In Vendetta House (The Vendetta Series #1)

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

There are hushed voices tickling my ear. I inhale slowly, still unable to fully surface to consciousness, my thought process woozy.

Straining to hear, I barely pick out one single voice--a broken fragment of a conversation.

"I don't care. Hell itself can curse me for all it's worth."

"... serious. No ... her name is Ariel."

At this, my mind stirs to wake; to identify the voice. But my veins are sluggish, and I suspect a drug is running through my blood. My thoughts slow, and before I know it, my eyes are snapping properly open after a time lapse.

The world is doing multiple tilt-a-whirls.

I bolt upright and rapidly blink, nearly blinded by the white everywhere. It's not just a calm, plain white, like an old favorite tee shirt, but neon white, like a model's teeth bleached too many times.

I struggle to remember where I am, to recall the missing chunk in my brain. Then the images of this morning flash through my memory and I groan aloud. How many people in that store saw me throw a fit? How many people did I know? This would just be the gossip of the school: assuming I'll even be able to go back.

I sigh. Was the man I saw real? And how long had I been out for? I had no answers, no idea where I was and a drummer taking residency in my head.

Wincing, I take in the surroundings in squinted eyes to try ease the brightness and notice there aren't any windows. At all.

Okay, this is probably a hospital room.

Then I see the jail bars in the little glass panel on the door.

Okay, so maybe a mental institute room inside the hospital.

Then I hear screams and non-sense babble from down the hall. Glass smashes elsewhere.

"Okay, so maybe just a mental institute, full stop," I mutter to myself.

They don't have an actual reason to put me in one right? Every teenage has a breakdown once in a while. You can't be put in one unless... someone actually sighs you up.

And who would? Mom? I'm sure she doesn't want a daughter who wakes up to hair that dyes itself, but I doubt she put me in here.

The door opens, and a nurse walks in. I scramble up from my fetal position.

"Hi!" I say quickly.

The nurse is old, perhaps bordering on her fifties. She's frail: easily overpowered. I eye the door, calculating, but almost as if she senses where my thoughts are going, she shuts it with a solid click.

"Would you happen to know where I am?" I ask, taking the polite approach. The nurse completely ignores me. She clips a clipboard to the edge of the bed and scribbles in it.

I bite the inside of my cheek, resisting the urge to let out my frustration.

"Or why I am here?" I try again.

The nurse looks up at me cautiously and peers at me, like I'm a rare species of cat-dog. I make impatient gestures.

"You are in a hospital," she says, as if speaking to a 5-year-old, every word carefully pronounced and punctuated.

I'm so stunned I stare at her for a long moment. And not because I didn't know.

"Noooooo," I drawl, unable to help myself. "No way!"

She narrows her eyes, and I quickly clear my throat.

"I want to know why I'm here," I say again.