flavored fiber supplement sat like a small taunt. They also had to drink fiber-rich beverages three times a day, since the combination of their medications and high-protein meals wreaked havoc on digestion.
“If you don’t eat, you’ll draw attention.”
“I know that Damon!” she hissed.
“Don’t you want to go outside today?”
Her shoulders slumped; she wasn’t angry at him. She was fed up with her life. They only went outside every other day, unless they were too weak to.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t do that, Princess. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Her eyes burned; now she felt worse. She adored when he called her that. Typically, she would hate it if someone called her a pet name, but when he did, it felt like—magic. She felt real. Real in an indescribable way, but she needed it so badly.
“Nothing. Everything. Same as always,” she grumbled and picked up her orange drink.
“Do you want to hide in the maze today?”
Her eyes caught his mischievous expression as he grinned at her. He winked and she winked back. They were both having a good day. God, did she want to hide in the maze with him, A.K.A. snog the life out of him.
“I’d love to hide in the maze,” she said before she swallowed the entire glass to get it over with.
“Great, then make sure you eat so we can go. Besides, you’ll need your strength.” He winked at her again. He was having a banner day.
“I hate the Neurolase, but I love when they put trace Neurovex in there. Fuck, I feel so much better than usual,” Damon tilted his face toward the sun.
They were on their walks around the property. Dr. Ketteridge prescribed the walks as part of their therapy, citing that the sun helped the treatments. Helena did not love Neurovex, trace amounts or otherwise. While it did what her favorite pink pill did and more, it didn’t last as long. And while she appreciated the temporary increase to her strength, speed, and energy, along with the mental clarity, it wasn’t worth the comedown. As soon as it left someone’s system, they crashed, hard.
“Did you hear the voices?” she asked.
Damon slowed his steps. “No, just screaming.”
“Did you hear the footsteps?”
He turned his head to her. “No. What time was that?”
She shrugged. They weren’t allowed to keep clocks in their room. The only clocks in the institute were in the admin section, select areas of the medical ward, the doctor’s office, and the nurses’ station. Over the years, though, they’d become adept at guessing the time based on the view outside their windows.
“I think it was close to five, that’s when everyone is too lazy to walk the corridors and count on the cameras.”
“I told you it’s bloody haunted,” Damon said in a hushed voice.
She studied him as they continued their slow pace down the path. Ghosts weren’t real. If he hadn’t heard the voices or steps, it was probably another one of her hallucinations. But he insisted Hollowmere was inhabited by spirits—the whispers at night, the echoing footsteps in the early hours when no staff was around. He also swore he saw things in the corners: a darkness that never fully took form, only crept closer, black smoky tentacles reaching for him.
But they were both mad, weren’t they? Could either of them be trusted?
Helena shook her head. No. That was what they wanted them to think. Their dreams meant something. Their visions, things they heard that no one else did, the odd scars, it all added up to something. She just didn’t know what.
“Unless the specters are going to help us or try to kill us, it doesn’t matter.”
“Says you.”
“You frightened of ghosts?”
He flexed his hands, his knuckles cracking. “Not exactly. I don’t like things that should be dead...but aren’t.” His face scrunched up in confusion.
They neared the tall maze, glancing back at Nurse Halverson, who waved at them. Thank god at least one of the nurses wasn’t as awful as the others. She was the only one who ever treated them like people and not rats. Halverson was also the only nurse who allowed them the adventure of the hedge maze. They solved it years ago, but still played like children when inside it.
Helena smiled as Damon’s fingers entwined with hers. This sanctuary was the only place it was safe to touch. They had cameras in it, but inevitably, the weather destroyed them. The institute was slow to replace them because no patients were allowed in the maze without direct supervision. Halverson was being kind, letting them have privacy.
He led her to their spot, a dead end where one of the bushes had overgrown into the path a bit. So it was annoying to get to. They hadn’t replaced the camera there in three years. As soon as they slipped through the narrow passageway, they wrapped around each other. Their mouths crashed together.
Her back pressed into the branches of the hedge wall behind her as Damon devoured her. He licked into her mouth, groaning as their tongues tangled. He tasted of fresh peppermint, his icy flavor reminding her of snow.
“I’ve missed this. You taste so fucking good, Princess,” he said against her mouth.
Helena licked his bottom lip before she bit it, earning her a guttural sound from his chest and hardness poking against her hip. Her mind drifted to her earlier musing of him covered in blood, and she sank her teeth into his lip until she tasted the sweet metallic flavor of his blood.
Damon clutched her, angling his hips and pressing his shaft to her core. A moan escaped her lips as she released his. Her fingers found their way into his long, soft, white blonde locks.
“Do that again.”
Her eyes drifted to his mouth, red and wet. His blood was still oozing. Her tongue flicked out, collecting the moisture. “You want me to bite you again?”
“I want you to...” he paused, appearing unsure of his words. “I want you to hurt me.” His tone was confused but confident.
“Why would you want that? I don’t want to hurt you.”
“But you’re so good at it,” he snapped back. His face was contorted into a sneer.
Her mouth dropped open as his words landed. The blow seemed physical, and she gasped for breath. She was good at hurting him. But only because they knew each other so well. Was their medication causing his rapid mood shift? It was one of the side effects they both occasionally suffered from.
“Helena. No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,” he hung his head.
“You did.” She barely managed the words. It hurt to say them, and worse, it gouged her to know that he was right. She was positive he was right, but she couldn’t remember why. It wasn’t the memory loss from the medicine. Although that was another side effect, this felt old. She had wounded him deeply a long time ago.
His palms wrapped around her cheeks, tilting her head up. “No. I didn’t mean it. You’ve never done anything to deserve my ire, not like that. I’m sorry.”
Her eyes burned. She reached for her left wrist, picking at it. Damon dropped one of his hands, lifting her wrist to his mouth, and placed a tender kiss on the reddened skin. He never spoke of the way she picked at herself, only soothed the irritation. He always saw her, regardless of what she attempted to conceal—it was as though he had direct insight into her heart. Her soul.
“Don’t apologize. Kiss me. We don’t have much time.”
Damon wasted no time recapturing her lips, shutting off any thoughts in her mind.
October 2004 Damon
Damon scratched at his neck and arms. Today wasn’t a banner day. Today was shite. No, he felt like shite. The comedown from the Neurovex was worse than usual. Stupid tosser Bart screwing with his night meds wasn’t helping. He hadn’t slept properly in days, and maybe he could’ve managed that, except the bastard was also messing with his pain meds. It hurt to sit. To lie. To fucking breathe. Everything ached. He was so weak he could barely drag himself out of bed.
He knew Neurovex couldn’t be good for them. Anything that made you feel like a god among men had to have a price, and it wasn’t just the comedown. Some of the other patients—long-timers without PEDS—got dosed with it sometimes, and it wrecked them for days, even weeks. Damon suspected that was what killed some of them in the end. Hearts just seizing up under the weight of all that forced power.
Regardless, he craved it constantly. Not the infusion itself, that burned like a bitch, but the hours after. Hours where his body finally obeyed him. Hours without pain. Hours where his head was sharp, his thoughts his own. Hours where his Princess blazed with life and fire. She hated Neurovex, probably didn’t even realize how resplendent she was on it. To him, the drug didn’t change her; it revealed her. Made her like she was supposed to be. He couldn’t explain how he knew, only that he was certain.
Janice and Foley shuffled in at last. Finally, the waste of his time could begin. They dropped into the last two empty chairs in the circle. Dr. Ketteridge cleared her throat.
“Now that we’re all here, let’s begin. Does anyone want to start?” Dr. Ketteridge settled into her slightly better folding chair, the one with a bit of padding on the seat. Silence filled the room. Years ago, some patients tried to play along, to humor the staff’s games. Now, everything was forced.
Her gaze locked on him. She nudged her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Fine. Damon, tell me about your dreams.”
He wanted to reach for Helena, but they both knew better. The doctors noticed everything, and with them, closeness drew suspicion. Others didn’t matter. Doctors did. Doctors were arrogant pricks; their observations always counted more.
“Same as always. Dark. Freezing. Things want to devour me.” He shrugged.
“And these…things. What are they?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see their faces. Just cloaks.”
“What do you think they represent?”
Her soft-spoken tone was a lie. Ketteridge could be as ruthless as Vale when she wanted.
“Maybe how I want to hurt people?” he said, feeding her what he thought she wanted.
“Do you want to hurt people?”
His fingers trembled. He wasn’t sure if it was his PEDS, side effects of the medicines, or coming down from Neurovex.
“No.”
“I have a report from Chadwick Bartholomew that suggests otherwise,” Dr. Ketteridge replied.
“Yeah, well, he’s an abusive twat.” Embers of rage ignited, hot and sudden. Enough to make him want to hurt people, especially Chad.
“They’re Dementors,” Helena said, rolling her shoulders back.
Damon flicked his eyes to her, silently willing her to stop. If she started spouting about creatures, magic, or cloaked figures with death masks again, they’d be trapped in therapy for days.
Dr. Ketteridge turned her pitying expression on Helena, her dark eyes masking judgment. But they both knew what she really believed: they were barmy, beyond the reach of any medication. Their delusions weren’t curable; they were what made them dangerous.
“Dementors? Are these the same things as the Death Devourers you’ve mentioned before?” The doctor asked, her sarcasm only thinly veiled.
Bitch. Damon’s teeth clenched. He couldn’t stand when people talked down to Helena, tried to belittle her, made her doubt her own mind. Rotters, the lot of them.
Helena straightened, lifting her chin. “No. Those are different. Although I think the Dementors might work for the Devourers.”
“I see,” the doctor replied, scribbling notes.
“Those are the ones who eat your soul?” Janice pitched forward, her blue eyes wide. “The Devourers?”
“No. They just...” Helena’s face scrunched. Her hands balled into fists in her lap.
Damon knew she was frustrated; she’d probably lost her thought again. Their memories were patchwork at best—clusters of recollections fading within days. Without her journal, they’d have nothing.
“They hurt people,” he said before he could stop himself. His stomach twisted. His left arm burned. The sharp, searing pain was so familiar it was like being branded anew. He wanted to look, to see that ugly tattoo marred with scars, but he resisted. Every time his eyes found the skull and snake, disgust curdled inside him. Hatred. For himself.
He should’ve stayed silent, not given the bastards what they wanted. But he couldn’t abandon his Princess. If she was off the trolley, then so was he. Them against the world.
“They search for those beneath them...the impure ones. Kill them. Because others don’t deserve to exist, they’re stealing—” Damon broke off, clutching his arm. His skin felt aflame. Every nerve screamed. He fucking hated the Devourers. They’d taken everything from him. Everything. The only sense he could make was that he’d been deemed unworthy, marked for death, and fought back. His blood-soaked memories were battles with them. He was sure of it.
Helena flinched at his voice, at the sneer curling his mouth. Her face went ashen, lips trembling like he’d struck her. She grabbed her left forearm and gasped in pain.
He reached for her without thinking, hands firm on her shoulders, eyes locking with hers. His own pain dimmed, smothered by the urgency to comfort her. The phantom heart that beat next to his was racing.
“Helena,” he whispered.
Her eyes flicked to the scar at his neck. Their scar. They’d both arrived at Hollowmere with them, identical and unexplained. Sometimes, if she went nonverbal, she would fix her gaze there until it anchored her. Slowly, her trembling stilled. Damon fought the pull to drag her fragile body against him.
“Alright?” he asked.
She gave him a shaky smile, nodding. He forced himself to sit back. Only then, noticing the room staring. Janice wore her usual grin, romanticizing them. Foley just looked stoned. But Ketteridge’s narrowed eyes stayed locked on the space where his hands had held Helena. Damon dropped them to his lap.
“Let’s not dwell on the delusions themselves,” Ketteridge said smoothly. “But on what they represent. Monsters are rarely real, but always meaningful. We must look past the fantasy and face the messages they carry about ourselves, and our healing.”
Damon nearly laughed aloud at the nonsense. The only truth he knew about Dementors was terror. If they were real, they didn’t just kill you; they erased you. No afterlife, nothing left. And the Death Devourers...he flinched, bile rising. Last time he’d tried to remember more, he’d vomited until his throat bled.
The rest of the session dragged. More notes, more reminders that he and Helena would need “additional treatment” for their delusions. Trauma survivors, they called them. Psychosomatic stress, they said. As if their failing bodies could be explained away with words.
Damon scratched at his neck, counting the seconds until the doors sealed them in again. Six. One slower than last time.
A smirk tugged at his mouth.