THE BLOOD KEY

Chapter One: See ya!

I made the good doctor nervous. Five, count 'em, five times now he'd crossed and uncrossed his legs, switching the knee his tablet rested on. Wine-colored loafers with artfully distressed fading around the seams wiggled up and down with the flex of his toes.

Dr. Miller was old school. Somewhere along the way in his life he saw a fifties inspired layout of menswear and decided that was for him. Grease plastered down his dark dyed hair. The smell of it was nauseating.

Miller's pen tapped. Once, twice, three times was the ticket. Gray eyes caught mine, so I smiled. It was a good firm mask of obliviousness I'd perfected. We all had our parts to play after all.

My shoulders relaxed into the leather loveseat a fraction at a time. With prim crossed calves and overlapped palms, I waited.

"Zena, I think you know I fought against your release..." His expensive monogrammed pen reflected the dim orange lamplight.

I kept my thoughts steadied with the knowledge of his failure. The Skala name and money was still enough to retain an exclusive lawyer. Gerard Fletcher was well compensated to hire his own experts on my mental capacity. A shame it had only taken until my eighteenth birthday to gain access to his help. My stepmother's doing no doubt.

"I'm aware. It has no bearing on how I feel toward you." That's right dick-bag, I already hated you.

He blinked then supplied his fake smile, "Good..."

I tilted my body forward to stare at my reflection in his gaudy gilt framed wall mirror. My eyes looked dead - turned fall leaf dead with the beginnings of darkening rot. Un-plucked black eyebrows rose at mirror me and the first real happiness I'd felt in a long time lifted my cheeks. Frizzed out mostly straight hair caressed my jawline where it had escaped my low ponytail. The first thing I was going to do in the institution free air was cut it all off.

"Fletcher says I'm to be escorted to him directly after this final session." I turned toward my tormentor and drilled him in place with all the intense emotions being unjustly confined will nurture, "Do you have anything to say to me before I go?"

Dr. Miller was a coward. I knew this, and he knew this. His tablet tumbled to the carpet, and he dropped his pen in his attempt to retrieve it.

I stood. My mind was clear. All those dulling drugs dosed on a defenseless girl...gone. Detoxing without giving it away had been a right bitch.

"I thought not, Dr. Miller. I'll be leaving now. You can escort me. That would be at least one decent thing you've done...in your whole damn life."

He reached for the red emergency button mounted on the side table. I tsked with my tongue in cheek. Bony wrist ground together under my palm. Coarse arm hair tickled the underside of my fingers, stirring revulsion in the pit of my stomach. His manicured nail was less than a centimeter from the circle.

"I wouldn't. Would you want anyone to find out about what you do to your unconscious patients?"

The whites of his eyes went crimson from his heightened blood rush of panic.

"You can't prove it."

I spat in his face, right on his forehead and rubbed it in with the base of my palm.

"I own you. Karma - it's a fourteen karat bitch for some people. I happen to be a fan."

Arms raised in a stretch of satisfaction I added, "Those orderlies don't get paid near enough for all the shit they put up with..." I lowered my hands and placed them on my waist. "By the way, Izzy Williams has asked me to turn in her resignation effective immediately."