Love Is A Battlefield (A Stranger Things/Steve Harrington Fanfiction)

Chapter Eighty-One: Angels, Demons, and Ella Fitzgerarld

I had another painful, mini vision as Dr. Hatch led us into the facility.

This one involved Max's Mom, transforming into Vecna, as well as the chiming of the grandfather clock again.

"You've broken everything. Your time is almost at an end."

I didn't get much else other than that, followed by yet another splitting headache and bleeding nose, which I concealed with the package of tissues that I had brought with me just for this very purpose.

"You good?" Nancy whispered, looping her arm through mine. I nodded.

"Yeah," I said quietly, "But we need to hurry. I think we're running out of time."

"These are our gardens," Dr. Hatch introduced, ignoring our whispers, "Aren't they beautiful? We allow them two hours of outside time a day."

"Can't they just escape?" Robin asked, gesturing at the ungated yard. 

"They could. But the vast majority choose to be here. They like it here."

"I really admire the environment that you've created, "I told him honestly, "There is such stigma and mistreatment surrounding the mentally ill, so its refreshing to see an Asylum that makes the patients feel at home."

"That was in fact the goal, thank you for noticing." He agreed, leading us into the building again. "This is one of our more popular areas, the listening room. We find that music has a particularly calming effect on the broken mind. The right song, particularly one which holds some personal meaning, can prove a salient stimulus. But, there are those who are beyond a cure."

We all shared a look as he escorted us downstairs to the criminal ward. 

"Um, Dr. Hatch, do you think it might be possible for us to speak to Victor...alone?" Nancy questioned. Both he and the guard in front of the door stared at her with suspicious disbelief.

"Alone?" He repeated.

"I-I think that we would just love the challenge of speaking with Victor without the safety net of an expert such as yourself." Robin explained. "Then we could really rub it in Professor Bradley's face when we got back to-"

"Professor Bradley? I don't believe I know a Professor Bradley."

"Brantley!" Nancy and I corrected in unison.  We shared a look and I just laughed uncomfortably, shooting Dr. Hatch my most charming smile. 

"She meant to say Brantley." Nancy explained.

"Didn't I say Brantley? What did I say?"

"Bradley is Professor Brantley's teaching assistant. Its difficult for us not to get them confused." I lied easily. "But yes, it would mean a great deal to us if we could speak to Victor on our own. Having the opportunity to converse with such a high profile case with nothing but our own learned phycological knowledge would give myself and my friends here a great sense of accomplishment, and being just the start of our future careers, we would like to get them started on the right foot."

He smiled back, but I had a bad feeling that he had just caught us in a lie, and was believing our story less and less by the minute. 

"Yes. Why not? You've caught me in a rebellious mood." We all chuckled. "And there's something rather urgent I need to check on anyway, so..." He looked down at his watch. "Sure. Keep a close eye on them."

He's definitely going to check us out.

"We're blown, definitely running on borrowed time. " I whispered to Nancy through my teeth. 

"Yeah, I figured." She agreed as Dr. Hatch walked past us to the stairs.

"Thank you so much, Dr. Hatch."