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As it was, they passed only two other vehicles over the next twenty nboard on the left”
The car’s headlights reflecting off the discreet black-on-crea dohat appeared to be an endless private drive, winter-bare oaks lining it on either side “Cher,” he said, hating the pain in her silence “I can see large gates”
“I have the access code” She told hiates, and he punched it in on the driver’s side
Lights appeared in the distance over fivebrick house that reainst a backdrop of trees that were black silhouettes in the night The drive appeared to end in a circular sweep, hat h it was difficult to tell fro with Ash’s request, he brought the car to a stop sohts and the engine “What is that place?”
Ash got out Following, he met her at the front of the carwhere she reached for his hand and held on tight “It’s called Banli House,” she whispered “They don’t have a website or any other online presence It’s one of those places that’s so exclusive, you have to know sorinding against one another
“My brother was a younger doctor then,” she said, “but our family ealthy, established One of my parents’ friends s rong” Her breath fogged the air, her inhales shallow “The rich usually send their drug-addicted sons and daughters here to sober them up, but Banli House is a fully accreditedfar worse e his so hard that had he been human, she would’ve left bruises Janvier wanted to put a hundred bloody bruises on the man responsible for the echo of horror in her voice “Arvi sent you to this place”
“When I was fifteen He drove me here himself, told me the doctors would help me” A streak of wet on her cheek that broke Janvier’s heart “I wanted so e and dark “He wasbrother and, no , she blinked rapidly “The worst thing is, he truly believed he was doing that this time, too”
“Cher” He turned to wrap his other arainst hiels hundreds of years older than her and never crued me,” she said, the words a rasp “To make me better, that’s what they said There was more, other kinds of ‘therapy’ They tied s again”
Taking a deep, shaky breath, she pulled away but didn’t break the handclasp, her eyes on Banli House Her nightht, to be vanquished And she’d do it with shoulders squared and head held high
He was fucking amazed by her
“Soto stop it Orderlies, doctors, nurses Enough that I began to tune in to them” She dashed away the tears that had escaped her, stared unflinching at the facility in the distance “So a panic attack after I’d been strapped down, but it just made it worse—at least three of my care staff had worked with the cris inside their heads”