Soul Screamers Collection. Rachel Vincent

corner holding the key to my chains and survival advice written on parchment.

      Hopefully there were also no video-game monsters waiting to eat me the moment I got loose, because even if someone had left me a gun, I wouldn’t have known how to use it.

      But my objective was clear: Get out. Go home.

      Unfortunately, that was easier said than done without the use of my hands.

      My pulse swooshed in my ears, a hollow echo of real fear. That overpowering need to scream was gone, but a different kind of panic had settled into its place. What if there was a fire? Or a tornado? Or more screaming? Would anyone come get me, or would they leave me here to die? I would be easy prey for those shadow things, or a natural disaster, or any random psycho who wandered past.

      I had to get off the bed. Out of these stupid … bed cuffs.

      “Please …” I begged the camera, frustrated by my own weak whisper. I swallowed thickly, then tried again. “Please let me out.” My words were clearer that time, if no louder. “Please …”

      No response. My pulse spiked, pumping adrenaline through me. What if they were all dead, and the last person on earth was strapped to a bed? Was this how civilization would end? With leather straps and padded handcuffs?

       Get a grip, Kaylee.

      The reality was probably much less far-fetched, but just as scary: I was trapped. Helpless, and exposed, and vulnerable. And suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t make my heart stop racing. If I didn’t get out soon, I was going to start screaming again—from normal terror this time, but the result would be the same. They’d shoot me up again, and the cycle would repeat ad nauseam. I’d be in this bed for the rest of my life, cowering from shadows.

      So what if there were no windows and the overhead bulbs bathed the room in light? Eventually there would be shadows, and they would come for me. I was sure of that.

      “Please!” I shouted, almost giddy to hear my voice coming back. “Let me—”

      The door opened seconds before I would have started fighting my bindings in earnest. “Hi, Kaylee, how are you feeling?”

      I strained to lift my head and put a face to the smooth, masculine voice. He was tall and thin, but looked strong. Bad skin, good hair. “Like a frog about to be dissected,” I said, as he unbuckled my left arm.

      I liked him already.

      “Fortunately for you, I was never very good with a scalpel.” His smile was nice, and his brown eyes were kind. His name tag read: Paul Conners, Mental Health Technician.

      Mental health? My stomach tried to twist itself in knots. “Where am I?”

      Paul carefully unbuckled my other wrist. “You’re at Lakeside Mental Health Center, attached to Arlington Memorial.”

      Lakeside. The psych ward. Shit.

      “Um, no. I can’t be here. Somebody made a mistake.” Panic poured into my bloodstream fast enough to make my skin tingle. “I need to talk to my aunt. Or my uncle. He’ll fix this.” Uncle Brendon had a way of straightening things out without pissing people off—a skill I’d always envied.

      Paul smiled again and helped me sit up. “After you get settled in, you’re welcome to call them.”

      But I didn’t want to settle in.

      My own sock feet caught my attention from the end of the bed. “Where are my shoes?”

      “They’re in your room. We had to take them off to unlace them. For everyone’s safety, we don’t allow shoestrings, belts, drawstrings, or robe ties.”

      My shoestrings were dangerous? Fighting back tears, I leaned forward to free my right leg.

      “Careful. You might be a little stiff and shaky at first,” he said, already working on my left ankle. “You were out for quite a while.”

      My heart thumped painfully. “How long?”

      “Oh, just over fifteen hours.”

      What? I sat up and felt my eyes glaze over in horror. “You left me strapped to a bed for fifteen hours? Isn’t there some kind of law about that?”

      “Lots of them. And we follow every single one. Need help getting down?”

      “I got it,” I snapped. I knew my anger was misdirected, but I couldn’t help it. I’d lost fifteen hours of my life to a needle and four-point restraints. I wasn’t capable of friendly at the moment. “Why was I buckled in?”

      I slid carefully off the bed, then leaned against it while my head spun. The dingy vinyl tile was cold through my socks.

      “You arrived on a stretcher, screaming and thrashing though under heavy sedation. Even after you lost your voice, you kept flailing around, like you were fighting something in your dreams.”

      The blood drained from my head so fast I got dizzy again. “I was?” No wonder I hurt all over; I’d been fighting my restraints for hours. In my sleep. If chemical comas even qualified as sleep.

      Paul nodded solemnly and stepped back to give me space when I stood. “Yeah, and that started again a couple of hours ago, so they had to buckle you back up to keep you on the bed.”

      “I was screaming again?” My stomach had become a bottomless pit of horror, swirling slowly, threatening to swallow me like a black hole. What the hell was wrong with me?

      “No, thrashing. You went still about half an hour ago. I was on my way to unbuckle you when you woke up.”

      “What did they give me?” I reached for the wall when a fresh wave of dizziness rolled over me.

      “The usual mix. Ativan, Haldol, and Benadryl to counter the side effects of the Haldol.”

      No wonder I’d slept so long. I had no idea what the first two drugs were, but Benadryl alone was enough to knock me out for most of the night during allergy season. It was a miracle I’d woken up at all. “What if I’d been allergic to any of that?” I demanded, crossing my arms over the T-shirt I’d worn to the mall. So far, waking up in my own clothes was the closest thing I’d found to a bright side.

      “Then we’d be having this conversation in the E.R., instead of the restraint room.”

      The restraint room? I was vaguely disturbed by the fact that they had a name for it.

      Paul pulled open the door. “After you.”

      I steeled my spine and stepped into the bright hallway, unsure what to expect. People walking around in straitjackets, mumbling to themselves? Nurses in white uniforms with starched hats? But the hall was empty and quiet.

      Paul stepped past me, and I followed him to the last door on the left, which he pushed open for me.

      I shoved my hands into my pockets to hide how badly they were shaking, then made myself cross the threshold.

      Another white room, not much bigger than the first one. The bed was a mattress set in a heavy wooden frame, too narrow and too low. Draped with a plain white blanket. Empty, open shelves were bolted to the wall in place of a dresser, and there was one long, high window. No closet.

      My stringless shoes lay at the end of the bed. They were the only things I recognized in the entire room. Everything else was foreign. Cold. Scary.

      “So … I’ve been committed?” My voice shook. I couldn’t help it.

      “You’ve been hospitalized,” Paul said from the doorway.

      “What’s the difference?” I stood at the end of the bed, unwilling to sit. To get comfortable.

      “This is temporary.”

      “How temporary?”

      “That’s up to you and your doctor.” He gave me a sympathetic smile, then