Captivated

Escaped

I have no new readers to dedicate this chapter to so this is for everyone!

"Who", I demanded. "Who will be pleased?"

She giggled and danced out of my reach.

"You know who I am talking about. I did try to warn you. I thought we could be friends but you didn't listen to poor, old, lonely Lily, did you?" She stood on her toes as a ballerina would as pirouetted and tilted her head back. "Wasn't that elegant. And pretty?"

I stood up quickly, my chair falling back with a harsh thud at my sudden movement. My hands were clenched tight. I'm not sure what was going on but something was clearly wrong. All my instincts were screaming at me to run, run far away from here where no one could find me and hide.

"Ooh, not so fast, where are you going?" Lily sang, mockingly still dancing.

"Away. Home", I spat as I started to head for the door.

Out of nowhere, she appeared in front of me, gripping my arm with her nails digging in to hold me in place. Her other hand reached up and pulled my hair tie roughly causing me to cry in pain as my tight bun was tugged on. My hair fell back in a messy curly mop.

"Not yet", she hissed. "The time is not right. Sort your hair out".

"Let go of me!" I yelled, trying to snatch my arm back. "And give my hair tie back, what's your problem?"

"Sweetie, I am helping you", she smirked. "You will see, just wait a few more seconds".

I fumbled around in my pocket until I found the panic button and pushed it. The guard outside was alerted and quickly entered the room, his tranquillizer gun raised and aimed at Lily.

"Miss, let go of her and go back to your bed. NOW!" he shouted as he inched his way closer.

"Hello", she smiled. "Who do we have here? Why don't you just lower the gun, sugar?"

The guard remained motionless, watching her carefully. Lily pulled me closer and began smoothing my hair back in a faux loving way.

"What lovely curly hair you have Arya, you don't mind me helping you tame it do you?"

Every cell in me felt disgusted at the way she touched my hair and the way she was treating me. I decided to break the policy. I didn't care anymore if staff weren't allowed to harm patients, Lily was crossing a line. I quickly yanked my body away from her and pushed her, catching her unaware.

The guard pulled the trigger as soon as I was free and hit Lily square in the chest. Her grip loosened from my arm and then she let go. As she started to fall, the guard caught her body and dragged her back to her bed.

She noticed me watching and smiled smugly. "Set scene. Clear stage. And enter - the beast", she whispered as she fluttered her fingers at me. Suddenly a loud crash resonated through the building.

"Dr Carlson, we need to go. I'm going to escort you to the safe room, okay?"

I nodded in response, numbly.

"This is 66-42, escorting Dr Carlson to SR-3, Patient-0157 tranqed. Over". He called into his radio.

"66-42, This is 12-37. Coast clear, SR-3 accessible. Make haste, Over".

He nodded at me and reloaded his gun, this time with real bullets. My pulse immediately jumped at the sight. How much of a threat was this person?

He began leading his way through the dark corridors with only emergency lighting leading our way. All patient doors were locked with bars over them and it was strangely deadly silent. Medical trolleys were abandoned and not a single person was to be seen. It felt like a ghost town, something apocalyptic.