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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
The edifice was modern and square, white concrete and shatter-resistant glass, and the property it sat upon as expansive as it was lush.
No fewer than five sets of gates and metal detectors separated visitors from the heavily guarded waiting area sealed with more of the protective glass. There, Parker was invited into a small, empty glass unit to endure a thorough pat down, sign a waiver, and indulge remorse and shame.
She found it increasingly difficult to console herself, and had hoped this journey would allay some of her guilt.
At least it's not prison.
His mental health is a priority.
He's safe here.
The meals are edible.
A quiet buzzer startled her to full alertness, and another gate opened to permit her entrance. She was escorted by more of the facility's muscle through a brightly lit corridor and a waiting lift. Parker boarded with no encouragement and observed the doors close with a hiss.
What in the hell have I done?
This could be worse than prison.
Much worse.
The lift ascended silently to the lobby where a drowsy, portly doorman asked her to be patient, and gestured to a small, tidy self-serve counter upon which an array of sandwiches, cakes, and fresh fruits had been curated. Teas, coffees, and waters were also offered to visitors and guests upon wheeled brass serving carts. Parker declined those, and declined, too, the offer to sit. She opted to stand at a window overlooking the south gardens.
A vibrant foreground of herbs, vegetables, hibiscus, sunflowers, dandelions, and berry bushes clashed harshly with the encompassing concrete barrier that loomed, thirty feet tall, just meters beyond, crowned with triple coils of concertina.
It is prison.
Why did I let Jarod talk me into doing this?
Fuck.
Why have I ever let Jarod talk me into doing anything?
"Miss Parker?" A voice called behind her.
Parker drew a breath, murmured, "What?"
"I believe we have an appointment. Richard Steltzer."
Parker turned, appraised the man's vivid blue eyes, and curly, messy ash brown hair. The coffee-hued sports-jacket screamed solemn professor, the dark jeans and Springsteen T-shirt suggested something else entirely. Shared musical preferences, however, weren't nearly enough to assuage her anxieties. In fact, she was horrified by the deep, youthful dimples, the Nintendo Switch protruding from a front pocket, his bare feet.
I've entrusted my brother to a child.
"Do you mind if we walk?" Richard asked.
Parker shook her head, joined him in a vibrant corridor whose walls were crowded with expressionistic paintings, surrealistic dreamscapes or hellscapes, rich, imposing compositions executed with a liberal use of impasto. She felt repulsed in some nonspecific way, and, implausibly, intrigued.
"I suppose I should thank you for approving the visit."
"Oh, that isn't necessary. In fact, I should be thanking you," he said, pausing briefly at the locked door for a retina scan. The door opened wide, permitting exit from one building and entrance to an adjacent building via a glass enclosed sky-walk that connected the two. "You don't know how relieved I am that you requested an in-person visit," Richard said, gazing up a cobwebbed sky.
"Relieved?" Parker asked, studying the grounds below, and glimpsing a young brunette attired in low-slung black capri pants, a cropped olive T-shirt, and pride-edition doc martens. "Why relieved?"
"Many families prefer to call," Richard answered simply. "And telephone calls, I'm afraid, often lead to unrealistic expectations."
"Such as?" Parker asked, her attention divided equally between Richard's explanation and the brunette on the lawn, wrestling an easel.
"Well," Richard said with a peculiar head-tilt, "calls are typically answer and question sessions, and the questions are rather simplistic in nature, and, of course, some answers are a lie. Our clients know what their worried families want to hear, what will please and relieve them. The most common lie we all tell is yes, I'm okay; our clients aren't any different. Families hear those words and believe their loved ones are ready to transition, begin participating in vocational programs, and soon return to society."
Parker nodded her understanding, observed the brunette brandish a silicone palette knife, and enthusiastically assault the canvas.
The door at the end of the sky-walk opened invitingly, and claimed Parker's full attention; the corridor beyond was a replica of the one they'd left behind, bright lighting, polished floors.
"In-person visits give families a more accurate view of their loved one's current state of mind and progress, and tend to temper expectations."
"What should my expectations be?" Parker asked, pointedly.
"Your brother is going to be here for many years, regardless of what he might say to you in future telephone conversations. He has quite a journey ahead of him, and emotionally fatiguing work he must do if he's going to heal himself."
"How is he?"
"Wounded, bitter, disordered. You're aware that he was locked inside a small, dark frigid space for lengthy durations during childhood and well into adolescence."
"Are you comparing this place to the shed he was locked in? There's no comparison," Parker argued.
"That's a matter of perspective. It's exactly the same for him, only there was some consolation when he was younger: his blood relations weren't responsible for locking him away."
"What the hell are you saying?" Parker snarled quietly.
"Don't misunderstand me, please," Richard answered with a tiny gesture intended to placate. "Two truths, Miss Parker, exist simultaneously: you made the correct decision and Lyle feels betrayed by that decision. He wanted to end his life. He still does. Instead, he's here, imprisoned for all intents and purposes, and stripped of control. He believed death would liberate him."
"Liberate?" Parker asked, livid and incredulous.
"From himself, from traumatic childhood memories. He can heal, just as his physical injuries, inflicted by Jarod if I understand correctly, are healing. There isn't a marked improvement in the latter just yet, however, our team of specialists—maxillofacial surgeons, orthodontists—have collaborated to treat him and we're managing his pain and infection with injections, uh, injections as opposed to oral medications that could be cheeked."
"I see," Parker said.
"Your brother has expressed fear that his long term care here will become burdensome for you. He feels betrayed by you, and, yet, doesn't want to be estranged from you. I hope you'll bear that in my mind during this visit, allow him to voice his anger, and understand that pain lies at the root of that anger." Richard Steltzer smiled. "Is that skepticism or surprise on your face?"
"A healthy dose of each," Parker remarked, guardedly.
"I want to give you back your brother, Miss Parker, not the one you attempted to murder and the one who attempted to murder you, but Bobby. I want you to know Bobby. How do you feel about that?"
"I feel," Parker answered tentatively, "like you have a helluva lot of work to do."
The woman, Richard mused, was every bit as evasive and guarded as Jarod had said she'd be.
"I don't," Richard corrected amiably, "Lyle does. This is his room," Richard announced warmly, and lifted his gaze to the ceiling. Parker observed the man's deliberate nod of head, and anticipated the typical electromechanical symphony of confinement: obnoxious buzzers, deadbolts retracting, signals and alarms of various pitches and lengths.
The door soundlessly fell ajar, however, preserving the calculated, bordering oppressive, quietude that saturated the corridor. "You'll be supervised," Richard disclosed softly, and frowned deeply when Parker, at his side, jerked involuntarily.
"Do you need a moment?" He asked.
"Of course not," Parker answered impassively, pushing open the door and entering a sparsely furnished, rather spacious room not dissimilar to the Centre's mini apartments. The open floor design allowed freedom of movement while also providing its occupant absolutely no privacy. The walls were umber, the floors some sort of hardwood. Skylights supplied ample illumination; Lyle, however, slumped forward in an ebony straight-back, didn't even pretend to be interested in the book opened upon on the small rectangular table before him. Reading provided absolutely no relief from the insidious, maddening ennui.
"Sis," Lyle addressed Parker sharply, and turned his head in either direction, an ongoing attempt to loosen tension in his neck, "or do prefer Judas?"
Parker sat across from him, smiled shrewdly. "Mm, you're not so delusional that you believe you're Jesus now, are you, Lyle?"
"I'm not delusional at all. I'm not crazy, but you might be. An asylum? You tossed me into an asylum? I'm evil, for Christ's sake. There isn't a treatment or cure for my particular brand of sickness. I can't be rehabilitated, and they seem to know that here, after all, they haven't allowed me to leave this room. This is worse than death."
"Don't say that, Lyle."
"Don't say the truth? Is sparing your feelings more important than the truth? This was Jarod's idea, wasn't it?"
"He agreed to help."
"Does it look I'm being helped? Is the bastard here? Is he watching us now? He is, isn't he? He's watching us right now. We both know it."
Lyle's accusations regarding the Pretender exponentially ratcheted up the eeriness quotient, stunning Parker into silence. The expression of mere concern she'd worn presently mingled with sudden suspicion, discomfort. Disgust. She found it impossible to reassure her brother---and herself. Jarod had, without a scintilla of remorse, revealed his voyeurism. He'd either seen or heard her reaction to the possibility of law enforcement involvement several mornings earlier, the morning she'd learned Lyle had been assaulted. Only God and Jarod knows what else he saw and heard.
Parker shook her head, as if to negate Lyle's accusation, and her own thoughts.
"He is, isn't he," Lyle exclaimed fretfully, his paranoia cemented, and Parker's exacerbated.
Mm, but is it paranoia if it's true?
"I'm not here to talk about Jarod," Parker asserted hastily. "It's either this or death row, Lyle."
"Yes, it is," Lyle agreed, impassioned, "and I chose death. I still choose death."
"Suicidal ideation was a compelling argument," Parker remarked gravely, "one of the many that landed you here."
"Where is here, exactly?"
"It's a private firm that specializes in treating troubled-"
"Troubled," Lyle interrupted softly. "Troubled? I'm not troubled. I'm a murderer," he corrected, gently, his bitterness, at last, dissolving.
Parker recoiled from the resignation in his voice, the sympathy in his eyes, the gauche tenderness; they were foreign gestures.
"And that has never troubled me," Lyle expounded gently, "I recently demonstrated my particular skill-set, provided police a horrific tableau—of course, most people don't think of vivisection as a skill," Lyle added with a shrug. "Everyone's a god damn critic. Tell me, Sis," he continued, desperately evangelizing, struggling to make his pitch and highlight the selling points, believing his soul, like the soul of every dark-hearted charlatan, was damned to hell, "do you foresee some miraculous transformation, an end to this incarceration? Do you see me working a nine to five job in the future? Married? A couple of poodles running underfoot? I certainly don't. I'm afraid vivisectionist doesn't translate to an ordinary career, not even in the private sector. Hell, I'm not even certain that any military would want to avail themselves of my services."
"Give it time," Parker said, "You've been here-- what, a week?"
Lyle smiled sweetly, and explained with a hopeless expression and demurring shake of head, "Time won't change what I am. Please, help me."
"I am," Parker assured Lyle, albeit haltingly, struggling for control, revealing contrition. "It's why you're here. Your mental health is a priority here. Rehabilitation-"
"I've already endured the orientation tour. I know about the vocational programs, the music and art therapy classes. You saw the painter, didn't you, just now, on your way here, and you must be curious to know what they're painting," he said with a sudden sardonic lilt in his voice. "An insipid landscape, you're probably assuming, yes? Perhaps a eerily accurate self-portrait? Spoiler alert: it's a blank canvas," Lyle said with a hollow laugh. "It's always a blank canvas. What do you think the significance is? Is it purely symbolic or a fear of straying from the known? Hell, maybe the painter truly appreciates clean, white squares. To each their own aesthetic, hmm? "
"I'm not here to talk about art, Lyle."
"Why are you here? To apologize? If you're sorry, Sis, you'll have to prove it. End this."
"If you let them win, Lyle-" Parker began carefully in a voice strangely devoid of confidence.
"You're not that naive," Lyle interjected. "What is this? The faithless preaching to the faithless? You know as well as I do that there are no winners. No one survives life."
"You can survive the people who hurt you," Parker argued, softly.
Lyle's already grim expression soured further. "The mental acrobatics you performed to arrive at that conclusion must have been exhausting. What is this? An inductive leap? Are you writing for a greeting card company? You have no idea what this feels like," He alleged. "You can't possibly know. I already survived the monsters, I outlived them, and now I have to relive it. Survive it again. And that's your fault. Please, don't make me relive it. Please," Lyle stammered plaintively, attempting to hold her gaze. "If you knew what this felt like you would help me," Lyle sobbed.
Parker was startled by the terror in his eyes, the ephemeral glimpse of the child he'd been, his eagerness to die, and the devastating compulsion to rescue her brother from his hell.
She averted her gaze, fled from her brother's blue eyes, the cameras—all of those other eyes, observing, analyzing. She inhaled sharply, pressed her lips together, lowered her head.
Methodical and precise, Lyle rose with alarming swiftness, cupped Parker's chin tenderly in one hand and lifted her head; he marveled, uncomprehendingly at the tears spilling from closed eyelids.
Richard Steltzer, observing from the corridor, halted two nurses with a curt, quiet, "No. He won't hurt her." The nurses weren't nearly as confident.
Lyle expelled a low groan, and, after a moment, addressed Parker remorsefully, "Before I killed him Ray told me about Raines' clandestine-" the statement was aborted when Parker, displeased with her brother's conversational choices, flinched. Lyle gasped as if physically wounded, snorted his rage. "Oh- oh, God. You know what it's like then. You also know it doesn't have to be this way," Lyle proposed quietly, dragging an inquisitive fingertip along the slope of her neck. "We don't have to remember, relive."
"It won't always be this way," Parker assured Lyle.
"Of course it will. You still relive witnessing our mother's death, in that elevator, and that wasn't even real. There was no elevator suicide."
"Mom would have sacrificed herself to rescue-"
"Shaming me for wanting to die is just a little bit counterproductive," Lyle said with some incredulity, "not to mention hypocritical. Look: just hear me out here, okay? If I killed you right now they'd kill me. You and I both can be free."
"Do it," Parker snarled, staring fiercely into her brother's eyes.
Lyle stiffened, stammered, "What?"
"Do. It." Parker demanded.
Lyle released her, fled to the door, hammered savagely. "Steltzer," he shouted, hugging himself defensively, his eyes wide and furtive, and filled with tears. "Visitation's over."
