~ Reason of Insanity ~
by Larisa
Disclaimer: Yeahyeahyeah, I know all about this and so does everyone else.
Violence: Yep
Sex: Not me but my characters get plenty.
The age thing: If you ain't old enough and wear footy PJ's, go away until you look good in a skimpy teddy!
Thanks to Lesia, Ri, Maggie, Thorie and to WebWarrior and Bardeyes.
The Judge slammed his gavel down on his desk half a dozen times to bring order to the courtroom. This had been one of the worst mass murder cases he had in a long time; the defendant Albert J. Johnston had gone into the building where his wife worked, carrying two fully loaded Berettas. The second he came through the front door, he opened fire on the people in the lobby and the joining hallway. He killed nine people before he got to his wife's office, when he entered her office, he emptied the remaining bullets into her body and left before the police got there.
It took the police four hours to track him down and apprehend him by use of tazers. Two of the police officers were injured in the process and were taken to the hospital with broken bones, cuts, and bruises. After the fight Johnston was handcuffed and shackled for his ride to the county lock-up. Now the day of his sentencing, the jury had finished reading a not guilty by reason of insanity. Judge Harris knew that the public and surviving family members would be out for blood. He didn't blame them for one second, he would love to flip the switch on the electric chair and fry the asshole for what he had done. His only hope was that Johnston would never see the light of day of the free world.
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Six months later, the Special Prosecuting Attorney Sylvie Jonis, Judge Harris and Psychiatrist Blade Williams sat in his chambers looking over reports and records from the state mental institution along with a couple of letters from a widow of a former patient.
"Something is going on in there and I don't like it one bit." Sylvie eyed the Judge. "I bust my ass in the court room and the defendants get off because of that asshole head shrinker saying they're a head case and now they're released after a miracle cure?" She blushed when she looked to Dr. Williams. "Sorry Blade, nothing against you, it's just not right what's going on. Now, we have a patient who ends up swinging from the light fixture in his room; two days later the joint checking account that he and his wife had is emptied without her knowledge, and his treating shrinker ends up dead as well?" She ran her fingers through her curly blonde hair and looked to the Judge. "What is going on in there?"
Dr. Williams slid a folder across the desk to the Judge. "What have the police said about this Dr. Chism; is it a suicide or something else?"
"So far it's just a suicide, death by overdose. They found two empty sleeping pill bottles beside him; they belonged to his late wife who died from cancer a few years ago."
Pale blue eyes drilled into the Judge's deep brown orbs and then skipped over to hazel. "You two want me to go in there and do what, find out what's going on?"
The Judge cracked a small smile and nodded his head. "We've got four patients that were committed after they were sentenced guilty for reason of insanity; each one was responsible for heinous crimes that took lives. What's worse is that over the last two years, they've been released. Now we have one dead doctor and his patient that spends money from the grave. And one Albert J. Johnston that has gone missing from the nut house."
Blade leaned back in her chair and looked between Jonis and Harris. "I'm not a cop, I'm a head shrinker; can't you get the FBI or some other agency in there?"
Jonis placed her small hand on Blade's forearm, her hazel eyes pleaded with Blade. "You're the only one that has the medical knowledge and can tell if these people are really crazy or something else is going on in there. Besides, we all know that you can kick ass if you have to." She grinned up into narrowed blue eyes.
"Blade, no one knows you around here; you've never been on the witness stand as an expert and I know that none of the patients have ever been hunted down by the FBI. So that means you can go in there and be a fresh new face?"
"And snoop around and possibly be locked up with the most dangerous person in the place." She dropped her head, took a deep breath and replied. "OK, but if I so much as get spit on, I'm coming after you two! I hate being around crazy people, that's why I went into profiling." Brushing her dark bangs out of her eyes, she gave them an evil grin. "After this is over with, you two owe me big time; I want a bottle of Remy Martin so I can drink myself stupid."
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The psychiatric nurses flipped the lights on in the hallways and prepared for the beginning of Hell. Those who were stupid enough to work the dayshift hours had to put up with the well-rested nuts. After sometimes ten hours or more of sleep, they were a rowdy bunch to control. The only good ones were the ones who were confined because of being dangerous, or the ones in a different world that they just sat and stared off into oblivion. Dr. Blade Williams just happened to be the new kid on the block and got stuck with dayshift. She ran her new ID badge through the reader on the door and heard the click of the lock. Walking to the next set of doors, she repeated the process and was finally in the lower lobby of the four-story building that housed all types of mentally disturbed patients. She walked up to a plexi glass enclosed work area and showed her badge to the black male nurse inside. "I'm Dr. Williams; I'm here to see Freddie."
"That's me, Dr. Williams; I'll buzz you through the side door there." She heard the buzz, and then the lock click open before her; opening the door, she stepped into the area that opened up into the general ward. Freddie was a huge man that stood a good six inches taller than her own six foot. He held out a huge paw and gave her a firm handshake. "Boy am I glad to have you here." He gave her a toothy grin. "Since Dr. Chism passed away I've been the only one upstairs that can write out scripts for meds."
"What about the other RN's around here or the doctors?"
He gave her a deep laugh and clapped her on her shoulder. "You couldn't pay them enough to go upstairs, that's where all the real nuts are. The other two floors are the rich people who need a vacation from reality and the Alzheimer sufferers. We got everything else upstairs; now don't get me wrong, not all of them are dangerous. We have your typical Alien Abductees, Pharos, Queens, Presidents, Martin Luther King, Elvis, Jimmy Hendrix, Batman, and my favorite one of all, my little baby Sweetpea." He opened the door for Blade and waited until she walked ahead of him. "I'll give you the basic run down on the ones we have up there and then you can look over their files when you get a chance."
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She followed alongside of Freddie and stopped outside a closed door with a screen-covered window. "This one here we don't go in unless there's three or four of us."
"What's the problem with?" She looked through the small window and seen a thin bleach blonde woman with crazed brown eyes rocking in a corner of the padded room.
"Classic paranoid Schizophrenic with both audio and TV reception."
A dark brow rose over a pale blue eye. "TV reception?"
"Yeah, she says that she gets messages through the TV." He grinned at Blade. "When she's being good, I run the TV antennae wire in there for her to hold. Damndest thing is, we get different channels when she holds it, and it's great during football season."
They continued down the hall to another room where a man was standing in front of the window combing his pompadour. "Let me guess, this is the King." Freddie nodded his head and tapped a rhythm on the door, the King started to sing Don't be cruel in perfect imitation of Elvis. "He ain't bad, sounds just like Elvis." She watched the man dance around his padded room and wondered about all the others. "How many live concerts do you have up here in a week?"
"A week? Try everyday, just wait until you see Momma Cass and Elvis do their duet."
Blade rolled her eyes and followed after Freddie, they stopped outside of the main TV and game room. Various patients were roaming around in trances or playing with the TV remotes trying to turn each other on or off with them. Freddie's dark bushy brows drew down over his nose when he noticed that a certain someone was missing. "Now where is she this time?"
"Where's who and does this person disappear often?"
"My little Sweetpea, she likes to hide but only when she's gotten into something."
"Tell me about her; what's the general diagnosis on her?"
"Antisocial at times, loud outbursts, mischievous, possible multiple personality syndrome; you name it, she shows it." He grinned down at Blade. "But she's my little Sweetpea; she reminds me of my daughters when they were four and five." He closed the door to the TV room and led Blade down to the last room on the right. "This is her room but I have no idea where she's hiding, if you want to start on one side, I'll take the other and first one who finds her gives a yell.
"How will I know if I find her?"
"Easy, she's only about five foot four and will smack you with her stuffed Snoopy."
"Ooohh OK, that helps." She ran a hand through her bangs and sighed. "Good thing I had brains enough to wear old clothes." She pulled on the collar of her sweatshirt and pushed the sleeves up before opening the door to one of the rooms. Looking into each corner, she then stepped all the way in and looked under the bed and in the wardrobe. When she found nothing, she went on to the next room and did the same. Ten rooms later, she was beginning to believe in Alien abductions since she nor had Freddie found his Sweetpea. Then she thought to herself. "Maybe he's really a patient and Sweetpea's a figment of his imagination." Opening the last door, she stepped in, looked around but was not prepared for the body that jumped on to her back, wrapped an arm around her eyes, legs around her waist and started beating her with a stuffed Snoopy. She staggered from the squirming weight and made it out into the hallway.
"FREDDIE!" She yelled and stumbled head first into the wall. "God damn, will you get off me!" She tried to free the arm from her head and found that the little person had Herculean strength.
"Sweetpea, let go of Dr. Williams!" He took one look at her face and knew where she had been and what she had gotten into. "Come on Sweetpea, I've got a Snicker bar in my lunch for you." Green eyes pinned the tall black man where he stood, she tilted her head to the side and gave him an impish grin before sliding down off Blade's back. Loping over to him, she took his hand and looked to where Blade was leaning against the wall gasping for air. Sweetpea held up her raggedy Snoopy at her and swung him by his ears trying to hit her in the head. Blade ducked and stuck her tongue out at her. "That was real mature Blade." She said to herself.
"Be nice, Sweetpea." He ruffled her messy short blonde hair. "Go wash the chocolate off your face and hands and I'll get your candy bar." He smiled when she made a wide berth of Blade and loped sideways down the hall swinging her Snoopy by his ears.
"That is your little baby Sweetpea?" Blade wiped the chocolate from her neck and noticed that she had a small chocolate handprint over her left breast.
"That was her; I forgot to tell you that she climbs like a spider monkey and is like Rocky the flying squirrel. She's usually not this wired but one of the patients got a care package yesterday and she found it."
"Don't tell me, chocolate makes her hyperactive." Blade tried to untangle her hair from the chocolate mess and gave up on it. Freddie laughed and placed a hand on Blade's shoulder.
"If you have a piece of chocolate, she'll find you before you can take the next breath. She's like a little blood hound when it comes to junk food."
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Freddie took Blade to the office she would be using to both work on cases and treat patients. It was actually two rooms, one larger with a couch and a couple of chairs in it and a coffee table. The office part was barren of anything except for the desk and a metal filing cabinet.
"It's not much but around here we normally only have maybe twenty patients at any given time." He handed her a new set of keys to the doors and a hospital pager. "Before I forget, your first patient today that you'll have is Sweetpea." Blade rolled her eyes and ran a hand across her face.
"Just great, should I have candy to keep her from beating me with Snoopy?"
"Ohh she knows if she causes trouble for the doctor, that she won't get any candy. I keep Hershey kisses in the top desk drawer for after she's done." He pulled the drawer open to show the candy and then pulled a thick file from the filling cabinet. "This is hers; it's up to the day before Dr. Chism died."
"You're more than a psychiatric nurse aren't you?"
"Well, Dr. Chism couldn't handle all the work he had so I kinda filled in as his secretary. I've kept the files now going on 23 years and been on this floor for almost 26." He saw the quizzical look on her face and gave her a loud chuckle. "And no I'm not a patient here, although my wife and kids threaten to make me stay here permanently sometimes. If you need me, just dial star 32 and it'll page me."
"Thanks Freddie, you've been a great help this morning." She watched as the giant of a man left the small office and closed the door. Taking a seat in the uncomfortable desk chair, she almost flipped backwards when she leaned back. Grabbing the edge of the desk and cussing like a sailor, she got out of the chair and saw nuts and bolts lying on the floor. "My first day and already someone's trying to kill me!" Pulling her cell phone off her belt, she dialed Jonis' number and waited for her to pick up.
"When I'm done here you will owe me two bottles of Martin!"
"What's the matter Blade; it can't be that bad, you've only been there two hours."
"Two hours too long! I've got chocolate in my hair, all over my shirt and I got jumped by Sweetpea!" She looked down at her chair and decided that maybe the couch in the other room was safer. "Not only that, I was almost killed when I sat down in my desk chair, someone took the bolts out of it."
"What is a Sweetpea, and are you done whining Blade?"
"One of my patients, and yeah, thanks for letting rant your ears off. Any ideas where I should start?"
"Search through the files on the names that I gave you and see if there's any clinical changes from the time the patient got there to their release date. And I want to know about the dead guy, you know if he was unstable before hand or this was a complete surprise."
"As soon as I find anything I'll call you and let Harris know he's paying for all the chocolate I need to survive in this place."
"What the Hell do you need chocolate for?"
"That little monster Sweetpea, it's the bribery system with her." She hung up the phone and then went to get Sweetpea's file, from the size of it, she thought that the woman had been there most of her life. Flipping open the file, she looked at the mug shot of the little monster. The green eyes were dark with gold flecks mixed in, what got her was the blankness that stared out at her. "Hello any one in there? Let's see what your problem is Sweetpea."
Porter, Quentin T.
DOB 1972 Female, Caucasian.
No living relatives.
Patient was checked in by the Leesburg county police department for disorderly conduct after escaping from a nearby halfway house for the mentally challenged. Patient has a long history of violent outbursts that drop into an antisocial period that have lasted as long as two months where she refuses to allow anyone near her. At an early period in her stay here, she barricaded herself and one other patient in the lounge area and broke into the candy machines. She escaped the lounge area by crawling through the air conditioning vent and back into the group area where she sold or traded the candy to the other patients. Orderlies who injected her with a strong tranquilizer and strapped her down to her bed finally subdued her.
At this time, I know that she has possibly two or three different personalities and maybe more with longer treatments of both counseling and drug treatment. Dr. Randolph has offered to try shock treatments to get the brain waves back into alignment. I have discouraged this after what happened the last time.
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Blade skipped to the last few pages to see what Dr. Chism had covered with her before his death. She would take the files home with her and read them all there where she could relax and absorb more.
Sept. 23 2002
Quentin shows no change in her behavior, it has been months since she has been here and she has yet to speak except in a guttural language to me. I know she speaks because the other patients have told me this. We cannot keep her locked in her room either, she can be tied down or put in a straight jacket and can still manage to get free. The night nursing staff found her on the second floor watching TV with the security guard.
"Just lovely, she's a regular Houdini." Closing the folder, she closed her eyes and leaned back into the couch.
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Sweetpea snuck close to the door to Blades office and peeked between the door and the door jam, easing the door open; she stepped into the room and crept in front of Blade. She tilted her head to the side and raised one side of her upper lip to show a sharp canine tooth. Gripping Snoopy by his ear, she swung him over her head and brought the stuffed dog down on Blades head. When pale blue eyes opened, she jumped up on top of the couch and hit her again.
"You rotten little monster!" Blade yelled and ducked her head and felt Snoopy bounce off the back of her neck, she scurried to the floor on her hands and knees and tried to get behind Sweetpea. "You just wait until I catch you!" She jumped up, reached for the small woman and fell over the back of the couch to land on the cushions. Sweetpea took the opportunity to pounce on her back and beat her over the head with Snoopy making grunting sounds with each hit. Blade pulled herself to the side of the couch and fell off onto the floor, rising up to her knees; she sat up and tried to dislodge Sweetpea from her back. All it did was make her hold on around her neck and choke her. "Quentin get off me!" The battering stopped for a whole second before Blade let out a loud yell when sharp little teeth bit her ear. "That's it, you're a dead woman!" Blade fell backwards and smashed Sweetpea to the floor, breaking the hold on her neck, she pinned both of her arms to the floor and straddled her trim hips.
Blade narrowed her eyes, her dark brows dipped over her straight nose and she growled close to Sweetpea' face. "Are you insane? Well that's a stupid question since we're in a nut house!" She jerked her head back and grimaced when Sweetpea tried to lick her. "I'm gonna rip Snoopy's head off if you don't stop beating me with him."
Sweetpea flexed her legs and pushed her hips upward into Blade. "Who's your daddy?" She yelled loud enough to make Blade cringe. "Gimme candy!" Her feet made little squeaking noises each time a foot hit the tile floor when she kicked.
"I'll give you candy if you behave and not until then, now I'm going to let you up and if you even touch Snoopy, I'm ripping his head off! Got me?"
She whined in a pitiful voice and pouted. "Gimmeeee candy." Blade let her off the floor and noticed that she was in pink footy PJ's with little bunnies all over them. Rolling her eyes, she went into her office and grabbed a handful of Hershey kisses. When she went back into the room, she found Sweetpea perched on the back of one of the chairs with Snoopy hanging from one ear out of her mouth.
"For the love of Gods why me?" She held out a piece of candy and watched a blonde head tilt sideways; she moved the candy back and forth and watched green eyes follow it. "Cute Blade tease the monster, you're such an adult." She tossed the candy into the air and watched a small hand snag it. Sweetpea took the foil off and mumbled before eating it with Snoopy's ear still in her mouth. Blade shivered at the sight and stood behind the couch where she would be safe from an aerial attack. A wicked gleam came to blue eyes; Blade unwrapped a candy, held it out to Sweetpea and tossed it in the air. She chuckled when she caught it in her mouth and tried it again. "Can you roll over and beg to? Never mind, how about if we just sit here and stare at each other for a while?"
That's exactly what they did, Blade would turn her head one way and Sweetpea would turn hers the opposite. It came down to them making faces at each other until Freddie knocked on her door. She pointed a finger at her and ordered. "You stay right there or no more candy."
"Hey Doc, is Sweetpea behaving for you?"
"Ohh yeah," She looked over her shoulder into crossed green eyes. "She's been a perfect little something. Did you need something?"
"No I was just checking on her, I have some things to return to the other patients. Someone was busy last night with their sticky fingers."
"You mean we have a kleptomaniac up here too?"
"Yep, and she wears footy PJ's." He gave Blade a grin and went down the hallway. She turned back and saw that Sweetpea was wiggling her chocolate covered fingers at her and grunting.
"And why should I give you more?"
"Sweetpea good." She nodded her head and gave Blade the weirdest smile she had ever seen on a human; it reminded her of Clyde the orangutan.
"For all of five minutes," She couldn't help but give in when a bottom lip stuck out and a blonde head dropped down. "Gods I'm a wimp, she pulled another candy from her pocket and tossed it to her. "Come on let's go for a walk." She grabbed a white lab coat from a hanger near the door, pulled it on and put the Hershey kisses in the pocket. Standing by the door, she held out her hand to Sweetpea and was surprised when she grabbed a hold of her index finger. She hopped down the hallway beside Blade as she walked, she wished she had a cameraman there so she could show Jonis and Judge Harris what she experienced on her first day. While walking down the hallway, they encountered some of the other patients. Blade had to keep pulling Sweetpea away because she tried to kick a few of them. "Behave or no candy, God I need some coffee." She moaned, felt her finger being tugged on and then Sweetpea pulling her towards a closed door. When she opened the door, she found that it was a small kitchen with a coffee pot on a counter. "Just what I need," She looked down into twinkling green eyes and asked. "Do you drink coffee?" Sweetpea shook her head, hopped over to the refrigerator, and pulled out a Hi-C box.
With coffee and juice in hand, they continued their walk until Sweetpea stopped and growled at an older man in a bathrobe. Blade was about to say something to her when the man flashed them and yelled. "IT'S ALL MINE MINEMINEMINE MY DICK!" He closed his robe and walked away grumbling about ungrateful woman folk. The next person they saw was a younger man who kept licking the air like a lizard, Blade steered clear of him and found that Sweetpea would have none of it. She waited for the man's tongue to stick out and tried to grab it. He let out a scream and ran from her.
"Well this is a first; it took me a whole month to get her to take my hand." Freddie came from the TV room with his arms full of confiscated items from Sweetpea's room.
"I think it's either all the candy in my pocket or the threat to rip Snoopy's head off if she didn't behave." She looked down and watched green eyes roll in opposite directions.
"Who knows with Sweetpea," He wiggled his brows at the small woman. "You bit her didn't you?" Sweetpea ducked her head and hid behind Blade.
"How did you know she bit me?"
"Easy, you have dried blood running down your neck from your ear. I forgot to warn you about her sharp little teeth. I caught the little imp using a fingernail file to sharpen her canines."
"Ohh it just gets better doesn't it?" At that moment, an older woman came out of her room singing at the top of her lungs.
"Sweetpea and Doc sitting in a tree K-i-s-s-i-n-g, first comes petting, then comes sex?hey Freddie what rhymes with sex?"
"Don't know mama, why don't you go ask Elvis."
She nodded her wild mop of gray hair and walked down the hall trying to find a word that rhymed.
"I take it that was Mama Cass?" She jumped when she felt a hand come up between her legs; she looked down at a very innocent face but knew it could only be the little monster beside her. "And this is the village grabby hands isn't she?"
"Yep, that's her. What ever anyone says, she'll do it."
"Ohh great, just what we need is her acting out truth or dare." She looked to Freddie and asked. "Does she pay any attention to us talking about her with her standing here?"
"As far as I know, no, only if you say her name."
"I didn't get to read her complete file yet, how long has she been here?"
"Ohh about six months or so, they brought her in on the late shift one night and brought her up here after she beat the Hell out of an orderly downstairs."
"WHO'S YOUR DADDDDY?" Sweetpea yelled and then looked up into wide blue eyes.
"That's her favorite saying so be prepared for it being yelled all the time." He shook his head at Blade and went down the hallway to replace the stolen items in his arms. "And watch your keys and wallet to, she's a pick pocket." He yelled from down the hall.
"Is there anything you can't do Sweetpea?"
A blonde head tilted to the side and then shook. "Heeeere kittykittykitty!" Blade jumped when she was grabbed between the legs again.
"Stop that you little pervert." She pulled her back down the hallway towards the TV room, she wanted to see more of how the other patients acted around each other and maybe she would be lucky enough to find one who would answer some questions about Johnston.
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She sat down on the couch in the TV room and observed the patients around her, she noticed one man who was reading the morning newspaper and took a chance that he was somewhat stable. She moved to the edge of the cushion and spoke to him. "Excuse me sir, I'm Dr. Williams, how are you this morning?"
"Damn DOW is done and only four people have been murdered in the last 24 hours! What's wrong with the killers these days! I killed that many in two minutes with a FORK!" He threw the paper down and stormed from the room.
"OK, that went well." She rubbed her temples and felt a warm body drop down behind her on the couch, she was about to look over her shoulder when she felt a hand go in her pocket and then a hoarse voice whisper. "Who's your daddy?"
"Are you stealing candy out of my pocket Sweetpea?"
"Mooooo milk the cow!" She reached for Blade's breast and snickered when her hand was grabbed at the last second.
"Do you grab everyone or just me?" Blade looked up at a young dark haired woman in a straight jacket.
"She only grabs women; she's a lesbo grabby hands." She uncrossed her arms and waved the long sleeves at Sweetpea. "One of the reasons I wear this, so little pervert there can't grab my nipples." Blade grinned inside, finally a nut who seems sort of normal. She held out her hand to the woman.
"I'm Dr. Blade Williams, what's your name?"
"Dana the fire starter."
"OK Dana, what can you tell me about Al Johnston?"
Dana sat down on the couch next to her and eyed her closely. "Besides the fact that he tried to get all the weak ones to do stupid stuff?"
"What do you mean stupid stuff?"
"How about if we go talk in your office, there's two many ears around here." She stood up and went towards the door, stopped and yelled. "Anyone says a word and I'll set your ass on fire tonight!" Patients bounced off each other trying to hide from her.
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With Sweetpea attached to her index finger, Blade followed Dana down the hall to her office. She didn't think it would be this easy finding someone who would talk to her. Once the door was closed, they sat down on the couch next to each other with the exception of Sweetpea who squeezed behind Blade. "Sweetpea, why do you have to sit back there?"
"You should feel lucky, as long as she's near you, the rest of the crazies will leave you alone." Dana held up a hand to stop the question that she knew Blade was going to ask. "I'm here because I like to play with fire, literally. I was sent here for torching a tire dump. So no I'm not a nut case like some of the others."
"But this facility is for lifers; shouldn't you be in an outpatient program?"
Dana laughed and shook her head. "I probably would have but my lawyer pissed me off during my trial so I set his pant leg on fire in the courtroom."
"Hell they should have given you a damn award for that." She shivered when Sweetpea ran her fingernails down her back. "So what about Johnston?"
"Think of all the childish things that little boys will do to make a system crash in on its self, flushing things down the toilets, pulling the fire alarms that are now disconnected because of him. Food fights in the cafeteria, mass mayhem when lights went out and trying to get Sweetpea to run naked down the halls."
"How soon after he got here did this start?"
"About four months after he had that weak ass Chism convinced that he was a born again Christian. Then Dr. Randolph got into the picture and had him transferred to the floor below us. That's when he escaped this place for good."
Blade was curious as to why Dana was giving her so much information. "Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because he's dangerous and not insane like he was found in the court of law."
"What exactly do you know about the court hearing?"
"Just what I saw on TV," She leaned closer to Blade. "The head shrinker on the stand spends more time in court than he does in an office. He's been in the hot seat 152 times in the last year and all the defendants get sent to a handful of institutions where he's on the board."
Something occurred to Blade, it was a feeling in her gut that Dana was not your everyday arsonist. "What did you do for a profession before you came here?"
She laughed and wiggled a dark brow at her. "Would you believe I'm a Yale schooled Lawyer?"
"And you let some other lawyer represent you in court?"
"I had no choice, I was barred and the judge refused to let me represent myself." She grinned. "He was still pissed over me torching his Mercedes in the parking lot."
Blade forgot about Sweetpea being behind her and leaned back, she jumped when a small hand pinched her ass. "Sorry Sweetpea, would you be willing to help me out here and talk to a friend of mine?"
Dana's eyes glimmered, she had an idea that Dr. Williams was about to come clean with the reason she was there. "So you got tired of profiling huh?"
"What?how did?"
"I prosecuted some of the people you profiled, I recognized your name the minute you introduced yourself. So why are you really here?"
"I'm trying to solve the release of four dangerous patients, Dr. Chism' and his patients death and Johnston's escape for Judge Harris and SPA Jonis. Will you tell Sylvie Jonis what you know?" She felt Sweetpea press closer to her and lay her head on her shoulder.
"Sure, I'll tell them what I know but you have to keep Randolph away from me, he knows who I am and I don't need shock treatment."
Her eyes narrowed at the information. "Shock treatment isn't used anymore, it was found to do more harm than good."
"Tell that to some of the people around here that get it at least once a week. Especially the blonde bitch locked in her room down the hall, she's his pet."
Blade looked at her watch and saw that it was close to lunchtime. "It's almost lunch time, where is your cafeteria?"
"At the very end of the hall, it's just a large room with tables in it. They bring the food up from downstairs in the elevator and then we serve ourselves."
"Why don't you take Sweetpea with you to lunch and I'm going to get a hold of Sylvie so she can start some stuff going on the outside." She gave Dana a small smile. "I'll see what I can do about getting you out of here."
Dana gave her a bright smile. "That would be cool, I've been here for two years and no one gives a damn about me." She held out a hand to Sweetpea. "Come on Q lets go steal some food." Blade moved closer to the edge of the couch and felt a hand in her pocket.
"Go on take the rest of the candy with you." She watched as Sweetpea took Dana's dangling sleeve and hopped of the couch to skip beside the taller woman. Getting up, she went into her office to pull all the files on the patients and brought them back out to the coffee table near the couch. An hour later, she had read through four of them and wondered why two of the four were being held in the institution and not as out patients. She got on her cell phone and called Jonis.
"I need you to check on some court cases for me."
"What no hello or anything first?"
"Hello Sylvie, I need some help."
"That's better, now what am I looking for?"
"I've got a lawyer here by the name of Dana Shelton who was convicted of starting a fire two years ago. She shouldn't even be here; she's not nuts and has offered to help us with what's really going on in here." She read off some other names to her and waited.
"You've got a lawyer in the nut house? How in the Hell did she end up there?"
"She said she was forced to use a public defender by the judge, she also said that the head shrinker that got Johnston put here is on the board to other institutions and spends a lot of time in court. Is there some way you can find out what cases he was used for?"
"Yeah, I'll check on that as soon as I get off the phone, now what about Johnston?"
"He convinced Chism that he was a born again Christian, caused all kinds of problems from the sidelines and finally got moved from the top floor to a lower less critical ward by a Dr. Randolph. I don't know how the other wards are set up as far as security goes but I'll find out."
"Once I find out anything, I'll give you a call at home; will you be there by seven?"
"Yeah, if not I'll give you a call by eight. Thanks Sylvie." She hung up the phone and went back to reading her files.
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Dana pushed an overweight man out of her way and grabbed two plates from the serving unit while Sweetpea grabbed cartons of milk from the milk crate on the floor. Elbowing her way through and snapping her teeth at slower patients finally got her out the door and down the hallway to Dana's room. She jumped on Dana's bed, put the milk on the nightstand table and waited for her tall friend.
"Dumbass bastards act like they haven't eaten in years!" Using her foot, she closed her door, and then dropped down in the center of her bed with the plates in her hand.
"What kind of slop we got today?" Sweetpea asked and took the offered plate from Dana. "EEWW! Breaded mystery meat, I really think this is the missing patients in disguise." She stabbed the meat with her plastic fork and held it up for inspection. "That looks like the missing Tim's tattoo!" She wiggled it at Dana and chuckled when she grimaced.
"Stop it Q, I have to eat this shit or I'll starve to death. Or maybe I'll put on footy PJ's and hang all over that gorgeous doc like you do for candy." She tapped Sweetpea on her knee and winked at her. "You looked awful comfy on the couch with her."
"Sooo ya jealous or what?" She tilted her head to the side in curiosity. "I think she's hot and maybe family."
"Ohh so that's why you didn't torture her for weeks before getting all cozy."
"Nooo, I just got the feeling that she's not here as a replacement and I was right."
"So does this mean no more Sweetpea antics?"
"Haa! Like I'd give up all the fun I have, not in this life time." She chuckled at all the stuff she got away with. "Who's your daddy?"
Dana shook her head and finished eating her food before asking the number one question of the day. "Are we still on for the night?"
"Yep, I gotta get in the office and make copies of the files."
"I hate the idea of you sneaking around, what happens if you get caught?"
"I beat the Hell out of who ever with Snoopy, which reminds me." She pulled her Snoopy onto her lap, pulled back a Velcro patch on the bottom, dumped out six pills and put them inside the empty milk carton. "Just think how much money Medicare just lost on those pills." She smashed the carton and put in on the empty dish.
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The clock showed it was five o'clock and time for Blade to head home, she grabbed up the files she hadn't yet read, turned the lights off and locked her office door behind her. She stood in the hallway and noticed that no patients were walking around.
"God this place is too damn quiet for me." She walked down the hall towards the small room that Freddie used while on duty and found him reading the newspaper. "See you tomorrow Freddie, I'm heading out so I can get caught up on the files."
"OK Doc, everyone's been given their meds so alls quiet for a while." He gave her a bright smile and a wave of a hand. "See you tomorrow morning and it's gonna be busy as Hell because we have group counseling for the crazies."
"Ohh great all of them in a room together." She growled as she cleared the doorway and headed down the hallway. For a reason unknown to her, she went to Sweetpea's room and stood inside the doorway. She felt her heart flutter at the sight of the small woman in her footy PJ's curled in a fetal position with her thumb in her mouth. She crept closer, reached down, smoothed back her soft messy hair and let her fingers trail across her cheek. Doing something that surprised her; she leaned over and placed a soft kiss on her temple. "I feel like a pedophile, she's just a little kid in a woman's body." She said to herself and left the room quietly never seeing the green eye open and watch her hunched shoulders disappear into the hallway.
Sweetpea ran her fingers over her temple and sighed. "Who's your daddy?"
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Blade had her living room floor covered with folders arranged by prognosis; she looked over the mess, leaned back against her couch and sipped her beer. On a note pad, she had written down the patients that had been sent to the institution by the courtroom shrink Dr. Donald C. Summers. Using the information that she had gotten from Sylvie, she had a complete list of all the people he had sent to the place she was no working. She was shocked that the number was 43 in the last year and that only ten of them were still there. She would have to talk to Dana and find out where the others were, she wished that she could talk to Dr. Randolph but knew that he would be all-professional towards her. Unless she could somehow get in on his little game but that meant harming innocent people and she couldn't do that. Rubbing her tired eyes, she got up from the floor and went into her bedroom. Striping out of her clothes, she headed to the shower to try and ease the tense muscles from her neck and back. It had been a long day for her, both emotionally and physically. She knew she was sore in places from her wrestling match with Sweetpea. A smile came to her face when she thought of the little monster, she couldn't deny that the woman was cute and if she wasn't a little nutty and in an institution, she would not think twice about asking her out. She looked in the mirror at her pierced ear from a sharp tooth and groaned. Any other time someone chewing on her ear would have been an instant turn on but not this time, now the grabbing part got to her the second time around. "I can't believe she did that, she's defiantly not shy about where she grabs either." She could still feel fingertips hitting her in a sensitive spot. "Maybe I should make it a cold shower?"
After her shower, she pulled on a baggy extra large T-shirt and crawled between the flannel sheets on her waterbed. Turning on the lamp on her nightstand, she picked up a novel by Faye Kellerman and found the page where she had left off. One of her weaknesses was reading murder mysteries, as if she didn't get enough of that in her profession.
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Sweetpea pulled down the grate for the air conditioning over her bed, jumped and grabbed the edge and pulled herself into the two-foot wide duct. She felt like a rat at times when she used the duct system to get around the institution un-seen. They had yet been able to keep her from escaping at night; they just never expected her to be able to wiggle out of restraints. She made her way down the duct by pulling herself along on her belly until she came to the section where it was more or less a free fall for six foot. That was the one part she hated and was the trickiest to not make any noise that would alert the night watchman or nurses. Gripping the sides of the duct with her toes, she used her hands on either side of her to walk down the duct. At the bottom, she scrunched herself as small as possible and crawled along until she came to a grate. Peeking into the room below, she knew she had a ways to go before she came to Dr. Randolph's office. Counting the grates, she stopped above the office and listened for any sounds from below. Pulling a small screwdriver from inside her sleeve, she pried the grate open and dropped down into the office. Going over to the filing cabinet, she used the lock picks she had with her to open the simple lock and then searched for the files she needed to copy. The last place she needed to search was the desk, opening the locks, she searched until she found what she needed. After covering the copy machine with a throw blanket she found in the outer room, she opened the front cover and pulled the wire off the counter mechanism. 45 minutes later, she had what she needed, putting everything back the way she had found it and then making sure that the grate was back in place, she unzipped her footy PJ's and rolled the papers around her legs above her ankles. When she was done, she slipped out of the office and skipped down the hallway towards the door that would take her upstairs to her floor. She didn't have to worry about it being locked because the security guard on that floor was lazy and never locked it.
She Ran up the steps to the next floor and tapped three times on the door, seconds later, it opened and she and Dana walked back down the hallway of their floor hand in hand.
"Who's your daddy?" Sweetpea said and then swung their hands back and forth. "Santa Claus came to see Doc and the Grinch stole Christmas."
"Is that right, well lets go play Easter Bunny and leave a huge egg on the pretty Docs desk."
They stopped outside of Blade's office and waited to see if the head nightshift nurse made an appearance. When it was clear that he was watching Conan O'Brien with the other nurses, Sweetpea used her lock picks to open the door. Dana waited in the hallway while Sweetpea put her stash on Blade's desk. When she came back out, she crawled on Dana's back and let her take her back to her room.
Sweetpea sang in a whisper close to Dana's ear. "Here comes Peter cotton tail hopping down the illegal trail, hippty hopping all the way to jail!"
"I hope it's a long painful hop down that trail, here ya go Q." She stopped outside her door and slapped hands with her little friend. "I can't wait to see Blade's face in the morning." She grinned down at Sweetpea before going back to her own room.
"Me neither Big D, me neither." She whispered once she was in her room.
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Wearing faded Levis and a black T-shirt with the Tomb Raider across the front, Blade opened the door to the fourth floor. What she saw were patients running down the hallway screaming bloody murder. "Day two in Hell, I wonder what's got them riled this morning?" She went towards the TV room where everyone had run from and stopped dead in her tracks. "Ohh my Gods, I don't fucking believe her." She mumbled under her breath. Sweetpea was standing on top of the TV dressed in lime green footy PJ's with silver spaceships all over them, in her hand was a phaser pistol made of tin foil and on her head was silver tinfoil antennae's. What Blade found amazing was her green face and hands; she walked over to her and grinned. "Come on down off the TV Sweetpea and I'll take you to my leader."
"No intelligent life forms." She held her arms out to Blade, and waited for her to get closer.
"You want me to help you down?" She wasn't ready for Sweetpea to jump on her, she stumbled backward until Sweetpea was wrapped around her body and she had her balance.
Sweetpea buried her face against Blade's neck; she inhaled the scent of her cologne, recognized the scent of Obsession for men and grinned.
"Who's your daddy?" She mumbled and held on tighter as Blade walked down the hallway looking for Freddie. When she found him, he gave out a loud burst of laughter.
"Looks like you got a Klingon there Doc."
"Complete with green face, what did she use to get it that way?"
"Most likely some little imp got into the art supplies." He moved around and tried to look at Sweetpea's face but couldn't see her for her hiding against Blade's neck. He ran a finger across her hand and nodded his head. "Yep, she got into the paints, it'll come off with soap and water. I take it that you found her standing on the TV?"
"Yep, and armed with a phaser pistol."
"She does that when the others won't let her watch the cartoons, you want me to take her and get her cleaned up?"
"No I'll do it, I'll take her to my office so that the others will calm down before we have our little get together." She carried Sweetpea down the hallway to her office and unlocked the door. Setting her down on the counter in the bathroom, she found a washrag and towel and began to wash the paint first from Sweetpea's face and then her hands. "You know Sweetpea; there are easier ways to watch the cartoons." She wiped her face dry and checked to make sure that she hadn't missed any paint. Running her fingers through the messy blonde hair, she tried to get some of the horns down but they refused and stuck back up. "So much for that, guess it's just your style." She looked into green eyes and saw a slight flicker and then nothing. "All done Sweetpea, let's go get some coffee and then we'll come back here and you can have some candy."
"Gimme candy now."
"Nope, later, did you have breakfast yet?"
"Green eggs and ham gimme candy."
Blade rolled her eyes and pulled a Hershey bar from her pocket. "OK, now we go to get me some coffee." She took Sweetpea's hand and led her from her office and down to the room with the coffee pot; she couldn't help but snicker when she saw heads popping out of rooms to check for the little green alien. After getting her coffee and Sweetpea her juice box, they went back to her office so that she could get things ready for the counseling session. The second she looked on her desk, she saw something that hadn't been there when she left the night before. Thinking that maybe Freddie had left the papers for her, she knew better, when she saw the chocolate lip marks on the bottom of the page. She looked to Sweetpea and saw a goofy grin covering her face. "You're going to have to show me how you get doors open; I always lock myself out of my car." She picked up the papers and started to look through them. "How in the world did you get these?"
"You wanted information, you got it." Dana said as she came into the office and closed the door behind her. "Those should be all the files you need to make a case against Randolph." She took a seat in a chair next to Sweetpea. "I see you got all the paint off her." She wrapped an arm around the smaller woman and gave her a small hug. "I told you to just take all the remotes and put the cartoons on."
Sweetpea rolled her eyes to opposite sides and grumbled to Dana. "Too many fruit loops."
Blade watched the interaction between the two women; she was beginning to wonder about Sweetpea's diagnosis. Something just wasn't right about it or her; she went over the file in her head and saw all kinds of mistakes. As close to a diagnosis for Sweetpea as she could get would be possibly schizophrenia, then again she didn't show all the signs that went along with it. Scratching a reminder on a scrap of paper on her desk, she had just finished when her door opened and a man walked in wearing an expensive suit, perfect hair and very cold and unemotional eyes. He stopped in the center of Blade's office and looked at each woman until his eyes stopped on Sweetpea. She let out a low keening noise, jumped from her chair and launched herself across Blades desk and into her lap. She wrapped her arms around her neck and refused to let go.
"I've been looking for you Quentin; it's time to have your meds changed." The man advanced towards her and stopped at Blade's commanding voice.
"Excuse me but just who in the Hell are you and what right do you have to change the meds." Dana came around the desk and stood closely behind her, Dana ran her fingers through Sweetpea's hair trying to calm her small friend who really was afraid of the man.
He gave her a glare. "Patients are not allowed in this office, so if you don't want me to get the orderlies in here to take care of you, I suggest you leave now."
Blade's temper went through the roof she hated egotistical men. She stood up with Sweetpea still wrapped around her, she turned and handed her off to Dana and then went to stand before the smaller man. "For your information whoever you are, I'm Dr. Blade Williams and no one will touch my patients but me."
He crossed his arms over his chest and gave her the once over. "Excuse my mistake, I was not told that they had already replaced Dr. Chism. I was informed that Quentin had caused a disturbance up here a short while ago and needed to be restrained."
"What she does is of no concern to you and as you can see, I have everything under control. Now for my earlier question, who are you?" She leaned down towards him and held him in place with steel colored eyes, she was trying her best not to grab him by his throat and throw him out of her office.
"BASTARD MOTHER FUCKER GIVES SHOCKS?BAD MAN!" Sweetpea burst out and then became quiet again.
"She needs to be medicated Dr. Williams and for future reference, I'm Dr. Randolph the chief psychologist of this institution and I can change your orders if I wish to." He turned and walked from her office with the air of superiority.
"Don't push me or you'll see who the real psychotic is around here!" She yelled at his back and then turned to the other two women. "I really hate that man!" She walked back over to them and ran a hand down Sweetpea's back. "Sweetpea has he ever given you shock treatment?" Her answer was a nodding blonde head and a whimper. "Fucking bastard!"
"I told you he was bad, now can you and Jonis do something about him?"
"I hope so, from what she told me last night, there are 33 patients missing from this place. She pulled a folded piece of paper from her back pocket and handed it to Dana. "Come on Sweetpea let go of Dana so she can look at the paper. Sweetpea let go of Dana with one arm and looped the other around Blade's neck for balance until she was sitting in the center of her desk. "Do you recognize any of those names?"
"All of them give me a minute and I'll tell you where they went." She looked at the paper, took a pen from the desktop and started writing beside each name. When she was finished, she brought her golden eyes up to met pale blue. "There are a lot of nut cases running loose or down on the other two floors." She handed the paper back to Blade and gave the pen to Sweetpea who stuck it up her nose. Blade just shook her head and went back to looking over the list. "And you won't find their files up here; most likely they're the ones Sweetpea got last night."
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Blade and Freddie were in the TV room with all the patients that have group counseling, Blade had her head resting on one hand and using the other to try and release the tension in her neck muscles. She could not believe how the place turned into romper room in a matter of seconds. Elvis was shaking his pelvis in front of the flasher, Mama Cass was serenading a man in his 90's, the alien abductees were all huddled under a card table with tin foil draping over the edges and Dana was laughing hysterically as Freddie tried to get Sweetpea down off a book shelf.
"It is possible to become nuts after spending time with them." Blade mumbled to herself and watched as her toes started tapping to the song Mama was singing. "They owe me three bottles of Remy Martin and are going to pay for my visit to the Betty Ford center."
"Come on Sweetpea, come down from up there."
"Nope! Bad man coming, shock me!"
"There's no bad man coming for you, so just come down so we can finish up the meeting."
"NononononononoNO! Save me!" She screamed at Blade and waved her arms. "Save meeee pretty Doc!"
Blade looked up at her and couldn't help but smile, the look on Sweetpea's face pierced her heart. "OK, I'm coming just hold on." She got up from the couch and held her arms out to Sweetpea. "Jump Sweetpea I'll catch you." Dana covered her eyes and prayed for someone to give Sweetpea wings or Blade a strong back. She knew all to well what the little flying squirrel was going to do. Sweetpea flapped her arms, crowed like a rooster and jumped off the seven-foot tall bookcase into Blade's open arms. All the wind went out of Blade as she hit the floor on her back and lay there with Sweetpea sitting on top of her. "I think I'm dead, Sweetpea ya gotta get off me I can't breathe." Sweetpea covered her body with her own and buried her face between her breasts.
Snuggling closer to Blade, she mumbled. "Mama's milk."
Blade dragged in a breath between clench teeth, what the little monster was doing to her was causing her entire body to go on alert. Tingles ran from her hardened nipples right down to her clenching center. "Ohh this is sooo not right." She thought and felt a shudder of arousal run its course through her body.
"OK Sweetpea, time to save the Doc." Dana reached down, patted Sweetpea on her head, and then lifted her off Blade. "I've got some candy left in my room, go get it." Little feet slapped on the tile floors of the TV room and disappeared down the hall; Dana offered Blade a hand up and then gave her a wicked grin. "I think you have a new pet, any other time Freddie would have had no problem with getting her down." Mama Cass leaned over Blade's shoulder and started to sing.
"Love is in the air, everywhere you turn around!" Mama waved her hands to get the others to sing with her, Blade had to cover her ears as half a dozen off key singers sang.
Freddie yelled close to her and then busted up laughing at the blush that overcame her face. "Sweetpea loooooves the Doc!"
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"You have to do something; she could ruin everything we've been working on!" Dr. Randolph paced in his office with the phone clutched to his ear. "I went up there to take care of that problem patient Quentin Porter; we have to get rid of her and that fire starter Dana." He broke the pen he had in half when Dr. Summers told him to calm down.
"Go up there at night and take out the fire starter, once she's gone, it'll be easier to get rid of Porter. Take Dana down to the basement and lock her in the holding cell down there, make sure you give her enough drugs to kill her. I don't want another screw-up like the last time; I had to liquefy those sleeping pills and force it down Chism' throat."
"Don't worry about it; I won't screw this one up." He hung up the phone and dropped down behind his desk. "You'll have a little accident trying to escape."
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Blade sat with Sylvie at a small Deli a few miles from where she lived in Bunker Hill, she had called her to show her the files that Sweetpea had stolen from Dr. Randolph's office. Sylvie matched them to the list she had with her of missing patients and shook her head.
"So all these people were moved to the lower floors and then they disappeared from the institution." She looked up into cloudy blue eyes and wondered what Blade was thinking. "What's on your mind Blade?"
"What if Dr. Randolph and Summers' are working together, they're getting money from the state for care of the convicted patients, so are they turning them loose or doing away with them?"
"We would know if they were killing them, they would have to get rid of the bodies somehow and having numerous suicides would be questioned."
"My brain is taking off in so many directions about what's going on in that place and then Randolph scaring the Hell out of Sweetpea."
"Do I see some kind of interest in this Sweetpea on your part other than Doctor/patient stuff?"
Blade's eyes went wide; she shook her head and then dropped her eyes to the tabletop. "There's something about her, it's hard to describe but I get the feeling that there's something going on in her head besides psychosis. You should see her Sylvie, she wears footy PJ's and her hair is always messed up into little horns all over her head." She tried to wipe the grin from her lips but failed horrible when Sylvie gave her a knowing look.
"Uhh huh and a certain Doctor is going to get herself in trouble if she doesn't start thinking of what she's doing. She's a nut case Blade and your patient; you could loose your license if anything comes of this infatuation."
"It's not an infatuation, its?ohh Hell I don't know what it is I feel." She dropped her head into her hands and took a deep breath.
Sylvie put her hand on Blade's shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze. "You had better back off with the feelings."
"Easy for you to say, you're not the one she grabs and crawls all over. I sit down; she sits on my lap or crawls behind me. Can you run a check on her through the computer and see if anything comes up besides her being arrested?"
"Against my better judgment I'll do it, you just keep your hands to yourself and the Sweetpea off your lap."
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With the TV on low and the stereo on just loud enough to drown out the news, Blade read over the remaining files that Sweetpea had stolen. Every one of the patients so far had Dr. Randolph's name as acting physician. The only problem she saw was the difference between what the patients first diagnosis was and what it changed to once they left Chism' care. It was a miracle cure when they left the top floor. "Just fucking amazing, I wish I was a super headshrinker like him." She tossed the papers on her coffee table, climbed up on her couch and laid down. "All right Blade, no more playing with the monster, keep your mind on the job at hand, not her hands on you." She pulled a throw pillow over her face and groaned. "Easy to say hard to do when she can get me aroused with just a touch." She pulled a throw blanket off the back of the couch and covered up with it intending to watch TV, not fall asleep dreaming of Sweetpea doing obscene things to her with her tin foil phaser.
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Dr. Randolph and one of his orderlies came up the back stairs to the top floor; he used his key to open the door. They checked to make sure that the lights were off before sneaking down the hall towards Dana's room. Dr. Randolph pulled the syringe from his pocket and checked the dosage. "As soon as we get her, you take her downstairs and lock her in one of the cells. Make sure that you give her that shot I gave you, it'll take her out completely and all it will show is an overdose of the meds she's already on." The orderly nodded his head and opened the door to Dana's room; he moved quickly to her bed and clapped a hand over her mouth and an arm across her chest to hold her down for Dr. Randolph. He had to put all of his weight on her; he had no idea that she was that strong. A few seconds later, she was unconscious; he picked her up, threw her over his shoulder and left the room to head to the basement. Dr. Randolph walked the hallways to make sure that they hadn't been seen, when it was clear that they had gone un-observed, he went back to his office.
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Everything was normal that morning at the institution, Freddie made his way down the hallway to the small lounge to put on a fresh pot of coffee before going to turn the lights on in the TV room and the hallway. He stopped when he saw a slipper lying in the hall and picked it up. Placing it on the small table in the room, he soon forgot about it when the sound of mumbling, grumbling and singing came to his ears telling him that the natives were awake and would be going for breakfast down the hall. A bright smile came to his face when he thought of Dr. Williams and Sweetpea, the small woman latched on to the tall doctor as soon as she hit the floor and was like a leech until she left for the day. Never had he seen Sweetpea act like that towards anyone so quickly, she never really made any close friends except for Dana but that came after a battle of wills and a truce. He was still smiling when a scared Sweetpea came charging into the room and took his hand.
"Dana gone! Dana Gone!" She turned and paled when she saw the slipper sitting on the table. "Dana's!" She took the slipper and pulled on Freddie's hand.
"Wait Sweetpea what do you mean she's gone?" He didn't get another word out as she dragged him to Dana's room. The blankets were on the floor along with her pillow and the clothes she had worn the day before.
"Took her!"
"Who took her Sweetpea, are you sure she's not in the head?"
"Looked, bad man took her!" Tears welled in her green eyes; Freddie pulled her against his large body and walked her out of the room.
"We have to wait until Blade gets here and see what she says."
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Dana moaned and tried to move, she felt like each limb weighed tons and her tongue was swollen twice the size. The most she could do was roll her eyes to where she could see a light shinning through the small window on the door. Panic set in when she remembered what had happened to her, she knew that she was not on her floor or any other floor for that matter. The sounds were all different, soft moans, groans came to her sharp ears, and then the low male voices from a short distance off that were coming closer. When the door opened and two men walked in all she could do was blink her eyes and struggle against the numbness in her body.
The man who stood by the door spoke in a deep voice, what he said made Dana's panic grow. "Give her the shot and let's go out and get some thing to eat, damn Randolph dragged me in here four hours early."
"Alright already, ya been bitchin fer the last hour." The other man rolled Dana towards the wall and jabbed her with the needle in her hip. Pulling the syringe out, he dropped it in his pocket and left the room. "What a damn waste, why does he want all these people dead anyway?"
"Probably because he's a psychotic, she's lucky; he could have tortured her like all the others." They closed the door and left Dana lying on the small cot. Her mind wrapped around what the men had said. "He is killing them, but torturing them first, just fucking great. I finally get the answer to the mystery and I can't tell anyone." She closed her eyes and waited for the shot to steal her last breath from her body.
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Sweetpea was pacing the hallway where Blade would enter the floor through the stairwell door. She had no idea what time it was or how long she had been pacing, she was about to run down the hall and check with Freddie when she heard the click of the lock and the door being pulled open. She pushed it open the rest of the way and grabbed Blade's hand.
"Dana gone! Hafta help now!" Sweetpea pulled her down the hall towards her office.
"Hold on Sweetpea, what do you mean Dana's gone, where's Freddie." She pulled the small woman around, placed her hands on her muscular shoulders and looked into panic filled green eyes. "When did this happen?"
"Freddie said wait for you, bad man take her."
Pale blue eyes turned a steel color; jaws clenched and worked teeth together to make a horrible grinding noise. "OK, come on lets go to my office, I'll call downstairs to that son of a bitch and give him the fucking riot act." Taking Sweetpea's hand, she rushed them down the hall at a fast jog. When she came to her door, she found it unlocked and looked to Sweetpea. "Did you unlock this?"
"Nope, maybe Freddie." Blade looked around her office and found nothing unusual or anything out of place. She went to her phone and then thought. "I don't have the phone numbers down there." She pulled Sweetpea over and pushed her down in her desk chair. "You stay here, I'm going downstairs to look for Dana, and if I'm not back in an hour you have Freddie call this number." She wrote down Sylvie's phone number on a pad and pointed to it. "She's a friend of mine, you have him call her and let her know where I went." She leaned forward, placed a soft kiss on Sweetpea's forehead, and left her office. Sweetpea pulled a pen from a desk drawer, wrote beneath the phone number a quick note to Freddie, and signed Blade's name. She then searched through the desk drawers to find anything of use and went back to her room to prepare for the worst.
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Blade opened the door to the floor below hers and went in search of an orderly or doctor, she was beyond upset and was down right pissed that one of her patients had been removed from her floor with out her consent. Looking in all the rooms on her way to what she hoped was the nurses station, she saw patients sitting on their beds starring out into space. No matter what their mental problems were, not all of them should have been cationic. She stopped at the half-open door and listened to the voices from with in, she pushed it open and saw two male orderlies eating breakfast and drinking coffee.
"I'm Dr. Williams from upstairs; I'm looking for the doctor on this floor."
One of the men looked at her and shook his head. "We don't have our own doctor; Dr. Randolph treats these people when he has time."
"OK, then can either of you tell me if one of my patients was brought down here last night? I came in this morning and she's been removed from her room."
The older of the two men gave his partner a silent message to keep his mouth shut. "Nope, no one came down here last night, the midnight crew would have told us and it would be in the log book."
She had seen the look that passed between the two men and knew they were covering something up. "Fine then I'll just check every single room in this damn place until I find her." She stomped from the room and started checking rooms on her way to the opposite door at the end of the hallway. One of the men got on the phone, called Dr. Randolph at home, and hung up seconds later with his orders.
"Come on, he wants us to take care of her like the other one." The two men left the room and looked down the hallway; Blade was just now four doors towards the end and close to the door that would take her to the next floor. They turned in the opposite direction and went down the stairs; they would wait for her at the next level and take her to the basement from there.
"Which ever one of us gets her, we take her downstairs, just lock her up and leave the shot to that psychotic."
The younger man nodded his head and went through the door to walk towards the other end where he would wait in case Blade came down that set of stairs. He rubbed his hands together trying to hide the trembling, when he took the job as an orderly, he never thought it would include kidnapping and murder. However, he was stuck know and the only way out of it was to die.
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Sweetpea ran down the hallway looking for Freddie, she knew he had to be somewhere close by. She found him in the room where the abductees were hiding under the bed.
"Ohh come on now, the mother ship did not come here last night and take Dana away." He was on his hands and knees looking into four pairs of terrified eyes.
"We saw them, came in the night and carried her out of here."
"Who did you see and where did they take her?"
"The grays, they vanished through the door that no one uses." Freddie looked up when Sweetpea waved the paper in front of his eyes.
"What's this?" He read the note and groaned. "OK Sweetpea, I'm going to call her now, I don't like this one bit. You go hide somewhere because I'm about to set this place loose and hope that it distracts Randolph for a while." He left the room and jogged down to his small room to use the phone. Sweetpea sprinted back to Blade's office, closed and locked the door behind her. She picked up the phone and made a call too, after a few brief words, she hung up and waited for Hell day to begin.
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Blade's temper was close to erupting; she had checked every room on the third floor and not found Dana yet. That only left the first floor where all the Alzheimer patients stayed. She opened the door and went down the flight of stairs, when she reached the bottom; she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned and brought up her arm to block but not well enough to keep the short blackjack from catching her in the back of her head. She dropped to her knees and was caught before she could fall all the way.
"God damn if you don't weigh a ton!" The older man laced his arms under Blade's and dragged her down the stairs to the basement level. At the bottom, he dropped her to the floor so that he could get the door unlocked and then dragged her by one arm to the nearest cell. Once she was inside, he closed and locked it before going in search of the other guys that worked down there and his partner from the upstairs.
Dana heard the cell door next to her close with a heavy thud; she waited until she heard the footsteps move away and then slid from the cot. What ever they had given her had wore off and the other shot that was meant to kill her only killed her driver's license in her nylon wallet. She prayed that she had time enough to escape before they came to dispose of her supposed dead body. At the top of the seven foot wall was a narrow window that ran the length of the wall, it was only screen to allow for ventilation purposes. She stood on the cot, grabbed the edge of the wall and pulled herself up so that she could look into the next cell. All she could see was a bare arm and dark hair; it was the bracelet that told her who the person was. Blade wore an ornate 1 1/2 inch wide sterling silver bracelet with turquoise settings. She knew that she couldn't yell her name and most likely Blade was unconscious any way. She hoped that someone would miss the doctor and call for help; she was depending on one person in particular.
"Come on Sweetpea, I know you'll figure it out." She dropped back down on her cot and lay down in the exact position that she had been after her last shot.
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"She did what? I can't believe her!" Sylvie yelled on her end. "If she doesn't show up in another hour, call me back and I'll come out there and talk to this Dr. Randolph."
"Yes ma'am, if she's not back in an hour, I'm turning all the crazies loose. With them running all over I can search for them on all the floors and not be noticed."
"They can't get outside can they?"
"No ma'am, that takes a badge to get the doors open."
"OK, I'll wait here for your call."
"Yes ma'am, one hour and I'll call." He hung up the phone and went towards Blade's office; he knocked on the door and called for Sweetpea. "Come on Sweetpea I know you're in there." He stepped back when the door opened and bright green eyes looked up at him. "I'm turning the crazies loose soon, you stay in here and I'll look for Dana and the Doc."
"Okay dokay! No Red Baron?" She looked up with a pout.
"No Red Baron, you and him stay in here where it's safe, now lock the door Sweetpea." He pulled the door closed and heard the lock click home. "I hope you stay in there." He mumbled to himself before going down the hallway.
Sweetpea crawled up on Blade's desk and pulled the grate down, grabbing the edge; she pulled herself up and started crawling down the duct to the drop off that would take her to the next floor. She had to get down to the basement and this was the easiest way, she had no idea if her hunch was right but she would take a chance.
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Dana was getting more nervous by the second; she kept hearing a loud screeching noise, hissing and then a loud thumping noise afterward. It reminded her of the old coal furnace in her apartment building. Terror squeezed her heart; she now knew how they got rid of the bodies. Flipping the cot over, she saw the thick wire supports that held her weight. Looking to the door, she started pulling on one of the wires until her hands were bleeding and sore. When it finally came free, she dragged the cot over, wrapped the wire around the door handle and then to the other wires. They wouldn't be able to get her door open with the cot across it. She sat down in a far corner and waited.
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Freddie called Sylvie and informed her that Blade had not come back yet and that he was turning the crazies loose to start his search. He agreed to meet her at the front door in an hour and they would continue their search together with the help of two police officers. After he hung up, he stood in the hallway and yelled to run and be free. He waited until he saw some of the patients and waved to them to follow. He went to the door to the stairs, opened it and blocked it so that it wouldn't close. He went all the way down to the first floor doing the same thing until the place was in complete chaos.
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Sweetpea lay close to the grate and watched as the men below went running towards what she figured was the door to the stairs. Hopefully, Freddie had done what he said he was going to do and they were going to contain the loose nuts. Using the heel of her hand, she hit the grate and watched it drop to the concrete floor below. Dropping her head down, she looked around the basement for any remaining people before maneuvering in the duct and dropping to the floor below. What she saw was around twenty cells with thick metal doors, the small windows were well above her head and she would have to jump to see through each one.
"Son of a bitch, I would be a foot two short for this." She went to the first door, jumped up a few times before giving up, and called Dana's name instead.
"Sweetpea is that you?" Dana said through the small window and then seen her friend come running towards her. "Can you get this door unlocked?"
"No problem just give me a second." She pulled out her lock picks and went to work on the lock. "I've just about got it."
"Let me get my booby trap undone on this side, I think Blades in the cell right next to this one."
A solid click and Sweetpea had the door unlocked; she jumped up and down and connected eyes with Dana. "Did you say Blades down here?"
"Yeah, the cell to your left, open it."
Dana finished unblocking the door and pushed it open, she stepped out and saw the cell door next to hers open. She stepped in and found Sweetpea with Blade's head in her lap. "She's unconscious, how are we going to get her out of here?"
"Can you get the freight elevator working and I'll carry her."
Sweetpea looked up at Dana with worried eyes. "You got any change on you?"
"Nope but what about Blade?" Sweetpea pushed her hand into Blade's pockets and pulled out a handful of change.
"Here hold this for me while I get out of my PJ's." Dana's eyes went wide; she didn't want to see her friend running around naked. That was one thing wouldn't go unnoticed.
"Q you can't do?ohhh you have clothes on underneath." A wide grin came to her face when she saw the faded Levis and T-shirt.
"What did you think I didn't have any other clothes?" She winked at Dana and threw her PJ's on the floor. "OK, I'm gonna go work in the elevator, you get Doc."
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Freddie stood back, watched all the patients from all three floors run around, and have a Hell of a time playing. It was like a three-ring circus or a sci-fi convention. The abductees were having an in-depth conversation with a small group that looked like a crew from the Starship Enterprise. Mama Cass and Elvis were singing Don Ho songs to a group of Alzheimer patients and all the others were just running around. He kept an eye on the front doors for someone who looked like a lawyer, he never thought to ask Sylvie what she looked like but the sight of the two uniform police officers gave her away quickly. He opened the door and took her hand.
"I'm Freddie ma'am; I didn't get a chance to search anywhere. The likely place is the basement but I don't have a key to the doors and the elevator won't go down there without a key."
"Just great," She ran a hand down her neck and looked to the officers. "Anyone of you have anything in your cruisers to get a door open?" They both shook their heads at her. "OK lets see what we can do, maybe we can find someone with a key to those doors.
"Dr. Randolph is the only one that I know of that would have a key and he's not here."
"He will be once someone calls and tells him what's going on here." She watched as the flasher stepped up behind Freddie and whipped his coat open at her. "Hey buddy, go use a dick pump and then come and see me." She pushed him out of her way and walked towards one of the doors that she assumed led to the basement.
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Sweetpea pulled the electrical cover off the wall inside the elevator and looked at the wiring. Taking a penny, she started using it to jump across the connections looking for the right one to get the elevator to move. A couple of times she sent a little jolt through her fingers and sparks to the floor. With the last set of wires, she heard the motor start and then die when she removed the penny. Pulling a useless wire free, she connected it to one of the screws and waited for Dana.
"You owe me Q; she weighs a fucking ton and I'm not my normal butch carrying card self today." She panted and then leaned against the wall of the elevator. "Are we set Q 'The real McGyver" Porter?"
"All set, simple ass wiring system." She hit the wire to the connection she had found, hit the number one button and grinned when it rose to the next floor. When it stopped, she looked at the doors and cussed. "Damn I forgot all about that." She touched the wire to all the connections and finally found the one to open the door. Their eyes grew huge at the mass confusion before them, patients were running everywhere. "Ohh shit how do we get out of here now?"
"I'll go to the front doors; you go steal someone's badge so we can get out of here."
"Ohh great dipshit Dana." She pulled Blade's badge from her shirt and waved it in front of Dana.
"What do ya want from me, geez I spent most of the night with my body numb." She hefted Blade to a better position on her shoulder and staggered towards the front door with Sweetpea leading the way. Out of the corner of her eye, Sweetpea saw Freddie and some cops near the basement door. She tapped Dana on her arm and pointed. "I'm going to tell Freddie that we have Blade."
"I'll be right here on the floor under her body when you're done." Dana sunk to her knees and collapsed under Blade's weight.
Sweetpea ran past people, crawled over their backs, in between their legs and finally got to Freddie. However, it was the woman who caught her eye first; her hazel eyes and honey colored curly hair struck something in her. She reached out and touched her arm. "We found Blade but she's hurt, Dana has her by the front door." Freddie looked down at Sweetpea in total shock, he had never heard her use that many words before. "Well come on before someone finds out that they're no longer in the basement." She turned and pulled Sylvie behind her to the front door where Dana was stuck under Blade's body. Sylvie motioned to the officers who picked Blade up between them and waited for Sweetpea to open the front door with Blades badge. The seven of them went out the front door and to the cars that were parked right out in front.
"Put her in the backseat of my car and I'll take her to the hospital." She pointed to Dana and Sweetpea. "You two come with me that way it'll be safe." She turned to Freddie and took his large hand in hers. "Thank you for all you've done."
"No problem ma'am, it was my pleasure. I like Doc Blade even though I've only known her a few days." He pulled Sweetpea into a hug and shook Dana's hand. "Take care of Doc and each other you two."
"Don't worry Freddie, we'll be back to visit you." Sweetpea said, then crawled into the back seat and placed Blade's head in her lap. Dana got into the front seat and couldn't stop looking at the woman next to her.
"Don't I know you from somewhere?" She said and then thought of how asinine it sounded.
"If you're Dana then you know me from beating my ass in court." Sylvie turned and gave her a bright grin. "I was off my game that day; otherwise you wouldn't have won that case."
"Ohh I love cocky women!" Dana chuckled and then sunk back against the door so she could talk to Sylvie and drool over her. Sweetpea sat in the back seat running her fingers through Blade's long dark hair, that was when she found the large lump on the back of her head and the matted hair from the cut.
"Hey guys, I think she may have a concussion, I just found a knot on her head the size of a golf ball. Maybe we should just take her home and put some ice on her head."
Sylvie looked in the rearview mirror and shook her head. "It's too risky, she may?"
"Be killed by one of Randolph's or Summers flunkies when he finds out where she is. I have a safe house near by; we can go there until all this is cleared up."
Sylvie looked at her with narrowed eyes. "Just who are you anyway?"
"I'm Sweetpea." She gave Sylvie and Dana a goofy grin and went back to caressing Blade's face with her fingertips. "Head up towards West Virginia, then take Rt. 50, when we get closer I'll tell you where to go."
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Blade woke up with her head pounding and nauseous, she opened one eye and looked around the dimly lit room and saw that the light was coming from a bathroom. Crawling from the comfortable bed, she stumbled to the toilet and dropped down onto her knees and wretched. When she was finished, she was too weak to move so she just sat there with her forehead resting on the cold seat.
Sweetpea heard the retching noise from the kitchen where the three of them had been talking and drinking coffee. She left the table and headed to her bedroom to check on Blade, she found her sitting on the floor and shivering from cold sweats. Sweetpea laid a hand on her back and rubbed small comforting circles.
"Let me help you up, you want something to drink?"
Blade turned her head and moaned when the hammers beat behind her eyes, she didn't expect to see Sweetpea and a small grin came to her face.
"A toothbrush would be good and maybe some tea." She shivered and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
"OK, just sit there a minute and let me get you a toothbrush." She flushed the toilet and then found a new toothbrush in the medicine cabinet. When she was ready, she helped Blade to her feet and kept a hand on her back while she brushed her teeth. Wrapping an arm around her waist, she help her to the kitchen and then to a chair at the table. Blade looked across the table into twinkling hazel eyes.
"Hey ya Sylvester, I see ya came to my rescue."
"Nope, I was just the getaway driver. You have these two to thank not me." Blade held out a hand to Dana and frowned when her hand wasn't accepted.
"Nope, I just carried your heavy ass." Dana looked to a smirking Sweetpea and nodded her head. "Q did everything; she busted me out then got you out of your cell. How's your head?"
"Sweetpea I thought I told you to stay in my office."
"Sorry but I don't like taking orders, and if I had, you two would have been crispy by now." She put a cup of chamomile tea in front of Blade and took the seat next to her.
"What do you mean crispy and how did you find us?"
"I took my special route by way of the heating ducts and Dana figured out that they dispose of the bodies that Randolph tortures to death by using the furnace."
Blade turned a pale green, got up from her chair and ran back to the bathroom. "Guess I should have phrased that differently huh?" She went after Blade and left Sylvie and Dana looking at each other. Dana gave Sylvie a toothy grin and pointed towards the hallway.
"I'd say Q has a thing for the Doc." She leaned on the table with one elbow and gave Sylvie a sultry look. "What about you, do you and Doc have something going on?" Sylvie's eyebrow rose over a twinkling eye, she let out a bark of laughter and then sobered.
"She's not my type; she's too tall and analyzes everything I say. So no we don't have anything going on." She moved to imitate Dana and gave her a smoldering once over. "Are you really a fire bug?"
Dana's voice dropped an octave as she moved closer to Sylvie. "Ohh I start fires but not the kind I've been accused of." She brought their noses together and whispered. "Doing anything later?"
"Maybe putting out a bush fire." She brought their lips together for a gentle kiss and pulled away to look into dark golden eyes before she kissed her deeply.
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Sweetpea placed a cold cloth on Blade's neck and rubbed her shoulders gently. "Sorry about what I said, I wasn't thinking." She rested her head against Blade's back. "Maybe you should lie down for a while; I'll bring you an ice pack for your head." She lifted her head and ran her hands down Blade's arms.
"I think that would be a good idea, I feel horrible." She moaned deeply when she felt warm hands run down her arms and then rest on her hips. "Maybe some aspirins to dull the hammers in my head." And a morphine drip to numb the throbbing between my legs.
"There are some sweats and a T-shirt on the bed, go ahead and change while I get the ice pack." She got up from the floor and went into the kitchen; she stopped inside the door and cleared her throat. "Excuse me but this is a sex free room, if you're gonna devour each other there's better places." She tapped Dana on her head. "Like your bedroom Dana."
Their kiss broke and Sylvie gave Dana a confused look. "You live here?"
"Well yeah, at least when I'm not locked in a nut ward."
"We both live here and if you two don't get out of my kitchen I'm gonna throw cold water on you two." She went to the freezer, pulled out a cold pack, turned the water on and used the sprayer to chase the two women out. "Teach you to not believe me." She chuckled on her way back to her bedroom and let out a long sigh when she found Blade lying back on the bed with her T-shirt off. She set the ice pack on the nightstand, removed Blade's shoes then her Levis before she swung her legs onto the bed, fighting to get a clean T-shirt on her, she turned her onto her side. Running her fingers across the back of her head, she found the lump and put the ice pack against it. "You really shouldn't be sleeping but you look so tired." She ran her fingertips across a high cheekbone and sighed. After setting her alarm clock to go off in two hours, she moved up behind her, lay down and kept the ice pack on Blade's head. Minutes later, her eyes fluttered closed and she drifted off to sleep deeply for the first time in months.
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Two hours later the alarm clock went off and Blade ended up hanging from the ceiling from her fingernails. She rolled over and came face to face with Sweetpea. Blinking her eyes a few times, the sight never changed. Reaching over her slumbering body, she hit the alarm off and lay back down to stare into the peaceful face of the little imp. She remembered only certain things, the rest was foggy and she wasn't sure if it was a dream or not. She ran a finger across the moist pink lips and smiled when Sweetpea moaned and her brows twitched. She continued to terrorize her until sleepy green eyes opened and gazed into hers.
"Where am I?" Blade asked with a thick voice.
"My bed."
A dark brow rose over a pale blue eye. "And how did I get in your bed?"
"You fell under my seductive spell and followed me home."
"Uhh huh and did I enjoy what ever you did to me?"
A cocky smirk covered Sweetpea's face; she wiggled one brow and rolled from her bed. "If I did something to you, you would still be screaming my name, or you'd be in a coma."
"Cocky little shit," She sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, she watched Sweetpea stretch and heard her back crack. "You're not really crazy are you?"
"Ohh I'm crazy alright, just not certifiable. Are you hungry, I'm starving to death?" She handed Blade her Levis and left her bedroom. Blade chuckled and groaned when she felt a twinge in her head.
"Damn but it feels like I got kicked in the head by a mule." She ran her fingers over her head and felt the lump. "Wonder how I got this?" She dropped her Levis on the bed, wandered out of the bedroom, and followed the sound of rattling pots and pans. Slight glimpses of the day were coming back to her and she remembered that Dana and Sylvie had been here earlier. "Sweetpea where's Dana and Sylvie, they were here weren't they?"
"Ohh they're still here and noisy ass Hell!" She pointed through the kitchen door. "Step out there and listen close and you'll hear them, I'm tempted to put the hose through Dana's bedroom window and hose them down." Blade's eyebrows buried themselves in her bangs, her body shook in a silent laugh and then she shocked the Hell out of Sweetpea by moaning loudly.
"Ohh Gods yes?yes?Ohh Gods DANA!" She busted up laughing and came into the kitchen. "That was relieving for me how about you?" She grinned at a shocked and flustered Sweetpea. "So are you going to tell me how I got here and how in the Hell I got this knot on my head that hurts like Hell?"
"I had to club you over the head to get you in my bed." She deadpanned and then pulled frozen beef patties from the freezer.
"I've been known to be hard to get but never that hard to get." She tilted her head back and moaned when a throbbing pain hit her. "So do I still call you Sweetpea or Quentin?"
"Dana calls me Q, so what ever makes you feel comfortable is fine with me."
"OK Q, so if you're not really a nut, then why were you locked up?" She took the offered Coke from Q and popped it open.
"I had to find a way to build a case against Summers and get my boss out of the Klink."
"Your boss, who's your boss?"
"I'm an investigator for the Berkley County Prosecutors office; in short I work for Dana." Blade felt her jaw drop open.
"Ohh for Christ sakes, you were a plant in the institution just like I was. But why didn't your office just go the easy way and have the trial against Dana overturned?"
"Because I was set up and we needed proof that the judge is in on all the bullshit at the institution." Dana dropped down into a chair and caught the Coke that Q tossed her.
"So you're not a fire starter, Sweetpea's not a nut and I think my heads gonna explode." She rubbed the area between her eyes before looking back at Dana. "So why the Hell did they kidnap me, where do I fit in with all of this?"
"The only thing I can think of," Q dropped into a chair beside Blade. "is that you were going to look for Dana and that made you a risk to finding out about what's going on down in the basement." She took a drink of Blade's Coke and put it back in front of her before getting out of her chair to check on the hamburgers. "Hopefully the authorities are at the place right now shutting it down, once they have it contained then Randolph and Summers will be brought up on charges for murder, kidnapping, neglect and what ever else Sylvie and Dana can come up with."
Blade tilted her head sideways and watched Q flip the hamburgers and place cheese on them. "So for six months you played a crazy, and that's why you were sneaking around the place at night so you could get into the files and turn them over to your office? How did you get them out of there?"
Dana started laughing and snorted when Q gave her a sharp look. "Come on Q its funny what you did." She leaned closer to Blade. "Once a week, she would put the papers in a pair of her footy PJ's and whip them out a window near the parking lot. One of the people from our office would pick them up and take them back to the office. So now we have six months worth of files to use against the assholes and as soon as they search the basement they'll have enough evidence to put them away for more years than they have on this planet."
"Ohh yes we will." Sylvie wandered into the kitchen with her hair tangled and sheet marks across her cheek and neck. Wrapping an arm around Dana's neck, she dropped down onto her lap and gave her a gentle kiss. "Then we can work on getting the bar to give back all your privileges so you can go back to putting bad guys away. I figure with enough testimonies against all of them then it should be easy to get the charges and everything completely dropped and your record destroyed." She looked over to Blade and winked. "Since I just happen to know a very good head shrinker that will give you a clean bill of health."
"How do you know I won't say you're both nut cases and run off with all the Remy Martin you and the Judge owe me? Plus, how do we clear Dana of the arson charges?"
"We have to get a hold of the judge's daughter; she set the fires and then blamed me for them." Dana took a deep breath and looked to Q. "We can do that can't we, get that bitch and make her testify against her father so that I can be cleared of all this shit?"
"As soon as we find her, she's probably starting forest fires in California or Seattle." Q set plates in front of everyone with cheeseburgers, fries and fresh coleslaw. "Maybe if you're really good, Sylvie will represent you in court and throw all the alibis and proof of innocence at the jury's feet." Sylvie looked between Q and Dana.
"What's she talking about?"
"My attorney refused to use any of the information Q got to prove my innocence, he said it was conflict of interest and he would get his own information. He didn't do shit except cut a deal with the prosecuting attorney and have me locked up. I spent two years in that damn place and the only person who helped me was Q, little did I know she was going to pull her own scam and get locked up with me."
Q gave her a big grin and tossed a fry at her. "Come on you enjoyed it, how many other patients caused as many problems as me?" Blade looked out of the corner of her eye at Q and shook her head.
"I was only there a couple of days; I can only imagine what you did in six months." She felt warm breath fall across her ear and neck and then a deep sultry voice whispered in her ear. "Who's your daddy?" Blade shivered and glanced sideways into dark emerald green eyes. "Did you do that to everyone?"
"Nope, I just picked on you." She ran a hand up Blade's bare thigh and cupped her burning sex through her underwear, she let out a low growl when Blade stiffened in her chair and whimpered.
Dana snorted and gave Blade a small grin. "She's still Sweetpea the grabby hand little pervert and if you look in her dresser you'll find footy PJ's with the Smurfs on them among other hidden treasures." She stuck her tongue out at Q and went back to eating.
"In my drawers again I see."
"I ain't never been in your drawers, you're too short and insane for me. It's the case of batteries in the closet that clued me in on what you have hidden in that bedroom and I know it's not the energizer bunny or a giant flash light."
Blade was amazed that not even a blush came over Q's face and all she did was shrug her shoulder's and continue to eat like there was no tomorrow.
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Dr. Randolph ignored the crazies running through the place and went to the top floor, he checked both ways before going to his pet's room and looking in to see her sitting in the corner rocking and talking to herself. Pulling his keys from his pocket, he unlocked the door and went over to her.
"Good afternoon Bambi, would you like to go for a walk?" He unlocked the chain from the steel ring in the floor and pulled her up to her feet. Unbuckling the straps at the back of her straight jacket, he had it completely off in a matter of minutes and then led her by her hand out of the room and towards the elevator. He had taken her downstairs numerous times but had no idea how she would act outside. He fingered the syringe in his pocket and grinned a little. If she became too hard to handle, he would just inject her and have a calm little kitten in her place. After five years of giving her shock treatments and experimental drugs, he knew her better than he did the other patients. None of the others were as notorious as she was though; she had killed her own family and then killed another 64 when she burned down the apartment building to hide her crime. She wouldn't have been caught if she didn't stand and laugh hysterically when occupants with their bodies in flames jumped from the 15th story of the building. He had used his own version of Pavlov's dog experiment with her. When she saw fire, she would scream and try to put it out; her reward was no more shocks to her tender areas. Now she was a shell of her former insane self but still had some tendencies to be violent.
"We're going to have some fun Bambi, I have some problems that you can take care of for me and have fun doing it." He used his keys and opened the fire door that led to the parking lot where his car was. As soon as he was on the road, police cruisers flew past him with their lights flashing. "Just in time to escape the Calvary." He laughed hysterically and looked over at the blank look on the bleach blonde's face. "Lighten up Bambi; you'll never have to worry about being locked up ever again."
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Dr. Summers threw clothes and other needed articles in a small carry on bag and then pulled his London trench coat from the hook near the door to his house. He had been informed by one of the institutions orderlies that the place was under seizure by the police and was being completely locked down. He knew he had to get out of the area because it was only a few hours before they found the patients in the basement and would be coming for him. He ran out to his older model Mercedes, threw the bag into the back and climbed in behind the wheel. The screech of tires on pavement made him look behind him to see Dr. Randolph waving at him from his open window. He got out of his car and walked back to see what Randolph needed, as soon as he looked into the car, he saw Bambi point a Berretti at him and then all went black. Randolph pulled away from the curb and sped off down the street. Dr. Summers' body lay trembling in the curb and then stilled as his body caught up with his now destroyed brain. Blood trailed from the hole in his forehead to puddle around his messy hair.
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Dana grabbed the phone from the kitchen wall and growled under her breath, after a few terse words she hung it up and slammed her hand on the door jam. "That was the Detective on the case, Dr. Randolph hasn't been found yet and that psycho bleach blonde is missing."
Q shot up from her chair and started to pace the area behind Blade, she ran her fingers through her hair messing up even more than it had been. "He's got her, that's his little pet." She jogged from the kitchen and headed for the room they used as an office, she hit her PC on and waited for it to boot up. When it was done, she logged onto her ISP and went into the files at their office. Finding what she needed, she downloaded the file and then printed it up. Taking it with her back to the kitchen, as she read a page she handed it to Blade. "Do you think he reprogrammed her to do his bidding?"
Blade read the last page, she knew that her face was pale and could feel the clamminess of her palms. Rubbing her eyes, she looked to Sylvie. "We had better get a hold of the judge and tell him what's going on, if what I just read is right, he has a killing machine in his control." Sylvie used the phone in the kitchen and alerted the judge of the circumstances with Randolph and the patient he had taken from the institution; she also told him that she would be working with the Loudon County Prosecutors Office on the shared case. After she was finished, she looked to Blade and spoke in a strained tone.
"Will he come after you guys?"
"I think he might," Blade looked to both Q and Dana. "Does anyone know about this place?"
"Nope, it's not under either one of our names." Q stated as she pulled a six-pack of beer from the refrigerator. "It's in my grandma's name, she lives in Pensacola Florida."
"So if we all stay here we'll be safe?"
"Yep, I wasn't kidding when I said it was a safe house." She took Blade's hand and led her to the closet near the front door; she opened the smaller door and showed her the electronics inside. "The White House doesn't even have this kind of security, I have camera's all around the outside perimeter that not only scan the area every 30 seconds but will activate by motion sensor. The second the perimeter is breached, night vision lights click on in the cameras and light the place up like its noon. All the doors and windows have highly sensitive sensors in them and send out a 120 volt shock when it's set from inside the house."
"And what if you forget and touch the door knob; you get fried by your own system?"
"No," She chuckled and smacked Blade in her shoulder. "There's a keypad by the door that you punch the code in and it deactivates the stun."
She gave Q a big grin. "Guess you don't worry about door to door salesmen or the Jehovah's huh."
"Not since we took out the entire Girl Scout troop a couple years ago. It took us months to eat all those cookies; I never want to see another thin mint for the rest of my life."
"Aahh and here I was gonna get you a lifetime supply for Christmas." Blade covered her head in preparation for the blow and jerked when fingers got her ribs instead.
"Now pay attention," She pulled Blade's hands down from her head. "The codes easy to remember, it's 3366." She pressed the code and watched as red lights blinked on the control panel, she hit the code again and the red was replaced with green. "See it's easy."
"Until someone puts an eye out." She gave Q a toothy grin, messed up her hair and went back to the kitchen.
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Continued In Part 2
The Athenaeum's Scroll Archive
