Locked In


 
 
 
 
 
 
 Locked In
 The Indigo Lewis Series
 Copyright © 2022 by Janay Harden
 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.
 
 
 Thank you to everyone and everything that shook me up and pushed me out of my comfort zone. 
 The world needs more shaken up women.
 
 
 Contents
 Prologue
 MEMORIES
 Chapter One
 Chapter Two
 Chapter Three
 Chapter Four
 CHAPTER Five
 Chapter Six
 Chapter Seven
 Chapter Eight
 Chapter Nine
 Chapter Ten
 Chapter Eleven
 Chapter Twelve
 Chapter Thirteen
 Chapter Fourteen
 Chapter Fifteen
 Chapter Sixteen
 Chapter Seventeen
 Chapter Eighteen
 Chapter Nineteen
 THREE DAYS
 Chapter Twenty
 Chapter Twenty-One
 Chapter Twenty-Two
 Chapter Twenty-Three
 Chapter Twenty-Four
 Chapter Twenty-Five
 Chapter Twenty-Six
 Chapter Twenty-Seven
 Chapter Twenty-Eight
 Chapter Twenty-Nine
 CHAPTER Thirty
 Redemption
 Chapter Thirty-One
 Chapter Thirty-Two
 Chapter Thirty-Three
 Chapter Thirty-Four
 Chapter Thirty-Five
 Chapter Thirty-Six
 Chapter Thirty-Seven
 CHAPTER Thirty-Eight
 Want to read more? Check out other literary works by Janay Harden
 
 
 
 Prologue
 Watching her being dragged away was like a thousand bee stings to my heart. The nurses tugged at her arms and guided her down the long, white corridor into nothing-land. She looked comatose. In a dream-like state. Only this wasn’t a dream.
 Her face was hard. Mine was wet. My deepest fears saturated my t-shirt on display and for everyone to see. Her mouth set in a straight line. One day, if things worked out, and we both made it out of this alive; I would tell her story. I would craft beautiful words to describe her love and pain. Both of which crashed together like the square hospital doors they rushed her through. Mental illness had never been her weakness—it had always been her superpower. It was a complex story of saints and villains, and I didn’t always know which side she fell on. Maybe that’s how she preferred it.
 With widened and empty eyes, she stood in a stupor as the doors swung back and forth surrounded by nurses and people in white coats. They buzzed around. Where are they taking her? What will they do to her? Do they think she’s a black woman in her fifties, having a mental health crisis? But they didn’t know her. Shit, I hardly did.
 They tugged at her arms and shooed her along, but her feet were cemented firmly on the linoleum tile that hospitals were famous for. Those dark eyes studied my face—so similar to hers. Her chest rose up and down, and calmness swept over her that I didn’t recognize. The halls were bare and white. They had no love. No colors of red for fiery passion. No yellow hues for hope. None of it looked inviting, and it made my stomach churn to think about the things they would do to her. If this was a safe place—I didn’t feel it. So many unspoken words passed between us. Baskets filled with yesterday’s memories and the future that probably would never happen. I told her my deepest, darkest secrets in my moments of despair and when she looked at me right now—I wondered if she was thinking about them? Whispers I told her in the night. Were they replaying like scenes from a movie in her brain like they did in mine?
 We trimmed her hair short, and the tips were dirty blonde from the rushed cut and dye job we did back in the motel’s bathroom. She was technically on the run. I mean, how else did you describe an escape from a mental institution? It was lopsided and jagged at the ends, but it framed her syrupy, brown face and molded her rounded jaw. My Mona Lisa held my heart and mind captive. A light sheen sat on her forehead, and I could tell from here her nose was sweating. ‘Your nose only sweats if you’re mean,’ Grandpa Ez used to say. That was before the police killed him. They had described him as aggressive, intimidating even. He was none of those things. Grandpa Ez was our glue and with him gone, life was not normal. None of this was, and that’s why I had to be the one to put us back together.
 It took us two weeks to get to know each other and peel back layers of an onion we hid from the world. We laughed and cried. We ate and we argued. She ripped my emotional bandages off and never prepared me for the truth scabs that would surely form.
 I wished to God she was different.
 She held me as I cried. When I grumbled about all the things wrong with my life, she wiped my face and showed me the beauty of finding myself. Even when I didn’t want her to, she knew me better than most. And I had repaid her by bringing her here.
 They yanked at her arm once more, but this time with more force as two muscular, fat head security guards were chomping at the bit itching to be called in. She blinked and ended our locked trance before she went back into character. With perfect teeth and a dazzling smile, she spun around and pushed the nurses against the walls, demanding to walk by herself. Her floor-length, wool petticoat caught a breeze and dangled in the wind behind her. Her head was high, and nose was in the air when she sauntered past staff, giving them the middle finger along the way.
 Then she was gone.
 I leaned against the wall right under a bright red EMERGENCY sign, and my body felt punctured while the bees attacked my heart again. People typically came to the hospital when they were in distress or needing medical attention. She didn’t need serious medical attention, but she was in distress. The distress was in her mind, and it was something that would cost me a sum too great.
 She was a murderer.
 So was I.