Asylum (Asylum, #1)(48)

No, it was a ridiculous idea. Impossible. Dan was just grasping at straws now and looking for anyone to blame. Anyone other than yourself.

“But it’s in your phone so you’re clearly full of it. Why are you even bothering to deny it?” Jordan was asking. “What’s the point?”

“Look . . . This is stupid. I didn’t send you that text. I’m going back to bed.”

“Yeah, run away, Dan. Real mature.”

Dan left in a frustrated huff. The dorm was empty as he returned to his room, no sign of cops or hall monitors. When he unlocked his door and stepped in, he knew right away that something was wrong.

No Felix.

Before he had time to process this, the phone in his hand leapt to life, vibrating and lighting up. He nearly chucked it across the room in surprise. He looked at the screen, hoping the message was from Jordan or Abby. Instead it was from an unknown number. Dan’s hand trembled as he opened the message.

You can be one of them, too. You can be immortal. Bend you, pose you, with a smirk or a frown. I’m waiting on the fifth floor, Daniel, to sculpt you.



“No way,” Dan whispered. He held the cell phone close to his face, as if reading it from a different angle would change the words somehow.

You’re not going, of course. You’re going to do the smart thing and show this to the cops. Someone is trying to screw with you.

His mind jumped back to Felix. Where was he? Dan had a sinking feeling. Felix must have woken up, found him missing, and gone looking for him. But what if he’d accidentally found the Sculptor instead? Could he be on the fifth floor? Dan had to find him—before it was too late.

His mind was made up. But he wasn’t stupid; he’d get a cop to go with him, even though the cops thought the Sculptor was dead. He had proof now that the Sculptor was alive and well—and out to get him.

Anyone could have written that message, a pesky voice reminded him. Even you said there could be a copycat. . . .

Either way, Dan thought, this was the person responsible for Joe and Yi. Real deal or copycat, he’d find out who was behind it all.

But when Dan left the room for the second time that night, he discovered that there were still no cops. He checked the second floor and then the first, backtracking all the way to the vending machines. There must have been an emergency in town or something. The Camford police force wasn’t exactly huge. Dan took one last lap of the first floor, but it was silent. There was no more time. He would have to go alone, or risk Felix becoming the next victim.

Dan raced up the stairs, actually hoping to make enough noise to rouse someone. Maybe the cops were on the fifth floor already. But when he reached the top of the stairs and turned the corner, Dan knew that was just a foolish hope. The floor was silent, and someone had cut the lights.

Dan groped along the wall for a panel of switches but could only find one.

The wind outside howled, and the overhead eaves, old and probably rotting, groaned in answer. Dan passed one door on his right, clenching his fists to fight the nerves tingling at the base of his spine. He had just enough light to see that the room was empty. The next room was empty, too, and the next, and the next. But suddenly, Dan heard a voice in that last room, and he moved stealthily toward it.

“Please . . . P-please don’t hurt me.”

Felix.

He quickened his pace.

“P-please . . .” It was Felix again. Dan had never heard anyone whimper like that, a young man reduced to a frightened little child.

Dan stepped as softly as he could. If anything was going to give him away, it would be his labored breathing. His throat had tightened so much, each suck of air came in with a wheeze.

Pressing against the wall, he inched his head around the corner, dreading what he would find. Whatever he expected, it wasn’t a man who was six foot three and carrying a crowbar. He was standing over the slumped body of Felix.

Dan must have made a sound because the man turned to look at him, passing his crowbar from hand to hand. He was wearing black gloves. Dan couldn’t stop looking at them. Murderers wore black gloves.

Do something.

Dan had never been a hero or an athlete, but an instinct he didn’t recognize, one that came from a deep well of anger, drove him into the lounge. He charged, shouting, looking Rambo in his head but probably drunken buffalo in reality. It didn’t matter. The man with the crowbar staggered back in surprise, falling to the floor when Dan crashed into him, hard. Dan heard a loud crack and hoped he’d busted one of the guy’s ribs. He brought his knee up, aiming to connect with the man where he knew it would really hurt. But the man parried Dan’s blow with a kick of his own. Hands as tough as steel wrapped around Dan’s forearms and pulled them apart. Dan was no longer pinning the man down. The man rolled over and shoved him to the floor.

“You little shit,” he hissed.

“Help!” Dan screamed as loudly as he could. But the man’s hands were pressed so heavily on his chest that it sounded like a whisper.

Dan’s head smacked the carpet, paper-thin padding over concrete judging by how much it hurt.

His vision swam, blacks and blues and purples all meshing together, inseparable. This was it. He was going to die. Time seemed to slow; moments stretched apart like tufts of cotton being pulled farther and farther until he heard shouts and the sound of feet pounding down the hall.

“Damn it!” said the man. Jumping up, he ran to an open window and disappeared through it just moments before two cops barreled into the lounge, guns drawn.