Misfits

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

[ Louis POV ]

And here I was. Albany Penitentiary. I kept my hands on the steering wheel and stared at the towering building in front of me, shaking my head before slowly trudging out. I shut my car door and locked it quickly, strolling up to the entrance as slowly as I could. I was definitely not looking forward to this.

Basically, my mom got sick of me doing stupid shit at school and getting in trouble, so instead of letting me enjoy my summer like a normal seventeen year old, she signed me up for community service. At a fucking asylum. I guess its better than picking trash up off the side of a highway or something.. But still. I'd get to hang around a bunch of mentally challenged people for my entire summer, woop-dee-doo. Fun.

I walked up the stone staircase up to the front doors, which were opened up by two guards at the ready, inviting me in. I took a deep breath and adjusted the beanie on my head before walking inside, the doors immediately slamming closed behind me.

The entranceway was huge, I mean, I figured the place was huge from the outside, but it looked ten times bigger when you walked in. The place had to be over three stories high, which meant there was even more crazies wandering around.

Great.

"You're late." A stern voice snapped me from my observations, and I looked up to find a woman descending down the stairs, glaring down at me. I rolled my eyes and nodded, staring right back at her. "Yes I am, sorry about that." "No matter, follow me." She strolled past me and to another set of doors, where they were immediately opened for her and I followed in close behind. The entire room went silent, and I felt a ton of eyes settle on me. "We have a late arrival. May I introduce you all to Mr. Tomlinson." I grumbled a bit and leaned over to her, "I prefer to go by Louis." The woman shot me a glare and nodded before speaking once more, addressing the entire room. "Correction. I introduce you all to Louis. He'll be here the whole summer, so please, don't give him too much trouble either." A few of the patients nodded, and she looked over at me once more. "Also, I'm Miss Constance. You will come to me if you have any questions. Your duty starts now. I'll have Dillon explain some things for you and you'll come to me tomorrow morning for a little training." And with that, she was gone and I was left standing there, being observed by everyone in the room.

"Hi!" I was greeted by a guy with shaggy blonde hair, about the same height as me, dressed in uniform, and he looked a hell of a lot happier to be here than me.

"You must be Dillon." He nodded and motioned me over to a table, sitting down and waiting for me to join him. So I did.

Dillon smiled once more before chattering away. "Basically, be here on time every day. Your job is pretty much watching over things, like a guard. You'll be given other little chores too, but your main job is just making sure things are in order and such."

The guy went on and on for a while, and I of course lost focus and began to observe the patients.

One lady was sitting on the floor nearby, running her fingers through her tangled hair and singing a song, sounded like a lullaby of some sort. Another guy was on one of the couches, his hand in his pants. Ugh. I shared gazes with a few patients who were staring at me intently, but I broke eye contact almost immediately. I watched some messing with a deck of cards, unsure if they really knew what they were doing or not.

Kinda funny watching these people, they were literally out of their minds. Singing, mumbling nonsense, pacing in the same spot for hours at a time, rocking back and forth, staring into space. Interesting.

Dillon was still blabbing, and apparently hadn't noticed my lost of interest.

God, if I have to deal with this guy all summer, I'll probably go crazy myself.

I just kept on looking around, watching a random patient until I lost interest and moved on to another. That is, until I met the eyes of a girl. Wow.

She was sitting at a table alone in the corner of the room, taking long, slow drags from a cigarette. The girl had pretty blonde hair that was covering one of her eyes until she pushed the strands away. Her eyes, God. They were still meeting mine, those beautiful, green eyes. Wow.

"Any questions?" I finally ripped my gaze away from her and turned to Dillon, his head slightly cocked to the side. "Yeah," I nodded over at the girl who was still staring over at us, "who's she?"

Dillon's eyebrows furrowed a bit and he chuckled, turning back to me. "Patient. Her name's Alice." My eyes widened a bit and I tilted my head, still looking over at her. Of course, she's got the uniform on. "What's she in here for?" "Went crazy. Her boyfriend beat her, treated like shit by everyone, and she lost it. Had a fit one night that scared her parents half to death, and they sent her here. And they were right, she's really insane." I nodded and kept my gaze on her, watching her lips slowly turn up into a smile at me before looking away and blowing out smoke in front of her.

"Trust me, her story is a lot worse than you think. She didn't just kinda scream and cry and get sent here. She's insane."

"She doesn't look crazy." Dillon laughed and I looked back over at him, and he was standing up. "Yeah, she's like that. Don't let her fool you Louis. She's a devil, I'd stay away from her." I shrugged and stood up with him, finally talking my eyes off her. "Seriously. She looks....innocent." Excluding the cigarette hanging from her fingertips, she really did. Dillon shook his head at me and lead me out of the room, and I had to sneak one more glance back at her before the doors closed behind us.

"Louis. She's insane, and that's that. Now you can head home."

He left me standing in the entrance hall, but before he exited he turned to me one last time. "And don't be late again. Miss Constance didn't exactly approve of your late arrival today."

And then he was gone.

I stuck my hands in pockets and walked out into the parking lot to my car, taking one last look at the place before stepping in and shutting the door.

As I started the engine and drove off, it finally clicked as the gates were locked behind me as I drove out.

I'm officially a part of Albany Penitentiary.