Page 4 of Ash and Poison

“No no no. Ha-Hannigan.”

“Is he the one who killed Riley?”

“I-no,” the doctor slurred. “The one who drove them to him.”

“Where can I find him?”

“He-he owns The Gates,” Doctor T gasped, and Asher nodded.

“That wasn’t too difficult, was it? You wasted my time and made me do all of this for nothing,” Asher said with a deep sigh.

Asher Maddox didn’t suffer from PTSD or any of the diagnoses listed in his medical file. He wasn’t at the asylum to get better. No. Asher was here on his terms, playing his own game. And we were all just pawns.

“I didn’t have a choice,” the doctor stammered. “I ha-had to save myself. He-he would have…”

“Oh, one always has a choice. Always. I have a choice now: to kill or not kill.”

“Pl-please, please. Don’t,” Doctor T begged.

“And I’m choosing to kill you now,” Asher said, his voice soft, kind, as the dagger went into the doctor’s stomach with a sickening squelch. He stood there, unmoving, and waited... until everything went quiet.

He studied Doctor Tomlinson before dutifully closing the backpack filled with his torture instruments and gloves, then walked out, whistling.

The rippling roar of voices inside me faded as I watched him vanish beyond the overgrown trees. I slowly backed away from Doctor T’s cottage, whistling the same song, jogging back to my cottage.

Locking my cottage door behind me, I shrugged off my jacket and tossed it onto the table before collapsing onto the couch with a long sigh.

“This is such a fucking mess,” I muttered, hoping the past I’d buried in New York wouldn’t come clawing its way back because of this murder.

After Detective Knight took me into question about Toby’s death, I decided to leave New York behind and disappear. I found a job in Hollowhaven Sanatorium, in Hollow Heights, Georgia, which was supposed to be a boring town with no dark secrets.

I was wrong.

Oh, this was supposed to be a fresh start. A chance to start over, to outrun the shadows I’d left behind.

And here I was, once again. Caught in the middle of a murder.

I couldn’t let Asher Maddox ruin the life I had carefully built upon lies. Oh, no.

“Open.”

I jumped up from the couch with a gasp when I heard the incessant knocking.

“Open the fucking door. NOW,” Asher said, voice low and urgent. “I’m getting very impatient here.”

Taking a deep breath and composing my face into one of fear, I pulled the door open, and my breath caught.

Shadows played across his body, accentuating every hard line and defined muscles as if he were sculpted from the darkness around him.

I took a shaky breath.

“Wha-what do you want?” I asked.

“Move,” Asher gritted out, pointing his dagger at my chest.

I took a step back, and he followed me in, his gait lazy.

“I don’t want any trouble,” I whispered, looking up at him.