Nighmare Asylum-Book One of the Mad Mad World Series

Let Me Break-Part 6

I'm in a room without a light

A room without a view

I'm here for one more treacherous night

Another night with you...

"Torture,"by The Cure, from the album KissMe, Kiss Me, Kiss Me

::

Lilly and I were working on my ability to ground and center properly when we heard a muffled scream come from above us. Even though the cell we were in was soundproofed, noise still leaked in from time to time. It was the thin wail of a child in terrible pain and I jumped to my feet, parental instinct to see what was happening roaring awake at the sound.

"What the hell is he doing up there now?" I said, running for the steel door and pressing my ear against it. Even with my newly augmented hearing I couldn't hear anything save my heart beating in my ears.Lilly stood below the ventilation grille, eyes closed as if that would help her hear more clearly. We didn't need to do either of these things because the screaming began again, louder than before and more agonized. I stuck my fingers in my ears and slumped down the wall, wanting to shriek but forcing myself not to. Lilly had her fingers in her ears, yelling obscenities through the grille,promising the mad doctor a thousand agonizing deaths the next time he came into our cell.

The cries trailed off into bubbling gasps and whimpers, then nothing. I was extremely glad Lilly had taught me how to shield myself; the psychic damage of feeling a child die horribly would have driven me insane. Most humans are programmed with the instinctual need to protect the young, but for someone who had become a parent, it was twice as bad. Add on top of that what I was now? Yeah, I'd be ripping the veins in my wrists open with my own teeth to stop experiencing the agony.

"He just...was that a child?" Lilly stammered. She looked sick to her stomach; I had to run for the bathroom myself. Yes, I was shielding myself as hard as I could but a little of the psychic overspill of the child's death and sometimes Neal's poisonous, irrational thoughts got through. I coughed, spat out the last of the bile and went over to the shower to stand under the cold water to rinse the nasty taste out of my mouth and the sweat off of my skin.Lilly slid into the shower behind me, shivering from the cold and all we'd heard. Putting her arms around me, she rested her head against my back, crying hot tears that felt like burning metal on my skin. I folded my fingers over hers and rocked us slowly side to side, not caring that I might be turning blue from cold.

"Reesh.You're going to turn blue if you keep standing in that cold water," Lilly said at last, reaching past me to shut the water off. I turned around in her embrace, leaning down to kiss her forehead. She was warm and otter-sleek in my arms, every curve and dip she possessed fitting against me like we were puzzle pieces. Except...something felt off where her stomach pressed against mine.

Oh my God.

She was pregnant.

Lilly raised her chin and met my eyes squarely. "It's not yours. I was on the pill because I had horrible periods and you can guess the rest. If I figure right, I'm three months along. And the second I can get rid of it, I'm going to. I will not have a baby by that bastard."

"Do you ever want kids?" I asked.

"No.I like them but I'm not bringing a child into this world.Especially a child whose genetics are probably shot to hell. He's been using himself for a test subject for a long time; who knows what kind of monster I'd have? He'd probably kill it anyway."