Asylum (Asylum, #1)(60)

“Sneaky!” Felix shrieked from the switches near the door. He jumped the stairs leading down to the operating floor, bounding side to side like a deranged jackrabbit. “Fleshy, bendy, moldy, sculpty, sneaky fools!” His words ran together in a crazed slur, eyes wide and wild as he charged at them, scalpel held high.

“Move!” Dan shouted, jumping off the operating table. He pushed Jordan behind him and grabbed a gurney.

Felix descended on him, slashing in every direction. Dan kept the wheeled table between them, moving it to block wherever Felix moved.

Felix laughed, tossing the scalpel from hand to hand.

“I haven’t had this much fun in years.”

On the last word he lunged, flying across the table. Dan ducked, but Felix was stronger and quicker, and he grabbed Dan by the collar, throwing him to the floor. Dan clamped his hand around Felix’s wrist to keep the scalpel from cutting his face. But Felix had at least twenty pounds of muscle on him, and the strength in Dan’s arms was fading fast.

Felix pinned him down. The scalpel lowered inch by agonizing inch, until Dan could feel the sharp tip of it grazing his cheek.

No. You will not let him do this to you. You are better than he is.

With a strength he didn’t know he had, Dan pushed back hard and sent Felix tumbling. The scalpel fell out of Felix’s hand.

Dan rolled hard to one side and jumped to his feet. He loomed over Felix and Felix screamed, recoiling. Dan reached down, suddenly strong, so strong, and grabbed him by his coat. He hauled him up, throwing him onto the operating table. Dan roared from the effort, but then it was over and Felix was lying down, helpless.

“Strap him down!” Dan commanded. “Strap him down! We can’t let him get free.”

As Dan held Felix to the table, Jordan grabbed the straps and buckled them quickly. Chest first, then legs. Felix was struggling wildly, and it took two tries to get the head buckled in—finally Jordan had to cradle it in his hands while Dan tightened the strap. There were flecks of saliva and blood on Felix’s lips, and his muscles were bulging and pulling against the restraints.

Soaked in sweat, firing on all cylinders, Dan reached down to pick up the scalpel.

The time for experiments and cures is over. You need to end this, Dan, once and for all.

“Dan, what you are doing with that?” Jordan asked, nervously eyeing the scalpel in Dan’s hand. “He’s not going anywhere now. Let’s go and let the police handle this.”

“No,” Dan seethed. “No one else. Only I can finish this.”

The scalpel lowered against Dan’s will.

No, no, this isn’t what I want, this isn’t me. . . .

I am you.

The scalpel drew closer and closer to Felix.

No.



The vision descended on him hard and fast, ripping him out of his body and into another. It was another time, another decade, and he was Daniel Crawford, the warden, again.

The amphitheater was packed with observers. Everyone craned in their seats to witness his technique. Half of them believed his claims and half of them didn’t, but they all wanted to know his secret procedure, just in case it worked.

And poor, broken Dennis, strapped to the gurney. At least, as a side effect of the preparatory operations, he had finally been cured of his rage.

Then came the screech of the intercom. That stupid new secretary, Julie. If this was anything less than dire, he’d have her head.

“The police! The police are on their way!”

The police? Coming here?

Somebody told.

And now his audience was fleeing in a frenzy. He seethed in anger at the pounding of their footsteps, and the voices rising around him like the tide of some obliterating sea. Those cowardly doctors tumbled over one another as they ran. . . . So the police were coming. How about that.

Dennis screamed, shocking Daniel out of his thoughts. Had he not given him a high enough dose of sedative? Did it matter? This was to be the final experiment, after all.

Cursing, Daniel hurried to finish—far sloppier than he would have liked—and then, throwing off his bloody gloves, he fled, the last to leave. The last but for Dennis. He switched off the lights.

The others were long gone when he reached his office. He lost precious time moving a cabinet over the door to the lower levels, his last hope to pretend that his practices were entirely aboveground. He took off his spectacles and jammed them onto the hook, residual blood smearing down the wall. Papers, photographs, all of it scattered. He hardly cared. This was a minor setback, he’d give them that, but his work would live on. His legacy. His life.

The door was flying open. The police were pouring in. And then there were cuffs and shackles, much like the ones holding Dennis down below.

Somebody told.

It was the girl, he thought, it had to be the girl. She was every nurse’s favorite, with her dancing, her smiling, her beautiful hair. . . . One of them must have gone soft, let her slip, and now it was all crashing down because of her, the snitch with the little scar on her head. She’d seen and understood too much.

But his legacy had lived on, and now Warden Crawford was back where he belonged. In the amphitheater where Dennis had waited for him all these years.

Only one thing wasn’t right. His vision wasn’t quite perfect. . . . Everything was spinning.



“Dan? Dan?” Someone was calling his name.