“We want to make sure nothing like that happens again, Mara, and we think we can, if you consent.”
Dr. Kells waited for my response, as if I had the ability to say anything but yes. She knew I couldn’t consent, which meant this was some kind of display, some kind of show. For someone’s benefit, but not mine.
I was raging.
“We want to help you be better, Mara. Do you want to be better?”
Her words brushed the dirt off of a memory.
“What do you want?” Dr. Kells had asked me, on my first day in her care.
“To be better?” I had answered her.
My answer then had been honest. After the asylum, I was gnawed by grief. After Jude came to the police station, I was tyrannized by fear. Grief and guilt, fear for my family and for myself. Of myself. It ruled me.
Dr. Kells manipulated that. Jude did too. I didn’t know what part he was playing in this, or what Dr. Kells stood to gain by terrorizing and torturing and lying to me. I didn’t know why they needed me or why I’d been brought here or where here even was or whether I was alone. But I was no longer afraid. There were other names on that list, and if they were here with me, I would get them out and we would see the people we loved again.
I would see the boy I loved again. Everything in me knew it.
Dr. Kells repeated her question. “Do you want to be better, Mara?”
Not anymore.
Something dormant kicked to life inside me. It reached up, stood up, and held my hand.
“Yes,” my tongue lied. My answer drew a plastic smile from her painted lips.
This is what I knew: I was trapped in my body, in that bed, at that moment. But even as I looked out through the windows of my eyes, through the bars of my prison, I knew I wouldn’t be trapped forever.
They rattled my cage to see if I’d bite. When they released me, they’d see that the answer was yes.