The Room That Waits
The badge felt heavier than it should have, a slip of laminated plastic clipped to Lynx's blazer, her photograph staring back at her with an expression she didn't remember making. LYNX ASHWORTH, M.D. ATTENDING PSYCHIATRIST. Beneath that, in smaller print, a clearance level she'd never held at any of her previous postings. Level 4. The kind of access that came with locked wings and biometric scanners and doors that opened only from one side.
Halden Secure Psychiatric Facility rose out of the Vermont tree line like something that had been built to be forgotten, a low concrete sprawl behind a chain-link perimeter and a second fence inside that one, close enough together that the space between felt like a held breath. Lynx had driven past three checkpoints to get to the administrative wing, each one manned by guards who checked her ID with a thoroughness that bordered on suspicion, as though her presence itself required verification beyond paperwork.
"You'll want to keep that visible at all times," said the woman waiting for her at the reception desk, tapping two fingers against her own badge in demonstration. "Even in the breakroom. Even in the bathroom, if you want the truth of…