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)
Ten
Torri got two pieces of good news that evening that brightened her life considerably. First, it appeared that Dr. Burrows had been called away to the Violent Offenders Unit for some kind of emergency, so she didn’t have to see him for one-on-one therapy after dinner. Instead, she got an extra free hour to do whatever she wanted.
The second piece of good news came when she stood in line to refuse her medication and heard two of the nurses talking in low voices. Maybe it was because so many of the patients were incapacitated, or the fact that they were behind the plastic window, but the nurses seemed to feel free to talk about whatever they wanted, as though nobody could hear or understand them. Torri picked up a lot of hospital gossip just by keeping her ears open and her head down.
“Where’s Mike tonight?” one of the nurses asked another as they doled medication into the little paper cups and passed them through the window.
“Oh, Kathy put him on a week-long suspension pending an investigation,” the second nurse murmured.
“What? But why?” the first nurse sounded shocked.
“Apparently one of the patients accused him of groping her,” the first nurse murmured. “And since this isn’t the first time, Kathy finally had to put him on report.”
“So he’s gone for a whole week?” The first nurse sounded incredulous. “Who’s going to wake up the screamer?”
With a shock, Torri realized they were talking about her. She kept her head down, though, pretending she couldn’t hear.
“I don’t know but it’s not going to be me,” the first nurse said. “I heard she kicked Mike in the head!”
“Well, he might have deserved it—he does get handsy from time to time,” the second nurse remarked. “But then again, he’s the only one who doesn’t mind handling the patients who won’t behave.”
At that point, Torri reached the front of the line, refused her meds, and left, so she didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. But just knowing that Mike O’Toole was going to be gone for at least a week—maybe forever if they decided to fire him for what he had done—lightened her heart considerably.
She might still have to worry about the night terrors tonight, but at least she didn’t have to fear that she would wake up with the molesting orderly on top of her.
It was shaping up to be a much better night than last night, Torri thought. Now if only she could sleep without the awful visions of the AllFather invading her dreams…
Eleven
But though her luck had turned a bit, it still wasn’t enough to stop the relentless night terrors from visiting her.
As soon as she drifted off, Torri felt the familiar frozen feeling come over her and then the creeping dread—the knowledge that something evil was coming for her and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Once more, she found herself standing in front of the vast gray metal doors with their neon-green etchings. Once more, she knew the doors were about to open and she would be pulled into the awful throne room where the AllFather waited to “taste her pain”…
But at that point in the horribly familiar nightmare, there was something different. As Torri stood, waiting in dread for the doors to open, a voice spoke in her ear.
“What’s wrong, Torri? What are you doing here?”
Turning her head she saw, to her surprise, that Vic was standing there. But he wasn’t dressed in beige scrubs—he was wearing a dark blue, long-sleeved shirt that buttoned down the front. It was tucked into a pair of tight black trousers which were, in turn, tucked into tall black boots that came up to his knees. He wore an expression of concern as he looked down at her from his immense height.
“Are you all right?” he asked, since Torri hadn’t answered his previous questions.
“Of course I’m not all right!” she exclaimed “When these doors open, I’m going to be sucked through them and I’ll have to see him—the Evil One.” She didn’t like to mention the AllFather’s name aloud—she had a superstitious dread that saying his name might bring him to her.
Vic frowned and shook his head.
“I don’t understand. You’ll be ‘sucked’ through the doors? By what? By who?”
“I don’t know.” Torri shook her head. “I only know I don’t want to go in there!”
She was sweating now—though how you could sweat in a dream, she didn’t know. But she could feel the cold sweat breaking out along her spine as dread overtook her, stealing her breath and making her heart pound a crazy rhythm in her chest.
“If you don’t wish to go, I won’t let you be taken,” Vic promised.
“But…how can you stop me?” Torri asked, hearing the despair in her own voice. It seemed impossible to fight the invisible force that sucked her into the AllFather’s throne room every night and drew her to him. At least, she had never been able to fight it.