She Hunter

Chapter 5: A Time To Kill

[A/N: Dedicated to Regina Shelley for her awesome support and comments! Inspired me to finish writing this chapter in spite of just having bought a house with the hubby and moving in this week. :) Enjoy!]

Fear curled and rolled in my abdomen, sending ribbons of unease through my whole body. Don’t freak out, don’t freak out, DO NOT freak out. You can do, this Charlie. I kept a ceaseless babble going in my head so I wouldn’t chicken out and turn back to the relative safety of my locked room. She, however, was getting fed up with my mini panic attack.

“Go back to your room then,” She muttered with an edge of malice in Her voice.

I thought about it. I considered pretending that none of this existed, that no one was going to die tonight. I hesitated, my feet coming to a full stop in the middle of Caswell Memorial Hospital’s dark hallway. At the time, it didn’t quite register that this would be an extremely pivotal moment in my short life. I didn’t realize the impact that this little decision would have on my future…to walk forward or backward. To hunt, or be hunted. To risk my own miserable life, or seal the fate of another innocent.

“Go back to your warm, cozy bed and fall asleep while your dead mother rots in her grave. Do it, I dare you,” She snarled.

That did it. It was like this all-encompassing rage eclipsed my fear and replaced it with blind hatred. I may not be brave, but I was angry. And apparently, that was enough, because I felt a sinister smile roll across my face without my consent. She seemed satisfied, because the instructions came shortly after.

“You remember the girl who escaped yesterday?”

I blinked, surprised. Rowena? What did she have to do with any of this? Was she…a monster too?

“Rowena Adams?” I whispered.

“She’s not the Ghoul, but he does have her.”

I clenched my fists and thought my teeth would crack with the pressure I put on them. Little Rowena Adams was a goddamned angel. Abused, molested, broken, but an angel. Child Protective Services had placed her in the “care” of Dr. Metzing about a month ago. She was one of the few people I spoke to in this place. Her solo counseling sessions were directly before mine on Wednesdays, and if things ran long with other patients, I would sometimes sit with her and keep her company. She was sweet, and frail, and terrified of men.

My mind drifted back to one particular conversation we'd shared, fast-forwarding through the emotions that roiled within me. I recalled how her little face crumpled in fear when Thomas passed us and shot me a friendly smile. She had glanced frantically back and forth between us and reached out to take my hand with a swift desperation that momentarily made me forget how much I hated to be touched. Her nails dug into my wrist painfully and her death grip didn't cease until she watched his large and imposing form disappear around the corner. She had let out a sigh of pure relief and snatched her hand back away from mine.

Her cheeks were flushed and embarrassed, and a small soft corner of my rapidly-hardening heart ached for her. I had known pain, but she knew it so differently. I mercifully refrained from commenting on her mini panic attack and she looked up at me gratefully through long lashes. Those wide, frightened eyes would never leave my mind after that day.

I sought her out, made more of an effort than with any other "inmate" in B Wing, and she slowly began to trust me. I even requested her for my roommate, but Dr. Metzing deemed me an unfit friend for her due to my frequent and sudden outbursts of rage. As usual, Dr. Metzing was an ignorant bastard. There was no one that calmed me more than little Rowena. They set her up in a room with a practically comatose girl who refused to eat many a meal due to the food items on her plate not all being the same color. She needed a protector, not a color-coded closet, but what did I know? I was "Schizophrenia-girl."