For an instant, the doctor looked impressed, and then he raised one lazy shoulder. “I’d seen the writing on the wall. I knew I would likely go to prison for a long time. I could have fled the country, of course. But where to? And simply leaving would likely mean I could never again practice medicine. I must admit, I despaired.”
When I snorted, he flashed me a warning frown. “Can you even begin to imagine my joy at learning there was another way? A place where I would never be found and . . .” He lifted a finger. “Could continue my practice, my experiments, with little or no restriction? No nosy review boards to censure what could have been groundbreaking work in the world of psychosurgery. No litigious family members. No federal investigations.” Carson’s bitter tone softened as he cocked his head to look at me. “Here, my dear girl, I may do as I please.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” I said. “Which makes you a sick—”
Carson slapped me. A backhanded blow that sent me stumbling across the room. Blood welled from a cut inside my cheek as I crashed to my knees, and Eustace Clarkson made his move.
He snatched me by the hair and dragged me toward him. My heels scrabbled against the filthy floor as Carson shrieked for the guards.
Eustace was old and weak, but I was still no match against the cumulative decades of rage and hate. He drove me to the floor. Hands closed around my neck, squeezing . . . squeezing.
Witch Demon. Witch Demon.
Dupree and Malloy burst into the room, clubs already raised. Blows rained down on Eustace’s shoulders and back, but he wouldn’t stop. As I clawed and kicked, the doctor appeared, rolling some kind of massive device.
“Hold him,” he told the guards. “Hold him now!”
With his hands still choking the life from me, a guard took Eustace in a headlock. A gray film had begun to bleed over my vision. But I saw the doctor slap something that resembled oversize headphones over Eustace’s head and secure the strap beneath his chin.
Eustace’s grip on me loosened as he screamed and tried to rip off the ersatz helmet. I sucked in wisps of air while more guards rushed in. One grabbed my hands and hauled me out from beneath the foaming madman.
At least six guards held Eustace Clarkson while Dr. Carson fiddled with the dials on the now-attached machine.
“Ready!” Carson shouted. “On my signal, let go and do not touch him, understood?”
A hum of electricity. Eustace howling. Blood pounded in my ears as I tried to get my bruised throat to function.
“Now!” Carson yelled. “Clear!”
The guards fell away, leaving Eustace on his knees alone. The doctor flipped a switch, sending volts of electricity crackling through his emaciated form. The room filled with the stench of singed hair and charred flesh. Eustace quivered and juddered, his body now little more than a mass of cooking meat.
The guards, entranced by the sight, had forgotten my existence. One of them, in his haste to let go before the electricity zapped him, had fallen to his side only inches away from me. An iron key ring hung half in and half out of his pocket.
Normally I calculated the odds and evaluated all possible scenarios.
Screw that. That sadistic bastard isn’t going to touch me ever, ever again. Hell. No. I’m getting out of this Victorian loony bin. Tonight.
While smoke drifted from the top of Eustace’s head, I reached out, snatched the guard’s key ring, and slipped it into my bodice.
Chapter 31
I HAD NO IDEA WHAT TIME IT WAS. BUT MY STOMACH wouldn’t stop rumbling, which meant lunch and dinner had likely passed. They hadn’t brought food. But then they wouldn’t, would they?
NPO, nil per os, the Latin term for withholding food and fluids. Well, of course. Nothing to eat or drink twelve hours prior to surgery. Don’t want anyone vomiting on the surgeon, now do we?
Carson himself had marched me back to my room. Furious, he’d flung me inside.
“Do you know,” he said, his mouth curled into a cruel sneer, “I actually considered postponement. I thought perhaps it might be interesting to speak with a fellow traveler. But you are a disruption, Miss Walton.” He smoothed a hand over his hair. “In the morning, I shall unveil the world’s first transorbital lobotomy. It will astonish the medical community and secure my spot as the leading psychiatrist of the age. And you . . . you will have the distinct honor of being its first recipient. Good evening, Miss Walton.”
After he left, I paced the perimeter of my cell for what felt like a dozen lifetimes. Periodically, I’d hear the clip-clop of footsteps, and would press my ear to the door, certain it was the hapless guard come to search for his missing key ring. But either he hadn’t noticed its absence, or was afraid of admitting he’d lost it, because each time, the footsteps passed me by. Once, my heart all but stopped when the clang of a gurney approached, and I thought I’d left it too late, that they’d come for me before I could make my escape.
The claustrophobia still rushed in like a vicious dog to nip at my sanity. Several times throughout that long, long night, I had to lie flat on the floor, forehead pressed against the dingy, splintered wood to fight off crescendoing waves of panic. When everything had fallen into an ominous silence, the voice inside told me it was time. That if I had any expectation of getting out of here with my brain intact, I had to go. Now.
Just get on with it, Walton. If you’re gonna do this thing, then freaking do it already.
I drew the key ring from my bodice, but my hands shook so badly, I couldn’t even fit the right key into the lock. I paused, ignoring the walls that I swore were closing in again, and began to count my breaths like Mom had taught me so long ago.
In . . . two, three. Out . . . two, three.
Insert. Turn. Click.
To my surprise and great (silent) whoops of relief, the door snicked open. I peeked out into the darkened, empty hallway, pulse throbbing so hard I could feel it behind my eyeballs.
The boy is in the East Wing, Peters had whispered to me just before Carson had finished with Annabelle and had both of us dragged away. Room 14 in Men’s Ward D. There’s a laundry chute at the north end of the hallway. I’ll send you both down that way, then come around and unlock the laundry door. Your people will be waiting outside. That’s your way out.
With no idea which way I should go, I turned and headed for an open doorway at the far end of the left corridor. There, a darkened set of steps led up. A stair creaked so loudly beneath my weight that it echoed off the walls. Sure that the sound had alerted every freaking guard in the place, I plastered myself against the wall and waited for my inevitable capture.
It took a while to convince my body to unclench. I’d been in tight spots—?literally—?in London. But I’d always had someone with me. Collum and Phoebe. Rachel and William.
Bran.
This time, no one could help me. Peters had done as much as he could and had paid a heavy price. If I failed, I would do it alone, and the consequences for me, for Doug, for my entire family would be catastrophic.