Wellington Hall
Clarissa Fray, resident of room nine, patient number 3927, turned on her side and started to count the amount of stripes on her sheets. She already knew it was six hundred and eighty-seven. What was the harm in counting again?
“One… two…” she whispered.
Suddenly, a brilliant brunette jumped into the room and jumped on her bed.
“Counting again? You shouldn’t do that… Hey, we’re getting a new kid in Wellington Hall today.”
Clary gave her a bored look, “Yeah… Sounds great. Can you please get off my bed? You’re making wrinkles in the sheets.”
Isabelle, realizing what she had done, jumped from the bed, and hoped for the best. “Shit, sorry, Clary.”
“Darn it! Look what you’ve done. Now I’ve got to remake it all over again.”
Your sheets are wrinkled!
You’re so stupid!
Why did you let her onto your bed?
Now you’ve got to do it again.
Clary’s gaze dropped and she stripped the bed. She tucked the sheets in perfectly and turned her blankets in.
Did you tuck the sheets in right?
What if they come out during the night?
Do it again, just to make sure.
You had better do it now, instead of later in the middle of the night.
Clary ripped the sheets from her bed again and started tearing up. From behind her she felt Isabelle shift on her bed.
“Clary… Just leave it alone. Okay?”
Clary shook her head and went back to making her bed.
She made her bed twenty-seven times that afternoon, before it was satisfied.
_
Clary and Isabelle knew all the secrets of Idris State Hospital. They knew the best hiding spots on every floor. They knew where all the doctor’s offices were. They knew all the nicest nurses that give the best things to patients, and they knew which doctors to ask for specific things. Of course, Isabelle knew all the gossip of the hospital, which doctor was boning which nurse and which patient was going with another.
One of the things they knew was that the best place in the hospital for coffee was the emergency room doctor’s office. Not the nurse’s office, the doctor’s office. They had this hotshot coffee maker that could make any type of coffee and had flavor shots and whipped cream in the refrigerator. They weren’t actually supposed to be there, though.
Patients of Wellington Hall under Dr. Imogen Herondale were not on restricted access. They could go wherever they wanted in their wing of the hospital – as long as they did as they were supposed to. That was why Clary liked Wellington Hall, the best of all the Mental Patient wards.
That’s right, mental hospital.
They were all crazy, in Wellington Hall.
Even when they were sane.
_
Enter Jace Wayland, patient 4382, newest resident of room ten in Wellington Hall’s dormitory for mental patients.
Today, he had finally been entered into the mental facility of his home country.
Jace looked to the opposite side of his dorm room, and noticed a boy with dark hair and black glasses reading a worn book. He was scrawny, and not too happy looking.
Jace looked to see what he was reading.
Dracula.
Figures.
The boy looked up and smiled a halfhearted smile.
“Hey. You must be Jace. I’m Simon. Welcome to Wellington Hall.”
Jace nodded and sat on the bed across the room.
“Why don’t you have a room mate?” Jace asked, as he leaned back on the bed.
“He shot himself in the temple with a syringe three months ago, on that bed,” Simon said offhandedly. Under his breath he continued, ‘could have saved me some, the dirty fucker…’
“Oh,” Jace said, shifting uncomfortably on the bed.
“So… What are you here for?”
Jace shrugged, “Stupid shit.”
“Aren’t we all?”
_
“What room is he in, Isabelle,” whispered Aline, nudged her friend in the side.
Isabelle rolled her eyes, “Room ten, whore. Shut up and eat your food.”
Aline scowled and sliced a mushroom down the center slowly.
Clary leaned forwards and rested her chin on the table in front of her.
“He’s with Simon? How does that work? Raphael only died a little while ago,” wondered Magnus.
Isabelle rolled her eyes, “Yeah, he’s across the hall. Simon told me that the kids a noob and doesn’t speak much.”
Clary didn’t look like she cared and sighed, “Cool…”
“What’s your damage?” Isabelle asked, stuffing a cheese fry (she had taken them from the food court downstairs) into her mouth.
Clary sighed again, “They changed my meds.” She let out another sigh.
Isabelle rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, they obviously aren’t working.”
Clary sat back up and put a napkin on her lap. She turned her tray for several minutes before putting it in the exact place it had started in.
“Are you going to eat that pudding?” asked Kaelie’s nasally voice from beside Clary.
Clary turned at her and glared, “I don’t know yet. If you would leave me alone, maybe we’ll find out.”
Kaelie glared at her, and just to piss her off, Clary opened the pudding cup and took one bite before pointedly throwing it into the trashcan.
“Stupid bitch,” Magnus mumbled from Clary’s other side.
Aline raised her brows in agreement.
Suddenly, from Magnus’ other side, Alec’s voice came out.
“Hey, guys; look. Simon and the new kid are here.”
Clary stared intently at her plate, not really caring about a new kid of any type.
Kaelie grumbled, “Yeah, another kid to share the meds with. Hip-hip hooray.”
Clary rolled her eyes at Kaelie just as Simon and Jace sat down.
“Hey Kaelie,” Clary began, grabbing the attention of the whole table. Everyone knew that Clary never started a conversation with her, and Kaelie knew too, because she looked up in mild confusion, “Can you go the fuck away, please? I’m trying to enjoy my lunch without two annoying as all fuck voices in my head. Pick up your tray and go sit where someone wants you.” Clary looked back to her tray, trying in vain turning her carrots to a perfect ninety degree angle. “Stupid carrots, always slightly curved,” she mumbled, before picking them up and turning around to throw those away too.
Kaelie huffed at the groups’ snickering and took her tray to another table, where she was promptly turned away.
“Are you just going to throw away everything in that lunch?” asked Alec from Magnus’ side.
“Maybe. If I feel like it. I was going to clobber Kaelie with the tray; though, I might shove it down your throat, instead.”
Alec rolled his eyes, and took a bite of his burger.
“Wow, somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed, huh, Clary?” Simon asked from the other side of the table.
Finally she looked up, noticing the new kid. “Hey, fish. What’s your problem?”
Jace’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “I don’t have any problems.”
Clary rolled her eyes, “No, you shit, your problem. What makes you crazy?”
Jace stiffened, “I’m not crazy,” he said confidently.
Clary snorted, “Didn’t you hear, fish? Nobody in Wellington Hall is crazy.”
_
Jace sat on his bed pondering the day’s events. The red haired girl; just wow. She was probably the most feisty fuck hot chick he had ever met. Not that he had met any. She was wearing yoga pants and a long sleeve shirt with a short sleeve shirt over it and she had her hair back in a messy braid. She had bright green eyes.
And an awful attitude.
But hot as shit nonetheless.
“Simon?” he asked his roommate.
“Yeah, fish?”
“Who was that girl? The one with the red hair.”
Simon turned to him and frowned, “Leave her alone, fish. She doesn’t deserve to be played by anyone, least of all you.”
Now it was Jace’s turn to frown, “What the fuck? What are you talking about?”
Simon sighed and apologized, “Clary is one of my best friends. She’s in our sister room; room nine. She and Isabelle are our activity partners. I’ve already claimed Isabelle, since we’re talking now…”
“Okay… But that doesn’t explain why you told me to leave her alone.”
“She’s got some damage okay? Just don’t do anything stupid.”
The room was silent for a while before Simon spoke again.
“And whatever you do, don’t touch her. She’ll kill you.”
_
“Clary,” said Robert from outside her room, “I need you to be neighborly to our new arrival.” Clary opened the door and stuck her head out.
“What?”
“I want you to show Jace here, around Wellington Hall.” He moved to the side to reveal the blond boy from earlier. He looked like he was about seventeen. He had light scars on his arms and neck.
Clary pulled the door fully open.
“How much?”
Robert rolled his eyes, “Five dollars. Okay? Now go.”
Clary shrugged and told Jace to follow her.
“So, Jace, this is Wellington hall. I’ll show you around. I suppose you’re in room ten, with Simon. He tell you about Raphael?”
“In very little words.”
“Yeah, he’s a kid of few words. Anyway, this is the phone area. There are fifteen phones, but only like six of them work. Whatever you do, don’t touch phone number twelve. Last year, Kaelie took the handle of the phone and shoved it up her-”
“Still telling that story?” a tanned girl said as she passed, and stopped, “Kaelie’s a… Just don’t touch her. She’s… Whatever. Nice seeing you Clare.”
“I thought your name was Clary,” Jace said.
Clary shrugged, “It’s Clarissa. Nobody calls me that. They call me Clary, or Clare. Whatever, doesn’t matter.”
Clary started walking again, her crocs sliding on the tile floor, “That’s the games room.”
Jace looked at the girl at the ping pong table who was just standing there staring at the paddle curiously.
“Who is that?”
“Laura. She’s almost thirteen. She just came from Children’s Psychiatrics, downstairs. She’s having a hard time adjusting.”
Clary pointed towards the wall on the far end of the room, “That’s the air hockey table. It just got donated last year. It’s a piece of shit anyway. We used to have a pinball machine and a pool table back in the day, but they took it away.”
“Why?” Jace asked.
“Some kid broke the glass on the pinball table and used it to kill himself,” Clary said shrugging, “And three years ago, when we still had the pool table, some crazy kid who was about to turn eighteen and get moved to adult psychiatrics broke a pool stick in half and started attacking everyone with it. So some other kid hit him in the head with a pool ball and killed him. He got me good with that pool stick. I still have the scar on my knee from were he stuck me with it.”
Clary turned around and lead him towards the bathrooms.
“This is the bathroom. They are unisex. There are ten stalls.” She moved a bit farther down the hall towards three doors in a row, “These are the showers. For obvious reasons the door doesn’t lock,” she put her hand up to a sliding sign that said ‘Occupied’ ‘Free’, “See this? Put this on occupied when you are in the shower. Put it on Free when you get out dressed. Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, well, the other members don’t, cause they’ll try to go in while your scrubbing behind your ears. Just push them out if they try to get in. Anyway, that’s basically it… Except the smoke room. Every night at 8:30, we can smoke out on the patio. You smoke?”
“Um… No?”
“You’re not sure?”
“No, I mean, of course I don’t smoke.”
Clary frowned, “Really? What a shame. Looks like you could use some of the farthings.”
Jace’s brows furrowed in confusion, “Huh?”
Clary rolled her eyes for the thousandth time, “You know, weed?” she asked in a ‘duh’ tone.
“You can smoke weed here?” Jace asked, astonished.
Clary shrugged, “Sure, I do.”
“Why?”
“So I can relax.”
“Isn’t it illegal?” Jace asked curiously.
Clary rolled her eyes, “Loads of things are illegal, fish. That’s why we do them.” She started walking away and Jace rushed up next to her.
“Why do you call me fish? Everyone’s saying that.”
“Figure it out,” Clary said, as she slammed her bedroom door after her.
Yeah, Jace thought, she’s fucking hot.