Chapter 1

There were eleven pills in the bottom the cup this time. Yesterday there were only nine, but Adriana had agreed to try a new combination of drugs to help her sleep. She had been doing well lately with mental control and blocking thoughts of the people around her. A massive amount of improvement from the previous year, at least. The only problem was when she tried to sleep. The thoughts from others came flooding into her dreams. Memories from when she was working with the police and drawing confessions from the minds of the guilty and innocent would plague her. She poured all eleven of tablets into her mouth at the same time and swallowed them dry. No one on the staff bothered to check to see if she had swallowed all of her medication, as they did with the other patients.

She made her way over to the table where she had sat down to her unadorned meal. Her fellow patient Belinda, looked at her from across the table.

"You know what they say?", Belinda asked seriously, squinting so that the lines around her eyes became prominent.

"No..,", Adriana replied listlessly. They played this game every morning and Belinda would always repeat words that her psychiatrist had said to her.

"Puedes cerrar los ojos, pero no su mente.", Belinda said smiling. You can close your eyes, but not your mind. That threw Adriana off guard. She didnt want to have a panic attack. Not this morning, please not this morning! In her slight panic she felt the thoughts of her own doctor, Doctor Duprie, intrude her mind. He was standing near a younger nurse and speaking to her about a patient. She could hear that something big was happening, but no, she would block it out as she had been practicing for 14 months. Even though she could block what he was thinking she could feel the emotion of his excitement nearly break through her skin. Was it good or bad excitement? No, block it! Well it wouldn't hurt to just at least know a little about what was going on. She could feel something buzz growing from the nurses for the past month but she ignored it and focused on how well she would sleep tonight with all of the medicine in her blood…

The information poured in beyond her will. She still maintained some control, she thought brilliantly to herself. A criminal. They were letting in a criminal. They had been approved because they were the best institution in the state. Ok, that's enough information for now. But why would everyone be so wound up? They had plenty of criminals. Even Belinda was a criminal. Ok, a name wouldn't hurt. Just find the name in someone's mind. She gazed at Aimee, an older nurse...No name? A criminal with no name? How was that possible? Or maybe she was getting better at blocking thoughts and going to be free from this nightmare at last. Maybe it was the medication combination. She must let Duprie know that it was finally working! This was the right combination of drugs. She was excited and sure of it. She pushed away her tray of untouched food and walked over to Duprie once she saw that the nurse had turned away.

"Hi!", she said, smiling up at him.

"Well, hello sweetheart. I see you're in a...good mood today?", he asked somewhat startled. She hadn't smiled in months.

"Yes! I think the new medications you've recommended are working!" she said, though not completely sure herself. She'd only taken them 5 minutes ago. But what the hell, maybe she could convince herself to make them work somehow. A placebo effect would be better than nothing.

"Oh, do you want to speak about this in my office?", he asked, feeling content. But he couldn't speak with her in front of anyone. She wasn't like the other patients. She actually knew things that she shouldn't. It was insane and he barely believed it himself until she was able to see through his eyes, into his past, and could tell him his adoptive mother's name, how she looked, smelled, sounded and even walked. The woman had died nearly 9 years ago.

"Of course!", she said still smiling.

They made their way into the elevator and down several hallways into his office. She was the only one in this asylum who wasn't a doctor or nurse that was allowed alone with the doctors or nurses in this way. She immediately took a seat in front of his desk and didn't wait for him to close the door or sit before she began spilling.

"Well, this morning I tried to read Aimee's thoughts and I couldn't! It was amazing!", she said immediately. Actually she felt like she was lying to both Duprie and herself. She clearly could sense 'no name' in Aimee's mind.

"What were you trying to find out? I though we were working on not letting anything exterior into your mind at all?" he said, somewhat shaken.

"I know but, I just thought...well everyone seemed like they were so wound up about something and I only found out that there was another criminal coming. But I couldn't find his or her name in anyone's mind!" Another lie, she'd only tried with Aimee. Maybe she should just try it with Duprie just to convince herself. As soon as she thought of it, she penetrated his mind. 'No name'. He didn't say anything. "What's going on?" she demanded.

"We are allowing another criminal. He doesn't have a name." he said looking anywhere but her eyes. Icy blue eyes like the sky on a clear winter day.

"Sure...", she sighed. "This is making me feel worse. You should have just told me the truth.. That he has a name. Then I'd at least know my drugs are working." He was shuffling through papers.

"You just took them within the hour, we don't know yet." he replied professionally.

"Right.", she rolled her eyes. "So you were telling the truth? A person without a name? That doesn't even make sense." she said, wishing she could force her meds to work immediately.

He tossed her a newspaper. She looked at the face. A man covered in paint. He nearly looked like a circus clown. Dark paint around his eyes. Red smeared across his lips. Deep scars in his cheeks. She felt a touch of pain looking at the scars, but she was well equipped after months of practice to not look into scars and find out where they came from.

"What the hell is that?", she asked, pointing to the man on the front page. He knew she wasn't allowing herself to read anything. She could frequently see into a writer's lies.

"Our new patient. He doesn't have a name on record. No fingerprints recorded either," he sighed, disappointed that she let down her guard and now he had to explain this to her. He knew in the back of his mind that the police would want to use her to find out information about this man. Now he had to lie to them and tell them that she made progress and was no longer seeing things the way she used too. Drugs were working great.

His silence was too much. She peeled away his thoughts, no longer caring about her progress.

"No fucking way. You're lying to them and I'm going along with it.", she said in a louder voice than was 'appropriate'. They had to use 'indoor voices' like children. She wouldn't be sucked into another job with the police that would knock her ten steps back after she could barely make one progressive step forward.

"Shhhh.." he said, reminding her or the rule on noise. "Of course I'll lie, but the police will want you to..at least consider it. They would pay you well, you know that. You're doing so well and you've progressed a lot. But honestly, I don't think this clown is worth it though. They'll put him on death row before you can find his mother's maiden name."

"I don't need any more money from them. I have enough to stay in here until I'm eligible for AARP." she said getting out of her chair. She turned and left the room without saying anything more.