“No,” I blurted immediately.
Pavol stiffened, and Benedict jerked like I’d slapped him.
Vargas, though, just laughed and clapped a hand on the director’s shoulder.
“You know the youth, so temperamental.”
Sergei nodded and peered back at me. “Well, I’d love to know the opinion of a young person into how we are performing here for our patients. How are the care and standards in your view? Things can’t improve without input.”
Improve? Was it really possible that the company that ran Hallow Hall didn’t know what kinds of things were going on under its crumbling roof? Maybe I should try to speak to Sergei after all.
“Katarina isn’t well enough to give any kind of feedback,” Vargas interjected before I could speak. “Now, I have someone to introduce you to, just down this way.”
He turned Sergei, and they started to walk away.
Vargas shot me a glare over his shoulder that chilled me to the bone.
One thing was for sure: I’d pissed Father Vargas off. More importantly, I needed to speak to Director Sergei alone and tell him what was going on here, tonight, before I missed the chance for another six months.
The restof the day was unusual because the higher-ups were entertaining Sergei, so there was no therapy. Our medications were delivered to our rooms, and it wasn’t hard to avoid taking mine.
I lay on my bed and waited until all the lights had gone out in the hallway and everything was quiet. When the director visited, it was one of the rare nights that they bothered to lock us in. However, earlier today, I’d managed to sneak Alonso’s key off his key ring. I’d use that to get out of my room and find the director.
When it felt like the whole place was sleeping, I got up, threw on a hoodie over my nightshirt, and pulled socks on. The tile floors were wickedly cold at night.
Then I headed to the door. I slid the key into the lock, turning it slowly so as not to be heard.
Adrenaline surged through me as the door was suddenly yanked out of my gentle grip.
It wrenched open, banging against the wall, and then Vargas was there, pushing into the room. He had two orderlies with him. I stared at them in shock.
“Going somewhere, Katarina? Looking for new ways to embarrass me?”
He sneered at me, staring me up and down and seeming to find me pathetic, standing there in my socks, my arms up defensively, like I could protect myself against these men.
“Bring her,” Vargas snapped, and spun on his heel.
I opened my mouth to scream for help, whom from, I had noidea. Strangely, the image of my own personal Lucifer filled my head for a moment before the orderlies grabbed me. One brought his wrist too close to my mouth, and I sank my teeth into his skin, hanging on doggedly. He growled and tried to shake me off. Hot copper filled my mouth, but I hung on, right until the other guy sank a syringe into my neck.
Then, it was lights out.
I came to slowly,the pain in my neck dragging me from my chemical slumber. I blinked a few times, trying to clear my head. I was in a room... more like an apartment. There was a TV in the corner, and a sofa, as well as a dining room table, and doorways leading off toward a bathroom and bedroom. I could see it all from my vantage point on the floor.
“Finally decided to join us?” The smell of cigar smoke drifted to me.
I moved my head to see Father Vargas sitting in a wingback leather chair, a phone in one hand, the cigar in the other.
“Take your time, clear your head. I’d rather you were of sound mind for the lesson I’m about to teach you.”
Dread filled me. I’d never been alone with this man. I was one of the lucky ones, unlike the stories I heard sometimes from other patients. Unlike Mira’s stories.
I didn’t want to get up. I wanted to close my eyes and pretend this was all a dream.
When I tried that, though, I opened my eyes again straight away, too afraid not to watch and see what Vargas was doing.
“Why am I here?”
Vargas clamped his cigar between his teeth and listed reasons off on his fingers. “Let’s see, because you embarrassed me? Ormaybe because you’re the only crazy bitch in this whole place I can’t touch? Or you’re the thorn in my side that I’m stuck with because of that whore, Mira?”