Page 2 of No Asylum Here

“I know you’ve been writing your own prescriptions,” the doctor snapped, cutting me off. “For a medication you have no business taking.”

I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it when no words came out. There was nothing to say. He was right.

How did he know? Fuck. He would have had to access my patient records to know that I’d been abusing my prescription pad, which was unethical as fuck. Then again, so was writing one’s own prescriptions.

Dr. Braith shook his head with a tut. “It’s a shame, really. We had such high hopes for you here. One of the top of your class at UCSF, with glowing recommendations from your supervising physicians. That was why I overlooked your age⁠—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Robert.” I bolted up from my chair so fast, it tipped back, crashing to the ground. “If you’re firing me because of Lauren Hawkins or the pills, fine. But don’t bring my age into this. I worked my ass off to get my doctorate.”

He glared hot knives into me. “Perhaps you should have selected a different career; maybe Lauren Hawkins would still be alive.”

His words were a suckerpunch to my gut.

So there it was. Robert Braith did blame me for what happened to my patient.

Well, that made two of us.

I tried not to, at first. Tall order when every time I closed my eyes to sleep, I saw her face—looking at me with a desperation that struck me down to my bones. Like I was the only one who could help her. That’s when I started prescribing myself pain pills. And it worked for a while. Until it didn’t.

Opioid-induced hallucinations weren’t an uncommon effect of the pills.

I stared at Lauren’s visage in the corner with a golf-ball-sized lump in my throat. “What do you want?” I asked her, my voice barely sounding like my own. “Go away.”

In my periphery, Braith jerked in the direction where my attention was glued. Of course, he didn’t see anything. “You’re not well, Dr. Beckett. You need help.”

“I–I’ll sue.” I whipped around to face him. “Digging through my medical records is illegal as fuck.”

“With what money?” He scoffed, bringing all his weight to his feet as he stood up with a grunt. “I’ll bury you in litigation fees. You’re lucky if I don’t call the state board to terminate your license. Now get the hell out of my office.”

On the next beat, the door swung open, and in walked the security guard. He stepped straight through Lauren.

With a blink, she was gone. My heart squeezed in my chest, and without any further argument, I followed the security officer out.

“I’ll give you a minute alone,” the security guy said, stopping just outside my door.

My office wasn’t as big as Dr. Braith’s, and other than my prescription pad, a box of stress toys I kept for patients to fiddle with during sessions, and a potted plant I’d nicknamed “Joanie,” there wasn’t anything else to pack. Once I’d stowed everything in a cardboard file box, I turned back to the door and nearly dropped it all with a gasp.

There on the sofa against the wall sat Lauren Hawkins.

I squeezed my eyes shut and counted. One. Two. Three. When I opened them again, she was still there.

She looked just as she had the last time I saw her alive, sitting in that exact spot. The only difference now was the soiled bandages wrapping her slitted wrists and the hospital gown she wore instead of the leggings and hoodie I’d last seen her wearing.

“You’re not real,” I muttered beneath my breath. “You’re just a side effect of the pills.”

I walked past the couch to leave, but Lauren’s arm snatched out to capture the hem of my sweater. “Help us, Dr. Beckett.”

No. Impossible. The hallucinations had looked so real since they’d begun. But they’d never spoken to me or touched me. I felt her tug too, pulling on it so tight I heard threads snap.

“I–I can’t help you. You’re dead. I saw the coroner's report.”

The door opened, and the security guard looked around my office with confusion. Of course, he saw nothing but me, white as a sheet.

“Who are you talking to, Doctor?”

I shook my head and hurried past him. “No one. I’m ready to leave.”

Once I was in my car, I was shaking.