The Warden by Madeleine Roux Page B

was worse. When they had first dragged her in, she had kicked and screamed and struggled, but now, facing her wide-eyed resignation, Jocelyn felt she had given up.
    He wants to cut it open and scoop out what’s inside.
    A shiver propelled Jocelyn forward and into the harsh light over the operating table. The orderlies who were there to assist, also garbed in white with their mouths covered by crisp paper, paused with their hands in midair, staring. Warden Crawford stopped what he was doing, too, setting down the gleaming bone saw.
    â€œYour participation in the procedure is not yet required, Nurse Ash,” he told her gently. “You may step back.”
    The room was cold. Too cold. How could he operate with steady hands when it felt like they were all encased in ice? And now, over the paper mask covering half his face, Jocelyn could see just his eyes. Just his eyes, and they were different. Honed. Sharpened like a razor, cutting into her as readily as he was about to cut into little Lucy.
    Little Lucy, who still wouldn’t speak, but smiled whenever they got to see the birds outside, and smiled a little bigger when Jocelyn called her “sparrow.”
    â€œIs this . . . is this really necessary? She’s been improving, sir. Steadily. You’ve seen it, I know you have. Why would you—”
    â€œYou may step back.”
    Don’t let him cut open my head.
    â€œNo,” Jocelyn said. Her voice shook, but she pushed through it. This was all that mattered. Lucy, and doing right by her, was all that mattered. It was why she had become a nurse. It was why she had even stayed at dark, horrible Brookline in the first place. “No, sir, I can’t let you do this. There is no medical justification for this procedure. You know it isn’t right. We both know it isn’t right.”
    Warden Crawford rounded on her, exploding at her with a sudden cry that sent her sprawling backward. He ripped off his paper mask, half roaring with outrage. “You dare question me? You dare ?” His entire body shook, his eyes larger, blacker, and sharper than she had ever seen them. He looked down, noticing the pronounced tremor in his arms. “Stupid girl. Now nothing can be done today.” He grunted again and waved vaguely at the orderlies. “Clean up. Get her out of here.”
    One of the orderlies cleared his throat, shuffling. “But sir, the electroconvulsive shock—”
    The warden spun and slammed his hands against the instrument tray, sending gleaming steel in every direction, the sound jarring them all. “Does anyone in this fucking building listen to me anymore?”
    Jocelyn stared, sucking in breaths so hard her paper mask sank in and out against her mouth, expanding and deflating like bellows. His voice rang in the small operating theater, the orderlies stunned into similar silences.
    â€œYou,” he finally said, collecting his breath and pointing ather. “Out. And you two, help me get this patient back to confinement.”
    â€œYou didn’t tell me about what happened with Dennis Heimline.” Jocelyn didn’t mean for it to come out so coldly, but she needed to discuss something— anything —to get her mind off what she had seen in Theater 7. He was going to operate. On Lucy. He was going to operate on Lucy and it was completely unnecessary.
    Lucy was right. Why does he want to perform surgery on her so badly?
    Madge paced outside the back stoop of Brookline. It was one of the few places nurses could find some privacy. And it was one of the few places Madge could sneak a cigarette without a lecture from Nurse Kramer. Jocelyn hated how much her friend was smoking, but she envied Madge the release of a vice. Maybe she ought to take up one of her own.
    â€œHe just . . . He snapped at me.” Madge paused, looking out over the distant town. Camford crowded up to the hill where Brookline and the rest of the college sat. It was odd,