"I knew it was a bad idea!"

Thankfully they weren't caught, but they remained shaken up over it for quite a bit. They sat at the same round table from before and tried desperately to catch their breaths. An orderly came in and scanned the room with his hands on his hips. He must've been the one who saw them because he stood there gripping the flashlight.

Melody

My heart sunk into the pit of my stomach and I couldn't breathe or move. I fucked up bad. If they even figure out that it was us ─

My thoughts were interrupted by an angelic, female voice coming from behind us, "Melody Hopkins and Annabelle Battles?"

We hesitantly turned our heads around and stared at this lanky redhead in front of us. She wore a cap and a mask, but her waves swam graciously down her back and her grey eyes held a tangibly caring nature. She was different.

"Yes," I spoke with a slight smile.

She smiled back, then read from a clipboard, "You'll both be heading over to Dr. Walsh's office tomorrow at five p.m. He'll be your head shrinker."

We looked at each other, then back at her. I started to speak, but was interrupted by Annabelle, "Why do we need a shrink?"

The orderly stands there staring at her over her glasses with her lips parted slightly, "We've been over this already."

She walks out of the room, passing the man with the flashlight. He smiles at her, then follows her down the now fully lit hall. I furrow my eyebrows at Annabelle, "Why are you here?"

She sighs and stares at her mucky socks, "I have schizophrenic autism. I don't know what it means, but they said that my mom told them that I do. I was supposed to see a doctor a long time ago, but they never let me."

I relaxed my eyebrows and started jingling the keys. I completely forgot that I still had them in my grasp until that moment. I let out a depressed sigh, then looked down at them. I flickered my eyes from the doors and down to the keys.

"Holy shit," I mumbled.

Annabelle looked at me with a confused expression, "What?"

"I, I mean we have the keys to the doors." I smiled at her. She folded her arms and tilted her head. Her face lacks positive emotions.

"I'm not doing this anymore."

Her accent seemed to always thicken whenever she was agitated, which was almost all the time. I smiled and shook my head, "Trust me. All I have to do is ask to use the bathroom at night, go unlock your gate, then we sneak out. It's simple."

She rubbed her temples. For a child, she was very mature. Either that or she was imitating what she saw and either way, I admired it, because when I was her age I wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.

She started scratching her scabby arms. I watched her for a moment, then stopped her. "Hey, look at me."

She does and I wrap my slinky arms around her fragile body. She was kind of cold, but I didn't mind. I needed her on my side if we were going to make it out of here.

I felt her shaky, small hands gripping onto the back of my gown as well as her head against my bruised chest. We hugged for a while, then stopped when she broke it. She stared down at the ground and sighed, "Alright. I'm in."

I smiled because this time I won't mess up. There's no way that I can now that we have the keys, but only time will tell.

"Thank you. Let's see that shrink tomorrow, then that night we'll sneak out, okay?"

She nodded meekly.