Asylum (Asylum, #1)(37)

But as he approached the cabinets, his head felt suddenly heavy, like it had been stuffed with wool. He blinked once . . . twice. . . . The floor didn’t feel so sturdy anymore.

He stood over the table, ready, confident. This was his moment. He had an audience, and he would not disappoint them. This was his chance to prove that his methods, however unorthodox, worked. He was the warden, the trusted father of the Brookline family, strict but ultimately fair. Daniel looked down at his clean white coat and the instruments in his hands, sanitized and gleaming. Everything was prepared.

Necks craned as each man tried to get a better look. Before him, strapped to the operating table, was a young boy who liked to set fires. When Daniel blinked, it was someone new, someone else who needed fixing—a cruel widow who had poisoned six husbands, a pretty young girl with fiery red hair. Blinking again, he found the most wretched creature of all. He looked at the man’s waxy face, slack now from the sedatives. This man was broken, but he wouldn’t be broken for long. He could be fixed, they could all be fixed. . . .

Dan—the warden—started. Sudden sounds . . . A pounding like thunder . . . Footsteps overhead . . . His vision blurred, spinning out of control. Not now! They couldn’t come for him now. The authorities would never understand what he was trying to do.

Dan . . . Dan . . .

They were calling his name now, they were coming for him.



“Dan! Hello? Dan, are you all right? You’re scaring me, snap out of it!”

Snap, snap, snap.

Dan was cold all over and realized with a jolt that he was lying on the floor. Abby’s face materialized above him through the fading blur of the vision. For a moment, he was relieved, but then he felt instantly ashamed. What would she think if she could see inside his head?





“It’s me,” Abby said. She was kneeling beside him. “It’s okay, you’re all right now, you’re all right.”

“How long have I been out?” he said, touching a sore spot on his head where he must have bumped it. He saw that he was on the floor near the file cabinet, surrounded by scattered papers.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just got here and you were lying on the ground.”

She looked so concerned that it made him feel better. And maybe it was the relief of seeing her worried face, or the relief that it was her and not some ghost of the past made real—Dan didn’t know and he didn’t care—but suddenly he reached up, pulled her in, and kissed her.

It surprised them both.

“Oh. Well,” Abby breathed. She tasted like Altoids and cherry lip balm. “I guess we can stop pretending to hate each other now, huh?”

“I guess so,” Dan replied.

She smiled up down him. “And . . . can we just pretend I never said that stuff about you being a weirdo?”

“Wait a minute, what stuff?” he asked.

Abby swatted him lightly on the chest. As nice as it was to see her smiling and laughing again, Dan really didn’t remember her calling him a weirdo. Had he blocked that out, or did she mean she’d said it to some of her art friends? Or to Ash.

Dan shook his head. He wasn’t going down that road. Not anymore. He had kissed her and it was as good as he could ever have hoped.

“We should get out of here,” Abby said. “This place gives me the creeps.”

She helped Dan get up. His head hurt, and he felt more than a little dizzy.

“Hey,” he said suddenly, “what are you doing down here anyway?”

Abby looked a little embarrassed. “Um . . . I went to your room after dinner, just to see you and apologize for the way I’ve been acting. You weren’t there so I got worried that you’d come down here by yourself. I guess I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Dan reached out and took Abby’s hand, and she gave it a squeeze. They walked up the stepped rows. Back at the top, Dan stopped to flick off the lights. He turned around and took one more look at the now-dark chamber.

Two bright spots glowed from the far corner.

Just a trick of the eye. Just imprints of the lightbulbs left behind. Not the eyes of men watching. Dan shut the door quickly behind him.

“What’s the hold up?” Abby asked.

Dan moved next to her, shaking his head. “Nothing,” he said softly. “Nothing. Let’s just get out of here. Are you hungry? I’ve got some amazingly stale snack cakes up in my room.”

“Sounds delicious,” Abby said, leaning into him. “It’s a date.”





When they got to the final door, Dan felt he was done with the basement for good. What mattered now was Abby, and how warm her hand felt in his own. They would fix things with Jordan, and he would finish the summer with his best friends, out in the sunshine, away from all this gloom.

Dan’s euphoria was short-lived.

Something had gone terribly wrong on the first floor. Police were swarming everywhere, and the entrance hall was flooded with students. One girl was crying hysterically. The lights made Dan’s eyes hurt after the blackness of the basement.

Exchanging a worried glance, Dan and Abby did their best to blend in with the crowd. A tall police officer crossed in front of them, almost bumping into them. He barely spared them a glance and rapidly moved across the hall, shouldering students out of the way. The crowd parted for him slowly. He reached the crying girl and took her by the shoulders, talking to her gently.