Trust No Bitch: Part 3

Lilly Philipps: Sunday, 25th January, 2016

"Uh, Gemma? You, uh, missed the turning."

"Oh, shit. Yeah, sorry. I'll go back."

Getting Gemma to drive to the psychiatric hospital Alice was being held in whilst her brother was lying in hospital with traumatic brain injuries sustained only 2 days before was proving to be the worst idea Lilly and Clara'd had that day. She had been watching the road ahead of her with the glazed, unresponsive stare of a blind woman; it was no surprise that the turning into the actual hospital had not been the first she'd failed to register in the last hour. Jaw clenched, she pulled into the lay-by at the side of the road and pulled out her phone.

"I'm just going to look for the next roundabout." She told Lilly and Clara, who sat back in her seat and held a weary hand to her forehead.

"So..." She murmured. "This marks our first trip to the funny farm."

"Don't call it that, Clara." Gemma replied under her breath, brows knitting together in concentration as she pulled back onto road and began heading in the opposite direction. "I'm going to go back the way we came, the road's empty anyways."

"Is that safe?" Lilly asked, eyebrows raised.

"Probably not."

"Uh...okay." Lilly shook her head and grimaced before moving onto something else. "Who would've thought Alice-perfect-Jenkins would've been the first one to break?" She asked lightly.

"Uh, think about that sentence, Lilly." Clara replied as Gemma indicated, head whirling from side to side, checking for oncoming cars. "Of course she would be."

"I suppose so. I swear, when you're that highly strung all someone needs to do is cut a few strings loose and you're free falling into train wreck central." She said knowledgeably.

"Jesus Lilly, when did you get so pessimistic?" Snapped Gemma, throwing her hands around the wheel to head up the hospital driveway.

"I'm not being pessimistic. Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Demi Lovato. They were all like, the epitome-" Lilly glanced to a stony faced Gemma for some kind of recognition of her use of the word epitome but it did not come, "-of the good girl and look what happened to them."

"They're all fine now. Better than fine, even. That's what happened to them." Said Gemma stiffly, pulling into a parking space and then shoving her keys into her bag. "And I'd rather we didn't talk about our friend as if she were a lost cause." She added over her shoulder, clambering out of her car seat and slamming the door shut behind her.

"Did you tell Alice about what happened at my work the other day when you saw her?" Clara asked, leaning against the car and staring up at the building in front of her; the place looked like a small castle, certainly a lot more palatial than Lilly had imagined. If Alice's parents'd had any hand in where she ended up, though, it only made sense that it would be some grand old mansion in the middle of the countryside. Only ever the best for the Jenkins family.

"No! I didn't tell her about March taking us in for DNA testing either. We're going to tell her that everything's calm. We don't want to stress her out, we just want her out of this place as soon as possible." Said Gemma, striding towards the entrance, Lilly teetering in her heels to try and keep up; whilst Clara's Dr.Martens were still scuffing on the gravel, Gemma was already through the front door, leaning on the reception desk and scribbling onto what was most likely some kind of sign-in sheet.

"You both need to write your names down." She said gruffly to them both once they reached her, shoving a pen into Lilly's hand and waving to a suited, kindly-faced woman who had just entered the reception through some heavy, wooden doors.