If Amy thought this day on the psych ward would be just like any other…she would be wrong.
For although everything seemed normal, well as normal as a place like that could be, something was not quite right. That she couldn’t put her finger on it only made it all the more perplexing.
Should you ask questions...when you aren’t prepared to hear the answer?
Excerpt
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“Today’s as good as any to get a shock treatment.”
Amy lifted her head from the pillow. There, at the foot of her bed, stood Larry.
She waited, as he turned and shuffled out the door, then laid her head back down and closed her eyes. Sleep began to return.
Then he was back, the rhythmic swish of slippers on tile as he approached. “Today’s as good as any to get a shock treatment.”
She sighed and waited a moment. Silence. Melanie was sound asleep in the next bed, unaware of the intrusion.
“Today’s as good as any to get a shock treatment.”
“Larry!” Amy shot up. “Shut up, and get the hell out of here.”
Larry smiled half-heartedly, turned, and wandered again from the room. This time, his shadow disappeared out of the doorway completely.
That had done it. She was definitely awake now.
Melanie continued to sleep, and Amy frowned. Dead to the world. Like I should be. That girl could sleep if a freight train came roaring through here. Then again, who knows what meds they have her on this week?
She climbed out of bed and tugged on her slippers—blue terry cloth, like her bathrobe. So cheap, her toe poked through the seam.
She padded over to the window.
The sun was rising, but the building across the street was still buried in darkness. She wasn’t normally awake this early—though someone did knock promptly at seven every morning to inform her breakfast was ready.
It was quiet though; peaceful as a grave. She could get used to this.
Then she heard it again, the sound of water dripping.
Stepping away from the window, she walked—as she had yesterday and the day before, and every day for the past three weeks—to the washroom. The dripping wasn’t louder there, but she couldn’t imagine where else it might be coming from. It wasn’t muffled, as it would have been inside the wall. No water came through the collapsible ceiling. It wasn’t raining. No drain pipes ran outside her window.
Chris has been fostered at the Crowley boot camp since he turned seven. At sixteen, he is finally ready to run away because his foster father is an abusive person who works Chris and the other children to the point of exhaustion. All he has left of h
