Page 18 of Desecrated Saints
“How long were you both under Augustus’s program?” Kade asks, all business.
Two shrugs again, unable to provide an exact answer. Judging by what she’s told us, several years at a bare minimum. She was Augustus’s guinea pig from the very beginning. He afforded her zero privileges for that honour, taking her eyes instead.
Lucia fiddles with her long hair. “I was admitted to Blackwood in 2016 for attempted assault while off my medication. That’s the last date I remember.”
“Six years?” Sadie exclaims.
“Within a few months, I caught Lazlo’s eye and he began the sessions. Once his work was complete, I lost all control and never left the Z Wing again.”
I begin to pace the room, ignoring the weight of apprehensive gazes watching me. Despite all I endured at the hands of Blackwood’s demons, the mention of Lazlo is enough to set me on edge. He was where it all began, this dark and winding path descending to my own personal hell.
While Augustus was the architect, Lazlo was the pioneer.
I hope his corpse is rotting at the bottom of a fucking lake.
“There’s something else you should know,” Lucia begins nervously.
Kade offers her a reassuring smile. “Go ahead.”
“I worked on many jobs for Augustus. Sometimes alone, sometimes not. Patient Seven… well, he was Augustus’s favourite. We were inducted around the same time, but he was more successful than the rest of us. Pure, unadulterated evil.”
Ignoring Sadie’s sudden fascination with her shoes, I wait for the punchline. Lucia clenches her hands into fists, bashing one against her forehead to blow the cobwebs free. Her next words are forced out.
“Before I was taken to the basement, I met another clinician.”
Sadie quickly perks up. “You knew him before?”
“Yeah. Doctor Farlow was nice, genuinely interested in helping patients. He did his best to make life at the institute more bearable.”
I watch the tears fall down Sadie’s cheeks.
“I did a job for Augustus a while back… an employee was leaking information to the outside,” Lucia explains. “I was instructed to execute him. Seven, he was there too. He pummelled the poor man to death with his bare hands, didn’t even break a sweat.”
“How did Doctor Farlow become… that?” Phoenix inserts.
“Lazlo gave him to Augustus. We were taken together, drugged and tied up.”
“To another facility?” Kade prompts.
“I guess so,” she answers. “We came back to Blackwood a while ago, although the institutes all look the same. A prison is a prison, no matter where you go. That’s when I met Two. Our cells were next to each other. Her voice kept me alive.”
Digesting the new information, we fall silent. Everyone looks equally unnerved and sickened. Sadie is worst of all, silently sobbing as she’s forced to reconcile Jude’s fate with the birth of the man I know—Seven. It can’t be easy for her childhood memories to be so thoroughly desecrated.
“Sadie, is it?” Lucia asks softly. “I know you’re his sister.”
“What about it?”
“I just wanted to say… I’m sorry for what happened. Your brother was a good person, but Seven has killed more people than the entire Z Wing program combined. Augustus loved to boast while prepping me for treatment. I did a fraction of jobs compared to him.”
“They told me he went away,” Sadie hiccups. “Even produced a fake letter, travel documents, the lot. Nobody believed me. All along, he was there, being slowly chipped away.”
“I know it’s hard,” Lucia offers kindly. “But the truth is, Jude… Doctor Farlow, is gone. If any of us are going to survive, we should lock Seven away for good and throw away the key.”
CHAPTER 5
PHOENIX
TIME CHANGES EVERYTHING - THE PLOT IN YOU