Elle Words
"Don't want to lock me up inside."
Prologue
Lithium. Lust. Love.
So many of her favorite words start with 'L'. She starts with a 'L' too. But the 'E' is silent, just like him.
People don't know how lucky they are to be in love.
She's never been in love. Not really. She hears about it though. Whenever she used to sneak out and she'd have to mingle with other people and pretend she's normal. She loved hearing about love from normal people. They say it makes your brain feel all fuzzy and your skin all tingly.
They say love makes you feel alive. They say it's the greatest feeling in the world. Normal people are so lucky.
She feels like that whenever she's around him, though she bet he didn't know. She kinda feels that way all the time. She's been told it's because of all the extra electricity in her body, from the shocks. She's heard that love is just a word. She heard that love is just what happens when the electrical signals in your brain fire too much and something burns out. That's why your brain feels all warm and fuzzy. That's when you find yourself saying things and doing things you'd never say or do. Your brain's all burnt out and it isn't working so you make promises you can't keep.
She always feels all warm and fuzzy, all tingly and charged up and alive. It's different with him though. He makes her feel a different kind of tingly and fuzzy.
Is this what love feels like? She bets he could tell her all about love because she knows that he's loved someone before. And she would believe anything he told her because he makes her brain get all full of static and she would feel all lightheaded and faint in a special way that's way better than normal.
But the world is unfair to them. It doesn't want them to be together. They don't want them to be together. They don't want her to be her or him be him. Isn't that terrible? It makes her so awfully upset sometimes. They can be so much together. They can streak through the sky, burning and shimmering like vibrant fireworks. She wishes that he can see that. She wishes that he would look at her. Look at her and never look away again.
But he'll learn to love her. He'll see that she's so much more than just a silly crazy girl. He'll learn to love her. She promised him she'll make sure of it.
Lithium. Lust. Love.
To her, it's all the same thing.
---
She doesn't remember ever feeling happy.
She supposes its part of her illness. She supposes it's the depression. She supposes it's just...her. She wonders what happiness feels like; what it tastes like. She also wonders why people want to be happy. And how do you know when you're happy? And once you're happy, do you have to work at it to make it stay?
She didn't think it was possible for her to ever settle down. The idea of her living a domestic life was the same as the idea of keeping a wild tiger as a house pet. Sure, if you feed it everyday, perhaps it'll grow on you and learn to be tamed. But you never know what's going to happen when you accidentally skip a meal. Or when you make it mad.
She thinks she's supposed to turn twenty-six next week. She says 'suppose' because she can't quite recall the actual date of her birth. She thinks they shocked it out of her. But he had assured her that it's next week and she trusts him. After all, he doesn't have any reasons to lie to her. He loves her.
She can't sleep. A problem they've never been able to fix. She isn't tired. She never is. So she lays awake deep into the night, staring at the ceiling with blank eyes. She has her hands folded neatly on her stomach and she's feeling cold. There are goosebumps on her arms. She scowls, and with an irritated sigh, noticed that he had stolen all the blankets. Once again.
He's wrapped up all nice and warm and he's snoring quietly. But she bats at his arm and curses under her breath and reaches over to yank on the heavy quilt. He groans sleepily, his breathing heavier and uneven. She curls into the blankets, turning onto her side.
He's awake now. He shifts, tosses, then turns. He tries to regain some form of consciousness by scrubbing his big hand over his handsome face. Scooting closer to her, he drapes his arm over her ribcage and pulls her close. He paws uselessly at her shoulder when she squirms to shrug him off.
"Did it again, didn't I?"
She tries to pretend she's asleep but he knows better. She's miffed and easily angered, he knows that. Her back is tense and when she truly sleeps, she sleeps on her stomach with her face buried into the crook of his neck, their fingers intertwined.
"Sorry, honey."
She makes a quiet, indignant noise and says nothing. But she whirls around and cracks her hand across his cheek. He jerks a little in surprise, but he had gotten so used to it over the years. The pained hiss through his teeth is still enough to make her smile though.
She grabs his hand and laces their fingers together into a lock, then she flops onto her front, pressing her chest against his side. His bare, russet skin is feverishly hot—which is nice, because she's always so, so cold. She fits her head into that neat little spot where his shoulder meets his neck and it feels nice and familiar.
She never thought she would be in such a position. Never thought she would have wanted such a thing. Never thought she would settle down. But if she had known he'd be such a cover hog, she would have thought twice before marrying him.
She doesn't remember ever feeling happy. But she supposes this is as close as she'll get.
---
In the morning, she wakes up to an empty bed. She sits up in a panic, her heart hammering and her marbles lost. Her mind is in a Tilt-A-Whirl of confusion and she's all tousled with the covers strewn and his big shirt hanging off her rail-thin frame. Then she hears his awfully off tuned singing and she breathes. She hears the sizzling of pans and the clattering of plates and she smiles. Then he brings her breakfast-in-bed with eggs and bacons and warm blueberry muffins that he must've gotten up early for because the pastry that stocks them is often out of their first batch within the first twenty minutes.
"Morning." He says.
She grabs him by the ears and kisses him hard. Her ghostly skin is flushed and he laughs, because he knows it's all because of him.
He watches her eat silently, and when she offers a bite of her pancakes to him, he declines, informing her that he had already ate. She shrugs and tells him to suit himself. She digs in fiercely. He reads the newspaper, peering up every once in a while to tuck away a stray strand of her dark hair.
Breakfast is good, but then again, it always is. He always is.
She wonders how long this will last. The 'happiness'. The domestication. Before that itch inside drives her to do whatever she pleases without the fear of consequence. Before that part of her she tries so hard to hide from him comes out and rips him to shreds. His lips graze her temple so she grins. She pushes the thought away, focusing on being the contented wife.
Then he goes to work. He sells cars. He doesn't like his job, but he doesn't hate it. It's pleasant and it fits nicely with this whole 'normal' thing she's trying out. She doesn't like being alone because it makes her sad but she deals with it, because at the end of the day, he comes home. And that's all that matters.
---
Grocery shopping is something she doesn't think she'll ever get used to. It used to be just there, always; it never ran low for there was always somebody charged with the duty to restock it. And if she wanted something in particular, all she had to do was ask. Nicely, of course.
He pushes the cart around while she walks next to him, loudly smacking her gum and sipping a smoothie blend. He doesn't allow her to smoke anymore. He says that it's bad for her lungs. She gives him a wry smile. He understands what she's trying to imply but he doesn't say anything. He doesn't really like to talk about it. She understands. So she drinks whatever healthy shit he deals her and chews Nicorette gum.
It tastes horrendous but she does it all for him.
He gathers up fruits and vegetables, bagging them in little plastic slips. He gets broccoli, lettuce, and tomatoes. He avoids the asparagus because she hates those. He grabs an extra bag of spinach, and even though she loathes those, he still makes her eat them. He gets some strawberries and picks out a watermelon. Then he buys some ham from the deli, some cheese from the pastry, some coffee from Brazil.
In the champagne cabinet, she's staring at a golden, bubbling bottle from a brand she's fond of. She knows that it costs too much so she leaves it alone. He smiles at her, that wide boyish smile she loves so much, he looks left-then-right to make sure no one is watching. Then, he pulls out a switchblade from his pocket and jimmies the lock open. He takes the champagne, wrapping it inside his jacket that's draped on the cart. He says it's for her birthday.
She throws her arms around his neck and kisses him, beaming. He makes her so happy. Especially when he makes little criminal relapses like this. She loves watching him pull these tricks out of his hat.
---
They take a casual walk in the park together, holding hands. Dear God, she's turned herself into her mother.
There's a small pond, she has crackers for the ducks. Some lingering shadow in her mind resurfaces at the thought of her mother. She wonders about her sometimes. It makes her freeze, something he picks up on right away. She wrenches her hand away from his in aggravation.
She doesn't remember much of her mother. Or her father. She doesn't remember much of anything. The shocks do that to people. That's why she loves him, she supposes, because he's the only thing she remembers so vividly.
He tries to comfort her but she bats his touches away, hugging herself instead. She's cold again. She hates this. The little slips, the stray thoughts in her mind she thought she fixed by choosing this life. She thinks of the doctors, their mocking voices listing her destructive symptoms and rattling off names of mental illnesses. She thinks of her threats and seductive smiles. She thinks of how she felt. Nothing. Feeling nothing at all.
Mostly, she hates losing her composure in front of him, because she likes the picture she painted of herself in his mind.
She snaps at him when he tries again, but this time he does it back. And she looks at him with wide-eyes. Sometimes she forgets that he used to be brazen and full of fight. Normally, he just stands there and takes it.
He realizes his mistake. He tries to reach out for her, calling her name. Shaking his head and apologizing but he seems frustrated as she dodged out of his attempts. A part of her wants to say she's sorry, but she won't mean it and she doesn't want to say anything to him she doesn't mean. The salt is melted on her hand from the crackers.
When he goes to grab her wrist, she slaps him. She walks away and asks him not to follow.
---
He's watching the news when she finally decides to come home. She stands in the archway that leads into the living room, absent-mindedly twisting the ring on her fourth finger. She drinks in the lines of his long, lean figure and his bold, handsome face darkened with worry, trying to dial her mind into some kind of clarity.
She had a breakdown. But it was a small one. She was proud; she didn't hurt anyone this time around. She was making progress. There's an abandoned warehouse that's charred and burned to the ground though, but she's not worried because it could easily be explained by faulty wires.
It makes her sad because a faulty wire is exactly what she feels like, and a part of her knows she's always going to be that loose, wild sociopath no matter how hard she tries to hide it.
She sits down next to him. He's got his arm draped on the back of the couch and she feels comforted just feeling the vicious heat radiating off of him.
"I'm fine." She claims before he can ask anything.
His brows are crinkled, his lips twisted into a frown. "I was worried."
"I know."
She tugs his arm off the sofa and curls it around her round shoulders, weaving their fingers together. She folds herself into his lap like a cat and fits her head neatly under his chin. They stare blankly at the TV for a few moments. Hearing but not listening. She knows he wants to ask where she's been and what she's done but she's thankful he doesn't.
"They're wrong about me." She says finally, trying to convince herself.
He reels his head back, "What are you talking about?"
"Do you love me?" She asks meekly. She already knew what he was going to say, but she needed to hear it from him. She needed to know that he means it. She needed to know that she did the right thing.
"Of course."
"Would you do anything for me?"
He's puzzled but he responds faithfully, "You know I would."
"Make me forget I'm crazy." She demands. She meant it. She's damaged and broken and she just wishes he could fix her, goddamn it! She had fell in love with him and she had married him, thinking that it was the solution. Thinking that he can make it all go away but it didn't and now she's scared and frantic.
He wants to laugh, he almost does. But then he sees that horrifying, maniacal gleam in her dark eyes. He swallows, he starts, "You're not—"
"—But I am." She insists. She can clearly see that he's not taking her seriously, thinks she's just being cute. Thinks that it's what he loved so much about her. The crazy stuff that she did. Thinks she's cured and different now. Deep down though, she thinks they both know she's not.
In the end, he settles for a safe answer. "Well, I'm crazy about you."
"I know you are." She gives him a brave smile that she doesn't quite mean.
I made you that way.
Chapter One
People ask Jacob Black: How did you end up in there?
But what he thinks they really want to know is if they are likely to end up in there as well? He really doesn't know. All he can tell them is: It's easy.
It was a sultry, slick, summer night. The summer Bella, girl of his dreams, married the man of her dreams, Edward Cullen. The summer they moved out here to Belmont, Massachusetts. The summer Jacob followed them out of some kind of undying devotion. The summer he paid the rent by stealing from convenience stores and falling into what the Court called 'series of self-destructive patterns'. Jacob didn't really want to steal. He didn't exactly like to steal either. He just did. Because it passed the time.
It was the summer when the air is thick with the heat, almost foggy, like steam rising from the ground, mingling with so many people breathing and sweating. Darkness envelopes like a velvet, sticky wrap; wet. The dampness is almost smothering. The dampness and the darkness; suffocating.
Jacob Black pulls the hood of his jacket over his head, ducking into a shadowed alley with his hands kept firmly in his pocket. His shoes made mute, padded sounds against the watery concrete as he cut through Paper Street and made his way onto Innsbrook Lane. On his way there, he stops at the local Seven-Eleven and buys a lighter.
There's a repair shop two blocks down. The Plug, it's called. Jacob had been hanging around there for about a month now, popping in every once in a while to ask the owner, a man named Joe, about problems concerning his car. He doesn't even own a car. He doesn't really mean it, of course. He just needed an excuse to be in there. And he's discovered that the store has no security besides a camera mounted to record everyone who enters. Jacob has also stuck around long enough to find out that Joe doesn't clean out his cash register 'cept once every Wednesday.
It was a sultry, summer Tuesday night.
Jacob stops in front of The Plug and makes a quick scan. It's 11:43 and there's not a soul in sight. He pulls out a smooth switchblade out of his pocket and flicks it open. With the quick movements of an expert, he wiggles the blade into the lock, turning this way then that. The lock clicks open eventually and Jacob ghosts in. The automatic alarm chimes. Jacob sticks the blade deep into the wires.
He takes down the security camera next. He pops out the small tape from the side then runs his lighter under the film, charring the segment. It's when the lock in the cash register starts giving him trouble that he gets caught.
Jacob can't help but think that if he hadn't been so occupied with thinking about Bella, he wouldn't have gotten angry with the register, and slammed it onto the ground. Then, the police officer who was sitting in the patrol car across the street wouldn't have heard him as he opened his door to throw his candy wrapper onto the ground. Then, Jacob Black wouldn't have found himself laying on the floor with his cheek against the marble and his hands forcefully cuffed behind him.
It was a sultry, slick, summer night. The darkness and the dampness swallowing Jacob Black whole. The ache in his heart numbed because that was the way he kept it.
It was the summer Jacob Black got arrested and was sentenced to serve ten months in the McLean psychiatric ward as an orderly. You would think he would be angry. You would think Jacob Black would protest. But he doesn't. He didn't care.
Whatever, he had thought. At least it passed the time.
People say to Jacob Black: It doesn't look like a mental hospital.
But what he thinks people really want to know is if they really torture those people inside. Keep them in metal cages and prod them with baseball bats. He doesn't really know how to answer. All he can tell them is: How is it supposed to look like?
When Jacob first arrived at McLean, he thought so too. The carefully landscaped grounds, dotted with four and five-story Tudor style mansions and red brick dormitories, could easily have belonged to a prosperous New England prep school or perhaps a small, well-endowed college tucked away in the Boston suburbs. There are no fences, no guards armed with Uzi guns, no locked gates.
It gives the impression that whatever goes in, must come back out.
Somehow, Jacob finds that hard to believe. He was given the basic tour by one of the aides, a burly man that went by the name of Jeffrey. Jeffrey had a shaved head and looks like Mike Tyson. He had thick, steely bands of muscles everywhere and his neck was as wide as Jacob's arm. And the tour consisted of Jeffrey pointing and declaring, "Nurse's station." Point, "Living room." Point. "TV room." Point, "Solitary confinement."
There was a hierarchy within the hospital. At the very top of the food chain are the doctors. The therapists and the shrinks. Then it goes down to the nurses and residents, who are the most hands-on when it comes to actually caring for the patient. Then there are aides, who take over simple tasks such as getting something a patient needs and doing checks and making sure no one 'acts out'. The orderlies are at the very bottom, the scavengers—quite literally, they mop up floors and clean windows and are occasionally allowed to handle files.
"Think you can manage that?" Jeffrey asks.
Jacob wasn't sure. He had never cleaned before. But he figures it can't be hard, right? They gave him a baggy jumpsuit in a sickly white color and suggests that he stays the night, just to get the hang of it. His shift starts from 8:00 in the morning to 11:00 at night. He works two days then he gets a day off. That's the way it's going to work.
Oh, and he gets paid. Almost sixteen-dollars an hour. He figures it's enough to pay rent and buy cigarettes, so he doesn't complain.
People ask Jacob Black: What are the people like inside?
But what he thinks people really want to know is if the people inside are the same as the people outside or are they complete whack-jobs that twitch and mutter and snarl? Jacob Black doesn't know. All he can tell them is: They're just people.
Jacob met a lot of them. He met a lot of the hospital staff too. It seems that they haven't had anyone new in a very long time and they all draped over him like a new rug. The nurses especially. They crowded around the receptionist desk where he's stationed and asked him questions regarding how he got here and where he's from.
His answer: By taxi. My mother's womb.
They giggled and patted his hand good-naturedly. Then the head-nurse, a pretty slender woman with long hair she kept in a ponytail, ushered them all back to their places. She extends a long, coffee-colored arm and introduced herself as Zoe. She called him Orderly Black. When he asked her to call him Jacob, she said, "Orderly Jacob."
Jacob knew she was not to be messed with.
Because Jeffrey is busy, running around and calming patients—i.e., carrying them into their rooms, kicking and screaming—Jacob was partnered with another boy. His name was Pavel—last name, unpronounceable—and he was some kind of Russian whiz kid. He's 17 years-old and studying psychology at Harvard. Jacob doesn't really know why he's working at McLean if he's a goddamn genius, but he supposes that there isn't such you can do as a teenager that spoke crappy English.
He was pleasant enough though. He had flaxen curls and big, doe-like blue eyes and a naturally bouncy voice, like he's always excited. He reminded Jacob of his friend Quil. Except...paler and smarter and...Russian.
But the first time he actually encountered a patient is when one of them dropped by and inquired if the hospital can please stock up on popsicles. "They ran out in the cafeteria." The wispy, feminine voice complains.
Jacob looked up from alphabetizing files and blanched.
Her name was Polly, and she had tried to set herself on fire. She used gasoline. She was too young to drive at the time, so Jacob had to wonder how she'd gotten hold of it. He can't stop gawking at her. And he can't gawk about her without thinking about how she'd gotten hold of it.
Polly asked if he was okay.
The gasoline had probably settled in her collarbones, forming pools there beside her shoulders, because her neck and cheeks were scarred the most. The scars were thick ridges, alternating bright pink and white, in stripes up from her neck. It made her look like a distorted candy-cane. They were so tough and wide that she couldn't turn her head, but had to swivel her entire upper torso if she wanted to see a person standing next to her.
He spluttered and stammered and blinked.
Polly was never unhappy. She was kind and comforting to those who were unhappy. She never complained. She always had time to listen to other people's complaints. She was faultless, in her impermeable tight pink-and-white casing. Other people stormed and screamed and cringed and cried; Polly watched and smiled. She sat by people who were frightened, and her presence calmed them.
Pavel grinned and nodded and took a note.
They say that Polly used to have this cat. She had got it for her birthday. But the cat gave her a terrible rash, and so Polly's mother made her get rid of it. Polly loved that cat—she didn't have the heart. So she went into the garage and poured gasoline all over her rash. Then she set herself on fire. Just so she can keep the damn cat.
Polly smiled and wobbled away.
Her smile wasn't mean, it was understanding. Life was hellish, she knew that. But, her smile hinted, she'd burned all that out of her. Her smile was a little bit superior: Many wouldn't have the courage to burn it out of ourselves—and she understood that too.
Everyone was different. People just did what they could.
Jacob heard that they sent four police officers to escort her down to the hospital. Then they passed her onto six Buffers—aides that were more known for their strength than tenderness, Jeffrey included. Finally, they gave her a mild sedative before warily handing her over to two senior nurses to lead her back to her room.
It had been a quarter past ten and Jacob was exhausted. His fingers are numb from all the paper cuts and he simply can't stand to think anymore.
Pavel is chattering animatedly from next to him, keeping a steady flow of conversation and filling up all the holes in Jacob's personality. It wasn't that Jacob didn't like Pavel. He did. He found him endearing, even if he called him 'Ya-cob'. He just doesn't talk much. And Pavel enjoyed talking so much that he doesn't look like he minded Jacob's silence. It was nice of him.
He was in the middle of deciding rather H came before or after K when the phone rang. Pavel picked it up and recited in his flurry, overzealous voice, "McLean Hospi-toe. Pavel Andreievich." Jacob felt as if his ear had a spaz just listening to boy-wonder's name. "How may I h-elp you?" The person on the other line sounds panicked, barking and babbling, rambling on and on about something that made whiz-kid turn pale and green.
Jacob grunts, "Something wrong?"
Pavel swivels his chair to face him, face blank, and a little surprised that Jacob's actually speaking to him. He shakes his head, making all his curls bounce, "Niet. No." He's practically trembling in his seat, but Pavel's always like that. Like he's always got so much energy surrounding him that he doesn't quite know what to do with it, so it just flutters in the air like invisible strings, taut and vibrating. Hesitating, Pavel tells him, "Vun of our patients escaped two veeks ago."
"Escaped?" Jacob echoes. He raises a skeptical brow. It doesn't seem likely, with the Buffers and the doctors. "He must've been a wild one." The words he saw in the files jumped back into his memory, flashing before his eyes like a slideshow. Bipolar disorder. Dissociative identity disorder. Schizophrenia.
"She." Pavel corrects without skipping a beat. He shrugs, although the gesture seemed nervous instead of casual, "She is di-fee-cult. Dangerous...but wery charming. Good at getting vhat she vants," Jacob thought Pavel sounded sulky for a second, as if he had fell for it once before, "You vill see."
Jacob guesses he will. The relax atmosphere of the hospital is broken, instead a kind of undercurrent of electricity took it's place, making the entire place seem like it's rigged to explode. The nurses are busy bustling, running around with charts, loading up pills and needles. A few of the patients are standing around as well. Polly's there, eating an Ice Pop.
The doors opened slowly, creaking, and in came two police officers. Next was Jeffrey and another Buffer he didn't recognize, holding a girl by her elbows. She had dark hair that spilled over her shoulders and skin so pale, it looked transparent. She had cheekbones that could cut through glass, a pretty rosebud mouth, and eyes like two swirling vortexes. He supposes that she would be considered beautiful, in a bold, alienated sort of way. She reminded Jacob of a broken rag-doll.
He thought she looked placid for a lunatic and very normal for one to be considered so dangerous. But perhaps that's because she's so drugged up on whatever the nurses injected her with. She's incredibly slender and small, but her voice is raspy and savage.
She sees Polly.
"Hey, Torch." She greets with a lazy, sultry smirk. The corners of her mouth twitched as she dug her heels into the ground. The police officers immediately reached for their stun guns and Jeffrey's grip tightened. The girl resumes walking.
"Hey, Elle." Polly answers back, smiling and unobtrusive. The way Polly always is.
Elle quirks an elegant arched brow, the bottomless eyes beneath them almost boyish. She beams, flashing a perfect row of white teeth. "Did you miss me?" She asks playfully.
Polly tilts her head, and smiles again. "Not much." She replies back pleasantly.
Her smirk grew wider. She chuckles in her gravelly soprano and sways a little on her feet. The Buffers hurried to straighten her, but she resists their help by keeping them at arm's length with her elbows.
Zoe appears out of nowhere, her eyes narrowed, her ponytail swishing back and forth as she walked. "Did you enjoy the fresh air, Elle?" She asks, flipping through a folder and quietly giving instructions to a nurse nearby. Jacob caught a snippet of something about meds.
"Yeah, I did, Zoe. Thanks." The haughty girl replies. She's scanning the area dully, observing the patients and staff, trying to determine if there have been any changes. She grins slyly at Pavel, who flushes from beside him and ducked back into the reception desk.
"Good. Because it's the last time you're leaving the ward." Zoe informs her coldly.
Elle laughs her enchanting, smoker's laugh. She hops from one foot to the other, beaming, "Is that a dare or a double dare?" She challenges. She's just sweeping her glittering, dark eyes away from Zoe when she catches his. She blinks. Her shadowy, piercing gaze flashed. Then, the next thing Jacob knows, she's merely a foot away from him, glowering and sneering, "Who are you?" She demands. The guards are hollering, and Jeffrey's charging towards her like an angry bull. "Who are you?" She repeats, her words biting as the edge of her mouth tensed in a scowl.
Jacob couldn't answer. He didn't know what to say.
But the Buffers have already got their hands on her. She writhes and dodges and slithers out of their grips like a snake. She hooks her fingers around the collar of his uniform. She's got the longest fingers he's ever seen.
"C'mon. C'mon, we don't want to have to put you out, do we?" One of the nurses, with vibrant red hair, named Cassandra ushered her away, towards the second set of double-doors. Despite the coax and persuasion, she jabs another injection into the girl's arm.
"Where's Jim?" Elle asks, her voice hard. She swings to Zoe, "Where's Jim?" Her throaty voice climbed higher with hysteria and cracked. She spats, although her dusky irises seems glazed over, "I want to see Jim. Where is he?"
Zoe informs her tiredly, "Jim has been suspended, Elle. You can't see him right now."
She lets the guards take her through the doors, disappearing from Jacob's sight. It's silent for a few minutes. Her arms have gone limp and she seems withdrawn. Her lean, agile frame curled with fatigue. Yet, her graceful brows are still yet in the same defiant furrow.
Then, there came a shout. Suddenly, Cassandra the nurse is screaming.
They all jolt up from their seats and race inside. Zoe throws opens the doors. Pavel reached for his talkie-walkie. Polly sucks on her Ice Pops, and stands there, quiet and calm.
Elle's got Jeffrey on his knees, a gun pressed to his head. The two police officers lay on the floor, grumbling and holding their sides. She commands, her voice in a steady monotone, "Don't come any closer or else I'll shoot."
Zoe takes an experimental step forward.
Elle clicks down on the hammer. "Don't tempt me. You know I will."
Zoe says, "Give me the gun, Elle. You know this isn't going to do you any good." Zoe's hands are clenched into tiny, trembling fists by her side. "It'll just earn you more days in solitary confinement. And you don't want that, do you?" Zoe tilts her head, and smiles sweetly.
Elle pushes the barrel deeper into Jeffrey's temple, causing him to grimace and flinch, as if the firearm was too hot or too cold and he has to keep jolting away to keep it from touching him. "I want to see Jim." She says again.
The head nurse inches a little nearer. "Sure. We'll get you Jim. First thing tomorrow." Zoe's good at tempting people, Jacob realizes. Her smooth caramel skin is glittering, unlike Elle's, which is alabaster and frosted.
"You promise?"
"I promise."
One of the police manages to reach into his belt and fumble out a taser. He fired it hastily, two cords shot out and plugged themselves into her leg. Veins of blue sprinted all across her snowy skin. Something tells Jacob that those carry enough electricity to knock someone unconscious.
Elle barely flinched.
Her only comment is, "That's annoying." Before she reached down and yanked out the charges, her lips pursed into a thin, irritated line. The other officer followed the example of the first and shot his stun gun as well. This one had better aim and it caught her on the shoulder, near her heart. And when the shock starts, her chest jolted and her entire body vibrated.
Jeffrey takes this opportunity to try to escape but she pins him down with strength that didn't belong to a slender girl and she grits her teeth and jerks out the electrical arc. Then she aims the revolver at the cop who stunned her and fired a round at his knee. The popping of the gun was so loud, that Jacob thought his eardrums might snap. The man cried out and clutched at his calf. She rubbed her shoulder, hissing, "Stop doing that."
"Elle." Zoe beckons in her soothing, pleasant voice. "We're not going to let you see Jim unless you're going to be a good girl." Elle blinks her savage, soul-baring gaze. "Be a good girl and hand me the gun, Elle. Let Jeffrey go. And we'll get you Jim straight away."
Elle looks doubtful, but in the end she relents. The man named Jim was more important to her. She releases Jeffrey. Then she holds out the revolver in front of her like a peace offering. Zoe strides forward until they're almost toe-to-toe, she takes the gun from Elle. Then she smiles, and from her pockets, pulls out a taser. When Elle realized it, it was already too late, and Zoe had already jammed it deep into her side and pressed hard.
Jacob can hear the electrical charges crackling and searing in the air and the smell of singed clothes as it burned through the cottony material of her shirt. Elle stumbled back in a hurry, her body racking and convulsing, like all her bones are clattering together. Her crazed, turbulent eyes wide from the electricity. She tries to escape but she was shaking too hard, so she took two steps, and fell limply into the arms of Jacob Black.
End Note:
Hello, fellow readers and thank you so much for sticking through with me for the first chapter. Dark stories have always been an obsession of mine and I've always loved writing them although my other story is more fluff than anything else. But Elle Words is something that's been brewing in my mind for a while and I drew a lot of inspirations from a lot of places. So I'd like to dedicate this to the story 'Stepford' by Lint. And 'Girl Interrupted' by Susanna Kaysen. The song 'Lithium' by Evanescence also plays a big part in this as well. The writing style is something familiar because it's very much the way I usually write but the style is essentially a bit like Chuck Palahniuk books and also Sylvia Plath.
But I hope that you enjoyed Elle and that you'll give me some feedback as to what to think because it's just so much easier to write when you KNOW what the reader want and what they're thinking. And I hope that you'll join me on this wonderful journey of Elle and Jacob.
What was your favorite line in the story? Your favorite part? And your thoughts on the prologue? Drop me a comment to tell me what you think!
--Love, Kitty.