Page 40 of No Asylum Here

“Shut up,” he snapped, his fingers digging so hard into the nurse's scalp she winced. The other two nurses secured the canvas back over my tub and changed out my IV bag for a fresh round of sedatives. “I loathe you when you’re lucid. You spout random nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense. I learned it at Brown. You went there, too. Didn’t learn anything?”

“Plenty,” my father replied with a sniff. “I didn’t bother filling my mind with women. I love women, certainly, runs in our family, and I think it’s one of the few things we share in common. But I didn’t fund an Ivy League education so you could fill your mind with lady doctors. You should have been inspired by Freud or Pavlov.”

Madmen, and misogynists to boot. Of course, my father would want me to draw inspiration from them.

“You didn’t answer my question, Malcolm.” I cringed at the name he’d given me. My mother had wanted to name me Benedict. My father insisted I take his name, just as he took his father’s.

“Sorry, c–can you repeat that? Busy freezing to death over here.”

His eyes narrowed at my sarcasm. He always hated it whenever I taunted him on the brink of death. Showed him he wasn’t as all-powerful as he liked to believe. “Tell me your thoughts on your new shrink. Oh, and I’m waiting for a thank you.”

“For?”

“Allowing you to be in the same room with her. I didn’t bring her here for you. She’s here for my pleasure.”

He paused, waiting for a reaction. Instead, I was fuming. My father often loved to harass the women who worked for him. Sometimes he’d leave them be, but if I showed even a twitch of interest in Tuesday…

Those dark thoughts alone had my veins pulsing with heat, making steam rise from the hole in the tub cover where my head protruded. “I’m not thanking you for something I don’t give a shit about. What do I care for her?”

“Fuck, what did I tell you?” Rook yanked the nurse’s mouth from his member with a brutal yank of her hair. “No teeth!”

He struck her so hard, she collapsed onto the concrete floor. “I–I’m sorry, Doctor.”

“Stupid girl. How hard is it to suck a cock?” With a huff, he stuffed himself back in his pants. “Perhaps Tuesday will be better at it.”

I bit my tongue until I tasted blood. But even as I put on an Oscar-worthy performance, my body betrayed me. Every cell in my body turned molten hot as my blood bubbled with heat. I winced at the sudden change in temperature. The ice had already melted and, in its place, I sat in a tub of scalding water as I simmered in my own loathing.

“Ah, so you do care for her. And fuck me, I think you desire her for more than her body. Well, that’s unfortunate. Because she’s mine.”

As my anger rose, so did the water temperature. While the Treatment made my blood burn in elevated situations of duress, it didn’t save me from pain. So as the water roiled into a steady boil, my body began to cook from the outside in.

“Boiling is a long, horrible death.” Rook tapped the space where his nose would be. “What am I telling you this for? You know.”

Oh, I fucking knew all right. Just one of the many horrible deaths he’d made me suffer in my immortality.

“Tell you what. If you survive another, hmm…” He pulled his lab coat sleeve back to peer at his watch. “Another two hours, I’ll hold off on administering her the second dose of Treatment. Survive for another three, and I won’t allow myself or any other man here to touch her for another week.”

“You’re a lunatic.”

“Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?” He grinned. “Now. tick tock. What do you say?”

I tensed, then nodded. “Fine. D–Deal. But if you don’t hold up your end of the deal—if you or anyone so much as breathes on her—I’ll drink your fucking blood.”

So much for keeping my feelings for Tuesday close to my chest.

My father’s eyes gleamed. He’d been looking for a way to truly break me for years. Now, he’d stumbled upon the only thing that made me feel remotely human again. There wasn’t a layer in that he wouldn’t stoop to in order to leverage that. And I was playing right into his hands.

How could I resist?

If Tuesday was going to be anyone’s plaything here, she was going to be mine. Only mine. I’d suffer these next three hours for her, and a thousand more if I had to. Whatever it took to keep her safe from my monster of a father.

I’d endured so much more for less.

“One week.” Rook held up a single finger. “Want to buy her more time than that? You’ll pay my price, Mal. Now…I think I’ll stay and count down the minutes. To fill our time, why don’t I tell you every single thing I plan to do to Dr. Beckett once your week is up?”

The next handful of hours crawled on their hands and knees as I slowly boiled to death.