Page 59 of No Asylum Here

I shoved to my feet, my chair scraping back. “Why?”

“She’s pregnant again, Doctor.”

The world stilled for a beat. Even the dust motes floating in the light from my circular window seemed to freeze. “That can’t be. She lost her baby months ago.”

“Her nurse saw the bump. I ran a test and confirmed the results with Dr. Rook. It’s an entirely different fetus. I warned your father not to allow co-ed facilities without sterilizing them first. Doesn’t matter how many orderlies we put on watch, they sneak off to rut in closets or between the chapel pews⁠—”

“Who?”

Offense at being interrupted contorted her features, making her look as mean as I knew she could be. “Excuse me?”

“Who? Damn it, Nurse, the father? Who the fuck raped Barbara Reed?”

“Raped? Really, Doctor. I don't believe her story for a moment. Why would a married man take interest in a teenage girl when he has a full-grown woman around?”

My teeth ground, my fists clenching. This evil harpy of a woman was heading into dangerous territory. Too wrapped up in her own theories—which surely stemmed from jealousy. She had to know Rook’s interest in Bunny, how he’d touched her. Bitch had her nose in everything around here.

“Get to the fucking point, Nurse.”

Beatrice’s scoff had my fury catapulting to record heights. “My point is that if any man takes interest in a girl her age, it’s probably because she seduced him. If that little whore is pregnant, it’s her own fault for being such an obnoxious little slut.”

“It's sad how little you know about the nature of men,” I growled, taking myself aback. The noise I made was that of an animal. “Where is my father?”

Beatrice’s throat twitched with her gulp. “Whatever you have to say to him can go through me.”

My anger took on a whole new form as I felt it rippling inside me like a thousand serpents. Something was happening to me, but gone was my ability to stay calm. For a moment, I lost all meaning of the word. I blacked out, and when my vision formed several blinks later, I registered a terrified Beatrice shoved against the wall with my hand wrapped around her throat.

“I’m going to ask you one more time. Where’s Rook?”

“H–his lab,” she choked out and crumpled to the floor when I released her.

I flew out of my office like a devil out of Hell.

The nurse didn’t answer my question regarding the paternity of Bunny’s baby.

Yet, she didn’t have to.

The fact that I already knew had me seething with murderous thoughts as I barreled out of my office and into the elevator.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

It wasn’t just visceral hatred roiling through me. I was having a physical reaction, a painful one that had me screeching in pain. I held my shaking arms before me, my eyes widening as I watched my veins flex and bulge with a toxic green substance.

I knew that liquid.

My father’s Treatment.

He’d told me the experimental injection would change me for the better. I hadn’t known what he meant by that, and he hadn’t bothered to explain. I wouldn’t have believed him without proper clinical testing anyway.

The injection he’d forced on me weeks ago hadn’t seemed to have any effect.

Until now.

My fingertips pulsed with sharp pain, like splinters were being shoved beneath the nail beds. I watched in horrified awe as my nails blackened and extended into deadly claws. My gums exploded with agony as the taste of blood spread over my taste buds.

With a trembling finger, I felt the needle-sharp teeth filling my mouth and winced when one of my claws nicked my lip.

“What’s happening to me?” I whispered, my voice no longer sounding like my own. It was deep and filled with gravel. Roaring, primal urges bubbled into my chest, drawing my heart and soul—leaving me devoid of any ability to feel beyond violence and hunger.