Asylum (Asylum, #1)(59)

But deep down, Dan knew that this wasn’t Felix anymore. This was his roommate’s body, but the man inside—the man wanting revenge—was someone else. Someone who didn’t want revenge on Dan, but on Daniel Crawford. This was the Sculptor.

Felix slunk up to Dan’s table and leaned over him. “You’re all so easy to mold, fleshy clay fools,” he sang.

His eyes were completely black. He moved his thumb almost tenderly down Dan’s nose. “The first was too easy. I found him alone on the stairway, thinking he could watch over you all. But I was watching over him, and he didn’t even see me coming. That one I called Prelude. The only tricky part was finding another fool to pin it on. That’s where I needed Felix’s help. A late-night biology lab to mix a little chloroform, and poof! We were ready for anything.”

Dan thought he could see the real Felix fighting on the inside, trying to take back control. The lights in his eyes brightened and darkened, as if the power in his body was blinking on and off. He needed to give Felix enough time to win.

“So you killed Joe and framed that man in town,” Dan said. “You only pretended to find Joe’s body.”

Felix touched Dan’s nose again, making him sick to his core.

“The second statue was just for fun. For laughs. That one I called Chaos. Too bad the molding didn’t stick.”

“Yi.” Dan remembered how he thought Yi had been posed, the legs too neatly arranged to be an accident.

“No.” Suddenly Felix was in his face, eye to eye, saliva dripping from his too-pink mouth onto Dan’s chin. The giggly insanity had all run out, and now it was just rage. “Chaos. Chaos.”

Felix danced back away from him, making a full circle around Dan’s table as he talked. “And then, for my curtain call, I had to take action before that horrible man ruined all our fun. He’d almost found us, Daniel Crawford—he knew what was happening. I called that sculpture Precautionary Measures.”

Sal Weathers had almost found them. He knew what had been unleashed in Brookline.

“But now those fools are out of my way, and it’s your turn, your turn.” Felix was chuckling with glee. Then his eyes narrowed. “I’ve been waiting for you, waiting for so long. You will be my finest sculpture, my magnum opus.”

Dan wondered when exactly the transformation had happened. Maybe it had started on day one—it was Felix who’d found the photos and planted the idea for Dan to see them himself. Maybe Dan had never known the real Felix at all.

But the fact that he’d been sleeping next to this thing for days, maybe weeks, gave him hope. He felt like Felix must still be in there somewhere—otherwise he would surely have killed him long ago.

“And that man with the crowbar? The one who attacked you?” Dan said, trying to buy Felix time, to make him talk.

“Oh, him,” Felix said, as if the thought of the man bored him. “I let him in through the window with a false promise of drugs. When I couldn’t deliver, he got a little—angry.” Felix said this last word with a flutter of his fingers. “Of course, my real target was your friend, the mathematician. My plan was to meet him downstairs, then meet my alibi in the attic. I didn’t count on him coming with a crowbar, or you waking up, not after I borrowed your phone. Not my finest hour, to be sure, but I did do a bang-up job messing with your mind. Just as you used to mess with mine.” He hissed the last words into Dan’s ear.

“You’re crazy,” Dan shouted, lashing out against the straps. Still too tight.

“Am I?” Felix seemed genuinely taken aback by the idea. He picked up a scalpel from the tray and stuck the blunt end in his mouth to chew on. Then he plucked it out again and flourished it. “Maybe I am. Hardly matters now. I’m finally going to get you back for all those failed experiments. Although I suppose one of them didn’t fail, did it, Crawford? I mean, here we are!” Felix was on top of him again. “Does that make you happy? Or does it make you saaaaad?” With the sharp end of the scalpel, Felix lightly traced his own clown-faced grimace. It left behind a red curve, a thin scratch that was visible even after he’d taken the instrument away.

“But I’m not Daniel Crawford! I’m Dan, your roommate!” Dan shouted.

“Roommate?” Felix mused. “Yes, you and I, we were in the same room, this room. But we were never mates. Oh no.” With this, Felix dipped the scalpel toward Dan’s head until it was poised just above his eye.

And that’s when the light cut out.

“No!” Felix shouted. His rapid footsteps echoed across the room, moving farther and farther away as he went toward the switches.

Dan breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived. A hand clamped over his mouth, making it impossible to talk. Dan tried to shake it off, but it was no use.

“Shhh” came the voice in his ear. Even with that one sound he knew who was there to save them.

Jordan.

Dan stopped struggling. He felt the straps that were holding his head down fall away, then those around his chest, and finally those on his waist and ankles. He sat up quickly, massaging life back into his numb legs. Jordan’s hand squeezed his shoulder in warning.

The light snapped back on with a loud, electric hum. Jordan was there, squinting, his glasses reflecting the sudden burst of light.

“I knew you two were useless without me,” Jordan muttered, backing up close to Dan.