Page 5 of No Asylum Here

I didn’t move, I couldn’t. It was that classic phenomenon where you were suddenly paralyzed when the big bad monster had you cornered. Even if I could move, there was nowhere to run. I was trapped in this cell with an asylum inmate.

His arms were bound, but he still managed to trap me in the corner of the room, the top of his head flush with the wall, caging me in with his body.

“Can’t remember the last time I dreamed up something as pretty as you. I only dream in nightmares. Is that what you are? A pretty little nightmare?”

His cavernous rasp had me shivering against the wall where he had me pinned. “I–I’m a doctor.”

The man’s eyes lit up. “Well, lucky fucking me, I’m overdue for a physical.”

My blood heated in my veins as I stared straight up into his manic grin. Why were his teeth so sharp? By the dark look on his face, he was thinking of taking a bite out of me.

“I’m not that kind of doctor. I’m a psychiatrist. I help people like you.”

His eyes narrowed. “Like me? Oh, little nightmare, you’ve never met anyone like me. There’s no fixing what’s wrong with me.”

He was trying to scare me. And he did, a little. But in a way that was almost… fun.

After all, he was just a dream.

“You’re not real…” I muttered more to myself than to him.

His unhinged grin stretched wider as he pushed his pelvis tighter against me, pinning me to the wall. Fuck. His erection was so hard it was almost painful with the way it jabbed into my lower belly.

“Feel real enough for you, Doc?” he rasped.

My head bobbed, heat rushing between my legs, and instinctively, my thighs squeezed together in a futile attempt to sate the ache stirring in my core.

His grin twitched, and his nostrils flared as if he could smell my arousal soaking my panties. “Get me out of this jacket,” he demanded.

My mouth went dry as I dropped my attention to his lanky torso bound in leather straps, keeping his arms folded tightly over his chest.

Every instinct in my body told me not to let him out of his restraints. Even if this was a dream, it could turn into a nightmare in a snap.

“What are you going to do to me if I let you out?”

“I’m going to play with you until you break, Doc.”

“What if I’m already broken?”

His gaze roved down the length of my body. “You don’t look broken. What’s wrong with you?”

“I… I think I killed someone.”

He cocked his head, ink-black hair falling over his gleaming eyes. “Then you’re right where you belong. Saint Bart’s, home for the criminally insane.”

A loud banging brutally ripped me out of my sleep, and I bolted up from my couch.

The empty glass bottle and empty pill container fell to the floor and rolled under the coffee table as I put my feet on the cold hardwood and tried to steady my rapid pulse.

Another knock. Someone was at the door.

I got to my feet, stumbling for a moment. Fuck. It was like I’d been asleep for days. The sunlight bleeding through my drawn window curtains blinded me, and the next knock on my door drilled into my head like a railspike.

I opened the door to find no one in sight. The hallway was empty. Whoever it was, they’d left an envelope on my welcome mat. Odd. The mail was always delivered to the cluster of mailboxes in the lobby. Was it Mrs. Zieliński with another eviction notice?

Picking up the letter, I collapsed onto the couch to open it. Inside was a handwritten letter on paper yellowed with age.

Dear Dr. Tuesday Beckett,