Chapter Thirty-Nine
Tuesday
“So, what happened next?”
“I woke up in his laboratory, where he forced the second dose of the Treatment on me.” Mal shuddered as he appeared to recall the moment. “A big dose.”
“You survived a point-blank bullet shot to the head?” There was no point masking my skepticism. He had to know how far-fetched it sounded.
“I didn’t survive.” The man sounded sure of himself. Yet, the conviction of his words was just a shred undermined by the fact that he was bound up like the human equivalent of Fort Knox.
Worrying my bottom lip, I studied the man for a beat. None of this made sense, but I needed all the pieces to the picture to decide what the truth really was. “Right… Why would your father give you a second dosage of the Treatment, knowing that you were so dangerous after the first?”
“He was hoping to beat me into submission so I’d become his little bitch. Being the arrogant asshole that he is, he had no doubt he would. He wanted to turn me into a weapon.”
“But why?”
“My theory is that he wanted to develop a formula that would turn discarded people in the asylum into super-soldiers for the government. This all started during the Vietnam War. Thought he could sell them to the government and make a quick buck. But now, he’s simply making an army to keep him at the top of the food chain around here. ”
“And he had you committed when he couldn’t control you.”
I nodded. “Bingo. He declared me legally insane, signed the paperwork and threw away the key. After that, he began administering the Treatment to all his staff in the hopes of creating another army of super demons, trying to create another like me for his pièce de résistance.
My stomach clenched. “Demons?”
“Something like that. The serum slowly takes over the body and, if they survive, the creature takes over the host at will. The host still has all their memories and often a portion of their personality too.” Mal’s gaze darkened. “But they’re different. Crueler. We all are.”
“What about Barbara and the baby? You watched them be buried. You saw them go into the ground.”
“After Rook shot me, he had them both dug up. Back then, I was still in general pop, and I saw Bunny a week later in the cafeteria with her dolly in tow.”
Tension wound my body tight, and suddenly I found myself feeling overly exposed. Uncomfortable and unsure all over again. I rose to my feet and pulled my lab coat off the coat hanger behind my desk and shrugged it on, fastening the buttons in place.
“And the baby?” I continued as I rolled my skirt back in place.
“He dug that up, too. Ran his tests.” There was a hint of disappointment behind his eyes as he watched me dress. “If I had to guess, the poor thing’s probably floating around in one of countless specimen jars.”
“So, let me get this straight. You, Bunny, and your father came back to life because of the Treatment?”
“That was my guess at first. But no.” The hole in his mask offered me a glimpse of his grim smile beneath. “You’re going to want to sit down for this next part, Doc.”
Swallowing, I lowered myself into the chair behind my desk and took a sip of cold coffee so I had something to do with my hands. The nerves from my withdrawals had finally settled down; the medication was working, thank fuck. But now I was shaking for different reasons.
“Something happened that day Bunny died.”
With a frown, I took another sip of my coffee. “You mean besides all the death and murder?”
“Dark forces took notice of St. Bart’s that day. From then on, we stopped existing in the world we came from. All of us. We are now on a different plane of reality.
I nearly choked on my drink. “Dark forces? A different reality?”
While I couldn’t deny that there was a lot of weird shit going on within these old church walls, it was also difficult to believe him as much as I wanted to. He sounded…
“I sound crazy, don’t I?”
With a sigh, I looked out the window. It was another overcast day, with the unrelenting blanket of fog making it impossible to see the mountains beyond. “What kind of reality are we talking about here? Because if you’re telling me we’re in Hell—”
“I might call it Hell, sure. In the biblical sense? No. It’s more like a pocket of purgatory where the occasional soul is sent for who the fuck knows why.”
He canted his head, that dark look making me squirm in my seat. “You mentioned before that you killed someone.”
“Not on purpose. It was…malpractice.”
His chin tipped with a slow nod. “Ah.”
“Let’s say I believe in Hell. Or whatever the fuck you want to call it.” My voice cracked. Panic was setting in. As much as it sounded like complete bullshit, a part of me believed him. “Are you saying I’m dead?”
“I don’t know what we are. We’re not dead. We all have pulses. We all bleed. But we’re not really alive either, Doc. We’re stuck in an in-between state. Like Limbo, only shittier.”
“I think I’m hallucinating. That or this is one big, stupidly vivid dream,” I admitted. “Maybe your father’s Treatment is what’s extending your life. There has to be a scientific explanation. The drug could regenerate cells or—”
“How long are you going to deny the truth right in front of you?” His deep timbre—rife with challenge—shook me to my core.
All my life, I’d been methodical, the seeing-is-believing type. God wasn’t real, and science was everything. Now? If I accepted any part of what he was telling me as the truth, that would put so much of who I was as a person into question. How could I take that leap?
“I need something more tangible, Mal.”
“Think about it. Do you remember how you got here?”
“No. I… I just chalked it up to the pills.”
“Have you gotten a check for your salary?
“Rook signed a paper check a week or so ago. I haven’t gone to town to cash it yet. I haven’t really had the urge to leave. We’re out in the middle of nowhere, and there’s no signal. And the operator on the phone was incredibly unhelpful when I tried to call for a taxi.”
My stomach twisted into tight coils. “My cell doesn’t get any service either… But I just chalked that up to being in the boonies. I guess I could walk into town.”
Mal’s jaw tightened, making the leather strap of his mask strain. “There’s no town for you to walk to.”
No town to walk to. Now that was just silly. Was I supposed to buy into the idea that St. Bart’s was just an isolated island in another fabric of reality? Hard sell.
“Maybe I should take a stroll. See for myself.”
“Careful, Tuesday,” he warned, the urgency in his growl making the hairs on my nape stand. “There’s dangerous shit out there. Demons far more unpredictable than what’s allowed to live within these walls. And you’ll only end up back here anyway. After a very painful lesson.”
I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t professional, but I’d just fucked this man, whatever he was, for information that sounded like something he’d ripped from a paranormal thriller novel?
“Don’t lie to yourself. You didn’t just fuck him for info. You love him, you twit.”
I nearly dropped my coffee at the loud voice in my ear. It almost sounded like my own.
“L–Look… Rook might be an evil bastard, and this place might be a hellhole, but I’m not trapped here.”
“You’re in denial. I get it. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t believe it either until I saw it with my own eyes. And you will. I just hope your first lesson isn’t as brutal as mine.”
Uncertainty burned through me, making it so hot it felt as though my skin were on fire. I could barely breathe. And I couldn’t even blame it on the hydrocodone anymore. I was having a simple, old-fashioned anxiety attack.
A harsh knock at my office door had me lurching out of my chair with a yelp.
“Fuck!”
I flung a glance at Mal, and his demeanor blackened as his glare moved to the door. “It’s him. Don’t answer it.”
It wasn’t much of a solution. It’s not like he’d just walk away. “We can’t hide in here forever.”
I glanced in the mirror and straightened my outfit as best I could.
Thanks to my long white doctor’s coat, the crusty skirt was well hidden, as well as my ripped blouse.
I quickly crossed the room to stuff Mal’s member back into his pants, wiped any remaining cum off my face with the hem of my jacket and moved to answer the door.
“Tuesday, no!”
Steeling myself, I ignored Mal’s protests and slipped outside to greet the facility director with a faux smile. “Hello, Dr. Rook. Can I help you?”
Outside, I played the part of the oblivious subordinate he expected from me. While I wasn’t the best actress, it wasn’t a stretch considering that’s what I’d been the last time I’d seen him. Inside, I was fuming.
I fucking hated him.
It took several intense seconds to realize he hadn’t come alone. Behind him were half a dozen orderlies, huge ones. In Rook’s hand, he carried a leather doctor’s bag.
Fat beads of sweat peppered my brow as dread devoured me in one gulp.
“Good morning, Dr. Beckett.” He wore a smile far too pleasant for my comfort. “May I come in?”