Josie

[coldinhergrave.livejournal.com]

For days after Doctor Rheinegold had spoken to her, Josie fought. She clawed at everyone, spat and screamed and cursed and writhed within her restraints, until one morning when they came to administer her medication. She was lying peacefully in her bed and greeted them with a smile and a cheerful 'good morning.'


Over the next week she pulled a complete 180. She was pleasant and apologetic and shared jokes with everyone who came to see her, slowly winding them back around her little finger. It was another couple of days before they took the restraints off her wrists and let her into the exercise room so she could streatch out her muscles. They'd emptied it of other patients, of course, they weren't stupid. She spent an hour alone in the shower, rubbing shampoo through her hair over and over again. She couldn't stand to be dirty. It had possibly been the build up of dirt on her skin and grease in her hair that made her decide that she needed to stop fighting, at least till things were going her way again.

"I want to apologise to Renee." she told Doctor Rheinegold, wide eyed and sincere. "I am ashamed of my behaviour."

"It's good that you want to apologise, Josie, but I'll have to talk to Renee before I say whether you're allowed to see her, you understand."

"Of course." Josie said from under her curtain of hair. "I did bad."

Doctor Rheinegold patted her arm- her eyes flashed to his hand, a quick fantasy of burning a hole through his skin till his bones showed through pearly white crossed her mind. She knew to be careful, to hide her hatefull eyes behind her hair, and when she turned to smile up at him she looked perfectly normal, if a little pasty and thin. "They took Damien away."

"Yes, I understand you two had a sort of friendship."

"Sort of." Josie said, remembering hard, fast blow and hand jobs in dark corners of the hospital. She'd fed off the boy more than once, and was going to miss his... flavour. "No matter." She shrugged off the memories. There'd be others. She looked up at the Doctor, who was still standing by her bed. "You have something else to say?"

"Your birthday," he began, "is coming up, is it not?"

She folded her arms and raised her eyebrows.

"Of course it is. Now, as we do not see you recovering in the short fortnight between then and now, we have a room lined up for you in the Adult Psychiatric Ward. We only take patients up to the age of seventeen, you see."

"Of course." Josie said, very carefully. Doctor Rheinegold caught the look on her face before she wiped it and smiled again.

"Security will be tight, Josephine, it would be unwise to try anything. Not when you're doing so well."

Josie smiled wider and clasped her hands in her lap. "And I want to do well, Doctor Rheinegold, Sir."

"Yes well," Doctor Rheinegold said. "You keep at it. I'll see you in therapy, Josie."

"Yes sir." Josie waved him pleasently out of the room, then sunk back against the headboard as the door closed. She smiled devilishly and ran her hands through heir hair, thinking. Oh yes, she had a lot to think about.