𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 (Ash Trilogy #3) ✔️

35

The walls of time are closing in on me.

And there's nothing I can even be doing right now to prepare myself for tonight. Not when I'm handcuffed in a chair and screaming from pain while Dr. Levigne sits back, relaxing, smiling after injecting me with something red.

She crosses her leg and bounces one up and down, watching as if I were a movie.

When the pain finally comes to an end and I stop screaming, I hang my head down and take heavy breaths.

I hear her heels echo off the ground before she grabs my face and forces me to look at her. She grins in my face.

"How pathetic you are," she tilts her head and smiles. "Do you feel powerful now, Lucien? Stuck to this chair, at my mercy?"

Her words make me snap. I try and lunge forward, but the cuffs stop me. She stands to her full height and chuckles while stepping back. She puts her hands up and says, "Woah. Bad day, is it?"

I look at her with hate and nothing else. 

The door suddenly swings open and Dr. Levigne turns around to look at the guard.

"Hi!" Dr. Levigne gives him a fake smile and speaks in an artificial sweet tone. "How may I help you?"

She wasn't expecting him to come in, and neither was I.

"I have to bring him back now," the guard says. "It's the mandatory hour of outside time. Can't let him miss it."

Dr. Levigne fakes a laugh. She clasps her hands together and asks, "I mean....surely he can miss it once, right?"

"Sorry," the guard shrugs. "Rules are rules."

I smirk at Dr. Levignes's back. She tries to look like she wasn't disappointed, but she was.

"Well," she looks at me over her shoulder. "I'll see you next session, Lucien."

I watch her and her heels as she exits the room. No, you won't. 

The guard comes over to me. He uncuffs me and walks with me until I reach the door to the outside. The sun is bright, it makes my eyes wince. I use my hand to shield them and look around at everybody.

I begin walking toward Jayden who sits on the far bench and smokes a cigarette. The noise of me sitting down next to him startled him a bit, and he looked at me with confusion as I just sit here and look forward. 

"Can I have a cigarette?" I ask him. 

He continues to look surprised for a moment before replying, "Y-yea."

He reaches into his pocket and hands me a cigarette and a lighter. I put the stick between my teeth, letting it sit there before lighting it. I wasn't a smoker. I've smoked a handful of cigarettes before, but it was not something I enjoyed.

I exhale the smoke as I slip the lighter into my pocket.

"Where'd they take you after that thing with Lorenzo?" I ask while smoking with him as if we were friends.

He exhales before replying, "Got sentenced to more than life. They were adding the time on for it. Not like it mattered."

Just as I thought.

"I didn't do it," he quickly followed up with.

I don't know this guy. I don't know him or his story. But I can tell by the look in his eyes that he's just a kid that's scared.

I lean in closer to him. I whisper over the sound of birds chirping, "Maybe you should let the people here think you did, Jayden."

His eyebrows pull together.