Louder Than Sirens ➳ Larry

day two

The girl shakes her head feverishly and widens her eyes. She thrashes in her seat with fear. Louis takes a startled step backwards.

"Don't be afraid," Louis hushes, lowering his voice. The girl composes herself again and furrows her brow curiously. "I won't hurt you."

Abruptly, a nearby door rips open. A nurse stands there in a white dress, placing her hands firmly on her hips. Her thin, pink lips are pressed into a thin line. Her pale face is overwhelmed with wrinkles and dark moles. She stares at the girl on the bench for a few seconds. She looks up fearfully, whimpering into the dirty cloth that's wrapped around her neck, covering her mouth.

"Excuse me, Mr. Tomlinson," the nurse says sharply, clearing her throat. "What do you think you're doing?"

Louis straightens his posture, tugging once on the hem of his jacket. He cocks an eyebrow in confusion. "Pardon?"

"I said, what do you think you're doing?" the nurse repeats, grabbing the girl's shoulder. She pulls her up from the wooden bench. Her startled knees shake weakly as the chain yanks on the foot of the bench.

"I— I was just trying to help, ma'am," Louis defends.

"Your job is to perform an investigation— not interfere with our patients' care," the nurse scolds, pointing a finger threateningly.

"I was just asking her if she needed any help."

"What she needs is solitary confinement, which is why we left her out here in the first place. She stabbed another patient with a fork this morning in the cafeteria, so we decided to restrain her and let her think about her actions," the nurse rambles on, staring at Louis with burning hatred. "You may think you're helping these patients, but you're only interfering with their treatment, sir."

Louis's face goes blank with surprise. "I apologize, ma'am. I thought a nurse just left her here, alone, tied up like an animal."

The black-haired girl trembles in the nurse's grasp, wet tears dripping down her dirty cheeks, leaving stains of clean olive skin in their paths. There's a damp patch of saliva forming over the cloth on her mouth, turning it a dark shade of blue. Her eyes are overflowing with fear.

"I didn't just leave her out here in her lonesome, Mr. Tomlinson," the nurse snaps back. "I was supervising her from this room."

She uses her free hand to prop open the nearby door, where a grimy window is cut into the wooden frame, giving it an angled view of the bench. Inside, Louis spots two patients lying on beds. A boy with curly blond hair and tanned skin is staring at them, blinking, lips pressed into a frown. His thin, hole-filled blanket is pulled halfway up his body. The other patient is a red-headed man with cloudy eyes, almost like milk. Louis thinks he might be blind, judging by the way he casts his empty gaze in multiple directions.

Louis clears his throat. "But don't you have special rooms for solitary confinement?"

"Our asylum is beyond carrying capacity, sir. Most of our treatment areas were converted into more bedrooms," she explains.

"Then why don't you expand the building?"

The nurse barks up a one-syllabled laugh. "As if we could afford to rebuild this place. We can barely afford new gowns and shoes for our patients! The government takes all our funds," she rants, snarling like an angry dog. She jabs her finger into the notepad in Louis's hand, where he scribbled about the asylum's conditions. "Write that down in your bloody notes. Perhaps the judge would love to hear about our financial problems." Her voice is drenched with bitter sarcasm.