Chapter 104: Sinking To A New Low

The Quiet Room, Cedar Pine Mental Care Facility...

The rather unseemly delight behind the eyes of one Julia R. Rawsone had been most unsettling as the oddly cheerful woman took her to leave of Lonnie Collins for what she believed would have been the final time before her plan to get rid of him once and for all had been put into motion. Lonnie had not liked the look of her seemingly blissful nature considering it always seemed to end poorly for him if she'd been in a good mood. He had learned this the hard way when he found himself taken from the hospital under cover of night and awakening in a padded room with his arms and legs bound to a metal bed. He had been quite annoyed with all the strangeness and was craving a drink more than ever as he found himself swiftly shuffled from the recreation room via the large orderlies who had manhandled him beforehand and rolled down to a strange section of the facility where the darkness of the corridors was more prevalent and the terrified looks on the faces of the other patients told him all that he needed to know about where he was going.

Try as he might to struggle against the bonds, he was once more dosed via a shot and found his body lacked the will to respond to his commands as he was continuously rolled down the long dark corridor and into a room with thick metal doors and cold air. His eyes widened when he found that he'd been before a shock treatment seat and he again attempted to struggle against his captors, but to no avail.

The rather smug doctor Reed had been all too happy to taunt Lonnie via his sick and twisted brand of treatment rubbing in the fact that he'd somehow been a better doctor than Hadrian Rawsone due to his more barbaric practices when it came to mental health. Lonnie glared at the old fool finding it easier and easier to hate him as much as Hadrian had done given the way his stomach churned when at the sight of him.

"Now now Doctor Rawsone." taunted Dr. Reed. "We will see who is the better doctor once this little treatment is all said and done...and would you believe it, your wife gave me permission to do so."

Lonnie had figured Julia had been up to something but this, not even Hadrian Rawsone would have stood for something as barbaric as this. She truly gave no damn about the possible side effects and consequences of such a drastic means of doing away with him. As the orderlies lifted him onto the cold seat, Lonnie once more found himself thinking of Alexei Bortnik and how he had wished he'd been there for him as he meant to when he first got him home.

He liked to have thought things between them would have gotten better and that he'd have been there for him if and when he needed it. Despite his tendency to skirt chase, there was no one Lonnie had loved more as far as he knew that Lex and it was a pity the young lad wouldn't get the chance to know it. Nor would Lonnie get the chance to express how he truly felt about him.

Resigned to his fate at the hands of the quack claiming to be a doctor, Lonnie took a few breaths as his life seemed to flash before his eyes and the images settled on the last time he'd seen Alexei. The young blond lad was resting rather comfortably in bed with the covers pulled up to the small of his back. Lonnie longed to go back to that time and curl up beneath the covers with him but he was strapped to the chair and the device was shoved onto his head as his final memories of Lex danced along his mind.

For whatever time they had spent together, he had loved the little shit and he supposed that was what would have to do.

Doctor Reed delighted in flipping the switch and watched as the volts of electricity ravaged the body of his most hated rival who had been unable to resist the power of the currents that jolted through his brain at remarkable speeds. The drugs had numbed him somewhat but the pain remained as the man known as Lonnie Collins began to fade from existence and his counterpart Hadrian Rawsone returned in time to feel only pain and confusion as the volts jolted through his already heavy and weary body.

The electric impulses had been far too much for the good doctor and he passed out amid the agony as Dr. Reed shut off the machine and had him escorted back to his room. Hadrian Rawsone remained unconscious as the orderlies wheeled him back to his room on the way many a patent had watched in horror as the unconscious man was laid into his chosen room and bed as the doctors treating him locked up and turned off the light.

For whatever it was worth to her, Julia Rawsone had gotten her way and Lonnie Collins appeared to be no more, but there was no telling how much damage had been done to the now-unconscious Hadrian.

No one in their immediate circle had been any the wiser as to her plot to ensure her husband never find out about her affair and the possibility that the baby she carried had not been his not even Alexei Bortnik had been privy as to what happened to Lonnie and subsequently the good doctor in the wake of the vile shock treatment which was inflicted upon him via a hostile medical rival in search of a means of showing him up.

Dr. Reed ventured into his office where he phoned Julia to inform her of the good news. He had neglected to mention how long he'd done the process and the fact that Hadrian was both drugged and unconscious from the ordeal.

"It is done Mrs. Rawsone," said Dr. Reed matter-of-factly. "But I will advise that you let him rest, the treatment has taken quite a lot out of him, and with some tests, we can later determine if it was indeed successful in restoring his rather fractured mind to the way it was before."

Julia appeared to have been over the moon with her plan going off without a hitch but she knew all too well that the testing needed to be done to see if any trace of Lonnie Collins still lingered.

If she'd been successful, she'd have Hadrian back and that was all that mattered to her no matter how low the methods were.