I Own Anything That Stephenie Meyer Does Not... Like Corn Pops!


Session Two and a Half

The buzzers sounded all at once as the three metal chain gates rose. Six different guards moved to the sides as I walked past. Ms Cope, the head of security, was waiting for me at the end of the short, and metallic hallway. She smiled quickly in my general direction, before turning her attention back to the laptop in front of her.

I made it to her desk quickly, and the gates shut behind me.

"Hello Jasper." She said quietly, clicking away like her life depended on it. "You know the drill."

I laughed. "Yeah. No cell phones, music devices, ties, tie clips, pagers, pens, pencils, or sharp objects in general. Do not make any sudden movements when entering. All sessions with the patients will be recorded, and notes on the patient will be taken after the session is completed."

She nodded. "You forgot one."

I playfully smacked my forehead. "How silly of me." Like a ritual, I removed my tie, and tie clip, emptied my pockets, and set my briefcase on the desk. And then I combed my hair back, and Ms Cope handed me a hairnet. Hair pulling might not be the manliest fighting tactic, but it was definitely effective. Then again,manliness of an attack wasn't really important in an all female mental hospital. "How is she today?"

"Maria seems to be on the up, but you never know with her. She hasn't been spewing idea's all day." She answered without looking away from the screen. "I'm supposed to tell you that last week she made another suicide attempt."

"How did she try this time?" I asked, checking the file from our last session before I handed my laptop over.

"She regurgitated her medication two days in a row, and took all of the doses at the same time."

"We're really having a problem with that." I noted while casually clicking through her previous records for other suicide attempts. There was a total of three, all unsuccessful of course. Sometimes I wished she would succeed. Her sessions got pretty... heated. I would say that I didn't mind her idealistic bullshit, but I did. A lot.

"What do you mean?" Ms Cope asked, looking up at me through her tinted eye glasses.

"The new patient, Alice, had an overdose. She was medicated twice today." I said in the same calm demeanour.

"How did that happen?!" She cried. I shrugged impassively, though I was angrier than anybody about the mistake.

"I don't know. They're humans. The make errors." I left her blinking after me as I hit the entry button myself, and went into the small metallic room. Maria sat at the other end of the table, fiddling with her shackles.

Maria had been a cult leader in Southern Texas. The thought of what she had done sickened me to the core. She brainwashed a couple dozen teenagers, fed them nothing but lies, sedatives, and blood--real human blood--let them loose on the streets, and had them bring back a few defenceless teenagers. Instead of growing her cult though, she killed almost all of those teenagers, and drained them of all of their blood. The ones who weren't killed were forced to join on to the cult, and drink blood, and listen to lies. When they finally figured out what was going on, at least two hundred teenagers were dead, and at least thirty were blood drinking lunatics.

Her big plan was to heroically have the cult devour her before she was caught. It hadn't worked out that way, though. Now she was in my hands.

"Hello Maria." I greeted her pleasantly.

"Hello Jazz." She replied in her heavily accented voice.

I frowned. "Please call me Dr Cullen."

She shrugged, and leaned back. "Fine, Dr Cullen."

I sat down across from her, and met eyes with the guard standing behind her. It made me uncomfortable that Alec was always on duty when I had my sessions with Maria, the crazed witch. He was so... small. Alec only worked in the hospital to keep a close eye on his sister, Jane. She was another one of my patients, and she was doing good. She might glare at inanimate objects, but compared to Maria, Jane was a bloody cake walk. But he knew how to take down a person without them even realizing he touched them, so I was in no danger. That, and she was a weaponless 100 pound woman chained to a wall. I would probably enjoy the sessions more if I had some duct tape...

"So, Maria, how have you been doing since we talked last?" I was beginning easy, and leading in to the big questions.

"Good." She said stiffly. One of my eyebrows automatically rose.

"Really? That's good.How have you been doing with the other patients? Are you connecting with anyone?" I asked in the even steady tone that drove her up the wall.

"They still won't talk to me." She said after a moment of thought. Maria lurched forward, and rested her head on one upturned palm. "They're afraid."

"And why do you think they're afraid?"

"Because I'm insane." She answered with a smile. "I tried to make a new friend."

"A real friend, or a follower?"

"A follower at first... but I think I want to be friends." She replied.

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Because I think she might be crazier than me. I met her on Thursday. Her name is Alice."

I stiffened. "Alice?" I asked. "What does she look like?"

"Short, pale, black hair." Maria listed. "She's new... sort of looks like an elf or something."

"Where did you meet Alice? At recreation time?"

"No... in the shower." Maria leaned back, and emphasized shower by rubbing her hair, and arms like she was shampooing. "We were both in solitary, so we shower at the same time."

"Alice is a patient of mine. She isn't in the criminal wing." I stated.

"She was in the criminal solitary." Maria concluded. "Anyways, as I was saying before, you cutter offer, she's wilder than I could ever be." Maria looked around, and when she seemed to be content with the guard, the three video cameras, and the ten microphones all trained on her, she leaned in to me like she was telling a secret. "I ask her to give me the soap cause mine got hair on it, and she starts going crazy! She tell me that if I take the soap I trip on it, and break my head! I ask if it kill me, and she said no, it make me hospitalized for the next three months! I told her just to give me the fucking soap, and she goes into hysterics! She through the soap across the room, and tried to run away!"

I shook my head, and sighed. "So why exactly does that make you want to be friends?"

"Because," Maria said pointing to her temple, "this Alice chick is fucked up in the head. She's just like me! I can see it now. I teach her, and when she gets out, she can revive my coven!"

Keeping my cool, I frowned. "If you want to revive your coven so badly, then why did you try to kill yourself, Maria?"

Maria laughed once, cold and hard. "I'm in here for life. There's not much good I can do. I'm meant for the divine, not the Earth."

"What purpose would that be?" I asked. Whenever I did ask, I never got a straight answer. And the answer always changed.

"Because I'm meant to rule." She said through her teeth. "I did the world a favor. I taught them the real truth. This whole fucking planet is brainwashed! I'm the only one who knows what's really going on!"

"Then do tell me what's going on." I demanded evenly.

"The world is falling to shit anyways, why not live like we're supposed to?" She said with a sadistic grin. "The blood, it tastes... right. They all told me that. They knew like I knew."

"But I thought you said you were the only one that knew."

"I am! I taught them the real way to live. They thanked me. They all thanked me. I was treated like their queen." She said, closing her eyes, and seemingly reliving a moment. "They gave me gifts. Money, clothes, jewelery... but I didn't want any of that.They gave me other important gifts. Their blood, their trust, their bodies. They would beg me to let them have sex with me."

"Is that what it was all about? The trust? The power? Knowing that you could make them do anything?"

"No. None of that mattered either." She said, thoroughly contradicting herself. "It was doing what was right that mattered."

"Please, Maria, tell me what was right." It was almost hopeless. Maria spun around in circles, going no where.
She didn't even know why she did it. Her stories were never solid, and they never stayed the same for more than one doctor.

"What was right?" She repeated. Her face turned thoughtful. "Making the hunger stop."

My head perked up. This was new... and somewhat promising. "The hunger? You've never said anything about hunger before."

"That's was because I couldn't put to words the feeling. I would think of it as more of a thirst, really."

"For what?" I plead silently that this would be the straw that broke the camels back. That we had found not the root of her evil, but at least part of it.

"For blood. I always had a dry ache in the back of my mind, and throat. Blood was the only liquid to take that away." She explained.

Damn it.

"And do you think that Alice has the ache?" Her head tilted to the side, and she smirked.

"I don't think, I know. She's aching like an ancient horse."

"Maria, how do you guess these things?" I questioned, aggravated emotion breaking through my tone. "Why do you seem to see the dark side of people?"

"My Mama always said it was a gift." She chuckled. "I've always been able to tell how bad a person is. When I was a little girl I would look in the mirror and see a Vampire." She opened her mouth, and felt her slightly elongated K-9's with her pinky's. "When I look at you, I see a demon. Am I right, Dr Cullen?"

I shook my head. "No. You're not."

"When I first laid eyes on Alice I saw the dark. It seems to follow her like a rain cloud. I think she likes it."

"And what did you see in those you chose to be a part of your coven?" My face was an emotionless mask. I knew that she would almost definitely say, "I saw Vampires" but I asked anyways.

"I saw..." She seemed to look off into space for a moment. "Young Angels. Baby lambs. Small children. Easy targets. They were mine for the taking. The ones who would listen to me no matter what. The ones who wouldn't question me."

"So that's what you wanted in the end. Control." I stated.

"No, not control. It was never about control. It was about having them believe what I know is right."

"By forcing them to listen to you?"

"I never forced them to do anything!" She shouted, banging her fist on the table.

"You gave them two choices. Live and listen to me, or die and have your blood drunk." I said coolly, leaning back.

"They wanted me to teach them! They thanked me!" She cried.

"They? How many?" My smile was barely contained. "Maria, how many thanked you?"

"They thanked me! They gave me their blood! They gave me their bodies!" She repeated.

"Maria, you have a body that appeals to many boys at the age most of your followers were. What percentage of them were male?"

"They wanted to give me their sex! It was a sign of thanks!"

It felt like it was cracking. I was taking a chink off of her armour, and it felt good. It was Alice. She had led the session to this. If it wasn't for confidentiality laws, I would personally thank her.

"Maria, how many of them were male?" I asked in my serious tone. She slowly took her head out of her hands, and looked me right in the eyes.

She took a deep teary breath before speaking. "In the beginning... ten."

"And how many members were there in the beginning?"

"T-ten." she answered.

"And how many of those ten did you have sex with?"

She was quiet for a moment. "All of them."

"Maria, when your coven was found, how many members were there?"

"Thirty two. Ten girls, and twenty four boys." She answered emptily.

"And how many of them did you have sex with?"

"All of them." She whispered.

I nodded. "All right." I replied. "That will be all for today." I stood up, and felt her eyes on me as I went.

In the metal hallway, I took off my hair net, and grabbed my tie.

"You did really good in there." Ms Cope commented, and handed me the DVD of our session.

"Thank you." I smiled, and took the rest of my things. "Have a nice day Ms Cope."

She returned my smile quickly, and then got back to her computer. I raced down the metal hallway, and to the stairwell. When I got to the third floor I walked right past my office, and stormed angrily to the large oak doors at the end of the hall. I burst through them without knocking.

"Cullen." The short fat man behind the desk addressed me.

"Newton." I replied. He motioned for me to sit down in one of the chairs in front of him. The small wisps of blond hair he still own were slicked back and greasy. How badly I had wanted to rip it out when he called me hippie. My hair wasn't that long! I had to wear a hairnet because it was too short to ponytail.

"What brings you here? Trying to unload Maria again?" He sneered.

"No, I'm doing fine with Maria. In fact we had a break through today. I actually wanted to ask you why in the hell was Alice put into a criminal solitary confinement cell?" I asked sternly. He tried to cover his flinch with a cough, and sat up straighter.

"They're all the same. I had her put there do to overcrowding." He said loudly. It seemed as though he would never learn that I wasn't afraid of him, and being loud didn't make up for that. To be completely honest, he was afraid of me.

"Alice had to go into the shower room with all of the criminals. She's a new trauma patient, Mike! You put her into a somewhat social situation with unstable serial killers, and cult leaders!"

"How would you know that any of those types of patients were there?" He asked, sweat beginning to bead around where his hairline used to be.

"Maria talked about her. She wants Alice to be her new coven leader." I leaned forward, and folded my hands together. "Alice isn't stable. What if in a lapse of judgment she said yes? We know nothing about Alice other than she cut herself, won't talk to anyone but me, and is prone to blackouts, and memory loss. You put her into a situation that couldn't have had the potential to be deadly to her."

Mike's nostrils flared, and his face turned red. He was silent for a few long moments. "So what are you going to do?" He finally asked.

Was he serious?

"Nothing." I said harshly. "As long as you give me control over Alice's affairs."

"Why would you want that?!" He cried.

"Don't act like that. It's my code to do what's right for my patients, and this is what's right." I reminded him.

"Oh come on." He groaned.

"What was that?" I asked, snapping my head towards him. He jumped, and I tried not to laugh.

"Nothing." He muttered. "Fine. You have full control over Alice Doe."

"Alice Doe?" I repeated questioningly.

"We don't know her last name." He stated.

"Right." I muttered. "Good bye." I said, and stood up to leave.

"Good bye." He replied without emotion.

I went back to my office, and sat down in my chair. It felt like I was gaining territory here. Mentally, Imade a list of things that were my domain.

Jasper Owns List

Maria's revelation-compliments of Jasper
Micheal Newton's ass
A very nice laptop
Ms Copes rare smiles
Alice Doe-

I stopped there. Alice Doe... it felt so wrong. Alice had to have a last name that fit perfectly. I smiled when the perfect name came to mind. In my head list, I added another item.

Alice Cullen's Affairs... including in office visits, and the drugs she's given, and everything else right down to the amount of blankets on her bed.

I continued to add to the list of things I would do for Alice to make her stay at the hospital easier. As I went through the things that my patients complained the most about, I started to drift off to sleep.

This had to have been the longest day in my life.


Review? PLEASE! There is a spelling error in here that I can't find and it's driving me NUTS!

xStevie