Fear Nothing Read Free Page A

study of antisocial personality disorder. Completely narcissistic, totally devoid of empathy and highly manipulative. Personally speaking, she was the only family I had left.
    “I heard you signed up for a new program,” I offered. “Superintendent McKinnon says your first few paintings show a good eye for detail.”
    Shana shrugged, not one for compliments.
    She sniffed the air again. “No perfume, but your outfit looks professional. Means you’re working today. Going from here to your office. Will you mist yourself in the car? Hope it’s strong enough to cover Eau d’Institution.”
    “I thought you didn’t want to talk about my job.”
    “I know there’s nothing else to talk about.”
    “The weather.”
    “Ah fuck it. Just because it’s Monday shouldn’t mean I have to waste an hour serving as your pity project.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    “I’m tired of it, Adeline. You. Me. These monthly meetings where you show off your bad taste in clothes and I have no choice but to sit here and take it. You have enough patients you should be able to leave me alone. So get out. Toodle right along. I mean it!”
    A knock on the door. Officer Maria, who could see everything through the shatterproof window, checking on us. I ignored her, keeping my gaze upon my sister instead.
    Her outburst didn’t bother me; I was well accustomed to such displays by now. Rage was Shana’s preferred emotion, serving for both offense and defense. Plus, my sister had reason enough to hate me. And not just because of my rare genetic condition, or because I’d found my very own Daddy Warbucks. But because after I was born, my mother chose to hide me in the closet, and there hadn’t been room enough for two.
    Shana cursed me, her eyes a flat display of dull anger and deeper depression, and mostly, I wondered once again what had happened this morning to put my battle-hardened sister in such a mood.
    “Why do you care?” I asked her suddenly.
    “What?”
    “The color fuchsia. Why do you care? About my clothes, what color I wear, whether or not it makes others find me attractive? Why do you care?”
    Shana frowned at me, clearly perplexed by such a question. “You,” she said at last, “are a fucking retard.”
    “And that,” I observed, “is the most sisterly thing you’ve ever said to me.”
    A winning barb. Shana rolled her eyes but finally, grudgingly smiled. The tension in the room eased at last, and both of us could breathe again.
    Shana might talk a good game, but according to the prison superintendent, my sister seemed to genuinely look forward to these monthly meetings. Enough so that during extreme episodes of disorderly conduct, the threat of losing my upcoming visit was often the only punishment severe enough to bring her round. Hence, we continued our monthly dance, which had been going on now for nearly a decade.
    Perhaps as close to a true relationship as one got with a born psychopath.
    “How are you sleeping?” I asked.
    “Like a baby.”
    “Read anything good?”
    “Oh yeah. Complete works of Shakespeare. Never know when iambic pentameter might come in handy.”
    “ Et tu, Brute? ”
    Another faint smile. Shana relaxing further into her chair. And so we went, another thirty minutes of conversation both pointed and pointless, as we did the first Monday of each month. Until Officer Maria rapped on the window, and just like that, our time was up. I rose to standing. My sister, who wasn’t going anywhere, chose to remain in her seat.
    “Fuchsia,” she recommended again, as I undraped my black jacket.
    “Maybe you should follow your own advice,” I said, “and introduce some color into your artwork.”
    “And give the shrinks more to study?” She smirked. “I think not.”
    “Do you dream in black and white?”
    “Do you?”
    “I’m not sure I dream.”
    “Maybe that’s a perk of your condition. I dream plenty. Mostly bloodred. Only difference is sometimes I’m the one with the knife and