Page 5 of Exposed (The Wellard Asylum #1)

“ N ow?” I squeak. “Wait!”

My pulse races in my ears, each thump whooshing through me. I press my hands against my chest to calm my heart, but it’s no use.

This is it. If I don’t do this, I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to be this close to Dr. Ambrose. As long as my mother’s murderer dies, then everything will be worth it.

Right?

Tension fists my throat. Benji’s warning bursts through me.

Most people don’t leave the asylum alive, he had said. Most of them die there. And the ones that die? They’re probably better off. A lot of the doctors don’t care who you are; they do what they want to supposedly heal you. Your mom was probably lucky to die in childbirth.

My knees loosen as weakness flutters through me.

I steady myself, lift my chin, and stare up at Dr. Ambrose.

Most of the doctor is professional: his bleach-white lab coat, the staff badge hanging from his collar, his striped tie.

The dirt stains are gone; he must have changed his clothes before meeting with me.

But there are white marks, what look like old scars, patching his hands, with small black and brown spots dotting those scars.

He’s older, between fifty and sixty. His receding hairline exposes his scalp in an M pattern, and the long, smooth strands are pulled into a low ponytail at the base of his neck.

Tinged gray teeth fill his mouth, and his stature is tall, his shoulders wide, his stomach lean, like he doesn’t eat much and he works out.

A scent, both dusty and wet, expels with his breath.

He raises his bulbous, hooked nose. Yellow circles burrow underneath his eyes, his blackish-brown irises inspecting me.

Shivers plow down my skin, an ache pinching my lower back.

I fidget with my hair. He’s a horrible, unattractive man, but my brain works faster, seeing the things he could do to me.

My ex never did anything outside of the norm.

When it comes to Benji, he’s even more gentle—besides the videos, that is—and after we recorded our sex, he always apologized profusely, as if he thought he would never be able to make it up to me, even though I was the one who asked him to do it.

As if he truly believed I was reluctant, a good girl who would never do those awful things on my own.

I have this gut instinct Dr. Ambrose will want to explore the threshold of my boundaries.

And he may be my father.

Flashes of the past lock me into their downward spiral, a looping whirlpool threatening to drown me. My ex and I had a vanilla sex life where I faked orgasms. He always believed my moans were real.

Then one day we found my real birth certificate and my biological mother’s death certificate. According to the record, my mother didn’t die from an overdose like I had been told by my foster parents; she died during childbirth at the Wellard Asylum, where she was being treated for sexual addiction.

That’s when we found out she was a deviant.

I couldn’t stop wondering if that’s what was missing from my life. Being preoccupied by my ex and our lousy sex life was better than blaming myself for killing her during childbirth, so I asked him to hurt me, to use me, to treat me like shit, so I could experience pleasure and feel like she did.

I don’t know, Violet. That kind of shit is for freaks, he had said.

Freaks.

Freaks like my mom.

Freaks like me.

After years of trying to please him, his rejection detonated my resolve. No matter what I did for him, he would never truly accept me.

I faked every orgasm I had with you, I shouted. Even if we did that freaky shit, you couldn’t make me cum if you tried.

For a while, it didn’t register to me that we had broken up. I was so obsessed with daydreams of my mother and the asylum that I forgot about him. Then, one day at work, he showed up with his new girlfriend.

It’s sad, but she’s a pervert like her mother, the new girlfriend said quietly to my coworker. Like mother, like daughter.

That’s why I dumped her, my ex added. What a fucking freak.

Everyone, including the other customers and my coworkers, gawked at me.

I felt so alone .

I don’t remember how I reacted. What I do know is I went to my mother’s grave.

Freak was graffitied in pink across her name.

Had my ex and his new girlfriend marked her headstone?

Or was it someone else? It seemed so unlikely that anyone else would know about my mother’s treatment, but what if they did?

What if there were other people who were disgusted by her like they were disgusted by me?

I was twenty-two back then. I tried to suppress my obsession.

I tried to pretend everything was fine, that I was normal, even if my coworkers wouldn’t look me in the eyes anymore, even if strangers whispered about me behind my back.

But I couldn’t concentrate. Eventually, I lost my job, and my foster parents kicked me out.

They had been charging me rent, but it was still better to live with them while I worked and saved for college.

I packed everything I had in a backpack and moved to Belleville, the small town where my mother was buried, near the Wellard Asylum. I had to be closer to her. There had to be more to her story.

Then, when I was twenty-three, I met Benji. He had been a foster kid like me, so he understood the need for parental closure like this, and for a while, I didn’t care if we had quiet, missionary sex in the dark.

I was safe.

But desperation kept unfurling inside of me, wrapping its chains around my isolated heart.

I had to figure out everything I could about my mother.

Benji had grown up in the area and mentioned a rumor that a lot of the patients at the Wellard Asylum died from abuse.

After I turned twenty-four, I became restless for answers, and Benji knew he had to do something for me soon, otherwise, I would take it into my own hands.

So, he promised he would look into my mother.

He would steal her files. He would interview the doctors.

He would investigate other patients. He would do anything I asked, as long as I stayed away from the asylum.

Once Benji stole my mother’s file and her records confirmed she died from abuse, not childbirth, I asked Benji to make a copy of the file, return it, and see if Dr. Ambrose would examine me in person. By then, Benji trusted me more, and he was comforted that he would be going to the asylum with me.

Then, shortly after I turned twenty-five, the video requests came, and when Benji saw how enthusiastic I was, he inched away from me, his eyes darting toward me like I was a predator hunting him. He never said the word, and yet it was there, an apparition blocking us from truly connecting: Freak.

Even though the Wellard Asylum has an unlawful reputation, there’s no doubt in my mind I need this. I need to kill Dr. Ambrose, but I also need to understand where I came from and who I am. In a way, being here brings me closer to my mother.

And possibly to my father.

Bile rises in my throat. I swallow it down and flex my fingers. Dr. Ambrose might be my father. I can’t change that.

But I can make him pay for what he’s done.

He needs to believe I belong here so I can be close to him. And once I kill him, I’ll be able to move on with my life.

If I don’t die trying, that is.

“Are we still waiting, or are you ready, Miss Ward?” Dr. Ambrose asks, his voice low and melodic, calling me into his depths, the same way he must have lulled my mother into a false sense of security.

Am I ready to see what my mother endured? To see if I’m really a freak?

I squeeze Benji’s hand. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

“Eventually,” Dr. Ambrose says.

A chill rushes through me. I snap back to the doctor and cross my arms, pretending I’m unafraid of him.

He raises a brow. “Oliver will take care of you now.”

Those words tickle my earlobe, and slight disappointment prickles my skin.

Oliver. The assistant. Not Dr. Ambrose.

I’m not disappointed because I want Dr. Ambrose to be the one to prepare me for the exam, I tell myself. I’m disappointed because I want to kill Dr. Ambrose now ? —

Benji clasps my hand. His eyes are full and wet, pleading for me not to do this.

My lips curl down. I don’t want to upset Benji, but it also confuses and angers me that he swears he’s supportive of me being here, but he always tries to change my mind.

I’ve lost sleep. Skipped meals. Destroyed friendships. Ended a relationship. I was supposed to stay with my foster parents until I could get through college, but once they saw my obsession cost me my job, they kicked me out.

I need to do this for my mother and myself.

“Yes, Doctor,” the assistant in glasses says. My pulse skips a beat. He gestures to the side. “Follow me.”

And I do.