Page 18 of No Asylum Here

Fredrick wiped his hand on his stained lab coat before offering it to me. When it was clear I wasn’t going to shake it, he awkwardly stuffed it in his coat pocket, mumbling something indiscernible.

The mystery of this place deepened by the moment. What had happened to this man? He didn’t speak like he was mentally well at all.

I suppressed the urge to shiver as his words played through my head.

Can I have her? She’ll look so pretty all in pieces…

My attention darted back to Rook. “Pharmacist, you say?” I had to have heard that wrong.

Doctor Rook nodded at a steel door on the other end of the room. “Yes. The pharmacy is through that door there. Its main entrance can be accessed by the basement stairwell or the staff elevator.”

“And where are we now?” I swallowed, taking another scan of the dimly lit room. “A laboratory?”

“Something like that, yes. Here is where I do most of my experimentation, research and tinkering. This is also where I produce some of my own concoctions that we prescribe to the patients, hence the close proximity to the pharmacy.”

“Your own concoctions… Like this ‘Treatment’ you were telling me about?”

Pleased that I remembered, Rook beamed at me, offering his hand. This one, I took and hopped to my feet, allowing him to guide me to the other side of his laboratory.

Silence spanned several moments as I tried to process what I was looking at.

It wasn’t odd for hospitals to make their own pharmaceuticals to combat high costs and keep supplies well-stocked. But this setup felt better suited for a mad scientist in a horror flick.

Before me was a chemistry station loaded with all sorts of test tubes and outdated equipment I’d only seen in medical textbooks.

Something bright caught my eye through a locked cabinet, holding what appeared to be several dozen glass vials containing a glowing green substance.

I turned to my boss to see if this was the Treatment, and his prideful expression confirmed it. “I’ve spent years developing this. Years. It’s changed my whole life.”

“And you said it’s a supplement, or a vaccine?”

“That and more. It makes the strong stronger. It has saved lives…”

“And has it taken any?”

The air in the room seemed to grow colder yet as the doctor stiffened. “Only one, in the early testing stages of the drug. But that was years ago. It’s perfectly safe now. You’ll find that it will help you with your transition here at Saint Bartholomew’s.”

It wasn’t until Rook turned the combination lock, opening the cabinet to the glowing solution, that I realized he wanted me to take it.

Just like almost everything else here, he was being too vague with the answers to my questions. “I’m not going to take that if that’s what you’re getting at. I know nothing about it.”

“Well, it’s a requirement for my staff to take it,” he mused with a chuckle, as if he found my objection amusing.

I took a step back, eyes rounding as he brandished a syringe seemingly out of nowhere. Attached was a beast of a needle, fourteen-gauge by my estimation.

He stabbed the needle into the vial’s rubber stopper. Panic burned my throat as I watched the glass vial fill with the ominous substance.

My next move “should” have been to get the fuck out of here and report this.

Too bad it wasn’t that simple.

I needed this job. Without it, I had nothing. Nowhere to stay, no money, just two black marks on my resume and a mountain of debt I’d likely never repay.

“W–What will it do to me?”

“Splendid question, Dr. Beckett. All this shot is going to do is help you adjust to our climate here. Less headaches. Less fainting. No more hallucinations. Your mind will be calmer. You’ll feel stronger. And all this you’ll need, if you’re going to treat the patients here at Saint Bartholomew’s.”

My breath froze in my chest. How did he know about the hallucinations?