Coaching

Iris pressed her back against the cool, tiled wall of the St. Jude’s high-security wing, her heart a frantic bird trapped in a cage of ribs. Beside her, Marcus’s sister, Elena, adjusted her sharp blazer and smoothed a hand over her legal briefcase, her presence the only thing keeping the orderlies from physically removing them.

"You have five minutes," the head nurse said, her voice like sandpaper on silk. "Guardianship protocols are very strict about visitation during stabilization."

Iris slipped past the heavy fire door as the magnetic lock hissed shut. The room was small, smelling of lavender and chemical sterilization, a sterile box that felt too much like the one they had just pulled Elias from.

Elias was sitting in a high-backed vinyl chair, his hands resting limply on his lap. His pupils were blown wide, black voids that didn't track Iris as she crossed the floor. His head loped to the left, a small thread of saliva glistening at the corner of his mouth.

"Elias," Iris whispered, kneeling on the hard linoleum. She took his hand; it was cold and heavy, like wet clay. "Elias, it’s Iris. Look at me."

He blinked slowly, the movement rhythmic and mechanical. "The walls are white," he murmured, his voice thick and slurred. "I liked the writing better. It was... louder."

"Elias, listen to me," she said, her voice urgent. She squeezed his hand, trying to find a spark beneath the fog of Thorazine. "We’re going to a hearing tomorrow. A judge is going to ask you questions. You have to tell them the truth."

"The truth is in Seattle," Elias said, a faint, ghost-like smile touching his lips. "The girl. She’s in Seattle."

"Yes! Sarah Miller. She's alive. Julian lied to you, Elias. He broke your legs. He stole your money."

Elias’s head twitched. "Uncle Julian says I’m sick. He says the light hurts my head because I'm... broken."

"You aren't broken," Iris insisted, her eyes stinging. She pulled a folded photograph from her pocket—the one of him from 1990, before the dark. "Look at this. This is you. You were an artist. You were free."

Elias looked at the photo, but his eyes wouldn't focus on the image. They kept drifting toward the door, where an orderly stood watching through the narrow glass pane. The surveillance was constant, a physical weight in the small room.

"Elena is a lawyer," Iris said, gesturing to the woman standing by the bed. "She’s going to help you. But you have to speak, Elias. You have to tell them how many years you were in the basement. You have to tell them about the papers Julian made you sign."

Elias started to rock, a slow, back-and-forth motion that made the vinyl chair groan. "The basement is gone. The fire took the basement. Uncle Julian says it never happened. He says I had a fever."

The horror of it made Iris’s stomach drop. Julian wasn't just sedating him; he was rewriting the trauma while Elias was too drugged to defend his own memories. It was a second kidnapping, a theft of the mind.

"He's gaslighting you," she hissed. "Don't let him win."

The door opened. "Time's up," the nurse barked.

Iris stood, her hands trembling as she tucked the photo back into her pocket. She looked at Elias, who was now staring at his own feet, lost in the chemical haze Julian had paid for.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she promised.

He looked at her blankly. 'Uncle Julian says I'm confused.'