Henry's pov
"My diagnosis is that you have cynical depression, Henry. Not to mention our questions were met with arrogant, bored and manipulative responses. This could potentially tie into Narcissistic personality disorder and other attributes that tie into sociopathic tendencies. This is before we even mention the nicotine and alcohol addiction. Don't you care?" The doctor tells me.
"My IQ doubles yours," I said, already bored. "Whatever assumptions you make of my character; assume you will always be wrong."
The doctor sighed. "You're uncooperative, defiant, hostile and aggressive."
"I'm also a prick, an asshole, a conceited arrogant son of a bitch." I said, giving him a smile. "Don't forget those."
"You think you're so much better than everyone else." The doctor gathered, standing up.
"Yes," Well, almost everyone. "I think the human race has a chronic case of idiocy."
"And yet, you hurt yourself?" He watches me by the door closely. "You have narcissistic tendencies, and yet, you absolutely hate yourself from what I've evaluated." He quiets, "The scars, Henry? The ones all over your body."
It takes a while for me to reply. "Those were accidents."
"All two hundred of them?" He asks, and before I can come up with a defense, he continues. "And what of the scars I can't see? What of the intake of alcohol? Your sobriety here is killing you so much because we estimate a high dependency on it on an everyday basis. You act more sober when you're drunk, and act more drunk when sober. It shouldn't be like that."
I'm tempted to throw a book at him, but I can't bring myself to care enough of what he's saying to do so. I refuse to answer any question or comment he's thrown my way, and he eventually leaves.
—--
"Would you two please quit bickering?" The counselor asks for the second time. She sighs at Jane and I, and gets back to the discussion board. Jane and I thought it best to make the staff believe we hated each other. Something we were amazing at doing, considering our decade of resentment and rivalry.
Dumbass, Jane mouths.
At her glare, I grin.
Heiress, I mouth back.
And though the nickname started out as an insult, its impact of it has seemed to have worn off.
"The person next to you is your partner!" The nurse said too enthusiastically. "You will each be given a piece of paper to fill out and a pencil–please don't hurt yourself with it!-and with that, you will write down the answers to the questions so everyone can get more familiar with one another."
My partner was Jane, and I already knew everything about her. Jane looked annoyed, and though the constant interrogation of my scars and non-stop diagnosis about my characteristics annoyed me on end, I couldn't help but treat this as a small vacation. Xander was taking care of the business work my father makes me do, and since being here he hasn't been on my ass about killing the competition. It felt almost relaxing. Almost.
Jane and I wrote down our answers faster than anyone else, and I tried multiple times to check her paper but she wouldn't let me. We barely paid attention as the other patients answered, and then it was our turn. "Henry, what is Janes favorite color?"
"Red, the color of the pig's blood she drinks." I say nonchalantly, and Jane kicks me under the table.
"Jane, what is Henry's favorite color?"
"Black, like his soul." She answers, but feigns confusion. "Oh, wait. You don't have one, nor do you have a heart."
The counselor tries to intervene, but I reply faster. "You wound me, I do have a heart." And .then mouthed, Careful, they might think we're flirting.
She rolls her eyes. "It doesn't count if it's made out of clay, Henry." Then mouths, I would never flirt with you.
"Incorrect, I made it out of stone." I try to fight back a smile as she tries to come up with another insult.
"That's enough, you two." The counselor says. "On to the next question, "What's something your partner-" she's cut off by two nurses entering the room.
"Jane Ivers, Dr. Martinez asks for your presence."
—---
Janes pov
As I lay there strapped to the mechanical bed, I don't scream or cry for help, having lost my mind long before now. As the syringes are injected into a body that no longer feels like my own, I plan out the murder of the one responsible for my self hatred. Dr. Martinez smiles at me as she places my hand on the burner once more to test how fast I can heal from the sixth-degree burns.
I want to let my mind block out the excruciating pain, but I deny it the easy way out. I take pleasure in knowing that even if I heal like an abnormality, I can still feel the pain it causes. I hang onto that knowledge, to know I'm not completely artificial. And with this redound motivation, I channel any anger I've kept for myself and turn it to the culprit. One of these days, the roles will be reversed. She'll be the hopeless patient, and I'll be the one in charge.
She doesn't know it yet, but I will get my revenge for all the times she's dehumanized me and turned me against myself. But I'm going to play my cards right, I'm going to take every step necessary even if it takes me playing into her brainwashing act. "You committed the murders, Jane." She tells me again before shocking me once more. "You did this."
I will play the impostor of my own life, if it means winning. And I always get what I want. So for the first time, I let her believe she won. "I didn't mean to kill them."
——-
"I'm getting deja-vu," Jane mutters from behind me as I look for files. "Why are we here again?"
Just then, I find it after multiple picked locks and digging. Jamie Lucas Martinez. I open the file and she tries to take a peek. "Has Dr. Martinez ever mentioned the name Jamie?" As soon as I say the name, her face gives me an answer long before her lips can form any. I hand her the file.
PATIENT NAME: Jamie Lucas Martinez
AGE: 1-7
Manifested carrier of tested DNA, deceased.
Side effects: anorexia, unresponsive, antisocial PD, migraines, brain dead.
Cause of death: Manifest overload of treatment.
That was all that was written on the first page, and most of the pages were ripped out, pages missing. "I knew there was something sketchy about her son. I had looked into the third Martinez member, but nothing showed up. Even in the medical files I hacked into, there was nothing. As if there was no sign of him even existing."
"No wonder she often called me by his name," Jane says, holding up his patient ID picture. Their features were similar, both brown hair and hazel eyes, pale tan skin. But Jane's hair was straight and she had slight freckles, while Jamie didn't. "She must have seen him in me."
I nodd, taking the file and trying to read through the mismatched papers as well as I can. "Wait, there's a death certificate here and a confidentiality agreement here."
1995-2002
TIME OF DEATH: 3:04 AM
PLACE OF DEATH: Birch Psychiatric Hospital 66732 Manhattan, New York.
CAUSE OF DEATH: [extracted]
DOCTOR SIGNATURE: Christine M.
THERAPIST SIGNATURE: Alex T.
NURSE SIGNATURE: Patrick C.
PARENTAL SIGNATURE: Christine M. and [extracted]
WITNESS SIGNATURE: Maxim V.
Maxim V. Maxim V. Maxim V. Maxim V.
"Are you okay?" Jane asks, her voice softer than I've ever heard. "What is it? You're shaking."
"I'm always shaking." I deflect. "We should get going before the nurses come and see us. Or rather, the lack of us in our beds. Keep an eye on the door, won't you, doll?"
She rolls her eyes at that, but does as I ask. I placed everything back where they were to ensure no one would catch onto us, careful to not leave thumbprint trails anywhere. If Jane wasn't so busy trying to keep her sanity in check and solving two mysteries, she might have caught on to how experienced I was with break-ins and hacking for personal gains. She would've questioned how and why. But she never did. Because she trusted me. Why did it hurt?
If the diagnosis of sociopathic tendencies was correct, if I was truly deprived of emotion, why did I feel so much in this moment? Nothing was happening, and yet, it felt like too much. Like I felt too much. Cared too much. I was a sinking ship, and she was the Bermuda triangle.
I walked her to her room, sneaking around the hallways that I've completely memorized as a map inside my brain. My hands shaking, and I couldn't help but think that they've been doing that a lot lately. As if in restraint. For her?
Janes pov
We walked into my room, the four walls deprived of any color or emotion. Just how they want me. Everything in this room was white and blank the way they want my mind to remain. "Jane?" I heard Henry's whisper.
I turned around and looked up at him. "Hm?"
His lips are parted, as if trying to think of a way to say what's racing in his head. He reaches out for me, tugging at the waistband of my jeans to pull me in closer. "My father was the witness, Jane." His words were so very faint at the confession.
"Jamie's death certificate? He's the signature?" I asked. He nods, watching my reaction closely. It made sense, suddenly. Why he was so quiet, why his hands were shaking, why his breathing seemed a tad distorted. I don't know when I had started paying attention to any of those things, but I was so aware of his every move now.
You know that saying, keep your friends close, but your enemies closer? He seemed to be both my friend and my enemy, and as much as I didn't want to acknowledge it, he was closer than them all. I didn't like the thought. It was unwelcomed. Because, as much as I need him he doesn't need me. I don't want to need him. But lately, it felt like he was my protector in a sort. He never doubted me. Never questioned me. Not once did he call me crazy or look at me differently.
I was going to give him that. I was going to try to give him the same reassurance he had given me. "It's okay, Henry," I whispered. "You are not your father." At this, his mask crumbles slightly. He doesn't say anything so I hesitantly play with the hem of his shirt, wrapping it around my hands to give them something to do. "It's not your fault. You didn't do anything-"
"Stop." He says. He looks pained. He looks more vulnerable than he's ever allowed himself to be, and it looks as if it hurts him to feel. "Stop it."
My first thought is that, maybe, I'm making it worse. Maybe, when the broken one helps the one that's fixed and perfect, maybe it makes them think less of themselves when we comfort them. Some people are like that. Even if my intention isn't to harm him for once, I end up doing just that. "I'm sorry. I'm–"
He shuts me up. With his mouth. He lips are touching mine. They're pressed against mine. Henry is kissing me deeply, desperately. I can feel his breath as if it is my own, but I don't think he's breathing right now. I doubt I am, either. I can't seem to bring oxygen to my lungs as I melt into his touch, something so natural you wouldn't have thought this was the same boy I cursed at for ten minutes in a storage closet when I was fifteen. You would've never guessed that the same touch I ache for is the one I swore to hate.
Henry kisses me as if he's been aching for this. As if he's been starving for a taste. He kisses me like when he finally pulls away, he'll have to go back to reality and face the consequences of his actions. He kisses me like he wants to fuck me. And though I always compare him to the devil himself, he resembles a fallen Angel in this moment.
And I can't breathe, I can't breathe anymore. I break it apart for air, just to realize what we had just done. It is as if our time of insanity is up, and we are brought back to the shore and the weight of what we had just done mars us. Henry's hands are around my waist, his hands shaking so terribly. "Was that real? You felt so real." He asks, as if he's the one with the hallucinations. As is if he wants so badly for that to be real. When I want the opposite.
I break out of his grip, and take a step back. His eyes are terrified, as if he's just realized what he's done, too. "No, it wasn't real." I say. I can already feel the changes the kiss has brought and I don't like it I don't like it at all. "This can't be anything."
Wake up wake up wake up please for once let me be hallucinating. "I didn't mean to do that, Jane, but, fuck, you can't look at me like that." He rubs at his chest, rubs the place above his heart as if it truly hurts.
"Like what?" I ask. I'm so very confused, and I don't want this to complicate anything between us. I don't want this to get in between my need to figure out what's wrong.
"Like there's a possibility you don't hate me." He says, so gently and the voice is so unlike his usual sarcasm and teasing that I freak.
"You should go." I blurt out. I don't know how to amend this and I can't think right now, I can hardly think with the taste of his mouth poisoning my tongue. "I think you should go. It's okay, really, it was a mistake, we don't have to talk about it. In fact, it never happened. We can just go back to normal, it didn't mean anything."
He stays still. He looks so, so tired. He looks petrified. He looks scared. Vulnerable. But I watch as the threads of his new mask weave together in a tighter knit, concealing his moment of weakness and I watch as he places it on his face and tightens the strands holding it together. He utters a quiet apology before leaving.
An hour later, Dr. Martinez returns for the next evaluation. I play into my role as their victim, when in reality, they'll be mine. I just have to make it to tomorrow morning, where I'll be let out.
—--
Henrys pov
I can't–I can't breathe. I rub my aching chest, the burn so great that I'm sure it'd leave another scar. I can't do this. I can't take this. I couldn't take the emotion that coursed through my body that was never made for such a thing. It ached, it hurt. It hurt so deeply and I couldn't breathe around it, I couldn't take it.
I felt so much for her, even though we were doomed. Even though I expect nothing other than a tragedy to come of it, I couldn't help it. I couldn't take it. I couldn't restrain the want, the need coursing through me. My heart should be made of stone, but somewhere along the way, it's turned into glass. I've spent so much of my life guarding it from the world, that the greatest threat to it slipped past all the defenses I've made for it and I've lost it. It's too soon, and too much. And yet, I can't step on the breaks.
I was hers. The realization of this is the plotline of my downfall. The start of my end. A punishment for the sins I've committed. I wasn't made to feel the overwhelming capacity of...feeling. It felt awfully similar to terror.
"Henry Vitiello?" I hear the faint voice of my doctor. "You've just experienced a severe panic attack."
~~~~~~
hey pretties, hope u liked the chapter !! I thought it was pretty meh but I swear things will start picking up soon <3