Page 90 of No Asylum Here

Could it be the mad thing Mal had mentioned before? Like a dangerous split personality that would take over if I wasn’t careful.

I couldn’t help but surrender to it. It wanted to kill these men, too.

My vision dotted with black spots that spread until I couldn’t see at all. Screams sounded, and this time, they weren’t my own.

The hands released me, and the world tipped back to the right angle as I lifted off the desk.

More cries of pain ensued. Satisfying, delicious cries of full-grown men dying in horrible ways. One even cried for his mother, sending electric thrills through my boiling blood.

Then, everything went quiet.

As still as a graveyard.

My sight slowly came back into focus, and the bloody scene surrounding me shook me to the very center of my soul.

Dead. All of them. Butchered, some of them beyond recognition. Like a wild pack of animals had been set loose inside my office.

Had I done this?

“No shit, Sherlock,” I cackled out loud, responding to myself.

Wait. I wasn’t gagged anymore.

My attention fell on Rook’s lifeless corpse, sprawled on my sofa. A gaping hole in his chest offered a window to the other side of the viscera-crusted cushions.

In his mouth were my panties. His eyes were blank, his noseless physiognomy frozen in pain.

“Cute touch, huh?”

Again, my mouth moved as if on its own volition.

The next thing I knew, I was bolting out of the office and sprinting full speed down the corridor.

The nurses and the orderlies I passed in a blur didn’t try to stop me as I made my way through the lobby and out of St. Bart’s front doors. The Gothic wrought iron gate was even open for me. Not a soul in sight. No cars to be seen on the unpaved road, nor a bird in the sky.

I ran as best as I could, stumbling more times than I could count in the muddy grass alongside the road to avoid sharp gravel beneath my bare feet. I’d kicked my heels off in the heat of the moment when I fucked Mal. Not that the stilettos would have been of any use in this terrain. There was nothing around for miles, but I didn’t care. I’d run or walk for as long as I needed until I found a town.

My heart hitched as a grave stone appeared in the distance. Two, as it turned out.

One, a classic cross and the other a lamb.

Jesus Christ. My pulse spiraled out of control while I read the larger stone.

Barbara Reed.

1951 - 1969

Daughter. Friend.

Mother to Joanie and Baby Boy Reed.

A fresh wave of tears pricked my eyes.

It was just as he described.

I continued on with the numbness that came from dissociation. I welcomed it. I had no pills to chase away the pain, so my own nervous system was doing the best it could on its own.

The sun sank over the flat planes, the chilly night air making me shiver. I drew my lab coat tighter over my body and stilled, feeling the bump in my pocket. My cell.