“We all have natural instincts. A penchant to lash out in violence, to preserve and survive. Only, when we’re broken, there’s nothing holding back that instinct. Nothing to keep us from hurting anyone who gets in our way.”

My skin crawled. “I’m not like that. I’ve been set up. I have enemies—”

“The only enemy you have right now is you.” His words slipped out, the smooth calm of a blade. “Look what you do to yourself.”

I bolted, and he yanked, his grip tight on my hair.

I cried out as he pulled me, dancing about on my toes to keep my hair connected to my scalp. He urged me on and I stumbled up the stairs, and my gaze darted about—desperate, searching. Richard should be somewhere. The farther we went, the harder it would be for him to find me. Could he break me out of solitary? Would he try?

Yes, he would try. Richard would always try. And I would be ready.

16

The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.

~Felix Mendelssohn

Dr. Mitchell Turner stood, arms crossed, in the shadowed corridor. Through narrowed eyes, he watched his superior slip noiselessly from a padded cell, sliding the door closed behind him. “What are you doing in my ward?”

Dr. Thornhill swung around, blinking in the dimness, then turning to quickly latch the door and bolt it. “What I must. I have need of this room. It’s—”

“A relic of darker times. At least that’s what you promised me once.”

“Some inmates—”

“Patients.” Turner’s insides turned rock-hard.

“Some patients exhibit behavior that necessitates a return to more . . . barbaric methods.”

How warped humanity had become—a beautiful, imaginative creation of God tainted by this world, born into sin and chaos for thousands of years and devolving over time into this. “I cannot condone this practice.”

A good-natured smile smoothed over the man’s features. “Well then, it’s a good thing you’re not in charge.”

“You act as though the patients here are one step away from the beasts in our fields.” He couldn’t get past the image of poised, intelligent Cora Fletcher pretending to hold up the music for Mary Jo. Extreme humanity and kindness had poured from her, making her seem more solid and grounded than even the superintendent standing before him. He’d seen her wild and frantic the other night, but even then there’d been lucidity burning in her eyes. “Chaining them up this way, like animals—”