Asylum Bound by Analeigh Ford

Author:Analeigh Ford
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2020-04-26T04:00:00+00:00

14

Price

I stand at the top of the stairs; the door flung wide, looking down at the mess left down below. The fact that Ives stands to my side, his shoulders braced, waiting for me to tell him what to do next only makes the humiliation of it all the worse.

“The bitch escaped.”

Not that I should be surprised. We left her down there for hours. For nearly the whole night.

This is not what we had in mind. Not what I promised Ives.

But none of us could have counted on Kingsley losing his grip like that. All this time I’ve been worried about Ives…when it was Kingsley I should have been keeping an eye on.

Ives brushes past me to look down into the old storage room. He sucks in a short breath, which once again, just makes it all even worse.

“I didn’t even know there was another door down there.”

“No one did,” I snap. My mind reels. This isn’t going to look good to the others. Our grip over the asylum has been slipping as it is. The new director keeps trying to give the other inmates a false sense of hope, and it’s making them get plucky. Just this week, I caught one of the older ones poking around the hallway on the top floor. Our floor. He didn’t even run when he saw me. Not at first. It was as if he could sense that after the billiards room, that was next.

One last chink in the armor. Our last safe haven.

I don’t know his name, but I’ll remember his face from the way it twisted when I yelled for him to leave. I don’t bother remembering the old one’s names. By the time they’ve been here that long, their minds have already gone or are well on their way.

I don’t know what’s on the director’s agenda for today, but I have a nagging suspicion I’m not going to like it. Any further word of defiance isn’t going to bode well for the hierarchy around here.

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Ives says, clearly not coming to the same conclusion I have. “We can’t act without Kingsley.”

A snarl pulls up the outer corner of my mouth. Of all the nights for Kingsley to switch, it had to be tonight. It had to be because of her.

Pale morning light has begun to spill out of the doorways with windows facing outward. Sure, without Kingsley we wouldn’t have been able to fulfill our full plans for Thalia last night anyway…but I’d hoped that a night stuck down in the darkness would have at least taught her to properly fear us.

Now we have the opposite problem on our hands.

Not only is Ives shifting uncomfortably on his feet, unable to fulfill the tawdry need that drives him—as it drives all of us—but we’ve missed out on a valuable opportunity to gain control, just when we need it most.

“We’re going to have to be careful, Ives,” I say. “Or else Thalia’s going to get the wrong idea.”

“Wrong idea of what?”

I turn, half disgusted, to glare at Bentley.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.