Sinister (Lethal Fear: Book One)

8 - Crazies

I said goodbye to Kia and went off to my next stop; The Recovery Center. A place for those with psychological illnesses, alchoholics, the traumatized, and more. This would be my Dad's home if anyone knew about his break downs and hallucinations.

I had never entered the Recovery Center and now I felt out of my comfort zone. Nearly hundreds of rooms made up a long hallway that was pale white with absolutely nothing hanging on the walls. Just gray doors and a clerk at the check-in desk. It was a old woman with beady eyes and a plump figure. She was eying me from behind a binder.

I brushed it off as she probably recognized me as the Commander's daughter who basically kidnapped by the Sixth.

Women, men, and even children were being guided to different parts of the center. I caught the eye of Dylan and two other boys helping a highly distraught women who looked to be in her late thirties. She screamed for help madly and I rushed over. Dylan looked up as he gently guided her to her room, laying her on a pale gray bed.

"Dylan." I tapped his shoulder.

He turned around and I could see his cheeks grow bright red. "Alina, what brings you here?"

"Well I just wanted to say thanks again for the chocolates,"  I lied because I suddenly felt bad for the way Dad had ran him out of our house. I almost wanted to explain myself. Explain everything because Dylan looked like someone who would care. Who wouldn't think I was out of my mind. I looked over at the woman again. "I didn't know you work here."

"Not work," He said quickly. "I come here to visit my mom."

"Your mom?"

He gestured to the woman who had now fallen asleep.

"Oh," I looked down. "If you don't mind me asking-"

"Trauma," He avoided my eyes. "You don't have to ask."

I suddenly felt like an intruder. He was here for time with his mother and all I wanted was information. I could see how sad he was. How he looked past me as if he were thinking about another day. It was the same look I get when I'm thinking about the past.

Before the party and the fight and everything else, I used to think Dylan was not human. I used to think he was a god maybe. To think we had something in common. A lost mother. Maybe even a lost past. It made me feel as if I really didn't know him. He wasn't that gorgeous good-looking guy that everyy girl fell in love with. No, that was all an act.

"Do you wanna hang out sometime maybe?"

I looked up, startled out of thought.

Dylan laughed. "Nevermind then."

"No," I said quickly. Too quickly. "I would love to but I don't know when because my Dad is home more often."

"Then at the park or something?"

"Sure why not."

We stared at each other for a moment until I had to look away.  "Well there was also another reason why I came here."

"Oh?"

"Do you know an Ethan Weaver?" I asked.

"I think so," He said brightly now. "I'll check with the staff." He then went off down the hall, turning a corner and suddenly I was alone with his mother.

She was sleep however. Her long hair damp with sweat, slow breaths filling the room. I took a seat next to her bed - and thats when she woke up and flew upright in her bed. "Dylan!" She cried. "Wheres Dylan?"

"Dylan just left," I said. "He'll be right back."

She seemed to sigh in relief and then curled into a fetal position, her back to me. It reminded me of Dad that way. When he thought he had to save Mom from the Sixth that attacked her. As if he were imagining himself there. There to be the hero that saved the woman he loved.