Janes pov
Tick, tock, tick, tock. I could hear the clock through the thin walls of my room. Tick, tock, tick, tock, it sang—like a torment. Like a timer for my only chance at escaping. Tick, tock, tick, tock.
It's almost three am, two hours since Mattheo left. Two hours since he fell for my sleep act. Two hours I've been plotting the fall of Birch Asylum—a franchisee of mental health organizations that are supposed to help us. That are supposed to make us feel better, medicate us, aid us. I've always found it weird, really. Mental illness was about this lack of touch within ourselves, and the development of our minds doesn't evolve in isolation, but in interactions with others. I knew that much, so why did people insist on isolating ones that needed the opposite?
Still, the multi-billion organization is known to be the country's leading operation. They are known for their humanity. They're known for cherry-picking their employees, for teaching a new style of aid, for their infinite stocks of medication that no other hospital have. They're known for their lack of cracks in their perfectly painted picture, known for the perfect facade—dressing us up in pretty dresses, taking pictures all to portray an image. From the outside, everyone thinks that we're perfect. That they're just helping. That we're getting better. But the rose-colored glasses are out of fashion, the wallpaper in this perfect institution peeling.
The people that are given Nobel prizes are the same people that have drugged and sedated me to the point of death, who have forced my consent, who have lied and deceived me, who have burnt me over and over again—each time stronger than the last just to see how much I could take before it finally leaves a mark.
Their only public announcement? In court, they stated one thing. It isn't an act of dehumanization if they were never human to begin with. That's what they said in Jamie's files, and that's what they're saying in mine. I hear a creak in the cell—the room, sorry—next to me and I know it's 2:27 now.
No one cares that I never hurt anyone. No one cares that I've never had any control over it. No one cares that I'm just a little girl who was never taught to be human, trying to be just that. All to fit in. All the time. That's all I've ever wanted—to be normal. No one cares, though. No one cares that I want to die, that I hate myself more than they ever could. No, they don't care. Not if someone with a pretty doctorate degree says otherwise. Surely someone who studies the impact of humanity has the most inside them.
No, Henry was right. If the world wants to see a monster, what's the point in being anything more than that? He had said. They were never satisfied, all the times I've tried to show them I can be normal—nothing could change their minds about me. It was written in stone, black and white; Jane Ivers is a monster. I'll make them suffer for what they did to you, I can hear him say. But now that he wasn't here, I would. Because I. Couldn't. Take. It. Anymore.
It's 2:30 and all I can think about is revenge. I'm sure it wasn't normal, but then again, was anything about me ever normal?
It's 2:34 am, and I can hear the shuffles of light footsteps, but I know they're not the nurses. It's the guard, the one that Mattheo assigned to guard my door. I can't tell if he's guarding them from me, or me from them.
It's 2:36 am, and I can hear tapping. Light tapping against my door. I want to get up, to go check, but I'm scared they'll hear me. I'm scared they'll see the knife I stole, afraid they'll see me as the thief I am.
2:40 am, I close my eyes, but the rhythm keeps me up. It goes tap tap pause tap pause—it sings, it comforts. The guard taps tap, tap, tap, pause, tap, pause, tap, tap—I like to think of it as a secret language; morse code, almost. .. / -- .. ... -.- / -.-- .. --- he taps tap tap, pause, repeat. The guard repeats the same rhythm and I know it's unconscious, I know it's not what I think it is, I know that he's not even spelling correctly but I read into it anyway. I-m-i-s-k-y-i-o, he taps over and over again.
I sigh and turn to the wall. I take a finger out from under the covers and press it against the wall—as if I'm pressing up against a window to the real world, something so close yet so out of reach. I stare at my finger. My working, perfectly straight finger. I stare at it because you wouldn't have guessed that only a week ago it was severed open to soak in acid and expected to heal. It did.
i-m-i-s-k-y-i-o the guard goes. I stare at my finger pressed against the wall for so long that I begin to tap back. .. / -- .. ... ... / -.-- --- ..- I correct softly. I-m-i-s-s-y-o-u.
The guard stops abruptly. I stiffen, tightening the thin blanket around me. I clutch the blade close to me. I wait for the guard to check on me, to refill my sedatives. But he doesn't. He doesn't say anything. And A few minutes later, I heard the first file of steps. It's 3:00 am.
I'm not there, not fully, when they reach me. I can't tell you who I am anymore, but I can tell you that the nurses turned all my lights on. I can tell you they were wearing strange suits, gas masks, and thick gloves. I can tell you a guard held the door open for them. Can tell you he shared the same face as Xander. I can tell you they took six minutes and thirty-seven seconds to roll me through the vacated hallways to Dr. Martinez's room. I can tell you she started the tape after putting the paralysis sedatives in my mouth. I can tell you I didn't swallow them. I can tell you I didn't cry. I can tell you that much.
Tick, tock, tick, tock the clock tormented. But I could hardly hear it through the voices in my head, the voice in my head. I don't want to hurt people, I swear I don't want to hurt people. But Henry's voice replays in my head like a broken record. The world has already hurt you. Even in my head, I try to fight it. Don't you want to survive–to destroy—this world that keeps trying to destroy you?
I watched as Dr. Martinez spoke to the camera, updating her research. Just because I'm discarded doesn't mean I don't have a heart, I try to reason with him—with myself. I watch as one by one, nurses in protective gear flee the room. Aren't you tired? Henry's voice asks me. I listen to Dr. Martinez give the date, the time, my patient number. I watched her share her hypothesis. I listen to the words she speaks, words that I've never been allowed to be anything but. Disease, monster, abomination—I hear these words and I realize that no, there's no point in being anything else than what they want to see. This woman that has starved me, burned me, slapped me, handcuffed me, cut me, stolen from me, cared for me, and broken me—she was never satisfied. I doubted she ever will be. So I say yes. Yes, Henry. I'm so very tired my love. So very tired.
I take a deep breath. Hello, world. It's three am, Dr. Martinez informs the viewers. Her back is to me, and I grip the hilt of Mattheos knife. The same knife I've been clinging to my chest since he left. The same knife I've been too scared to let go of, in fear of it vanishing. My name is Jane Ivers. My chest rises and falls rapidly as she makes my way, preheating the burner next to me. You will not hurt me again. I lift the knife. Dear world, I am real. This is when she turns. And I am coming for revenge.
"Jane," She stills, an edge to her voice. She eyes the knife in my hand and puts her hands up in defense. "Jane, put the knife down." She tries to reason with me, the calm in her voice cracking. I shake my head. Instead, I drop all the pills in my hand. All the pills are designed to keep me still while they use my body again and again, all in the name of science. All in the name of justice. "Jane, stop this. You're no monster—"
A laugh teases its way up my throat. "Aren't I?" She backs away, just as I step forward. "Aren't I, mom?"
She stops. Stops moving. Stops talking. Stops breathing. Her chest doesn't even fall, it just stays put. She doesn't blink, either. Like this was a surprise—for both of us. Like she's buried the truth so deep, told the lie so well, so often, that she believed it, too. "What are you talking about, Jane?" She lets out a quivering laugh.
"Please," I beg her. "I'm so tired of all the lies." I saw it. I know what I saw. I know I saw my father's signature. I might be crazy, but I knew what I saw. My voice shakes with the severity, severity of what? Of the truth. I needed to tell her so many things. I needed to tell her how she was supposed to protect me. She was supposed to comfort me. She was supposed to do my hair in the mornings, in the nights before school. She was supposed to be the one cleaning the cuts on my body, not causing them. She was supposed to teach me love so that I wouldn't have to find it in others. In a boy who needed a mother just as much as I did. Neither of my parents had taught me love, so I found it in a murderer.
"Jane, you need to take your meds—"
That's it. That's when I scream. That's when I yell and thrash and scream over and over again. That's when I open my mouth to voice my disappointment, but nothing comes out. It never does. Nothing ever fucking comes out. Instead, a pathetic choked sob does. "Stop." I yell. "Stop it. I'm tired." I clamp my mouth shut and threaten every tear that wishes to fall. I won't cry. I won't cry for her. "1995. The picture." I reminded her. "You and my dad at prom. You were pregnant then." I try to calm my shaking hands, try to talk over the lump in my throat. "You birthed Jamie a few months later, and in seven years, you killed him. You forgot he wasn't as strong as you, wasn't as developed as you." I tell her. " You. Killed. Him." I yell, with so much conviction. So much convocation, as if I'm trying to get it through her head. Trying to dig apart any lie, and justification she dug for herself.
She shakes her head. "No," Her voice shakes. "No, no, no, I was just helping–"
"2002 you killed him." I try to etch the words in her. I try to show her how bad it is, that no matter what she tells herself, there's no other way around it. She. Killed. Him. She killed me, too. "And nine months later, I was born." I dip my chin. "And you thought he'd been rebirthed."
"Stop." She begs. "Stop, stop, stop, stop."She brings her hands up to her ears, trying to cover them from hearing the truth over and over again. "I thought I had a second chance. You were supposed to be my second chance." And then she does something I don't expect. She sobs. Dr. Isabella Martinez, scientist, mother, murderer—is crying.
I don't like it. I don't like how human the emotion is. I don't like how she's able to let herself cry, but her words—words that have been etched and burned into my brain—haunt me. Pain is just a feeling, and feelings aren't real. Why was she allowed to have feelings, then? Why was I deprived of the notion, when she was free to do so?
It made me angrier. She didn't have the right to cry. I did. It wasn't fair. This wasn't fair. None of this is fair. It isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair t isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair it isn't fair this isn't fair this isn't fucking fair—the sound of the blaring alarms come rushing in, as if I had been held down under water, as if I was drowning in the voices of my head until now. Until I reached the surface.
The alarms are loud, so loud that I bring my hands to my ears to cover the sound—but I stop in my tracks. I stare at my hands in midair. Hands drenched in blood. Blood that didn't belong to me. I stare down at the ground, crimson red liquid coating the white tiles on the floor. I stare at my reflection, stare at the woman yelling at me. I watch her lips move, watch her clutch her waist where I've stabbed her twice. Once, for me. Once, for Jamie.
I stare at her lips as they move frantically, but I don't hear anything. I'm underwater again until she says, "Heal me." I stare at her. I stare at her as her breathing shallows as her voice shakes as her body contorts in pain. "Please, Jane, I've always loved you. I've always loved both of you—"
"What," I ask, quietly. "What did you just say?"
"Please, Jane." She tries to reason. "You have a gift, you need to use it."
"Gift?" I ask her quietly, bringing myself down to my knees–down to her level. "You think I have a gift?" My voice is soft when it breaks.
"Yes," She nods. "Yes, I'm sorry, honey, I'm so sorry." She inhales a ragged breath. "I wasn't thinking, Jane. I just wanted you to be a normal girl, not a monster. But I see it now," She says, clutching my free hand. "You're not a monster." She envelopes my hand with her, the most motherly act she's done. She brings it to her wound and I lean it, I lean in to help, clutching the fabric of her shirt."You're not a monster, Jamie."
I stop in my tracks. My chest caves in ways I've never allowed it to. My lungs are made out of plastics and sticks, and a strong wave, a blow of pain is all it takes to make it collapse. "It's Jane." I grit out. "And I am not a monster." She looks like she's about to say something, and by the look in her eyes, she knows what's coming. Because for the third time, for the last time—I stab her. That one, was for Henry.
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Okay thoughts right now please I've been going back and forth over these chapters and there's still one more rlly important one I need to write butttt for now what do we think besties (you might like the next chap you my might hate it we'll see) don't forget to comment and vote !! <3