I had no weapons. No means of obtaining one. Even if I were to devise an escape, what would I do once I got out? I could not go back to the Frankensteins, could not go back to Lake Como. I would be what I had always feared: cast out, penniless, destitute. The walls that bound me went far beyond this asylum.

Each day was the same, an infinite parade of degradations and torture accomplished by unyielding women and overseen by the condescension of uncaring men. If not mad already upon internment, surely no mind could withstand the torment of this hell.

I focused on avoiding laudanum, though I also longed for the release of it. Surrounded by blank-eyed, foggy-minded prisoners, I was both repulsed and envious. Was that how we endured? How we survived? It was how I had lived my whole life: willfully ignoring and erasing truths around myself.

I held off; the nurses did not care so long as I was manageable. But without a goal, without something to achieve, I could feel any resolve or strength I once thought I had slipping away. Soon, doubtless, I would let laudanum claim whatever time I had left before Victor was ready for me.

—

I had begun talking to the nurses, though they were rough and unkind and never spoke back. But I had to do something to occupy myself, and we inmates were not permitted much conversation at supper. I wanted to unburden my mind. To strip away all the falseness I had clothed myself in, until I stood, naked and unformed, truly myself.

Most days I spoke of Justine. Of my guilt. Of her goodness. I circled ever closer to the truth, a wound still too raw to touch. When I finally spoke the truth, I would give up. I would take the drugs. And I would look for whatever blank forgetfulness I could find.

The forty-fifth morning of my captivity, I lay on my cot with my eyes on the ceiling, trying to find pictures in the cracks of the plaster. The nurse came in with my food. Breakfast and dinner were choked down in solitude so we would not have our delicate nerves overtaxed by socialization.

I glanced at her, avoiding eye contact. The nurses interpreted a direct look as threatening; it was a guaranteed way to be bound to the bed for a day or two. I had begun to develop calluses on my wrists and ankles. Besides, I had just ended my monthly courses, during which I had not been permitted to leave my bed at all so as to avoid taxing my strength. I did not want to spend any more time than I had to in here.

But in my furtive peek, there was something in her clever dark eyes beneath the stiff white cap that reminded me of someone I had once known. Or maybe I just longed for a friend. Any friend.