I Want To Paint Your Lips

Chapter 11

“What should we do, Sir?” The two men watched the security camera footage of the arts room, the patient and care taker holding each other like they couldn’t get close enough. “Should I remove his care over the patient?”

The black man’s eyes rolled over the screen, clear quality as the caretaker, Mr Fong, stopped his patient, and they both reluctantly locked up and removed themselves from the room. He had respect for the caretaker, one of the better known men for his pairing with the infamous Delirious.

Pairing had suddenly become something closer and it was worrying for the cameraman and his supervisor. There had been bad incidents where caretakers had gotten too attached to patients and it was never something to work out well. Attempts of smuggling them out of the building, and unchaining them to be free mostly ended up with murder and/or the caretaker earning a room and strait jacket of their own.

They weren’t fun to deal with.

“Yes. Promptly. Assign Delirious to Ms Warner. I’ll speak to Mr Fong tonight.” The door shut behind the higher class man and the security cameraman sighed. He had a bad feeling Ms Warner wouldn’t have a very good time as Delirious’ new caretaker.

A very bad feeling.

Evan shut the door behind him, lips tight as he made haste down the corridors, rushing to Ryan’s room. His meeting with the supervisor had confirmed his worries and he could feel panic and worry and fear surge through his bloodstream. His fingers were twitching.

All he could see was Delirious covered in blood, crouched behind that body. He knew it wasn’t the first time the man had stolen someone else’ life. He knew it would definitely not be the last. Either way, the image was not pretty and nor was it something Evan made a habit of thinking about.

He knocked, hesitated and slid his card through the machine, allowing him into the room. Bryce instantly noticed his set jaw and Ohm turned to the sound. “They’re taking Delirious off me.”

The only sound of the room was Ohm chewing on the pieces of apple Bryce put between his teeth.

Evan was terrified. He knew he should have been more careful. He knew he shouldn’t have gotten himself into the situation in the first place. He should have used his fucking brain and realised that there was no good outcome to getting attached. He should have known better. He should have been smarter.  

The man walked over slowly and took a seat in the chair at the table, looking hopelessly at the two men across from him. “He’s got some girl taking my place temporarily until they find an appropriate upper class caretaker to permanently take the position.” He cleared his throat and met Bryce’s eyes as bravely as he could with a big sigh. “I’m going to be suspended from working for a month.” He didn’t need to explain why. Both of them already knew.

Evan stared at the table with blank eyes and just waited. He didn’t expect advice or comments or anything from the two but he had no idea what else to do but tell someone. He was supposed to return his key-card that night and the new caretaker would meet Delirious the next morning, and tell him the situation. Evan cringed just thinking about it; such a conversation would never go down well with Delirious.

“What are you going to do, Evan?” Ohm stared in his general direction, accepting another piece of apple. His voice was calm, but knowing, and he could feel Evan’s concentrated silence. He knew his brain was ticking and his own curiosity begged him to find out what exactly it was counting down for. “What’s your plan?”

Bryce sighed. He knew that nothing good could come from the situation, no matter the caretaker’s decision. If the situation was left as is, someone else was going to die. Delirious was uncontrollable and the authorities knew so. They only refrained from moving him into further containment because Evan could control the mental patient. But only he could bring him back to himself and only he was suitable to take care of him as a mental patient. When it came to getting through to the schizophrenic he would only listen to his caretaker and he would only do as his caretaker told him too.