Bo began toppling over sideways, taking his time to fall, the way a giant tree goes down in a thick forest. She reached out to grab him, but his momentum and weight were too much. He landed—knee, hip, then shoulder—the sound of flesh slapping concrete punctuated by the thud of heavy bones. Where Bo had been only a second before, Dr. Payne now stood, staring at her. Not at the man on the floor.
And that’s where her ability to sense bad intentions fell short. Spontaneity. When someone acted without planning, her internal warning mechanism failed every time. She could never fully rely on it.
“What’d you do to him? He was done. He was going to sit down.” The moment the words flew out her mouth, she wished she could suck every syllable back inside and swallow them down whole.
An unnatural silence engulfed the room. No one in the group moved, no one spoke, no one checked on Bo. They all stared at her. At her. As if she’d done something wrong. And she had done something wrong. She’d challenged Dr. Payne—talked back to him instead of being subservient. And worst of all, she’d shown caring for Bo.
There was a terrible pattern to her life, one she tried to deny, one she tried to tell herself wasn’t real. But the undeniable truth, the thing that loomed over her ever since that night with Killion, was that if she cared for someone, they were bound to get hurt.
But didn’t anyone else care about Bo? Or that Dr. Payne had somehow caused Bo to fall? She wanted to scream at the group, at Dr. Payne, but clamped her lips firmly closed.
Click. The sound was a mini explosion in Mercy’s head. Her gaze shot to the panic button clipped to Dr. Payne’s belt and his finger just lifting off the pad.
Her stomach kicked. No, no, no. He wouldn’t have hit the button because of her words. He wouldn’t put her on Ward A just for questioning him. Or would he? On Ward A, he’d have supreme control over her. No interaction with anyone except for him. Just what he wanted and what she’d managed to avoid for the past two years.
Dr. Payne’s eyes were black and unfeeling, his lips pinched in a promise of terrible things to come. He reached into his pants pocket and withdrew a syringe, uncapped it, and took a step toward her.
An odd buzzing sound started in her ears, and her vision narrowed until the only thing she saw was that syringe held between his perfectly manicured fingers. She couldn’t let him inject her. Couldn’t let him knock her so completely out that she would be unconscious and then in a sedated, vegetable state for days afterward.
Dr. Payne jammed the needle in Bo’s ass cheek. Mercy sucked in a lungful of air—she hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath.
Two security guards and two male nurses rushed into the room. She moved away from Bo and stumbled back to her chair, collapsing so hard on the metal seat her tailbone rang.
“Transport him to Ward A.” Dr. Payne returned to his place beside her. “I’ll be down to assess him in a few minutes.”
She wanted to cringe away from him, but forced her body to stillness and watched as each member of the security team took an arm or leg and dragged Bo out of the room. He weighed too much to carry.
“We’ll be cutting group short tonight. Everyone fill out your papers, return them to me, and then go to your rooms.”
Dr. Payne passed her a fresh sheet of paper and the pink crayon, her paper and crayon having somehow disappeared in all the commotion. Using her leg for a solid surface, she scribbled the same thing on all three lines.
I’m grateful to be alive.
I’m grateful to be alive.
I’m grateful to be alive.
Without glancing at Dr. Payne, she handed in her paper and crayon and strained to walk from the room, instead of run. Because she wanted to run. She wanted to be far away from Dr. Payne and Ward B and this miserable existence where everything she did was under a microscope.
In her room, she didn’t bother with the overhead fluorescents. She went straight to her barred window and stared out into the night. There were no distant lights dotting the horizon, no stars twinkling in the sky. Nothing to indicate an entire world existed beyond her pane of glass. Just a void—a massive, black nothingness stretching on to infinity. The emptiness, the illusion of being alone, soothed her.
Her door clicked and swung open. She clamped her teeth together and breathed a quiet huff of frustration. Privacy didn’t exist on Ward B. To the staff, privacy equaled delinquency. The wavy image of a person reflected on her window. Liz—the charge nurse—always checked on her after she’d done everyone else. She understood Mercy’s need to experience the only peaceful moments of the day.
“All good here. I’ll get in bed in a few minutes.” Mercy forced lightness into her tone. If she let any irritation or tension leak into her voice, she risked Dr. Payne finding out.
“Mercy—” A man’s voice.
She startled, a jerking of muscle so violent it felt as if she’d been electrocuted. She whirled from the window to face him.
“—I need to make sure Bo didn’t hurt you.”
Her mind rebelled against the message her eyeballs were sending. Dr. Payne stood in her doorway. He never entered a patient’s room. And male staff were not permitted in the rooms of female patients. But here he was and here she was, and this wasn’t going to end well.
Her heart went off like a cannon.
“I’m responsible for you. You’re under my care. I won’t let anyone interfere.” Dr. Payne wore a grin, his deep dimples giving him a look all the women—staff and patients alike—adored.
“I’m fine. No harm done.” There was only a slight tremor in her voice. Maybe he wouldn’t notice. She cleared her throat and aimed for a stronger tone. “Liz knows my routine. She’ll be in to do a check in a few minutes.” Yeah. Remind him that someone might catch him if tried anything. “She’s fine with me being awake as long as I don’t bother anyone else.”
Dr. Payne took a step into the room. “Liz is dealing with Bo.”