Warning applies in this chapter. Bad people doing bad things.
"Bella!" I hear through the fog. The tiny cracks in the ceiling fascinate me. Each one so random, crawling across the plaster and branching out into so many different spider webs of torment. Is that what my life is now? One tiny crack at a time until the ceiling just collapses onto everything?
"Are you there?" I know the voice, but it's been so long since I've heard it, and I yearn for it to be real. "Bella!"
"Emmett?" I whisper, but I always have a hard time knowing if I'm speaking out loud or in my head.
"Over here!"
The windows are all sealed shut as is Patient Mary's description from the tour, but I manage to find a tiny crack where someone had tried to break free but was unsuccessful, resulting in a window that can't be opened but can't be shut, and if I try hard enough, I can feel the barely there draft sneaking through. I peek through the barred metal mesh but it's hard to make out anything besides lifeless streaks of gray. "Emmett! Where are you?"
I can't see him, but I know for sure that I can hear him. "Right here, sister."
I cry out in both joy and sadness. "Oh my god, Emmett! It's really you! I miss you so much!"
"I miss you too! I tried to get Mother and Father to bring you back but they won't listen to me."
"You don't know what it's like in here! I don't think they're here to help me."
"I'm so sorry, Bella. I'll try—" We hear it at the same time. Both of us sucking in our breaths as footsteps stop at my prison's threshold and the creaking of the door swinging open. "Shit! Be strong, Bella!"
"Emmett! Wait!"
"I'll be back. I swear it!"
"No! Emmett! Please!" I claw at the crack in the window, willing it to break under my fingers' pressure.
"Patient Isabella?"
"Don't leave me!"
"Patient Isabella?" The footsteps get closer. "Why are you on the floor?"
His strong hands hook under my arms, but I fight to join my brother, hanging on just barely to the metal mesh. "Here let me help you," he says.
Orderly Hale hooks his arms under my body, lifting me away from my salvation and cradling me close to his body. I cry out for him to put me down, but I'm not too sure if my words are legible beyond my sobs. He lays me down on my bed, kneeling on the floor beside me, his lips offering words of comfort and soft caresses.
"Don't you worry, Isabella," he whispers through kisses against my forehead.
"We're here to help you." His wandering hands smooth over my body as I clutch at his sleeves willing him to stop, shaking my head no back and forth against the pillow.
"I'm here to help you." His fingers play at the hem of my beige uniform, tickling at the barely exposed skin, and crawling up my stomach. I feel the sudden urge to vomit.
"I'll make you feel all better."