The walls at Tranquil Horizons were the color of old teeth.
I woke strapped to a bed in a room with no windows. Canvas restraints bit into my wrists and ankles. The straitjacket was worse—a cocoon that turned my arms into useless appendages crossed over my chest.
"Good morning, Madelyn." Dr. Patricia Hawthorne's voice dripped like honey over broken glass. She stood at the foot of the bed, clipboard in hand, her gray hair pulled into a bun so tight it stretched her face into a permanent smile. "How are we feeling today?"
"There's been a mistake." My voice came out hoarse. How long had I been screaming? "I need to call my husband. I need—"
"Your husband is the one who brought you here." She made a note on her clipboard. "He's very concerned about your delusions. The infidelity, the paranoia, the violent outbursts."
"That's not true. None of that is—"
"Denial is a common symptom." Her pen scratched across paper. "We'll start with ice therapy. It helps reset the neural pathways."
The orderlies wheeled in a tub. Steam rose from it—no, not steam. Cold. So cold the air around it shimmered.
They stripped me. Lifted me. The water hit like a thousand knives.
I learned to count my heartbeats. Learned that screaming only made them hold me under longer. Learned that Dr. Hawthorne's left eye twitched when she was pleased.
The electroshock came on day three. Or maybe day five. Time had become elastic, stretching and snapping back.
"This will help erase the false memories," Dr. Hawthorne said, attaching electrodes to my temples. "The delusions of sanity."
The current turned my spine into lightning. My teeth cracked together. Somewhere far away, I tasted copper.
When I could speak again, I whispered, "Greyson will come for me."
Dr. Hawthorne leaned close. Her breath smelled like peppermint and rot. "No one is coming for you, dear. You've been erased from the outside world. As far as anyone knows, you're receiving the best care money can buy."
She was right.
---
Three years bled into the walls.
I'd learned the rules. Keep your head down. Don't make eye contact. Swallow the pills, even the ones that turned your thoughts to sludge. Earn privileges.
Yard time came on a Tuesday. Or maybe Thursday. The days had lost their names.
The courtyard was a square of cracked concrete surrounded by chain-link and razor wire. A dead patch of soil sat in the corner, abandoned by whatever optimist had tried to plant something here.
I knelt in the dirt. My fingers—thinner now, the bones visible through papery skin—dug into the earth. It was cool. Real.
Nurse Chen watched from the doorway. Her jaw was always tight, her shoulders squared. But her eyes softened when patients cried. That was her tell. I'd learned to read them all.
Orderly Marcus kept his hand near his baton when he was nervous. Dr. Hawthorne's smile widened before she ordered restraints. Guard Stevens looked away before the beatings.
I collected their tells like other people collected stamps.
The spoon came from the cafeteria. Rusty, bent, forgotten in a corner of my tray. I palmed it, slipped it into my sleeve. That night, I began sharpening it against the concrete wall behind my bed. The sound was barely a whisper, hidden beneath the screams that echoed through the halls every night.
Not for my wrists. Not for that.
For locks. For freedom. For the truth I would make them hear.
---
Five years.
The riot started in B-wing. Someone had smuggled in matches, set fire to their mattress. Alarms shrieked. Orderlies ran. Chaos bloomed like blood in water.
I was ready.
The ventilation grate in my room had been loose for months. Every night, I'd worked the screws with my sharpened spoon, turning them fraction by fraction. Now they came free in my hands.
The duct was narrow. Barely wide enough for my body—thinner now, hollowed out by years of institutional food and systematic breaking. Metal edges caught my skin, opened it. Blood made the passage slick.
I didn't stop.
The duct opened above the laundry room. I dropped, landed hard on a pile of soiled sheets. My ankle screamed. I ignored it.
The loading dock door was open. A truck idled, its back filled with canvas bags. I climbed in, burrowed beneath the laundry, and waited.
The truck lurched forward.
Rain hammered the roof. When we stopped at a light, I rolled out the back, hit the pavement. My bare feet slapped against wet asphalt. The hospital gown—the only thing I wore—clung to my skin.
I ran.
Toward the city lights in the distance. Toward Greyson. Toward the truth that would save me.
I just had to make him listen.
