Institution - Sequel to Asylum {Completed}

9. O Brother, Why Art Thou Stupid?

I'm off to Kansas City today. Please nobody murder me for leaving you with this chapter. Hope you enjoy Party's P.O.V.

"I bought my enemies rope to hang me and the knives to gang me. You can watch 'em stab me on your television. Stomp the halls, because the bathroom walls would have a lot to say about the lines you're putting down!" --- Boy Division

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O Brother, Why Art Thou Stupid?

Party's P.O.V.

The elevator carries me back up from the basement prison levels to my office on the top floor of the building. I've been staring blankly at the closed metal doors the entire ride, wondering what in the hell I've just done. Paranoia. I've just given her happy pills, the very thing she nearly blew herself up to get rid of. What kind of betrayal is that? What kind of man am I? More importantly, how will she ever forgive me?

My office is dark just like it always is. I've become a bit of a nocturnal creature since coming to Battery City. I guess I've always been sort of itching to get out of the harsh sunlight of the Zones. As it's so dim, I don't notice the dark figure standing near the table until it speaks. "You're unbelievable. What were you thinking, dammit?"

I run my hand over my face. "Kobra, not now. I don't...I don't want to talk about it."

"You've been down to see her, haven't you?" my brother questions, stepping into the glow that radiates from the screen on the table's surface. I nod weakly. "How is she? Is she okay?"

I sigh. "Why are you so worried? She's a big girl. She can handle herself."

There's dark shadows on his face where the faint lights don't hit it. He scowls at me. "You don't get it. She's not like she used to be. She's broken, Party, and you throwing her into prison over something that you know she didn't do is not helping her condition in the slightest."

"What 'condition'?" I snap. "She seemed all right to me."

Kobra's fingers tap against the screen, pulling up surveillance footage from Prison Level 3. I don't ask how he knows where she's being held, or how he knows how to access those cameras. He's head of security; it's his job to watch these clips. "Does she look okay to you?" he asks rhetorically a few moments later.

I move to stand beside him and watch the footage. This image is crystal clear and zoomed in just enough to let us see a good deal of Paranoia's face, which is laying on her arms from where she's curled up in a ball on the floor. Her face is passive and expressionless, just as expected of someone who's just taken the pills, but her hazy eyes are rimmed with red and her hollow cheeks are flushed. I swallow the lump forming in my throat and push down the sudden wave of guilt that swells inside my chest. She did not look like that when I left. She was hostile when I visited her. I haven't seen her cry since we were separated by the glass doors of BL/ind. I turn away, folding my arms across my chest.

"So, you go, on a whim, to visit the girl who's madly in love with you, and when you leave she breaks down and cries. Is it because she didn't want you to leave? Or was it something else?" Kobra's tone is skeptical. He mimics my posture.

I shake my head and stare at the floor. "No. She told me to leave."

"Why?"

"Because I - " I choke on my words and can't find the strength to force them out. There's no telling what Kobra will do if I tell him I just gave our friend the happy pills that he believes to have been eradicated. "Just because."

The blank look on Kobra's face tells me he doesn't believe me. "Right. And that's it? What did you talk to her about?" I shrug my shoulders. "Dammit, Party, what did you do to her?"