Page 60 of No Asylum Here

I dragged my fingers down the elevator wall, the metal giving beneath my claws like Play-Doh.

The elevator doors parted with a ding.

I kicked the lab door open, the power in the move blowing the thing off its hinges.

Dr. Rook’s attention snapped up from the chemical station where he stood with beakers in his hands.

When he saw me, his eyes lit up like a child in a candy store. “Mal, is that you?”

“Did you rape my patient?”

Rook peeled off his gloves, tossed them aside and, with caution, inched closer. “Look at you! The Treatment, the formula… It seems to have taken a wondrous effect on your cells.”

Wondrous was not the right wording, as I was bleeding from my fingertips, my gums, and now, my eyes. “You’re a monster. And that’s coming from the guy with fucking claws.”

Rook released a heavy sigh. He wanted to poke and prod at his latest experiment, not answer for his crimes against medicine, against women, or against me.

“Did you rape my patient? Make me ask again, and I’ll strangle you with your own intestines.”

My father, being the mad scientist he was, laughed. “Oh, dear boy. You’re going to have to elaborate. I fuck a lot of women.”

“Barbara Reed.” I took a menacing step forward, and this time, Rook took a step back.

His laughter turned into a nervous chuckle. “Ah, yes, the one you call Bunny. I warned you about getting attached to your patients. Before you came to work with me, remember?”

Another step. I clenched my hands, claws flexing. “I remember. I just thought you were referring to dealing with the grief of losing your patient. Not from your own father assaulting them!”

“Mal… Easy now.” He held up his hands, backing up until he was cornered. “I didn’t rape her.”

“No? Didn’t fuck her while she was knocked out during her lobotomy? The one you gave her only as a means to punish me? Remember that?”

“Of course, I remember. And you have it all wrong. It wasn’t to punish you. Lobotomies get a bad name.”

I bared my teeth, reveling in the way he flinched as I drew closer. “Because they’re cruel.”

“N–no! They’re necessary to keep order. Makes a patient more pliable and obedient. It calms their mind. They don’t fight back so much.”

I stopped in my tracks, adrenaline and something else—something unholy—making every vein, down to the ones in my cock, to pulsate with power. “Is that why you called the surgery successful? Because Bunny is more agreeable to you?”

“She didn’t fight me when I slept with her post-op. She never told me no or to stop. I don’t even think she understood what was happening. If I recall, she was humming. Women who are being raped don’t hum, Mal.”

“What happened to you? This place was supposed to be a place to help people. You promised you’d turn it around from the Victorian madhouse you’d inherited from Grandfather. But it’s worse!” I was laughing now, loud and maniacal, like I’d lost my own mind. Perhaps I had. There was only so much the human mind could endure. I gripped my hair, my claws scraping my scalp and drawing more blood.

“Oh, my son…” My father tutted, the fear in his eyes thinly masked with pity. “Your empathy makes you weak. The Treatment will take care of that, too, though. Another injection or two and you won’t care about these people at all.”

“I want to care. I need to care. I’m a fucking doctor!”

“The outside world has abandoned them. No one cares if they’re healed. To them, Saint Bart’s is a convenient place to lock away and forget society's mistakes. At least, with us in charge, we can put them to use. The experiments we conduct here can reshape the future of medicine. We’ll be rich. We’ll be worshipped. As for the girl, I allowed my male urges to get the best of me…”

Rook smiled at me in a vain attempt to de-escalate our standoff. “If it’s the thought of having a bastard brother that bothers you, don’t worry. She’ll probably abort this one, too. Have an orderly leave a coat hanger on her nightly meal tray. With any luck, she’ll take care of it as she did with the last one.”

Just like that, what remained of the little boy who once loved his father died inside me, and the monstrous thing lurking beneath my surface exploded forth.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Mal

I lunged at him, claws extended and teeth bared. There was no time to process exactly what I was doing. This new side of me was behind the driver’s wheel.