Trisha got me a private room in a psychiatric hospital, explaining that I needed a thorough psychological evaluation before they released me to my parents.

This gave me an opportunity, though, as the psych ward kept less strict tabs on me. I was being monitored but Trisha wasn’t at my side at all times, and security guards stayed at their posts down at the end of the corridor.

As soon as I felt they were satisfied I was calm and relaxed, I got off the bed, stepping softly with bare feet on the tile floor and went over to the window. From a distance it looked normal, but upclose, I could see the sheen and thickness of shatter-proof glass. Without a weapon, I couldn’t get through it.

I turned to search the room. An empty cubby, empty shelf, bare desk, bed with basic sheets and blanket and a single pillow.

In the tiny bathroom, it was much the same. No shower curtain, not even a curtain rod I could feasibly rip out to use as a weapon.

Panic was beginning to prickle up my nerves again.

I needed to get back to the director, or at least one of the other contractors. I wasn’t deserting and I needed to prove that. He would kill me on sight should I not get that message across.

There was pain on my fingertips and I tasted blood. I pulled my nails from my mouth and examined where I’d bitten down the quicks. A few tiny specks of blood had started to well up. These people seemed very concerned about my physical wellbeing, every inch of me had been poked and prodded in the past couple days. If they saw me chewing my nails, there’d be more questions and that was the last thing I needed. I wiped the remnants of saliva off on the T-shirt Trisha had given me.

I went back to the window and ran a finger along the frame. A tiny crack ran all the way around it and with some pressure, shifted just a fraction.

My brain went to the camera behind me. I kept my eyes firmly locked on the scenery outside: a grassy field with trees in the distance. The camera was an older model, and wired to a monitoring station somewhere on this floor. If each of the rooms had one, and there were twenty rooms on this floor, that meant the security guard or nurse would be staring at my screen with one twentieth their attention. If each room was filled. But even if only half of them were, that was a chance I could work with.

The door behind me opened, startling me out of the mental calculations. Trisha came in with another woman, this one a slender and classically pretty blonde with a clipboard and notebook.

“Taylor, this is Doctor Brandt,” she explained. “She’s going to ask you some questions.”

I nodded, and moved away from the window, taking a spot on the bed while Brandt pulled up a chair.

Trisha left us and I turned my focus to Doctor Brandt.

“Hello, Taylor,” she said.

Being called that name was beginning to annoy me. I didn’t understand it and I didn’t want to. Whoever this Taylor was, wasn’t me.

“May I call you Taylor?” the doctor asked. Her gaze was fixed on me, patient and quiet but also probing.

I hesitated before agreeing with a nod.

She returned it and looked down at her papers. “I see you were admitted to the hospital a few days ago with a concussion, do you remember that?”

I nodded again. These people had every scrap of information on me since they grabbed me off the side of the mountain. There was only pain if I tried to hide it.

“Can I ask what led up to you being there?” Doctor Brandt asked.

My silence returned as I stared blankly at her.

“I see,” she said. “I know you’ve experienced some bad things, but I would like to help you and it’ll make it much easier for me to if you talk to me about what has happened to you.”

Her expression tightened as I sat there, still blank.

“If someone has threatened to hurt you if you say anything, I promise that you’re safe here. Nobody will be able to break in and find you.”

I shook my head, slowly. This Doctor woman didn’t know how unsecure ‘secure’ places were. There was always a way in… or out.

My thoughts went back to the window behind me.

“How about this,” she decided. “I’m going to ask some questions, they’ll be easy and they’re all gonna be about you and not anybody or anything from your past, okay?”

I nodded. This felt like a reasonable compromise. Maybe if I gave her some answers she’d leave and I could go back to figuring out how to get out through the window.

“Do you wish to harm yourself or others?” she asked.

I shook my head. That was an obvious answer.

“Do you find yourself frequently lost in thought or having a hard time concentrating on the task at hand?”

I shook my head.

“Do you often feel emotionally overwhelmed by good or bad, or even mixed feelings?”

Another shake of my head.

These questions continued for several minutes and she got more specific about sleep and food habits.

At the end she looked over her notes and stood. “I’ll be back in a while after I look over these. Bye, Taylor, I hope you can get comfortable while you’re here.”

I nodded and she left, pulling the door shut behind her.

I turned back to the window and began investigating again. The thin piece of plastic around the edge came loose with some effort, but underneath were bolts holding the glass pane in place. There weren’t flaws in the sealing either so once I was satisfied, I pressed the plastic piece back until it clicked into place and sat on the bed.

I couldn’t get out without a good plan, but a good plan required good information and that would require me to go out and stroll through the common areas, all of which were heavily monitored. There was a pang of homesickness. Mars would know how to handle this kind of thing. He was uncomfortably good at strolling right by security like nothing was strange. And it would be nice to be able to talk again with people that would understand. I didn’t want to be here. I had to report to the director so he knew I wasn’t ditching, I’d been captured.

I gazed outside. If I could get to an unmonitored phone I could get a message to him, but that was impossible without getting out of here.

I sighed and stared down at my feet. I was just going to have to wait. They were planning on moving me again soon. Maybe then I could make a proper break for it, unfazed by a concussion and out in the open where I could just run instead of getting caught up in a maze of hallways. I’d just have to wait for my chance.