Mirrors Read Free Page B

their way down the hall. Just another patient to be transported.
    Austin wanted to run after them and rip the mask from her face. To ask her which way was out. How he could get to Christy. How they could get their lives back. He just needed to know the way, and the simple answer was locked in that damaged mind of hers.
    But he couldn’t. Not now, not yet. Now he could only stare after them and wonder where they were taking her.
    The question had barely formed when the answer crystallized.
    The attendants pulled to a stop at the end of the corridor, in front of the double doors marked ADMISSIONS. One of the attendants waved his hand in front of a small black pad next to the door. An electronic lock. A loud buzz echoed through the narrow hall and the doors automatically yawned wide.
    An anxious twitch needled every nerve in Austin’s body. He could barely keep his feet from launching him into a sprint.
    Wait, Austin. Just two more seconds…
    The men passed through and the doors eased shut with a pneumatic hiss.
    Go…
    He covered the distance to the admissions doors in long strides, hoping he wasn’t drawing undue attention from hidden cameras. He slowed to a stop in front of them.
    Twin narrow windows were set into the doors, steel-mesh-reinforced glass. He leaned close, then stepped aside so the attendants wouldn’t see him if they looked back.
    The men stood in a shallow alcove to the left of what appeared to be the admissions office. In front of them: a polished steel door, inset deep in the wall.
    An elevator.
    They were taking Alice to the second floor.
    One of the attendants waved his wrist in front of a black pad identical to the one in the hallway, then punched the elevator button.
    The secure access required some form of keycard, though Austin hadn’t seen the man use one. A chip in the man’s skin?
    The elevator doors parted and the men pushed the gurney into it. Alice was slipping away.
    As the doors eased shut, something in Austin’s mind shifted. It came in an instant, unbidden and unexpected, as if a fog that had hovered at the fringes of his mind now pushed deep into his thoughts.
    So close. He had been so close to her that he could’ve reached out and touched her.
    He heard the mechanical hum of the elevator as it rose. Watched the glowing red digit above the door as it changed then stopped.
    Alice was gone. Right now they were wheeling her onto the upper floor, where they’d locked Christy away from the rest of the world. From him.
    Austin stepped away from the door and leaned against the wall. Stared down the long hallway that stretched in front of him, lost in thought.
    The fog in his mind thickened into darkness as the situation settled on him. Hope was slipping away. Every moment they spent behind these walls diminished their chances of escape. His control was beginning to slip and he felt powerless to gain any traction.
    Still, his mind swept through new thoughts that had been out of sight until now and began connecting the dots methodically. The hall, the recreation room, the sight of Alice restrained, the elevator. The security measures…
    Like a mirage taking shape in the distance, a thought formed. A solution. However fragile, he clung to it as if it were a lifeline.
    It was bold in its simplicity, but it might work.
    He stood unmoving for a full minute, lost in his thoughts, considering his options. It could work. It had to work.
    Then again, it might not. And if it didn’t…
    Austin settled on his course of action, took a deep centering breath, faced the recreation room, and started walking, a whirlwind of objections crowding his mind. He shoved them to the edge of his consciousness and moved forward. One foot in front of the other. He knew what he would do.
    He pushed into the recreation room and stood inside the door for several moments, watching. Fourteen patients all dressed in blue scrubs sat throughout the room. Most slumped in metal folding chairs on the left side of the room,