Asylum (Asylum, #1)(61)

He reeled and tumbled forward, finding the gurney and gripping it for balance. A pale, quivering face peered up at him. Dennis, or was it . . . Felix? Either way, he had the scalpel, it was right there in his hand, waiting to carve. . . .

Dan forced himself to focus, to look again. This wasn’t him. He wasn’t the warden, and would never be.

He dropped the scalpel. The clatter echoed through the amphitheater.

I’m not you. I will never be you.

“Fleshy, bendy, moldy fool, this isn’t over,” Felix whispered. “It’s far from over.”

Dan shoved the gurney away in fear and disgust, far, far out of his reach. It tumbled and fell over, and, strapped to the top, Felix groaned before going quiet.

“It’s this place,” Dan shouted. Jordan had gone to Abby, forcing open her restraints and shaking her awake. “We have to get out of the asylum.” He stumbled toward his friends. “We need to leave, all of us.”

He reached the other gurney just as Abby was woozily climbing down. She flung herself into his arms, but Dan only gave her the quickest squeeze before pulling away. “We have to get out of here, it’s Brookline. . . . Me and Felix . . . You have to help me get him far away from here.”

“That’s going to be tough. He’s out cold.” Jordan had sprinted back to the fallen gurney. He glanced up from where he knelt, glasses askew. “But if we all lift together I think we can carry him in the restraints.”

Dan nodded, steeling himself as he returned to Jordan’s side. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”





They were met halfway up the final staircase by Teague, flanked by two other officers. Sagging under the weight of Felix, Dan threw a hand up to shield his eyes from the blinding flashlights.

“Now you decide to show up,” Jordan muttered, though the three of them were only too happy to relinquish the job of carrying Felix to three grown men; Dan’s roommate had put on some serious muscle weight, and each moment they spent trying to haul him out of the basement was another chance for the warden to sink his hooks back into Dan.

“I couldn’t find these yahoos anywhere in the building, so I called the station before following you two in,” Jordan explained. “At least one of us was thinking straight.”

“Anyone injured?” Teague asked, herding the kids up the stairs. When they reached the top and the alcove with the alphabetized cabinets, he oversaw the transfer of Felix to the other officers.

“Felix took a hit to the head,” Dan answered. He watched as they lifted Felix between them and struggled to fit through the hole in the wall that led to the warden’s public office. Curious, Dan thought. . . . If it hadn’t been Jordan trapping them inside with the cabinet, who had it been?

Teague shot him a look, arching one brow.

“Yes, I’m the one who knocked him out,” Dan continued, smoothing the hair back from his head; a terrible headache was brewing at the base of his skull. “I’ll tell you everything, just . . .”

“We need to get out of here,” Abby spoke up for him, appearing at his side and hooking her arm through his. “Please, just question us outside, or at the station. Wherever you want, but not here.”

“Fine. But I’m keeping my eyes on you three.”

Teague made good on that, corralling them right outside the door to Brookline. Mercifully, the rain had stopped. As soon as the deputies had loaded Felix onto a stretcher and then into an ambulance, they reappeared to help guard the kids. “So,” Teague said, shining his flashlight in their eyes again.

“Cut it out,” Jordan said, ducking his head. “We just found your killer, so could you please not—”

He wasn’t given the chance to finish his sentence. Through the glare of Teague’s flashlight and the police car lights, Dan saw a shadow speed across the grass.

“Teague!” he shouted. Something small and sharp had reflected off the whirring lights. The figure held a knife. “Watch out!”

But Teague wasn’t the target. Dan had just enough time to guard his face with his forearms before the woman was throwing herself at him, screaming. Dan recognized her a half second before she was in his face. It was Sal Weathers’s wife.

She screamed an ungodly scream.

Dan fell back, feeling the knife slash close enough to cut his sleeve. His friends and Teague joined the fray, trying to reel the woman back in without getting cut. Teague pulled out his gun and shouted, “Nobody move!”

“Wait! Don’t hurt her!” Abby rushed over to the woman, throwing herself between her and Teague. Sal’s wife went still for just a moment, but it was all the officers needed to grab her by the arms and drag her away across the grass.

She was screaming again, absolutely ballistic. “Wait!” Abby cried, following. “Did you see that?” she called to the boys over her shoulder. “Her forehead . . . Did you see it?”

She wasn’t waiting for an answer, and both Dan and Jordan had to run to keep up.

“Did she cut you?” Jordan panted.

“No, but my shirt got it pretty bad.”

One last spike of adrenaline carried Dan to where Sal’s wife was kneeling in the damp lawn, the knife finally wrestled from her hands. Abby stood in front of her, slowly drawing an object from her pocket. A chipped piece of porcelain that sparkled under the blazing police lights.