Asylum (Asylum, #1)(32)
Abby shifted in her chair, sitting with one leg crooked under her. Despite her expectant face and the paper flowers woven into her braid, she was troubled. His heart sank when she said, “So I was thinking tonight might finally be the night. What do you say? Feeling up to sneaking around?”
“I don’t know. It’s been a pretty long week.” He wished they’d never gone into the old wing. It was changing them all somehow. It was changing Abby. Dan pressed on. “I was hoping we could just watch a movie or something. Something light. Besides, if we get caught again—”
“We won’t get caught,” she said flatly, ignoring the rest of what he’d said. She dug into her salad, eating so fast Dan couldn’t imagine she had time to taste it. “So what do you say, meet me at the bottom of the stairs at eleven?” She stopped assaulting her food to look at him, her gaze unwavering.
“Um . . . I’m not sure . . .” Dan replied, not knowing what to say.
“Jesus, Abs, give the guy a break. He obviously doesn’t want to go.” Jordan flicked his eyes from Dan to Abby, a smirk on his face.
“Thank you so much for joining the conversation, Jordan. I was going to ask if you wanted to tag along, but I’m sure crunching numbers is more fun.” Abby stabbed a cherry tomato with her fork. The fork scraped hard against the bowl, sending a nails-on-chalkboard shiver down Dan’s spine.
“Yeah, it probably is. Maybe you can get your superawesome art buddies to go instead,” Jordan shot back.
“Maybe I will. At least they won’t go all A Beautiful Mind on us.”
“You wouldn’t even begin to know what is happening in my mind,” Jordan said. “Thanks to your stupid office I’ve been having these dreams. Nightmares. Like something got inside of me when we were down there and it’s been trying to claw its way out. But what would you care? You’re too busy thinking about yourself to worry about anyone else.”
Abby opened her mouth and shut it again.
It was up to Dan to say the right thing. “What sort of nightmares?” he asked gently.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Jordan pushed a hand through his tangled hair, smearing ink across his forehead. The poor guy had never looked so unhappy. He took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt. Dan knew better than to press him.
After a minute Jordan sighed. “Wait, I do want to talk about it.” He looked around nervously, as if to make certain that nobody was eavesdropping. “It happened the night you guys went down into that basement—the night Joe caught us. I’ve had the same dream every night since then. Exactly the same. I keep dreaming that I’m in this . . . cell. And there are these doctors all in white looking down at me, only they don’t have faces. They have voices and hands and tools, but their faces have holes for eyes and noses and mouths. Then they put all these straps on me, lock me down, and . . .” Jordan’s shoulders sagged. He reminded Dan of a wounded animal. “They show me pictures. And they shock me. They shock me over and over again. There’s this white, hot pain and I can hear my parents talking somewhere behind the doctors. They’re saying, ‘He’ll be better now. He has to get better now.’”
“That’s horrible,” Abby whispered. “I’m sorry, Jordan.”
Jordan nodded, staring down at his equations.
Dan was frozen. He knew from Professor Reyes’s class that they used to administer electroshock therapy to homosexuals in order to “cure” them. Did Jordan know that, too, or had he dreamed it out of nowhere? And how about the fact that Jordan’s dream was so similar to the one he’d had. Was it yet another not-quite coincidence? Were they tapping into some Jungian collective unconscious? What was the connection?
Jordan gathered up the legal pads and tucked his pen into his jeans pocket. Then he stood, gave a half smile, and picked up his tray. He hadn’t touched his dinner.
“I need a nap. I’ll see you two around. . . .”
Jordan wove his way through the tables, ignoring a few kids who called greetings to him as he went.
“I guess that means he won’t be going back downstairs with us,” Abby said, returning to her salad.
Dan was shocked. “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”
“Well, it’s true!” Sighing, Abby let her fork drop into the bowl and leaned back against her seat. “And the only reason you’re upset is because you obviously don’t want to go either, so why not just say so?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to go with you. . . .” Dan struggled for the right words. “I just think maybe this whole thing is far beyond being too weird. You’re worried about your aunt, I totally get that. You want answers. I get that, too. It’s just that—”
“You don’t need to help me, Dan. I can do this on my own.” Abby snatched up her sketchbook.
“I want to help,” he said. “I want to help Jordan, and I want to help you, too, and I . . .”
I still want answers.
“Then help!” She caught her foot on the bench as she turned to leave and tripped. Grabbing a hold of the table before she could tumble to the ground, she dropped her sketchbook. Dan leapt forward to try to catch it.
Too late. The sketchbook hit the floor and fanned open, revealing page after page of dark, twisted drawings. Some loose sheets scattered. Reds, blacks, touches of blue and gray—with a central figure huddled at the center of every piece. The white shift she wore and the vacant look in her eyes gave it away.