Page 44 of No Asylum Here

I steered my bewildered expression back to the girl, blinking several times as my brain struggled to make sense of what I'd just seen. Could it really be my pills, driving me to insanity, or was there something else far more sinister at work?

“Bunny, do you ever see things that aren't really there. Bad things?”

"All the time! Even before my lobotomy."

My gaze snapped to the scar on her head, the pieces snapping into place. My rage, paired with the adrenaline coursing through me, had my hands shaking. "Wait. They performed a lobotomy on you?”

It wasn’t the fifties anymore, so why was Saint Bartholomew’s stuck in the past? They had no right. “I’ll report this, Barbara. They won’t get away with it. We’ll move you to a new facility. I won’t rest until every person here is transferred to a hospital that isn’t stuck in the dark ages.”

To my surprise, Bunny giggled. "Wow, you're really new here, aren't you? Fresh meat, sizzling hot off the mortal plane."

"What are you talking about?"

"There’s nowhere to transfer to, silly. We’re all just playthings.” She waggled Joanie at me. "Just like my dolly."

I swallowed, unsure of what to take seriously and what could be written off as the nonsensical words of a lobotomized criminal. She wasn’t exactly a reliable source. Then again, who here was? Every patient and staff member I’d met so far seemed unwell.

Myself included.

"Can you sit with me for a moment?" I said, taking a seat in a nearby pew.

If I dwelled too much on what I’d just seen, I’d drive myself closer to the brink of complete insanity. The well-being of all the patients here relied on me keeping my shit together, so I foisted my attention on the trail Patient Seventeen had left me.

Bunny had to show me Rook's old office as Seventeen instructed. There had to be something helpful there, maybe some damning information that would be enough to shut this place down and land him behind bars forever.

I closed my eyes, counting to three. One, two, three...

The wood beneath me creaked with Bunny's weight as she sat beside me. "Are you praying?"

"Kind of. I'm meditating. Clearing my mind of any unnecessary thoughts and centering my soul."

"Praying doesn't work here. God is far away.”

I opened my eyes to find Bunny’s eyes brimming with tears. “He never listens to me, anyway.”

Taking Bunny’s hand in mine, I gave it a sympathetic squeeze. "He doesn't listen to me either."

She smiled through her tears and wiped them away with a swipe of Joanie’s hair across her cheeks.

This poor woman. She didn't seem dangerous, certainly not enough to warrant what they'd done to her.

“Bunny, how old are you?”

"Eighteen, I think,” she said after a beat of thought.

"Your file says you're an old lady."

She pondered some more, her feet kicking like a small child's as her legs were too short to reach the ground. "Maybe I am. I don't know anymore."

Her face crinkled, and the thought seemed to trouble her. She hurriedly changed the subject. "This place is creepy, huh? It was an old church before the Rooks took it over."

"The Rooks?"

"Mmm. Dr. Malcolm Rook, the first, bought this place, this church. Turned it into a loony bin. You know, the sort where husbands stuff their disobedient wives and disabled people who can’t help being different. Anyway, he’s dead now,” she sing-songed. “You know that old man in the glass case in the lobby? The one all skinned-up like Saint Bartholomew?”

I nodded.

“That’s him. The founder.”