Page 16 of Exposed (The Wellard Asylum #1)

I lay in the bathtub, scanning the handwritten words on my mother’s file over and over again. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness, but it’s like my mind won’t process the meaning. It’s a new note, one I don’t recognize from the file we stole.

The daughter will be governed by the Smiths.

Year twenty-two, the daughter will be expelled from the Smith’s care.

Year twenty-five, the daughter will reach maturation and return to me.

Expelled.

Twenty-five.

Maturation.

Return to whom?

I recognize Dr. Ambrose’s handwriting from other sections of the file, and he’s the only one who worked with my mother.

I’m twenty-five right now.

My brain scrambles, my head filled with fuzzy dots darting on a static screen. If this note is real, then Dr. Ambrose planned this. He gave me away with the full intention of taking me back once I was twenty-five, as if he always knew this day would come.

Has he been watching me this entire time then?

From a distance? Or closely?

And why do I feel safer now?

Pleasure rolls between my thighs, and my hips thrust forward. I glance down; I’m rubbing my clamped clit. I dig my fingers into my flesh and groan. I don’t know why I keep rubbing myself. I start concentrating on the file to figure out why this note is there, and I end up playing with myself.

I finally remove the clamp. Hot-blooded relief washes through me. I could’ve taken it off a while ago, but for some reason, I wanted to keep it on.

I steel myself. I have to focus.

Logically, I know the new note is creepy and messed up. Dr. Ambrose rejected me, giving me—his probable daughter—to strangers. He abandoned me.

But if he always planned to scoop me up again, then did he really abandon me?

What if he didn’t write the note? What if someone else did?

What if my father is another staff member, and I can still find him?

What if my father is the assistant, Oliver?

No… It can’t be Oliver. I mean, it could technically be him; Oliver could have been an intern at the time, or even another patient who took advantage of the situation, like Dr. Ambrose did. Then again, Oliver is probably too young to be my father.

I rub the note with my thumb; the ink smudges, a black smear marking the page. My shoulders sink, and my lungs flatten, each breath harder than the last.

It could be the arousal on my fingers smearing the ink.

Or there’s a chance Benji stole an older copy of the file, and twenty-five years later, this newer file has enough wet ink to smear.

Or…it could be a new note.

If it’s a note Dr. Ambrose wrote recently, then he may be using it to manipulate me. Tapping into my need for belonging.

Why would he do that? Why would he go through all of this effort just to manipulate me?

As I pant, I realize my fingers are in my pussy again. Damn it. Why does this turn me on?

The file is in front of me, but I’m not reading it.

His jagged letters transform into images of him: his M-shaped hairline; the ponytail at the back of his neck; the dirt under his fingernails; the calluses on his palms; the scars on his long, brutal cock; his sallow skin; his full, hungry eyes staring down at me like I’m the only thing that will satisfy him.

My fingers roll over my bundle of nerves, soothing the ache between my legs.

I hate how my body reacts to this, knowing the potential, knowing it’s wrong to get off on this.

He’s the most messed-up person I’ve ever met, and the idea he’s been waiting for me all of these years digs a hole inside of me.

I should be horrified by the prospect he knew I’d return to the asylum, but my brain zeroes in on our eternal ties. He shouldn’t want me, but he does. And I shouldn’t want him, but I?—

I —

You don’t know how wrong it is to want me, he had said.

My gut aches, and tendrils of pleasure unfurl between my legs, pushing me toward the highest peak.

The acid tube is under my hip, hidden by my ass, ready for me to thrust it into his face, but the idea of doing that seems crazy now.

How can I potentially blind and kill him when I don’t have my answers yet?

When I don’t know if he is my father? When I don’t know why he would want me?

My mother is dead and my foster parents kicked me out, but there’s something comforting about the fact my father always wanted me to come back to him eventually. He may be a sick fuck who likes torturing me with his piss and fist, but damn it, he wants me in his life. He wants to cure me.

And I’m not alone anymore. I have him.

Suddenly, it’s so damn clear why he would write something like that, and I hate myself for not thinking of it sooner.

He wrote the note so I wouldn’t want to hurt him.

And I’m falling for it.

I throw the folder. The papers slide across the floor.

I found the entrance to a tunnel in the corner, but the door inside was locked.

I can’t escape. I have no choice.

There’s only one thing left to do.

“I have to kill him,” I mumble.

I stand and find the shower hose. I try untwisting the metal head.

At first, it’s stuck, but eventually, it loosens, and I’m able to pull it off of the hose.

It weighs the same as a bowling ball, which is more than enough to do some damage.

I put it down in the tub underneath me, and I sit.

Killing a mother is enough for any child to want to kill their own father.

But what if he did it for a good reason? What if there’s more to the story?

I scream and scream.

Once my voice is hoarse, I rip my hair and dig my nails into my scalp. I can’t stop these messed-up thoughts from clouding my judgment. He has to die!

The door at the top of the stairs opens. My breathing hitches. A person comes bounding down in a few quick steps. The looming figure comes into view.

Dr. Ambrose is here.