Monster Minds [completed]

Chapter 24

Recap- "No one was due to be executed for the next month, so who had been moved up on the list?

My stomach dropped, as did the coffee in my hand.

There was only one person who my father would authorize an early execution for. There was only one person my father hated so much that he would authorize his death.

George."

"Gentleman, I have one last piece of advice. Look away. This will not be pretty to see."

- Marcel André Henri Félix Petiot was a French doctor and serial killer. He was convicted of multiple murders after the discovery of the remains of 23 people in his home in Paris during World War II.Petiot was convicted of 26 murders and confessed to killing 60 people.

Chapter 24

My legs took off before I even thought about running. I pushed passed the guards, not caring about the consequences.

My brain was in autopilot, weaving passed a mass gathering of guards and through the long hallways of the prison basement. I stumbled to a halt at the doorway to the viewing room, opposite to the execution chamber. Guards spilled out of the doorway of the room, making it impossible for me to confirm my terror with a simple glance.

I shoved my way through the crowd, desperate to find my way to the front of the room. My heart fluttered like a hummingbird's wings as I began to panic, thinking of all the ways in which my life would be worse without George. My airways were suddenly constricted by fear, the fear of losing someone you love.

I finally squeezed passed the last two bulky security guards, but not without risk. Tripped unintentionally by the tall legs of one of the guards, I fell onto the glass window, jarring my wrists upon the impact. My hands smacked on the hard surface, causing a loud boom to ripple across the surface of the glass. I looked to the ground as I caught myself, my breathing finally calming.

I slowly lifted my head, hands still plastered to the glass, and time stopped.

The world around me dropped away and I was propelled forwards into the image that would be burned into my memory for the rest of my life.

In the room behind the glass, George's body lay on a green gurney, immobilized by black leather straps, which were bound around his body like a spider wraps its victims. His skin was pale and pulled gaunt over his bones, making the dark circles around his eyes seem darker and larger. His hair, usually washed clean, was slick with sweat. Beads of it licked the sides of his face as they slipped down onto the gurney, forming a damp puddle under his head.

George's execution had started and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Once the order had been made, it was inevitable. I always knew, deep down, that one day I'd have to watch my friend, my uncle, be executed, but I could never have predicted it to be so soon.

The people who witnessed it would not see the death of an innocent man; they would see the death of a criminal. No one would feel sympathy, no one would mourn, no one would cry. No one but me.

I didn't realize I had stopped breathing until a guard's elbow nudged into my side and I began gasping for air, aware of the lack of oxygen in my lungs. I grasped my throat with one hand, the other holding myself up on the glass screen.

This can't be happening.

You're just imagining things, Emily.

Calm down. Pinch yourself. George is fine.