The rest of the day was blissfully uneventful. The only therapy he had to endure was art. That meant messing around with clay or paint for a couple of hours. How that was supposed to help was beyond Sam, but he did as he was told. Most of his artistic efforts were shapeless things that got scrapped anyway.

When Sam returned to his room at the end of the day, Koji was already there, sitting on the edge of the bed. Sam couldn’t help his sigh of relief. He didn’t think Koji looked much better than he had the day before, but if they were willing to let him out of the infirmary, that was good enough for Sam.

“Koji, how are you?” Sam asked, sat on the bed next to Koji.

“Better now that I’m out of the infirmary. What about you?”

“I…could be better.” Sam frowned.

Koji narrowed his eyes. “Something happened besides the thing with Max?”

“Lou ‘nd I kind o’ got into it.”

“So that’s why he was in the infirmary. I saw him in one of the beds when I was on my way out. He didn’t look so good.”

“I’m th’ one who should be in there. He slammed m’ head into the floor. Dr Brown didn’t seem t’ care about that.”

“What did you do to him?”

Sam stared down at his hands. That was the big question, wasn’t it? And really, Sam didn’t have an answer.

“Honestly, I got no idea.” Sam shook his head. “He just started shrieking at me t’ let him go after I grabbed his wrists. Dr Brown said Lou bruises easily but…”

“What?”

“Hold on a second.”

Sam headed to the dresser that held his clothes. After meeting with Dr Brown, she had let him go back to his room to change out of his soiled pants. He should have put them in the hamper, but instead he hid them in the dresser. Sam really wanted a second opinion on the stain.

“This stuff was on m’ hands after I touched Lou,” Sam explained as he returned to Koji.

“What is it?” Koji took the pants. The strange goop had dried into a reddish orange stain with dark flecks hanging off the material. Koji inspected the stain, but obviously didn’t know what he was looking at. “It smells awful.”

“That’s what I thought. Good, I’m not crazy.”

Koji gave him a ‘look.’

“Yeah. Well. On this anyway. Th’ way everyone else was actin’ I thought maybe I was hallucinatin’, but you see it too?”

“Sure. It’s gross. It looks like dried blood or something.”

“Dried blood? Yeah, I guess so. Didn’t think so at th’ time, but y’r right. He wasn’t bleedin’ though. I know he wasn’t.”

“And Dr Brown it was just bruises?”

“Yeah.” Sam shook his head. “I’ve been thinkin’ t’day. Had a lot o’ time f’ it. I’ve come t’ a decision.”

Koji looked up at Sam expectantly. This was the moment. What Sam was about to say was a very big thing, but he’d thought about it all very seriously. He’d come to the conclusion that their only option was to escape Wellhaven, and the sooner the better. Now he just had to break the news to Koji. Hopefully his roommate would have some idea how they could do it.

“We’ve got t’ get out of this place,” Sam said, lowering his voice. Yeah, they were alone, but who knew if they were being bugged or monitored or something.

“Yeah, that’d be great.” Koji sounded wistful.

“This isn’t wishful thinkin’. I mean it. We got t’ escape Wellhaven. Somethin’ is seriously wrong with this place. I can’t explain it, but I got this bad feelin’ that won’t go away. I know Dr Brown ‘d just say I’m bein’ paranoid, but it’s more than that. There’s no way we’re goin’ t’ know the difference between crazy and reality as long as we’re here.”

Koji just stared at him for a long moment like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“C’mon Koji,” Sam said. “Think about it. What y’ remember about last night ‘nd what they told us don’t agree. That’s not th’ first time it’s felt like we’ve been lied to. And if nothin’ else, I know doctors and orderlies aren’t supposed t’ knock patients around. I may not know much, but I know that.”

“That’s…that’s true. Dr Brown never does anything about Max.”

“And I’m tired o’ getting slammed to the ground just ‘cause I’m not awake enough t’ take my medication when he wants me to.”

“You do pick fights with him sometimes…but I know what you mean.”

“So that’s it, we have to escape.”

Koji nodded slowly. “Yeah. Okay. I meant it when I said I don’t want to be here forever. But Sam, it’s one thing to say we have to escape, and another thing to do it. This place is a fortress.”

“I’ve been thinkin’ about that too. And y’ ‘re right. We can’t just walk out the front door. We need some kind o’ distraction. I was thinkin’ that we need somethin’ where everyone would have t’ get outside. Once everyone was outside, we could try to slip away from everything durin’ th’ confusion.”

“That’s great, but what do you suggest?”

Sam looked up at the smoke alarm. It blinked a red light at them innocently.

“D’ y’ think the sprinkler system is hooked up t’ th’ smoke alarms?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. We’ve never had a fire before.”

“I bet it is. But I guess it doesn’t really matter. It’d just make things more confusin’. All we really need is th’ smoke alarms t’ go off.”

“You want to set a fire?”

Sam nodded.

“How? You have matches?”

“No. I was hopin’ you’d have an idea. We got t’ use what we got.”

“Huh.” Koji looked around the room. It was pretty sparse. All they really had was two beds, two dressers, a closet, and a bedside table with a clock and lamp on it. Sam could practically see the wheels turning in Koji’s head as the boy noticed the lamp. Slowly, Koji passed his hand over the top of the lamp.

“Light-bulbs get pretty hot,” Koji said slowly. “I can feel the heat from here. We could….” He looked down at the pants he was still holding. “Yeah. We could try using one of our shirts. I bet the heat from the light-bulb would scorch the fabric. It doesn’t take much to burn fabric. I remember when I was with my mom, she’d drop a cigarette on her shirt and it’d burn a hole real fast. Of course, a light-bulb will take a lot longer, but it still should work.”

Sam laughed. “I knew you’d come up with somethin’. That’s brilliant.”

“I’m not sure it’ll work.”

“Sure it will. It’ll take time, you’re right, but all we really need is some smoke. We don’t need a blazing fire, just somethin’ t’ set off the alarms.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. So we put a shirt over th’ bulb and make sure it’s close enough t’ th’ alarm that th’ smoke sets it off. Then, in the confusion of them tryin’ t’ get everyone out and safe, we make a break for it.”

“I…what if we get caught?”

“We’ll just say it was an accident. The shirt fell on th’ light ‘r somethin’. That’s way better than messin’ with matches or wirin’. We can claim we didn’t really do it on purpose.”

“Yeah. But…Sam, we don’t know where we are. Where will we go?”

“As far away from here as we can. Once we figure we’re safe, then we’ll worry ‘bout it. We got t’ do this.” Sam hesitated. “I got t’ do this, and I’m not leavin’ y’ here by y’self. I can’t stay here any longer.”

“Okay. So when do we try this?”

“Soon as possible. Hell, we do it t’night.”

“Tonight?” Koji’s eyes widened.

“Before they get a chance t’ hear about it, or we lose our nerves. Y’ got a lot o’ sleep durin’ the day?”

“It’s really all I did.”

“Good. Then ‘bout three a.m. we’ll start. That way pretty much everyone’ll be asleep and out o’ it.”

“We’re really doing this?”

“Yes. Don’t worry Koji.” Sam gripped Koji’s shoulder. “No matter what, I won’t let anythin’ happen t’you. We’re in this t’gether.”