Hello, thank you for reading! Sorry, there is one part that is bolded maybe about the middle of this chapter I couldn't get un-bolded. Sorry, pay no attention to that!

Chapter Nine

"All I'm saying is," Wendy chattered between spoonfuls of peanut butter, rolling her coated tongue over the surface of the spoon lightly to scrape remnants of the thick substance from the dip in the utensil before shoving the entire thing in her mouth. Lana watched her eyes close in delight at the taste, relishing in the fact the entire full jar of it sat between her thighs. Her voice was muffled by the peanut butter stuck to the roof of her mouth. "If Elvis is so great, why doesn't he have an entourage?" She popped another tipping spoonful of peanut butter into her mouth, mmming with satisfaction. "What's in this? Is this pure sugar? Parents shouldn't let their kids eat this stuff."

"Maybe I should take this away from you." Lana giggled with more satisfaction than she probably should have to see her girlfriend so high. She stole the smoldering joint from her fingertips that rested against the green striped sofa limply, putting it out in the ashtray. Not to say that she wasn't already high herself, but Wendy had been smoking long before Lana got home from work.

"Fine, I was done anyway." Wendy pouted, spooning another bite of thick spread into her mouth. She let the spoon hang from her lips, the handle touching her chin as she rolled her eyes back and forth, following the greenish smoke in the air as she giggled and climbed on top of Lana, who was covered with the blanket that usually rested on the couch cushions. "I think I have something tonight that's not quite correct for evening wear. Blue suede shoes." She purred madly in her best Elvis Presley impression.

"Oh God, how high are you?" Lana slid a hand underneath her skirt, moseying her nails down the back of the innocent schoolteacher's thigh. Wendy inhaled in one quick burst.

"Yes."

"Oh, dear." Lana playfully smirked, twirling her nails over the softness of Wendy's inner thighs. "You're high as a kite."

"Attach a string to my leg and call me 'Suspendy Wendy'."

Lana laughed out loud, leaning up and pressing her lips to the warm space above her lover's top lip. "What am I gonna do with you, baby?"

"Sing to me." Wendy's vocal chords thrummed as Lana's fingertips moved farther up between her thighs. She crawled farther over Lana so they were face to face, parting her lips over Lana's in a plea. God, did she taste good. Even with that peculiar weed taste, Lana could still taste that hazel-coffee-peanut perfume.

"Sweetheart, you know I don't sing."

"Oh, please." She begged, touching one finger to Lana's chest. She let out a soft moan as she felt Lana's fingers slipping her panties aside, playing the the hem of the white lace beneath her skirt. Lana could tell she wished for nothing more than to snake out of her skirt and rest in her arms. That and to hear her sing like a canary.

"Fine, what do you want to hear?" Lana smoothed her hands over her shoulders, laying a hand on Wendy's side, resting it on the small of her waist. The other woman traced the shape of Lana's jawline, considering for what seemed like ages. "Dusty Springfield?"

"Mm-mm." Wendy attractively licked a speck of missed peanut butter off her lower lip, moving off of Lana so she lay beside her, thinking hard. "How about Sam Cooke?"

"Don't make me do an impression."

She stroked Lana's hand, running her fingertips over her bare arm. She was dressed only in her mostly unbuttoned blouse, white undershirt, and her unzipped skirt that slid gracefully around her thin modelesque legs. "No, no, I'm not. Sing Wonderful World, I love that song."

Lana shifted as Wendy waited expectantly, tickling her fingertips on her neck. After clearing her throat, she leaned over her lover and rocked above her, inhaling the smell of her peanut buttery breath and the perfume left behind from that morning. "You want me to start?"

Wendy giggled and shoved her in the arm. "Just go, I can't get any higher than this."

Lana cleared her throat again, trying to remember the lyrics. She and Wendy listened to Sam Cooke every morning on the way to work. "Don't know much about history. Don't know much biology. Don't know much about a science book. Don't know much of the French I took. But I do know that I love you," she paused, getting the overwhelming urge to kiss Wendy right then and there. She hovered over her expectantly, thumbing her finger down her gorgeous face with her long nails. "And I know that if you love me too, what a wonderful world this would be."

Wendy purred lightly, grabbing the front of her blouse and pulling the woman on top of her. "That impression is spot on."

Lana pushed the brunette's dark hair out of her glassy eyes, seeing that look in the angel-like irises that she'd seen so many times before. And she knew her own expression was identical to Wendy's because she'd worn it so many times before. Her fingers danced delicately across the woman's thighs and Wendy's legs bent at the knees with ease as Lana tugged at the fabric to her pencil skirt, bunching it around her slim waist.

Wendy pressed her face into Lana's shoulder, muffling tiny feminine noises that escaped her throat as she left the clutches of her skirt, aided by Lana's hands tugging the zipper. It flooded around her ankles and she kicked it off lightly until it pooled on the ground beside the television set. Her pale naked skin glowed in the sliver of white light that cascaded through the allegorical blinds. Lana swallowed hard as she dipped her lips on Wendy's protruding collar bone, teeth grazing her skin almost surreally as she let out a soft sound of pleasure.

"Please." Wendy begged, almost in a whine of pain, and Lana obliged to her plea, causing her lover to yell soft whispered cries as her hips twisted over top of her. The teacher's nails teased across her ribs, ending in a shudder as the tips of her fingers circled back to trace the fine hallows between her ribs. Lana always admired the softness of her touch, always so sure and tender as she mercilessly teased.

Lana giggled as her fingertips trailed a ticklish pathway up her calves, to her thighs. The tension that only Wendy could build at each caress brought the woman closer and closer to the aching place between her legs, driving her completely wild. It was like the childish "I'm not touching you" game every time.

"You're so beautiful." Rolled of Wendy's tongue and she tickled Lana's arms, sending chills from her wrists to her elbows. Lana never quite forgot what it felt like to be in love. God, she always felt like such a giddy schoolgirl around Wendy, no matter what the circumstance.

Lana's fingertips curled into Wendy's palm. "Hmm." Her index fingertip traced the fine line of her lacy panties, seeking entrance. The two of them clashed together, fingertips running over each other in a rushed, passionate chaos as Lana caught Wendy's lips in a moan, and it was only a matter of moments before Lana was crying her name in fervor. They were both exhausted in a matter of half an hour.

"You make me dizzy." Wendy remarked while Lana traced a loopy oval around the other woman's belly button.

"Could be that weed."

"No, no, that's a good batch." She mumbled, curling her bare arm across Lana's chest, yawning innocently like a lioness cub. This was purely the reason that Wendy barely ever smoked, it resulted in half a brain, at least for the night. "It's you. It's always you."

Lana giggled, lacing her fingers into the brunette's messy hair. "Shhh, go to sleep darling."

Lana couldn't sleep. She lay awake with her arms crossed over her chest like she was eternally asleep in a crypt, eyes replaced with stones and bones stiff with age and rigor mortis. It was often she felt heavy, weighted, dead when she was trying to fall asleep because every night, every night, the bittersweet memory of Wendy crossed her mind. The furnishings of her room cast shadows from the grate screwed to the frame of the half-moon window positioned above a larger, rectangular grate that allowed tiny patches of moonlight through. Tonight, the iridescent moon was shrouded in clouds.

Her weight caused the boxboard springs to creak as she turned on her side, trying to get comfortable. Thunder rumbled distantly, mixing with the concoction of howling wails that never seemed to cease. Having spent weeks here, she grew used to the horrid screaming, complaining, begging during the day. But there was something perverse and sinister about it during the hours of the night.

The room was stark and desolate aside from the booming thunderous cries of ancient gods in the distance, the occasional light-up of the concrete block cell walls as branches of lightning illuminated the sky. It was too rainy for any of the animals residing in the aproning woods to make a peep loud enough to be heard from Briarcliff, but in truth, the crickets and crows were the very things that eventually could put Lana asleep.

She turned on her other side, staring at the patterns on the wall that were etched with ancient signatures of claws, unable to defy the talons of time. Her nails traced the scratches in the tile, wondering what it was like on the outside now. Where everybody sane was. It was strange being on the inside. A same woman amongst crazy people was as insane as could possibly be.

The sound of the scraping grate against the floor caused her to jolt out of a half-slumber stupor, eyes fluttering quickly over the writer's tired, bloodshot eyes as she struggled to a sitting position, shivering as her vaporous breath caused the warm air flaring from her nostrils to crystallize in the dry air. The door swung shut behind the other woman, who dragged a frayed blanket coverlet around her shoulders, sporting bare feet and a halo of damp hair that fell around her face like a messy child's.

"Sorry." Jen whispered between detonating discharges of thunder. "If you were asleep, I mean."

Lana shook her head, pressing her palm into her aching head, rubbing her auburn hair that shone a gleaming red in the quick bursts of lightning that were gone within seconds. "I wasn't."

"Everyone's drowsy tonight," Jen muttered, tucking her chin on the coarse fabric of the blanket she most likely took off her bed. "Saw Carl skulking down by the staff exit drinking his fourth coffee. Couldn't sleep, storm's too loud."

Lana propped herself up on her elbows and studied her face bathed in the voltaic lightning-light, tongue darting out from between her lips to wet them. Jen's ice sorceress eyes opened, looking directly up into her own from between spines of darkness, thin eyebrows furrowing with beads of damp sweat dotting the creases on her forehead. Lana's eyes drifted to the window, watching the rain slap the glass pane before bringing her knees to her chest.

"Is this - weird?" The other woman tugged set the collar of her white-washed lavender nightgown, washed out by the grays and greens of Briarcliff. "Me, being here."

"No." It wasn't, really. It was only natural for Jen to react a little differently around her now that she knew about Wendy, about who she was. She made room for her on the bed, bringing her knees to her chest even tighter and wrapping her goose-bumped arms around them to encase her quivering body. "I'm not some raging dyke whore." It was hard to believe, but she came off sounding a little like Wendy with her playful tone. One of the things that rubbed off on her.

Jen smirked, curling into the smallest possible position she could on the corner of the bed. "You don't look like the type." She paused, pulling down the hem of her tattered, over-big gown over her knobby knees. "Did I wake you?"

"I couldn't sleep either." Lana peered up at the high ceiling, inhaling deeply and breathing on her hands to warm them. It had long since been November and frost started to creep into the corners of the spooky old place at night. "Too much - screaming."

"I don't mind the screaming." Her eyes flitted to the grate on the door, listening carefully for the clink of boots down the hall, the click of heels. There was plenty of whistling, howling, laughing. Almost impossible to even shut your eyes, no other option but to cry or wish to be insane like the rest of them.

"It's all the voices at once. Like claustrophobia of the mind, I can't take it."

Jen shrugged, stretching her arms behind her back, listening for the delicate crack. "I can't take living next to Shelley anymore. Carl and Jimmy are toy; every night I can hear their - smutty groans of ecstasy like they're fucking right there next to me. You'd think cinder block walls would shut out more, but they don't. Sometimes I think I'd rather spend more time in solitary."

Lana covered her mouth but stopped herself from laughing. It really wasn't funny, but she hadn't laughed in so long. Jen scooted on the bed so her legs were straight in front of her, as much as they could be. They bent out in a strange way and her feet turned in much more than the average.

"Lana?"

She looked up from her preoccupied reverie, blinking in the darkness to allow it back into her dilating pupils.

"Where are we going to go..."

Lana knew Jen had most likely given it as much thought as she had. Devoting hours to the charge of escaping. Jen had been twenty-seven for three days and she'd gotten much more well since her "accident". The woman refused to talk about whatever got her into the infirmary, but Lana had a hunch it wasn't a suicide attempt, as Dr. Thredson had suggested during one of he and Jen's therapy sessions. Lana knew Jen hated Oliver, for whatever reason was liable. She found him helpful, generous without malicious intent, but Jen could go on and on about his "brain-melting psychiatrist shit".

"We need the perfect chance to leave." Lana scooted off the bed, starting to pace the length of her cell. "Some diversion, a distraction. I know the way out - I pass the doors every day, and that's how I got in in the first place." She could recall the beige-painted doors printed in stencil letters "STAFF ONLY". After she'd snuck onto the grounds that night, Sister Mary Eunice had brought her in through what she called her secret tunnel, up through the staff closet that was cluttered by boxes and unused supplies such as mattresses and sheets. "The tunnel spills out onto the grounds."

"Where from there?" Lana looked up, ceasing the repetitive pacing and resting one hand on her hip and listening to the clattering sound of the seemingly endless rain.

"My house is maybe about - twenty miles from here. Not far." She sighed. It would be extremely hard to plan such a getaway, and to splurge in the moment may not be the greatest of all ideas. That night when she, Kit, Grace, and Shelley attempted escape for the first time had been nothing but one big dangerous flop. And this time, she and Jen wouldn't have the Nor'easter to cover their tracks. And those - beings, skulking around in the woods with dismembered skin and grotesque, misshapen appendages. They certainly were an obstacle.

Jen smirked. "We can't walk for twenty miles."

Lana buried her face in her hands. How eager she was to get away from this place. Expose every single sick thing that they did to her, to everyone who was so undeserving. The people who deserved real help and quality lives instead of being locked up there to rot away next to the record player in the common room.

"I got a hunch you don't know how to hot-wire."

Lana groaned into her hands, but it turned into a breathy chuckle. "Do you?"

"Afraid not."

"I wish I'd been out there more than once." Lana laced her fingers up into her hair with anxiety, turning her arms up into a lengthy stretch above her head. After a few more seconds of pacing, she quietly and cautiously sat back down on the bed, careful of the creaking. The ward was so loud, though. It would be some miracle if one of the orderlies heard them conversing even at a normal level. "If I could just get ahold of a phone."

"Then what? Who would you call?" The woman raised her thin eyebrows, ceasing her thin tiny fingers that tangled into her hair, pulling it over her left shoulder so the back of her neck was partly exposed.

There was only one person to call, Lana knew that. The only person in the world she had left. Her deep breath was shaky, edgy, but she took it anyway, watching it frost in the air from the warm and cold diversity. "Wendy..."

"Your Wendy?" She repeated complacently. Her tone sought the secrecy that Lana hid behind, her guard she'd kept up for the time they'd known each other. "Will Wendy help us?"

"She's the most - greathearted person I've known." Her voice hitched in her throat as she remembered the way Wendy's chocolate curls fell around her face, the pins she always seemed to be pulling out of it, even hours after she'd come home. Her perfect cheekbones and straight chin that she could trace her fingertips on for days, and not to forget her heart shaped lips that her thumb stroked over to comfort the beautiful woman. "If only I - knew, why... She left me."

"You really love her, don't you?"

Lana let Jen's words surround her as if cigarette smoke was whirling through one ear and out the other, nodding complacently. "More than anything."

"Love is a fatal drug." Jen stretched out on her portion of the bed, shivering and pulling her blanket around her shoulders. "Tell me about her."

Lana's heart fluttered and warmed just at the thought of Wendy, like a schoolgirl in love for the first time. It was strange, how even in this dark, foreboding place, that love never faded, even a tiny fraction of it, after eight years. She'd always loved Wendy from the moment they met. She was unaware if the feeling was mutual at first. Both of them were, and either of them was completely aware of how wrong it all was according to society, but Lana had the strong notion that no one chose who they fell in love with. It saw no boundaries whatsoever, to time, to space, to the earth.

"We met in college." She cleared her throat, listening to her own heart thumping. A bloodcurdling scream resounded from the end of the hall, followed by the sounds of footsteps and a howl of pain afterward that wasn't so unlike the previous holler. Lana cracked her knuckles underneath her thumb and continued in a soft murmur. "She was getting her teaching degree, but journalism was my calling."

"Didn't know your big break would be Bedlam 1946, did you?"

Lana rolled her eyes and lay back on the bed, stretching her legs out. Though she was always a thin, rather athletic-looking woman, she was built much larger than Jen and took up a majority of the bed. She didn't seem to mind or take up much space, curled up in a ball like that.

"What's she teach?"

"The third grade." The banging from the outside corridor was dying down, the muddled cries of inflicted joy and harassment dying down slowly in the night.

Jen propped her head up on her palm. "What's she like?"

Lana was thoughtfully silent for a moment. "Terribly shy, unless you know her. Horrible conversationalist with strangers. Awkward, and... Funny. She always knows what to say." It was hard talking about Wendy. Especially since she'd been in this place for nearly a month now, and had not received anything personally from her lover. Aside from the strange, mysterious note that Dr. Thredson passed on to her. Every single day, whenever she doubted it, she had to tell herself that there must be a reason. That Wendy was trying, that she was working to make everything okay. But she'd not been to visit once, and visiting hours were every day from noon to three. If it was Wendy in here, she'd be there every second she got -

Jen's eyes flitted down to the mattress, where she seemed to be studying the crocheted thread pattern until they darted back up to the woman who had to be her only ally in this place. "I have a question. Sorry if it's out of line."

Lana rose from the bed, crossing from one end of the cell-room to the next. The noise had settled down to a dull,roar and her skull was aching from the dose of Valium she took every night. It was a small dosage and never seemed to do anything for her but make her choke, but it knocked out some of the more unruly patients. "Ask me."

Jen sat up, crossing her legs and putting her hands in her lap. Her tongue darted out from between her lips, setting them gracefully as if she were licking sugar from them after consuming a sugar donut. "Is it - different for you? Does it... Feel different?"

Lana's pupils grew increasingly large and she wondered if Jen had noticed in such a dark room. Thunder rumbled closer now, as if to remind them that it's presence should not be forgotten. A frown tugged at her lips and her heart beat faster as she recalled making love to Wendy. All of those intimate, private moments in their own home, their home, where they once hoped to become a respected part of society stored all their hopes and dreams, could be who they really were.

"With Wendy..." She paused, surprised at how lost for words she was. It was hard to describe. "Have you ever thought of - a memory, the idea of one at least. The kind of memory that stays with you, even if you don't know the pictures that go with it. All the good feelings... If they flowed all into your body through one person's fingertips... That's Wendy."

Jen rocked back onto her knees and smiled lightly, sadly even. "Everyone's an ass."

"Hm?"

"Why do they give a damn... Who you love. S'long as it's real love." She shrugged nonchalantly and laced her hands behind her head, wincing at the wound covered by tape and gauze on her neck. There was a soiled stain in the shape of a yellowish splatter of blood and other body matter seeping through, but she wouldn't get it changed until tomorrow. "I don't see why it effects them in any way."

Lana's heart slowed in relief. She always felt very anxious whenever she revealed her true love and her "inversion" to anybody who might be worth trusting. Her outlook on the world was the same as hers and Wendy's as well. Oh, Wendy. Ever since she was little, Lana could remember having some type of aversion to the male gender, as she never dated in high school like her parents and friends would have liked her to. She'd been like this for as long as she could remember. As much as people would like to consider it as an illness of the mind. There was no cure.

Once she saw Wendy, she knew deep down that she was a goner. The worst kind of goner there possibly could be, but she'd buried those feelings deep down as she'd learned to in high school. But she wasn't caged Lana Winters anymore. And the other woman wasn't just quiet little Wendy Peyser. Lana never felt what real love was like until her fingertips would accidentally brush against Wendy's shoulder blade as she reached for a pencil, the feeling of her brunette curls lightly caressing Lana's shoulder as she bobbed over her nonchalantly, seemingly so oblivious to the feelings coursing through her system that were completely and utterly wrong, but oh so right.

Lana never thought she'd spend the rest of her existence in the presence of one woman whom she loved unconditionally, one who loved her maybe even more than eternally, constantly keeping her afloat when her life preservers were deflated. She was the kind of person who would give Lana a pair of pajamas she hated just because she knew she'd end up taking them off. It was those things, along with others, that made Lana so in love.

"I don't know." Lana shook her head and lay back down, pressing her cheek against her hand resting limply on the pillow as she curled up into a ball. Her heart was aching in an emotional way that made it so the physical ache shone through just as much as it did mentally, and she hated herself for the water pricking her eyes. "We need to get out of here, Jen. I can't spend another week in this ward."

"We don't know what it's like out there." Jen gently covered up Lana with the gray throw blanket scrunched up at the end of he bed, placing her hand on the small of her back. It felt foreign, small, but then again, anyone's other than Wendy's felt wrong. "You've tried to escape once, yes? That obviously didn't go too dandy."

And then there was the matter of the - creatures, for lack of better word, lurking in the woods aproning the estate, gnarled and falling apart, covered in tumors. Lana spent an awful amount of time trying to bore the images from her mind, the dead body she stumbled upon with Grace and Kit, the scream that exited her mouth. She hadn't been aware that it wouldn't be the worst horror at Briarcliff.

"There's no way," Lana started, propping her head up. Jen's fingers still curled on the small of her back, warm and tiny, but they were like a magmatic rock on the surface of her skin. Sinking in as if hey were smoldering igneous fragments. "That were getting very far without a weapon of some type. Those things chased us back into that tunnel like - cyclones. They're... Superhuman. Something not like us, but - I doubt they'd think twice about tearing us apart like ground beef-"

"Perfect, we can smother those dead things with pillows."

"I'll find something. In the meantime, we need to try and lay out the land. It will be dark, and even more confusing than during the day. When I snuck in, I parked my car in a grove a walking distance away from the grounds and came in through an overgrowth of trees. I didn't get lost in the dark, but that's probably because I ran into Sister Mary Eunice feeding those beasts. It shouldn't be far from the road, but we should be careful. If we get lost, it will only be a matter of time until morning when they come searching for us."

"S'well." Jen smirked, rising with one knee and wrapping the coarse fabric of the prison blanket around her shoulders. "So, we talk to someone who's recently been outside."

XXX

Well, Jen sure wasn't much of a Picasso. She dipped her paintbrush in a surprisingly-majestic-for-Briarcliff emerald green after wetting the bristles, scrubbing the thin spokes across the paper canvas until it created a streak of color. After she was satisfied with the dripping indentation, she angled the brush downwards and splattered mediocre branches to a pine tree, swiping the water away from her brush on a half-used newspaper pallet squirted in various colors of dark paint.

She eyed Lana across the room, who was smoking and listening to 16 Candles with disinterest. Many of the inmates were fascinated with the new tunes, but for others, Dominique had been their obsession, what kept them from sinking through the cracks of the floor and turning to mashed potatoes. Most of them were afraid now - Jen had threatened to shank anyone who changed the song more than twice in five minutes, and her threats were completely serious.

Huffing, she dipped a new paintbrush in yellow and painted a sloppy sun in the corner of the page, giving it red rays since there was no orange paint. It came off looking gory, but it didn't matter. She'd only crinkle it up and dispose of it when it was dry anyway.

"Quit hogging the damn purple." Jen hissed with narrowed eyes, holding out her palm expectantly as the man, complete with newsboy cap and huge glasses, blinked nervously and rolled the container to her across the bumpy table surface. She proceeded to dole out enough paint from the canister, after shaking thoroughly as it suggested, to paint a pair of Vsto represent birds roaming the skies in lonely turmoil. When she looked up, a pair of mismatched eyes stared at her.

"Was I talking to you?" Jen grumbled under her breath, letting the brush she was using roll out of her fingertips to clink on the table, splattering paint across the already stained surface. Pepper looked down quickly into her water color work swirling a frayed paintbrush in a cup of rusty water. Jen shook her head and seat-hopped over to sit beside the other girl, rubbernecking to view her painting. It was a sloppy portrait and appeared to be done by a young child, but then again, Pepper didn't quite have the motor skills to grip a handle in the normal way.

"That's nice." Jen nudged her in the shoulder, eyeing the blobs of brown and black clumped together on the rumpled, soggy page. "What is it?"

Pepper grinned, her large top teeth grazing over her minuscule bottom lip, making a sucking sound. "Pepper paint."

"Yeah, Pepper paint good." Jen mustered a smile and placed a hand on the tiny barely-woman's shoulder. She shied away from human contact, not to Jen's surprise. She'd been locked up here since 1960, not that she could even recall the year. She lived in a fantasy world where everything was in the eyes of a five-year-old girl. Everything could be a joy, even Briarcliff. "You want me to show you something?"

Pepper rocked back and forth in her seat, her large hairy hands gripping the edge of the chair as she nodded her head limply while making unintelligible laughing noises. Jen hopped up from the neighboring chair and retrieved her own painting, and for what it was worth, slid it in front of the microcephalic so she could eye it with interest. Her good eye got very wide while the other stayed stagnant, twitching as if it wished to do what the other was doing.

"Pretty good, right?"

Pepper sucked on her bottom lip and scrunched her eyes, touching the drying surface of Jen's painting with her oversized fingers. She struggled to pronounce a new word. "J- Jen paint." Pepper rocked, proud of herself.

"Thanks." She sat back down, eyeing Lana across the room,who was grinding her cigarette in an ashtray, finishing it off and looking back up to Jen's own eyes as Margaret used her doll's porcelain hands to move the record needle. Blue Moon started to fill the large common room. Jen wasn't sure what was worse; Dominique playing on a constant loop, or a million records consistently being switched out. Then, of course, there were the dumbasses who insisted on playing the same song again and again. As long as it kept them from breaking apart at the seams, the staff didn't seem to mind, but it bothered the hell out of Jen. Like reading the same story over and over again to a young child.

"You like it?"

Pepper nodded enthusiastically, shoving her hands over her face and giggling in a muffled voice that sounded smushed into the back of her throat. She didn't speak, but her delight was obvious.

"Know what, you can keep it. That make you happy?"

The woman, grinning and peeking out from behind her hirsute hands, offered Jen a paintbrush in consolation, admiring the shitty painting that Jen placed within her reach. She had come to feel bad for her - she was used as an example more often than not, made a fool of, and she never got the memo that she was the little pointy-headed lab rat. It was sickening to think that Pepper could do such a gory, preposterous task such as to murder her sister's infant.

"Where is this, Pepper?" Jen raised her eyebrows, pointing to the painted trees that were mostly dry, spotted in milky wet paint in portions where it was slicked on rather thick. Pepper was swirling a frayed brush in the chunky, half-dry yellow. Jen placed a hand on her trembling face, guiding it gently up to hers. "Where's this picture?"

With Jen's hand on her cheek, her eyes drifted to the window. Like every other window in Briarcliff, aside from the one in Sister Jude's office, was boarded up with indented chain links to prevent any "accidents", and the ones in the common room were no exception. Still clutching the child-like painting of Jen's in her sluggish fingers, crumpling it against her large-collared smock, Pepper grabbed her hand and dragged her in her oafish gait towards the window. Eagerly, she throttled against it, gripping the chain links drilled over the cold glass panes.

"Easy there, Schlitzie." Muttering under her breath, Jen sighed audibly. This was a little more difficult than she assumed it would be. But what more had she expected from Pepper... She was lucky she talked at all.

"Play outside." She chuckled, her high-pitched laugh resounding over the chords of the delightfully happy record's tune. "Play outside with me?"

"Jen can't." Jen shook her head, placing her palms on her shoulders. She was bony in the limbs but rather thick in the middle, an all-around freaky looking person. "I can't go outside. But you can, can't you? Does Sister Jude let you outside?"

The woman stared longingly through the chain linked grate, her glassy eye twitching. "I play outside!"

Jen sighed. It was like talking to a child, but in truth, she couldn't really blame Pepper for her birth defect. Just because she was a social outcast didn't mean she should be shunned in a place full of maniacs and psychopaths. Jen was getting irritated though, a chronic hothead when it came to trying to gain information from others, especially people as screwed up as Pepper.

"Where do you like to play?" Her voice was an even keel, attempting to remain calm as impatience coursed through her veins like morphine. The drilled hole behind her ear was beginning to ache with the effort of pumping blood vessels; it had began to crust over a few days ago, causing discomfort while lying on her side, like the blood was all gushing to one side of her skull. It was cumbersome to try and sleep with her affliction and even darker purple bags had began to form under her eyes. "In the trees? Jude let you go that far?"

Her nose twitched slightly like a bunny rabbit and she nodded after letting the words sink in. "Hide and seek."

"Where? Show me."

Jen peered through the mesh as Pepper scuttled closer, bumping into the fencing as if she'd forgotten it was there, panting with excitement that Jen was "playing" with her again. Her sluggish eyes wandered across the courtyard. It was covered in a coating of brittle Autumn leaves, the surrounding trees naked aside from a few stray tagalongs clinging to the uppermost portions of the branches reaching towards the stormy skies. One last November rainstorm was blowing in before the frost turned it to snow. Jen knew it would undoubtedly be icy sleet.

"Pepper?" She'd lost her attention. She was easily distracted, so she had to keep her engaged. Jen took both of her hands that were Cro-Magnon-like, smoothing her thumbs over them lightly. It seemed to be a foreign feeling to Pepper, but she smiled anyway, accepting Jen's cold fingers over the surface of her hands. "Point where you play."

Pepper retracted her hands, eager to show Jen just where he favorite place to play was. Jen was aware that they occasionally let her outside to run off steam so she didn't go digging through the common room or get lost in the corridors that were daunting for a confused, four-foot-five microcephalic.

She was pointing towards a grove of bare trees swaying in the whistling breeze, shaking the remaining straggler leaves from the thick top branches. The tiny grove seemed to spill into an apron of trees from the left portion of the courtyard. That must be where Lana was chased by whatever she thought she saw out there. An animal, a feral being, whatever creature lurked under he cover of night.

"You ever been into those woods?"

She saw the pang of fear strike her shrunken face and she cringed slightly. She might not be very smart, but the emotion was spot on. No woods. There was enough time for Jen to fashion a small but reassuring smile as she patted her shoulder. She only needed a few more answers and tenderness just might get it from a deprived freak.

"Say you and me, we're standing out by those trees where Sister Jude let's you play, huh?" Jen put her arm around her shoulders. It was barely possible, but she was for once larger than her current counterpart, having to lean down to speak in her large ear. "Which way is the road? Do you know?"

Pepper was straining, attempting to recollect anything other than picking the flowers from the institution's garden, playing hide and seek with herself and the trees. She blinked a few times before pointing towards the right side of aproning trees, looking slightly unsure.

"Thanks." Jen grinned half-hearted, planting a big kiss on her extended forehead, much to her delight. She smiled without her teeth, scrunching her features up with joy and squealing intelligibly. Rudy had pulled his hand from his pants long enough to change the record and he strode away, shaking his head as Walk in Jerusalem started to fill the common room after some static chatter. Jen sighed. She'd better reward Pepper for paying attention long enough to help in the smallest amount.

"You like Mahalia Jackson?" She smirked out of one side of her mouth, pulling Pepper closer to the record player, taking her hands and spinning her around. She was skittish and awkward on her feet but she laughed with divine joy, spinning into Jen's waiting arms. "Me too."

XXX

The large tray of steamy bread threatened to topple in Lana's arms as she carried it towards the rolling rack already piled as high as it could go with similar trays of various versions of rolls and cake breads, each of which were created by insane hands. Her triceps quivered as she stood on her tiptoes, shoving the wobbly tray to the top rack where an empty space had been left just big enough to house the newest member of the tray family.

Lana brushed off her hands,wiping the leftover flour on the front of her apron, untying the knot around her neck and stretching her arms behind her back. It ached from leaning over the table, kneading dough for hours on end, and she longed for nothing more than to sleep. It was weeks ago she'd had a decent sleep. Close to months now.

She peered around. A few nuns were contributing to cleaning up the day's mess, wiping down the counters and mopping the spilled flour of of concrete floors.

The other hooks were already hung with plenty of dirty aprons, and Lana slung it over the one that was the least used out of the ten, cracking her knuckles and leaning over at the sink. God, she was tired. She'd been tired for days; at Briarcliff, if you were lucky enough to sleep at all with the aid of minimum dose Valium pills, it was never rest. It was close to the feeling of being under the knife. It was dark and she lost the time forever, but Lana was still exhausted when she awoke.

"Lana," Sister Felicity, one of the nuns aged closer to sixty, placed a hand on the small of Lana's back and guided her to a closed door marked Staff Only, nodding lightly. "I trust you to lock up the storage rooms for me while we finish straightening up the kitchen." Her smile was trusting, so trusting. It was then that Lana thanked herself for being such a good actress. She'd made a believable impression on anyone who had paid attention.

As she struggled with the lead-weighted door, the sudden gush of air from an open window at the back assaulted her nose with the scent of cleaning supplies and dried-out mop hair. She choked at the intensity if the smell and breathed through her mouth as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her denim jumper, shivering as frozen gales of wind cut through to the bone and goose flesh broke out on her bare arms while her teeth made an audible chattering noise. She stiffened, eyebrows knitting together as she strode to the window, using all of her internal might to shove it closed as fat raindrops started to splatter the screen. Any other time she would have enjoyed the breeze; it has been so long since she'd been outside, but the year was drawing to a close. December was upon Massachusetts, nearly all of fall had been dismissed.

Thumbing along the columns of empty clothing racks, she located an empty single hanger, heart thrusting out of her chest in a positively jerky manner. If she was caught...

The bronze-colored hanger was not difficult to manipulate. It bent like putty in her diligent hands as she tore its structure apart, bending it in on itself until it was folded in multiple sections with the circular metal facing outwards. It would do.

XXX

"I can't confess."

Dr. Thredson leaned back in his wooden swivel chair with an ancient creak, tapping his knee elegantly as he took one single drag of his newly lit cigarette. His watch on Jen was with interest, like a soldier watching the people of the city. Deep down, he didn't trust her. Nobody did these days, anyway. That's wasn't about to turn right around for her. Especially not to some stuffy psychiatrist.

"Why can't you confess?" Thredson's pupils dilated at least a millimeter as he questioned her, eyeing the roll of tape that spun in the recorder. Something about it made her nervous, though in truth, Oliver didn't seem like the kind of man who could use something like a recording against her. She said the same exact things each session, which would do nothing to sway the courts to believe she was either a psychopath or simply a crazed, mentally ill woman. Diseased of the mind, as one might call it, but she was anything but diseased.

"Can't confess to a crime I didn't commit."

The doctor sighed. "Jen..."

"Look, I think you and me both know these "therapy" sessions sure are bullshit. It's the same old chicken dance every day; you tell me what you think I did. I tell you I didn't fucking do it. You give me the facts. We pussyfoot around until it's time for me to leave."

"The least you can do is humor me. This is my career, after all."

"Why don't you just shoot. Go ahead, melt my brain. Convert my introvert ways all that you can, doctor."

He shuffled some papers with both hands, clamping his smoking cigarette in his molars until he could hold it between two fingers again. "I have an alternative. Are you willing to listen?"

After moments of silence, Jen nodded.

"You were a lowly regarded woman involved with the bottom classes who was under an exhuming amount of stress." He nodded expectantly towards her, shaking his head just slightly. Jen saw pity shining in those dark, cold irises of brown. She didn't need his pity or his lies. "It was building up, and up, and up. Until one day," Thredson ground the remaining portion of his cigarette in the ashtray, flicking the still-flaming ashes from the ends of his fingertips. "You snapped. You needed something to relieve this overwhelming stress.

"Alma Walker was out that very same night that you decided you couldn't take it a moment longer. An innocent African American woman, buying groceries. You might have even peered across the isle at her until you snuck back to the parking lot and struck her with a crowbar."

"No."

"I have a question for you, Jennifer." He paused, blowing smoke from his brand new joint from between his handsome bow lips. He was a desirable man with distinguished features, the kind of guy her parents would have liked to see her hanging around. He offered her a cigarette while adjusting his dark brow line Ronsir glasses. She leaned in close to him so their foreheads nearly touched, lighting the joint that stuck out of her lips like a farmer's toothpick. She puffed, coughing lightly. God, she hated cigarette smoke. "Have you ever been electrically shocked before?"

Jen shrugged, shoulder blades touching each other on her back underneath the baggy denim jumper hanging off her tiny body. "Sure."

His lips curled. "To what extent?"

"Probably a shock from a socket or something."

"Was it painful?"

"I guess."

"Imagine that pain," he paused, tapping the ash from the end of his cigarette, holding the smoldering stick in between two of his thick fingers. "Multiplied by a thousand. Your eyes - say goodbye to them, because they're going to roll back into your head and melt like vanilla ice cream. And while you're at it, your brain will cook like a pot roast in the oven. All the while, your skin will be turning to charred red bacon while your fingernails deteriorate to nothing but crispy marshmallows."

"You're not sending me to the fuckin' chair." Jen growled, a little humor left in her dry tone.

"Acute clinical insanity, at the least." His eyebrows raised for a brief moment, perhaps out of spite. "I don't decide whether or not you go to the chair. But I'm only your conduit. It's my job to inform you that you've only two options. As your therapist and somewhat of a lead-out for you, I'd cringe to see an innocent person fry. But I have to evaluate you, Jennifer. If I don't and I come up with no counter evidence, you're quite literally toast."

Jen bit her lower lip and felt water stinging the ducts in the corners of her blue-jay eyes. "Dr. Thredson-" she paused, feeling the wetness on her cheeks. She told herself that it was from the burning smoke. She wouldn't cry, not in front of this man, not in front of anybody. "Sir, I - I don't want to die."

He looked uncomfortable, as if he wasn't quite sure what to do. That was strange. He always knew the answers and it wasn't quite right. "The only way the court will ever rule with you is if you plead insanity. You can't get away with murder, no matter what the circumstance, but if you value your life as it is, even in this hellhole, I can help you. But you need to stop fighting me."

She peered up through her stringing hair, wetness boiling in her moist eyes. "I didn't kill anybody! I couldn't hurt a fly, I couldn't! Please, oh god! Everyone thinks I killed that lady..." Overwhelmed, she brought her knees to her chest,mooching and weeping ugly noises into her hands that covered her face. She refused to peek at him.

His hands were soon in her shoulders, comforting her with ease and a manly unfamiliarity she had never felt before. "You were angry." He ceased, kneeling and opening his hands on her face like she was a flower bud blooming and his fingers were the leaves cupping the petals. "You were in a rage, so you decided to take it out on a complete stranger-"

"No, no, no." She pulled away from him, shaking, refusing to believe.

"The psyche is a strange place, Jennifer. I, of all people, know that is true. You've blocked this traumatic experience out of your mind for a reason."

"NO!" She exploded, crumpling into yet another weeping mess. "I didn't touch Alma Walker, I don't even know her, I -" her words turned to unintelligible screams of terror at what she never would have believed she'd do. Kill a woman, take a soul, pray to God, if there was one, to take her to. "I didn't, I didn't."

He was making her crazy, bending her mind, causing her to really become the basket case everybody thought she was. "I'm not a murderer." She finally sobbed through her runny nose and damp eyes. "I couldn't be."

Oliver took her hands, rubbing his large thumbs over the cracked and dry surface of them. Her fingernails were cracked from bread dough and the dry air of the institution, causing her skin to split like peach frost. "I don't see you fit for trial, Jen." He spoke softly, careful around her. He was afraid she might just burst. Again. "Your only other option is to plead insane."

Hot tears paraded down her cheeks, causing her face to become dry with the leftover water that was already beginning to become crusted. "I'm not insane." She pulled away from the repulsing man, wishing more than anything to never see him again. To never see anyone again. She thrust her hands over her ears, growling. "I'm not fucking crazy, damn it. I'm not, I didn't kill anyone. I didn't kill anyone. Stop fucking telling me I'm crazy!"

"Jen." Oliver shook his head and stood up, strait ending his vertebrae entirely until he was on his feet. He was average in height, but Jen noticed that, curled up in the chair like she was, he was rather hulking. She rubbed the fresh gauze bandage taped behind her ear. He looked concerned then, reaching to touch the bandage with interest. "What happened?"

"Nothing." She snapped, hoping to God he wouldn't ask any more questions about it. It was her business in the first place, and if she still had a thread if anything in this place, she had her own personal business.

Dr. Thredson dropped his hand, letting it hang limply at his side as he raised his mother hand, and like a striking cobra, seized her wrist with the other. His grip was not harsh but his fingers coiled around her thickly, causing the heartbeat in her wrist to pump heavily, reverberating in the very tips,of her fingers. He placed the pad of his thumb in the middle and looked at his watch after shrugging the sleeve to his suit coat up, counting her pulse, glancing at her a few times. When he was through, he set her hand gently on her knee.

"Your pulse is quickened enormously." Jen only sat docile, rubbing her wrist where Dr. Thredson's fingers had left red marks from lack of circulation in her hand. "This could indicate that the tachycardia you're experiencing is because of instantaneous stress..." He shook his head. "Or the recent injection of isoproterenol hydrochloride."

Dr. Arden pushed her tawny hair aside and she heard the unmistakable clink of metal instruments against her lower body. Jen let out a loud groan at the numbness that was beginning to spread from her core to her thighs. Her breaths came in asthmatic wheezes and she puffed on the operating table, barely having the strength to struggle against them any longer.

"Ah-ah," Dr. Arden shook his head, and she let out a shriek when the cold needle penetrated her neck.

"I only take what they give me." Jen shuddered at the memory of the medicine coursing through her jugular vein, flowing into her bloodstream with syrupy ease. "That horse tranquilizer shit."

Oliver seemed to be taking mental notes as she spoke, which she least he wasn't the type of shrink that took notes on a leather notepad and nodded as if he understood. He didn't understand. Before he opened his mouth to speak again, the phone on the desk screamed shrilly, causing him to strode to the desk, picking it up from the cradle, answering with a firm questioning, "Hello? Yes. Alright. I'll have her sent down. Thank you. No, I doubt it. Goodbye."

Jen was furiously swiping the drying tears from her eyes as the psychiatrist strode to her again. "I'm sorry Jen, but I'm afraid we'll have to cut our session early. Let's plan on meeting again tomorrow after your kitchen duties to make up for lost time."

"What? Where am I going?"

"All patients are to be escorted to the common room for early lights out. Sister Jude's orchestrations, I presume. I'll take you to the common room myself." He offered her his hand up but she refused it, shaking to her feet with the aid of her hands pushing off the arm rests of the rickety office chair. Dr. Thredson's office was temporary of course, as he did not hold a permanent position at Briarcliff.

"Why is there early lights out?" She demanded, clawing at her wrists to rid herself of the chaffing restraints. It was ridiculous how she was still brought to him in cuffs. The authorities were under some delusion that she was a dangerous criminal raging from the inside out.

"I don't know." He took her arm and pulled her up gently easy on her raw, sore wrists. Graciously, he undid the thick buckles constraining her wrists to the leather and wool cuffs, leaving them on his desk where the work lamp still shone against faucets and dust motes, holding her blue and white striped sweater out for her. She turned around and slid into the sleeves, shivering as a fresh,large crack of thunder from outdoors echoed across the room as lighting returned the thunder's call. The room was lit up with brilliant white color, a sudden flash of one giant demented camera. Hail started to spatter against the windowsill, like marbles spilling from a drawstring bag, and Jen could feel the coldness seeping into the room as Dr. Thredson started to escort her out of his office.

A light above them flickered and she heard a not-so-distant scream of terror as more thunder shook and rattled the windows audibly. Thredson took long strides and she trotted to keep up with him through the confusing corridors to the common room. It was already packed, and Oliver grabbed her arm and pulled her aside.

"Do as they tell you and don't mess around." He warned,leaning down to her level. She could smell the starch on his white collar, along with the smoke-mint smell of his breath. She tugged on her arm, attempting to be free of his grip, but he held fast. "It would be in your favor to so everything they say, Jen."

"I can take care of myself." She hissed, pulling free of his fingers that crumbled away from her arm, weaving into the already-gathered crowds some very hiding behind chairs, cowering, unable to move, and then there were those who couldn't stop moving. A dark-skinned man twitched while he paced back in forth, thrusting his arms up every now and then involuntarily, and a woman shook her tangled, ratty hair against the wall,sobbing for release.

Jen scanned the crowd for any signs of Lana, spotting her with Kit closer to the piano that's at pushed up against the wall to occupy patients' free time if they were antsy. She was looking away, towards the common room entrance doors that swung open, so their eyes didn't meet. Damn it. Damn it.

A shrill whistle noise broke the air, causing some of the inmates to put their hands over their ears, howl in pain, and Sister Jude strode to the center of the common room. "There will be early lights out due to the severe storm watch for the next twenty-four hours and the electrical difficulties plaguing the facility. You'll go to bed early."

The crowd of patients chattered and complained, but Sister Jude blew her whistle again in four short blasts to shut them up. "There will be none of that, none of that! You'll be escorted to your rooms within the next fifteen minutes."

It was chaos as struggling men and women, deprived of their free time and music, were dragged kicking and screaming into their cells, locked with skeleton keys. An orderly escorting Jen with his thick hand gripping her arm passed the room that Pepper was thrown into, scratching at the door that closed on her and crying to get out. The warden holding her arm led her down the familiar women's ward corridor, opening her cell door and pushing her in. She scowled at him as the door shut behind her, waiting and listening to the howling and crying of those around her. Another orderly led Shelley into the adjacent room and Jen could hear the grate click, shutting her in as well.

"Jen?" Shelley's voice came muffled from the opposite side of the wall. "What's going on?"

Jen pressed her ear to the wall and shook her head. "I don't know."

The thunder overruled the yelling, whistling, begging as it boomed, resulting in more terrified shrieks and groans throughout the hall. There was no way it would quiet down much by the end of the night. Jen shivered and slid into bed with her shoes still on, sitting up and wrapping her gray wool blanket around her shoulders. Her breath was visibly frosty in the air and she breathed on her hands to warm the numb fingertips. Darkness cloaked the hallway now, nothing more than a desolate wasteland filled with vaporous breaths and wheezing from the inmates that had stopped crying only minutes ago. This assault on impulse must have been hard for those with their set schedules. Jen cracked her knuckles, still trying to keep her hands warm.

The dull lights left on in the hall flickered with each assault of thunder. It was getting closer and closer, throttling the building as if it might implode and crumble down. Jen bit her lip as a far-off air siren sounded in the distance, reminiscent of a bomb siren.

Suddenly, the bulbs in hallway flickered immensely and went black. Jen was in the dark until a strange flashing red light of dull crimson illuminated the hallway. She thrust out of bed and felt for the slick metal handle, pushing the door open with a creak. A few other doors were swinging simultaneously as well, other already in the hallway.

The flashing red beam, Jen guessed it was an emergency-generated light, switched from one end of the corridor to the other, causing one end to be illuminated at a time. Others were just curious, concerning the power outage, but Jen felt a hand grab at her arm harshly, pulling her against the wall.

"Lana?" Jen hissed in the darkness, realizing how fast her heart was beating.

"We have to go." Lana whispered over the sound of a soft buzzing from the red beam light. "This is our chance, Jen."

Lightning illuminated the hallway for a split second reflecting off of Lana's damp face. A bead of sweat was formed on the bridge if her nose, opposed to the steadily dropping temperature. "Let's go. Now."

Lana grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the north end of the hall, weaving through the other patients that sleepily eyed them with disinterest as their sneakers slapped against the concrete. The entire building was dark, aside from the occasional flashes of lightning outdoors and the dim hues of red that were the emergency beams. Jen yanked open the door at the end of the hall and followed Lana down the next corridor to the left.

"You know where you're going?" Jen yelled over the pounding rain and sounds if the thunderstorm. It would be impossible for anyone to hear her - Lana could barely even make out what she was yelling.

"It's down the staff hallway, spills out into the main corridor." She yelled, grabbing Jen's hand again and yanking her against the wall. Her breath was ragged, and Jen opened her mouth to speak, but Lana shoved her hand over her mouth quickly, holding her pressed close to her body. Jen's eyes rolled side to side as a few orderlies dressed in white strode down the hallway beating flashlights. Neither of them could make out what they were saying, but it was muffled and loud enough that Jen could comprehend that they were talking. She could feel Lana chest heaving beneath her body weight as they passed, and the woman sighed with relief.

"Coast is clear." Jen breathed with relief, following Lana's lead again down the flickering hallway. There were two peeling cream doors marked STAFF ONLY, and they pushed them open with gusto, bursting into the room. It appeared to be for storage mostly, some old mattress frames and and boxes of supplies, metal trays. The walls were lined by rusted green storage lockers and the walls were plaster. "Are you sure it's here?"

Lana struggled to move a folded mattress on a frame, stopping only to nod. "Oh, yeah. It's here." Jen helped her move the rest of the junk, revealing a chute door with a crank handle. Lana pulled it open and she jumped through, closing it behind them.

An assault of cold air assaulted her skin, wrapped only in the baggy denim dress, black ankle socks, and her striped sweater. A dripping noise, coming from somewhere on the ceiling of the tunnel was close by and she could hear the immense rustle of tree branches swaying in the frozen wind. Their sneakers slapped puddles as they ran down the length of the eerie tunnel, around a cart that had remained docile for years that reminded her of a mine shaft, down the tracks of the course towards what ironically was the light.

Jen laughed when they hit the shower of rain, twirling in it like a little girl dancing in puddles. It was a sleet that stung her skin like needles, piercing through the dermis like red hot miniature swords, but the air was enough to bring a smile to her face. She looked to Lana who was relishing in the blinding downpour as well, soaked through to the skin.

"I never thought I'd feel rain again!" Jen screamed over the gushing, overwhelming howl of rain. "I always hated it but it feels so good!" She didn't have any other way to contain her joy,so she threw her arms around the other woman and laughed into her sopping sweater. Lana squeezed her gently, urgently, smiling as her wet sweater was flapping at her shoulders and sopping wet hair that was a dark chestnut against her glistening skin.

"The road is through the woods!" She yelled over the mercilessly loud winds.

"This way!" Jen pointed towards Pepper's hide-and-seek grove, or at least what she presumed it to be, her already soaked muddy shoes slapping on the moist ground as Lana followed closely after her through the blindingly cold sleet. There was a slight incline and Jen slipped in the mud, falling on her backside before yanking herself back up again. The freezing, slick substance coated the left side of her body now and when they tore into the forest, her body felt weighted.

"The road must be through here." Jen pointed in what she hoped to God was indeed the correct direction, and Lana nodded. "A few miles north."

"Stay together, close. We can't get separated from each other, we'll never find one another again in this rain."

"I think-" her voice was shrouded by a menacing howl from somewhere close-by, something along the lines of a humanoid screech, and she grabbed Lana's sweater by the back of her neck, pulling her against the bark of a tree. She oofed in pain from the impact and Jen swore under her breath.

The creature limped out of the brush, the most disturbing thing Jen had ever seen, perhaps even more frightening than her nightmares. It was something so inhumane, so grotesque. Its face was contorted and humanoid, beyond recognition of, perhaps, the human it might have been once. The way the thing moved was like a wild animal with little human contact, little contact to others like itself. Jen bit her lip, shoving her own hand over her mouth and panting heavily,wheezing breathless gasps as she pressed her back against Lana's torso.

Lana let out a whimper, clamping her own hand over her trembling lips. Jen's mind screamed so desperately 'run, run, run!', but her legs refused to comply. The thing, rasping heavily enough to be audible over the thunder and drawn-out sirens in the distance, shuffled closer, not giving much mind to the fact that it's bare, encrusted feet slid in the sludge that was once solid ground but became a muddy pit.

Hungrily, it let out another bellow and smelled the air with a twitching, disfigured snout. Another came tumbling through the brush like a heathen, growling in the back of its throat like a feral dog.

"What the hell do we do?" Jen hissed, blinking the raindrops from her eyes. It was no use, they were coming down like waterfalls from the sky now.

Lana grabbed her hand and glanced at the creatures. "Run."

Jen gulped and nodded once before they tore out through the trees, never daring to look back. Adrenaline coursed through her veins as she panted heavily, heart burning out of her chest like her organs were made entirely out of flesh-eating acid. She could hear the beasts behind them, clipping through the mud at a surprisingly fast pace. The rain had become thicker, as the trees had thinned out and were bare of leaves, giving little coverage to the pouring rain. Ahead of her, where she was blind to the heather sheets of rain, a scream echoed. Oh, God damn it -

"Lana?!" She screamed, turning every direction. Jen was trapped in a confusing earth of fog, surrounding her from every direction, and the rain came down so heavily now that she could barely open her eyes. Lana's screams echoed again throughout the trees, this time in more pain, and Jen began to become frantic.

Lightning lit up the sky and she saw the world in that moment, lit up as a time of day. Her shoes were useless now, caked in so much mud that it might have just been easier to kick them off and go barefoot, but the woods were jagged. A menacing bray reverberated, making the rain sound hallow, and Jen scooped up a large stone, curling her fingers around it and holding it up. The screaming had stopped and Lana was gone. Gone. Lana was gone.

"Lana?" She cried again, feeling a twisting sensation in her stomach. Her voice was barely even audible to herself. "Cherry? Come on, now. Come on. Let's find you, now. Yeah, that's right, I'll find you... Nothing bad's gonna happen."

Her lip trembled as lightning lit up the sky again and there was only a moment to view the creature, face bloodied and hands covered in the same wet, red substance, that lunged at her. Grimy nails raked against her skin, causing lesions to raise on her neck and torso as it bit at her like a savage. She screamed and banged the rock against its head with an unknown strength deep down, a strength she didn't know she possessed. The strength to kill something. It was probably a goner with the first blow, but she screamed again, grunting each time she whacked its head with the blunt stone until it was nothing but a soiled pot roast resting on a pair of hunched shoulders.

Panting in the pouring rain, she could feel hot blood seeping from her wounds, her hands covered in so much of the hot syrupy substance that she wasn't quite sure which blood was hers and which wasn't. Weakly, with arms burning and trembling with claw marks received from the now twitching, dead creature, she rose to her feet, letting the bloody rock roll from her fingertips as another strike of lightning lit up the body curled in the mud, soaked to the bone like a raccoon carcass on the side of the road after a rain storm. She kneeled beside Lana, taking her bloody hands. One of them still grasped a blood-stained piece of metal, a coat hanger that was contorted and manipulated to be a weapon. Her eyes were fluttered closed, more or less lifeless, and the back of her torn dress and sweater were soaked in red.

"Come on, Lana, wake up." She cried, shaking her body. It swayed on the ground and Jen sat the woman up so rainwater didn't clog her nose. It was impossible to tell if she was breathing in this severe weather, but she leaned down close to her mouth,feeling for breath. After a few painful seconds of silence, Lana spluttered, extremely feeble. "Come on, no more shit, let's go." She failed to believe the other woman could not to on, but Lana slumped in her arms, shivering against her wet striped sweater.

"Jen..." She whispered, teeth chattering immensely.

"Come on, you can't stay here. Not now, you'll never get back up. They're gonna come looking for us."

"You're hurt." Lana whispered hoarsely, touching Jen's chin where hot blood mixed with rain and tears. She winced and pushed Lana's hands away, refusing to feel the pain. Adrenaline would do for now.

"We gotta go. Can you get up?" Jen dragged her own body to her feet, wobbly and teetering painfully. Her entire torso was numb and she was starting to feel the cold. Both she and Lana's breath crystallized in the frozen rain, warming droplets on the way down. Her limbs felt like warped wood as she rubbed her palms on her arms to keep warm,

Lana struggled on the ground, letting out a pained cry but refusing to slump back down again. Jen grabbed ahold of her arm and pulled her to her feet, draping her arm around her shoulders. "Just think," she grunted, half-dragging the woman who was only half-alive, slowly fading. Jen felt blood beginning to trickle down her leg, and scooped up the bloody and bent coat hanger shank from the mud. "Just think, you'll be home with Wendy in no time, Cherry. Huh? Imagine she's gonna hug you, and squeeze you, and wrap you up in blankets, okay?"

Lana was struggling to keep her eyes open while Jen stayed half-vigilante for more of the rasping creatures. "Jen..."

"Stop it, you keep your eyes open. You just need to get us there, so you just do your part." Jen snapped, shaking the dripping hair out of her eyes. She wasn't very good at encouragement, but she knew Lana was strong-willed. "Once we get to the road, you tell me where to go. Where your house is." Jen was becoming weaker with more and more of Lana's weight leaning on to her. She limped through the soggy forest, blinking the droplets off of her lashes through the darkness.

XXX

The neighborhood was unsurprisingly torn apart from the severe storm. Trees were down, mechanical pieces of machines and wooden porch furniture strewn about the sidewalks from the record winds that whipped the power lines around like they were nothing more than threads of twine used in the cat's cradle. The world was asleep, much too drowsy and immersed in slumber to realize that there was real horror to be discovered somewhere not so far away.

The rain had become less harsh and biting but in another sense it was worse because the temperature had dropped dramatically. Jen looked down at her hands. Her fingertips were a bluish hue, as were her ears, if she could see them. Each step was a limp and she could feel dried and fresh blood caked in with the filth. The rain surprisingly hadn't done too nice of a job of rinsing their bodies. They were filthy, and while the water had washed away the caked chunks, it failed to clean the rest off and it had become wedged painfully in Jen's wounds.

"This is familiar." Lana cleared her throat, unraveling her arm from around Jen's shoulders and Jen's from around hers. The world, street lamps, tossed trees, pattering puddles, went reeling around beneath her and she suddenly lost the recollection of what was up and what was down. Lana grabbed her arm before she could topple, slinging the smaller woman's arm around her shoulders again. Her feet were sluggish. Dragging. She didn't know how much longer she could go on. "Jen? Don't close your eyes."

"I ain't goin' anywhere, ease it on the blush, Cherry." She opened her eyes back up, seeing it was a relief to Lana that she'd regained a portion of her sarcasm. She pulled Lana's arm back around her, exhausted but in disbelief. It was surreal to be on the outside once she'd spent plenty of her life in that institution.

Jen's head was a whirlwind of colors and shapes as she reeled back and forth into Lana's arm that wrapped around her shoulders, each step becoming even more painful and undeniably unbearable. She was numb with pain, fingertips harsh and unfeeling, and the pain was comparable to a million needles stabbing her deep into the soiled skin of her back over and over, reopening the coiled gouges across her neck and chest. Lana was far gone as well - they might have been much better off if they hadn't had to kill the beast hours ago, before all of this pain and suffering. Jen shivered, partly from the ice rain and partly because she couldn't bore the image of the dead creature from her mind.

Somehow, after night had reached an impasse and become a silently eerie burden, they had arrive, after Lana's weak and muffled navigating, on a small doorstep; a quaint rock garden left to fend for itself during the storm even though the flowers had long since died away due to the frost. A pair of wind chimes, lonesome and beguiling, shuddered in the severe wind, making ugly clanking instead of the usual cheerful tinks of joy.

Lana slung Jen off of her, attempting to be gentle, but at that very point of night, Jen didn't feel anything. She nearly toppled over the railing of the small porch as Lana's cold, bloodstained fingers worked at the doorknob, yanking on it until she couldn't manage the strength.

"Come on, Wendy." She gasped, giving the door one last helpless pound. Jen reached for her as she teetered violently, placing her hand on her head. Disorienting as it was to be out of the rain and under the small porch's cover, Lana looked rather faint. "Wendy, Wendy come on." Tears of dread wracked her hoarse voice and she let out a groan, either of pain or anguish, Jen wasn't quite sure.

"Move." She panted, voice breathless, raspy, and barely there at all. Just as she was about to reach for Lana for support, the other woman was on the ground, body in a contorted position. Jen audibly swore, out of place on the porch of this cute little cottage, but she knew if she kneeled by her, she wouldn't be getting back up. Not tonight, anyways. "Lana? Lana, don't so this. Don't fuckin' so this, Lana!" She sobbed, rattling the door with the last of her strength. She was beginning to see black spots. "Wendy? Wendy Peyser, open up, please!"

Jen sobbed and rested against the door that rattled along with the entire house in the whining winds, crying for her freedom, crying for Lana, but most of all crying because she was exhausted and left oh so alone. If Wendy wasn't here, they'd - she didn't know. They'd just have to go somewhere else if either of them could make it. Oh God, they were in rough shape.

She jumped at the click of the lock, the black blotches obstructing her sight changing into bright flashing bulbs of artificial light reflecting in her retinas. Taking one look at the woman and letting out a baby cry, her damp eyes rolled to the back of her head as she collapsed on top of Lana's body on the concrete doorstep.

Alright, so I've been planning this chapter for quite some time, and sorry if it seems really extensive and super long! Kinda had to be...

Please let me know what you think!

Fact: Wendy and Lana's address is 694 Cricket Street

Fact: Connie does not like to have tea parties and play dress up. Instead, the four-year-old likes to pretend to slay monsters.

Fact: Wendy didn't have many friends as a child, but she liked to collect kites and fly them.