Page 3 of Ravage (The Wellard Asylum #6)

The nervousness in me didn’t ease up, and once our eyes met, it just got worse.

He had no business looking that hot. He looked absolutely edible in a light blue button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

When he stood up to leave, I got a peek of his toned legs in a pair of skinny dress pants and brown oxfords.

His whole look was giving college professor, and I almost drooled at the sight.

How am I going to live with someone that good-looking?

I put on my best customer service face as we talked business.

His voice was deep and smooth, causing a burn in the pit of my stomach like a strong shot of bourbon.

The deeper we got into the conversation, the better I started to feel, but there was still this nagging feeling in the back of my head.

When his knee knocked up against mine under the table, I was sure it was an accident, but then when he swiped my hair behind my ear, I knew it was anything but.

I swear as soon as I sat down, he was fixated on me.

At first I thought it was just because he was listening intently, but he didn’t look away from me until he was jotting things down in my notebook.

After we parted ways, I went to the back to get my apron to continue working.

Cassie met me at the locker door and started grilling me with questions about him.

Sadly I couldn’t even answer most of her questions, because all I knew about him was his name, address, and job profession.

Which is the exact reason I’m sitting in the library mooching off of their free wifi.

I’m sitting far in the back, against the wall behind some bookshelves, trying to make myself as small and unassuming as possible.

How awkward would it be for someone to catch me creeping on some guy?

I type Kole Masterson into the Google search bar and then double-check my notepad for any spelling errors.

The search doesn’t pull up much, just a website and a social media page, which has me frowning.

I click on the website that pulled up first, and it brings me to a page for Wellard Asylum.

Shock fills me as my eyes pop out of my head.

I’ve heard whispers about that place, and not good ones at that.

Rumor has it that only the deeply depraved and sinister are housed inside of there.

From my little knowledge, no one has ever left there before.

At least not alive anyway. My heart rate increases as I read on down the web page, finding a photo of a smiling Kole wearing a pair of scrubs.

The words above him are in bold print and celebrate the fact that he was nurse of the month.

Something about the photo doesn’t sit right with me. It looks like it’s photoshopped, almost as if someone took a photo of him and just placed him inside some random sterile-looking building. I shake my head and continue to read the article written below it.

Kole Masterson has excelled in his career here at Wellard Asylum! The patients are so lucky to have a nurse like him roaming the halls. He is attentive to every small detail regarding his job and takes great care of his patients. Kole is the epitome of what a nurse should be here at Wellard Asylum.

The screaming praise in the article makes me smile, but then again, how high are the employee standards at Wellard Asylum anyway?

I’m guessing that he’s not a serial killer at least, because he wouldn’t be employed in a place like that if he was.

I spend more time searching the internet for any crumb of information I can scrounge up about my new roommate.

After an hour I come back with a barely active Instagram page.

The page layout is chaotic and showcases random images of anything he seems to find fascinating.

There’s a photo of him hiking in the woods at sunset and one of a dog running off in the distance, but the last one posted is the oddest. It’s of a girl lying on the sidewalk; she looks to be asleep or basking in the night air.

Her brown hair is spread out around her haphazardly, and the dress she’s wearing is precariously close to exposing her.

The image is quite blurry, like it was taken in a rush to remember the moment, as if he was on a nightly walk and came across her unexpectedly.

The more I stare at the photo, the more uneasy it makes me, but I can’t place why that is.

After staring at that photo for far too long, I exit out of the Instagram page and close down my laptop altogether.

I lean my head back against the wall behind me and rub my eyes with my balled-up hands.

My mind is running a mile a minute trying to put all the sparse information I found together like a puzzle.

Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I contemplate calling Cassie to talk everything over with her, but I fear that once she hears that he works at Wellard Asylum, she will blow a gasket.

I lose out on the mental battle and end up calling Cassie anyway just to have someone to talk to.

The phone rings and rings until Cassie finally picks up on the last ring.

“Hey Sloane! Sorry, I was cleaning the house. How are you doing?” I can hear the blare of pop music in the distance as she rushes to answer the phone breathlessly.

“Cassie, do you have a minute just to talk?” I whisper into the receiver, almost hoping she will tell me no so I don’t have to go through with the conversation.

“Oh yeah, sure thing, just give me a minute to turn the music down.” She chuckles as she walks through the house flipping the speaker off. “Okay, spill the tea that you seem to have steeping.”

Taking a deep breath, I push the words out in a rush, because I know that if I don’t, then I won’t ever get them out.

“I went to the library to cyberstalk Kole, and I found some stuff, or well, lack thereof is probably a better explanation. There was nothing on this guy, Cassie! The only thing I found was that he works at Wellard Asylum and he has a barely active—” Cassie stops me right where I thought she was going to.

“Wait right there, missie, you can’t just speed past that like it’s nothing!

He works at Wellard Asylum? As in the infamous asylum that houses all the deranged people?

You’re joking, right? Say psych right now!

” She yells the words out so loud that I have to pull the phone away from my ear before she bursts my eardrums.

“Uh, well… I don’t really know what to say to you now.” The other end of the line is silent for a few moments, and I almost fear she’s thrown the phone to the ground at this point.

“Sloane, he seriously works at that awful place?” She questions through tight lips.

“Unfortunately… but he was nurse of the month according to their web page.” I say with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.

“‘Cause that totally makes me feel so much better knowing the standards in that hellhole. Sloane, you can’t move in with that man. I don’t care if he’s a nurse or the president of the United States.

The fact that he works in that wretched place should be enough for you to say no!

” Cassie's words bounce around in my head, and I know that she’s right.

That asylum only houses the worst of the worst, so it makes sense if they also employ the worst of the worst to keep things running smoothly.

“Cass, I know, but I don’t have much of a choice right now. I’m living in my car…” I drift off, my words stuck in my throat and my nerves shot for the day.

“Shit, Sloane, I’m sorry. I know things are rough right now. Please just come live with me for a while until you get back on your feet again. I can’t stand the thought of you living with some strange man, no matter how cute he is.” I let out a chuckle at the fact that she thinks he's cute too.

“I love you, and I appreciate your friendship so much, Cassie. But I can’t live with you.

You do so much for me as it is, and I can’t stand the thought of living on your couch.

I’m sure I’ll be fine. He’s a nurse, for pete's sake! He had to go through all the board-certified testing to get that, right? I’m sure he’s not as bad as we are thinking.

” I pour my optimism out into my words in droves in hopes that it will help ease the situation.

She’s quiet for a moment before she finally answers on a rushed sigh.

“Okay, fine, but at the first sign of something amiss, you better tell me, Sloane. I mean it!” I promise her up and down that I will tell her at the first sign of trouble. When I hang up the phone, I don’t feel any better than I did before I called her.

With a heaving sigh, I pack my things back into my bag and climb to my feet.

Walking slowly through the aisles of bookshelves until I make it outside and onto the sidewalk.

The crisp fall air sweeps my hair up and around my face, obscuring my vision momentarily, and I almost tumble off the curb and into the street.

The blare of a horn pierces my ears just as a strong pair of hands grips my biceps, hauling me back into a warm chest as a semi zooms past me.

I stand there in shock, wondering who just saved me from being instant roadkill.

Slowly turning around, I swipe my hair out from my face and look up into my savior's face.

I should be grateful for being saved, but the face staring back at me makes my insides squirm with apprehension.

Unknown fear races through me as my mind spins a mile a minute on how he just spontaneously showed up.

The first thing that comes to mind is that he was following me, but I shake my head, knowing that notion is absurd.

He looks down at me with a worried expression as I stand there stunned into silence; the only noise surrounding us is my labored breathing and passing cars.