Tainted | Hannibal Lecter

5. Not alone

Madison's head feels as if it's spinning uncontrollably, she leans back into the couch to try and stabilise herself.

"I feel... dizzy"
She slurs her words as she speaks

Hannibal places his hand on her knee and leans towards her.

"You're just tired."

She closes her eyes in attempt to stop the spinning.

Hannibal wouldn't touch her without her consent, he just wanted to watch her. He wanted to see her the way he did the first night she slept at his - peaceful and vulnerable.

He lifted her unconscious body and walked towards his front door.
Hannibal had been contemplating on taking Madison to where she's supposed to have been all this time. He dreamed of keeping her in his house forever, keeping her with him at all times and not letting anyone else speak to her. But he knew that that wouldn't work.
He also knew that if he told Madison she needed to go to the clinic, she would beg to stay with him for a few days longer. Hannibal is an intelligent man, a very intelligent man, but it doesn't take a genius to know that Hannibal would accept her request and keep her at his house. So, he decided to take her while unconscious - so he wouldn't be tempted to listen to her desires.
She will wake up tomorrow with little knowledge of how she had got there, but understand that Hannibal had helped her - it was crucial for her to know this.

After Hannibal had taken her to the clinic he felt a sort of grief, as if he had lost a part of himself. He questioned wether this is how Madison felt when losing her parents. That made him feel closer to her, knowing he's feeling the same emotions as she is.

When the morning came around, Madison woke in a bland room, similar to the hospital room she had stayed in. She became increasingly confused as the last thing she recalls was sitting in front of the fire with Hannibal. She assumes she fell asleep and Hannibal took her here.

She gets out of the bed and takes her time looking around the room. The first thing she sees two suitcases, one of them being the one Hannibal had taken to her in the hospital. She then walks over to a small window that looks out onto a communal garden, she sees two girls sat on a bench talking. Underneath the window is a desk, there were only 5 books and a few sheets of paper placed on it. After becoming quickly bored she looks over to the door. While walking towards it, she questions wether she can just leave.

She opens the door and is met with a narrow, dimly lit hallway. While walking down it she sees all the other rooms that she presumed belonged to the other patients. When she walks down a few stairs she comes to a large room in which most patients are in. Everyone turns and stares at her as she enters the room.
She starts backing away until a girl with blonde hair and an innocent smile approaches.

"Hi! You're Madison, right?"

Madison pauses for a few seconds while looking around the room at the staring girls.

"Oh ignore them, they're just jealous"

"Jealous?"

"Yeah! You're the only one here that they allow to have visitors."

"What? Why?"

"Well the man that brought you in here said he was a psychiatrist, so they've allowed him to come and visit you. I don't blame the other girls, i'm jealous too."

"Oh..."

"Come over here, they'll stop staring if you ignore them."

The girl leads her to a table covered with paper and pencils. Both girls sit down, Madison takes the chair facing away from the other girls.