Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 110492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
He shrugged his bony shoulders, grinning at her.
“Maybe I came in, just for you, darlin’. Came just to tuck you in.”
He reached out to cup Torri’s shoulder in one big, rough hand and Torri jerked away.
“I’ve told you before—don’t ever touch me!” she said tightly.
“Now is that any way to talk to your old friend, Mike?” He made a mock-sad face at her. “I can help you out around here, you know. All you have to do is help me out back.”
Mike O’Toole’s idea of “helping out” was slipping drugs and alcohol to the patients who could pay for them. What he expected in return was…
Disgusting, Torri thought, taking another step away from him but not quite daring to turn her back on the huge orderly in his flapping pink scrubs.
She had seen Mike taking patients into the soft room, when he thought no one was looking. It wasn’t often used—Dr. Burrows preferred to drug his patients into submission rather than locking them up. So Mike had started using the padded room as a sort of personal office, where he gave out the contraband items he smuggled into St. Elizabeth’s.
Torri had seen him doing it during her first week there. She had left dinner a little early and a flash of movement had caught her eye. Turning her head, she’d seen it again—a bobbing motion that was almost but not quite visible through the narrow chicken-wire glass window. There was something going on in the soft room, but it was hidden in the far corner—barely visible.
Curiosity piqued, Torri had grasped the door handle and silently turned it. She swung the door open as quietly as possible and peered around the corner, wondering what was going on.
Janice, one of the younger female patients, was on her knees on the thick padded floor, kneeling before O’Toole. Torri had heard the nurses whispering to each other that she was in St. Elizabeth’s for trying to kill herself—and for opioid addiction. O’Toole had his scrubs down around his hairy, skinny ankles and he was pulling Janice forward, both meaty hands buried in her long, brownish-blonde hair.
“Come on, darlin’—gag on it!” Torri heard him saying as he forced his shaft roughly down the girl’s throat. “I got you them pills you wanted, now you got to pay your debt! You better make it worth my while or no more pretty white pills for you!”
At his words, Janice—who had been gasping and choking—redoubled her efforts. Drool was dripping from her bottom lip and wetting the padded floor below, but she did her best to keep going, though the big orderly was fucking her throat and mouth furiously.
At that moment, O’Toole’s no-color eyes had risen to meet Torri’s. But instead of yanking away from Janice and trying to cover up what he’d been doing, he just kept on doing it. As he did, he stared right at Torri and licked his lips suggestively.
“You…you can’t do that!” Torri had exclaimed, horrified by what she was seeing.
“Looks like I am, though.” O’Toole grinned nastily at her. “You wanna come join in, darlin’, or do you just like to watch?”
“Dr. Burrows—” Torri began.
“Oh, are you gonna tell on me?” O’Toole taunted her. “And who do you think Dr. Burrows is gonna believe, darlin’? His favorite caretaker, or some dizzy bitch who screams the house down every night?”
Shaken to her core, Torri had withdrawn. He was right, she had realized with a sick feeling in her stomach—if it was her word against Mike O’Toole’s, Mike was going to win every time. He was a man and she was a woman who had been admitted to a mental institution. Who was going to believe anything she said? Who was going to take her word over O’Toole’s?
Nobody, that’s who, Torri told herself. Not in this place, at least.
Ever since that, she had done her best to avoid Mike O’Toole. But the massive orderly seemed to have taken a perverse interest in her. He went out of his way to be the one to wake her up from her night terrors when she had them. More than once, Torri had felt a hand grab roughly at her breast as the AllFather’s glowing red eyes dissolved into O’Toole’s bearded face.
She had already lived in fear of the night, because she knew she would have terrible nightmares. Now her fear was even worse because she wondered what the big bastard might try next.
“I came in just to see you tonight, darlin’,” he said, taking a step towards her and giving her a leering grin. “Figured you might need some cheering up since you and your hubby aren’t doing too good.”
“My marriage is none of your business!” Torri snapped.
O’Toole shook his head and made a tsking sound.
“Now, now, darlin’—I’m just tryin’ to comfort you. The way I hear it, you and him aren’t gettin’ along so well. Sounds like he might just leave you here forever.”