Page 50 of Watch Your Back (Devil’s Backbone #2)

Royce’s uncle thinks I have a strong enough case against my mother to muzzle her for life.

Evidence of her embezzling from my trust account, proof of her paying hitmen, footage of her entangled in a romantic relationship with a known war criminal…

the list goes on. It’s enough to destroy her image, and without her image, Portia Levigne is nothing.

I wanted to tell Spark immediately, but Nate asked me to wait until after his birthday. He was cagey about his reasons, though, and I have a bad feeling in my gut. If he hurts her…I’ll kill him.

C otton wool filled my head as I tried to claw my way out of what seemed like the most intense nightmare.

But when I finally managed to peel my eyes open and stared at the white ceiling, I couldn’t recall a single detail of what the dream had been about—nothing specific, just a horrible feeling of urgency and dread.

My mouth was so dry it hurt, and my eyes were crusty like I’d been asleep for days.

“What the fuck happened?” I murmured, rolling onto my side in search of Royce.

But he wasn’t there. Neither was Heath or Carter.

I was alone. “That sucks,” I mumbled to myself, closing my eyes for just a little longer before sighing heavily.

I needed to get up and pee, more than anything, but also drink some water and work out what’d happened.

The last thing I remembered was Nate’s birthday, getting ready upstairs with Carter…coming down to find Nate and Heath…fucking Nate’s hand…

“Oh fuck,” I moaned, clapping my hands over my face. He would be utterly impossible to live with after this. Now that he knew how I felt… But he wasn’t a dick about it, was he? My foggy memory told me he’d been genuinely broken up about the whole thing and then?—

“No!” I sat up with a gasp, the memory of Nate’s mom hitting me like a ton of fucking bricks. I needed to tell the guys. I needed to warn them!

Except…I wasn’t in my room. I wasn’t even in the guest room of the mansion Nate had rented for his party. The bed I’d woken up in was tiny, for starters, barely even a double. And the room was sparsely decorated, with a cheap, impersonal picture of a sailboat on the wall.

Most concerning, though, were the bars over the window.

Alarmed, I rushed to the door and attempted to jerk it open, only to be met with the harsh denial of a lock. The handle wouldn’t even turn.

“Hello?” I called out in my panic, knocking on the door. “Is anyone there? Hello?”

Nothing. I tried again and again, and still no one opened the door to apologize for what was clearly a huge mix-up or even offer an explanation, so I turned to assess the room once more.

There, beside the bed, was what seemed to be a call button, like I’d seen in the hospital after my ordeal in the forest last year.

Holding my breath, I pressed the button, then sat down to wait, resisting the urge to pace or scream or, worse, cry. If I was where my gut said I was, I needed to keep my cool.

I counted to three hundred and seventy-nine in my head before the door finally opened and a tired-looking woman entered wearing navy-blue medical scrubs.

“Ashley, it’s nice to see you awake,” she said in a weirdly impersonal voice. “You must have questions.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “I do. For one thing, where?—”

“I won’t be answering them. I’m sorry, but I can take you to meet with your doctor if you’ll follow me?” She turned and swept out of the room again, this time leaving the door open like she didn’t much care if I followed or not.

Biting my tongue, I hurried after her on bare feet, hugging my oversized gray T-shirt around myself. These weren’t my clothes, and fuck if I didn’t feel violated as hell for that fact.

“Please wait in here,” the woman—maybe a nurse—said, gesturing to what seemed like some kind of holding cell with just a couple of chairs bolted to the floor beside a closed door. “The doctor will be with you soon.”

Then she was gone.

“Bitch,” I muttered into the empty space, sitting down to wait as a shiver ran down my spine. I was only in a pair of elastic- waistband pants and the gray T-shirt, and what felt like a basic elastic crop top, rather than a bra. Nothing to harm myself with, I supposed.

I counted to six hundred and twelve before the door opened and an older, middle-aged man appeared.

“Ashley, come on in.” He gestured for me to enter his office, and I clenched my teeth to keep from screaming and yelling, demanding answers. That would get me nowhere, I was well aware, but the desire was strong. “Have a seat, please.”

I did as I was told, playing the part of calm and sane as well as I possibly could under the circumstances. Once I was seated in one of the visitor chairs, the doctor took his seat behind his desk and offered me a bland smile.

“I’m sure you’re very confused this morning. You were not particularly lucid when the transport team brought you in last night, but you seem much calmer today so that’s great to see. I’m Dr. Marion, and I’ll be your primary physician here.”

I took a beat, collecting my thoughts. I hadn’t been lucid? No shit; I’d been unconscious from whatever Jocelyn had done to me. “Dr. Marion?” I repeated, and he nodded. “You’re correct—I am confused. Where are we exactly?”

“Geographically? We’re in Montana. This is a very discreet and well-funded psychiatric care facility, where people such as yourself can be given the care and treatment they need, without any prying eyes.

” He delivered this information as unemotionally as a computer-generated script, and another ice-cold stab of dread sliced through me.

I wet my lips. “I see. And how did I come to be here?” Aside from Jocelyn doing whatever the fuck she did to knock me out, surely the guys had to have noticed her dragging me out of the house? Someone must have witnessed something, considering they’d literally transported me to another state.

Dr. Marion tipped his head slightly to the side, a small flash of pity showing in his otherwise blank face.

“Ashley, you were transferred from your previous facility due to an increase in your delusions and the escalating violence you displayed toward staff. It’s my understanding that you were sedated for the journey, for safety. ”

I blinked twice. Previous facility? Is that the lie Jocelyn had told? “Dr. Marion, I believe you have been lied to. I understand you probably have plenty of patients who claim not to be crazy, but in this case, you’ve been manipulated. I was never in a previous facility, nor should I be here.”

He gave a small sigh. “Yes, you’re correct.

We do hear this a lot.” He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a stack of paperwork, sorting through them to pull out the page he wanted.

“But in this case, we have transfer paperwork from your previous physicians along with extensive treatment notes. Most importantly, though, we have the admission document signed by your medical power of attorney.”

I shook my head, fast losing my grip on calm.

“My medical power of attorney? I don’t have one.

I am a legal adult. I’m my own power of—” My words cut off in a pained whimper as he placed the document in front of me.

The signature might have been unfamiliar a week ago, but having seen it scrawled out so very recently by Nate’s own hand… “Nate? He’s not?—”

The doctor slid another document in front of me. “That’s your signature, is it not? On the appointment of the MPOE form naming Nathaniel Essex as legally empowered to make any and all medical decisions on your behalf?”

My heart melted like it’d been doused in acid. “Yes,” I whispered in shocked horror. There was no use denying it—that was my signature, just as it was Nate’s countersigned beside mine.

That lying, cheating, sneaky…bastard.

Dr. Marion sighed again, putting the documents away. “Ashley, your previous doctor informed me that you have been known to experience regressions, within which you seem to forget what led you to this point. Make no mistake, you do belong here.”

I swallowed hard, my pulse rushing in my ears. “I don’t. And I don’t have any previous doctors. This is all Jocelyn’s doing. She’s fabricated this entire fucking?—”

“Ashley. You are not well.” Dr. Marion cut me off with a no-nonsense tone. “You haven’t been well for several months, and things only seem to be getting worse.”

I shook my head again, panic rising in my chest. “Call him. Call Nate and have him come here to explain himself. He’s my medical power of attorney.

There should be no reason why he can’t come here and tell me face-to-face what the fuck he thinks he’s doing.

The guys can’t possibly be okay with this. ”

The doctor pursed his lips. “The guys? That would be…” He consulted the notes in front of him, browsing through until he nodded. “Carter and Royce?”

I frowned. “Or Heath. He would never support this insanity, excuse my pun.”

“Heath. I see. That would be…” More pages flipped. “Heathcliff Briggs. Ah yes, I see…his suicide seemed to trigger your initial psychotic break. Do you often refer to him as if he is still alive?”

My jaw dropped. “Excuse me? He is alive. It was only attempted suicide; Nate saved him.”

Dr. Marion gave me another of those pitying looks and my vision went fuzzy for a moment. There was no fucking way he was going to convince me that Heath was dead. This was a sick joke and nothing more. More of Jocelyn’s fucked-up head games.

“Ashley…denial isn’t helping you here. Heathcliff hung himself in early December, and your mental health took a sharp decline from there.

Your parents had you admitted on a psychiatric evaluation on Christmas Day, after you ran out into the snow wearing just a pair of pajamas, then fell through the ice of a frozen pond.

” He clasped his hands on top of my folder, shaking his head with a sad expression.

“I can see we have our work cut out for us.”

Agony ripped through my chest as I tried to digest what he was saying. It wasn’t true… Was it? I remembered Christmas just fine. Our parents had been all cozy and gross, and I’d gone outside to get some air. Nate had followed, and we’d talked. Right?

Then Heath arrived.

Or had he?

“No, this is all… None of this is true,” I insisted, fast losing my grip on the calm I so desperately tried to cling to. “Heath’s not dead. Where’s my mom in all of this? I’d like you to call my mother, please. I want to speak with her. If anyone should be making medical decisions, it’s her.”

Another sad look. “Ashley, this pains me. You gave your stepbrother medical power of attorney in a moment of lucidity after your mother and his father were confirmed dead in a plane crash last week. Nathaniel is all the family you have left.”

I must have blacked out for a moment because the next thing I knew, there was a mint-green-attired orderly offering me a paper cup of water as my head hung between my knees. What the fuck was happening?

“Ashley, this has all been a shock, it seems,” Dr. Marion said from where he hovered near the door. “I think it’s best if you return to your room to rest.”

I sat up, shaking my head. “No. You need to call Nate and make him come here in person to explain himself. I am not accepting this bullshit. Not until I hear it from his lips directly.”

Dr. Marion pursed his lips, then nodded. “Very well, if that’s what it takes. I will call him and ask if he’ll make the journey. In the meantime, you need to return to your room. Cyril, if you could please escort Miss Layne?”

“Yes, Doctor,” the orderly agreed, offering me a hand to help me up. I took it, because what in the hell else could I do? Any kind of violent outburst would only see them sedate me, I was sure. My best bet lay in keeping cool until Nate could arrive…then I’d kill him.

Cyril the orderly walked with me out of Dr. Marion’s office, and I blinked away the tears building in my eyes. I felt so fucking powerless, and it was an awful sensation. Down the hall, a woman’s voice echoed with an uncomfortable familiarity, making me pause in my tracks.

“Miss Layne, we need to keep?—”

“One second,” I snapped, tugging my arm free of his gentle grip as I spun around in the direction that voice had come from. A moment later, a pair of white-coated doctors rounded the corner, and I inhaled sharply when Jocelyn locked eyes with me.

I expected her to smirk or wink or…something, but her gaze passed over me like we’d never even met before.

“Jocelyn,” I said out loud, starting in her direction. “You bitch, this is too far!”

Nate’s mother seemed startled as she frowned in my direction, shaking her head slightly with confusion. “I’m…sorry?”

“That’s Dr. Russo,” Cyril the orderly informed me, grabbing my arm to halt me in my tracks. “Dr. Sarah Russo.”

Nate’s mom gave me a worried look, her head tilted to the side. “You must have me mistaken for someone else. I have one of those faces.”

Disbelief nearly fucking choked me. “No, you don’t.

You’re Jocelyn Reynard, and this whole fucking thing is your fucked-up little experiment, isn’t it?

You are behind everything and when Nate—” I broke off then, nearly swallowing my tongue as another horrifyingly familiar white-coated doctor strode around the corner.

“H-how is this possible? No…you’re dead! ”

Dr. Fox met my eyes with a concerned frown. “Have we met?”

“You’re dead!” I shouted again, unable to hold my cool any longer. “I saw your body! We burned down your house! This isn’t possible!”

Because if Dr. Fox was alive…then what did that mean for everything else that’d happened?

Holy shit. Had it all been in my head?

TO BE CONTINUED…

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