Ann Marie's Asylum (Master and Apprentice Book 1) Read Online Free

little.”
    “You didn’t hear me. I said I was just going in the other room to do the bills.”
    “Don’t be out too late, baby,” Lori said before quickly devoting her attention back to the phone. Then she started howling with laughter again. She sounded like she was beginning to get very drunk.
    It was a bit quieter in the adjacent room of their apartment but Ann Marie could still hear her mom’s drunken voice and all the laughter. After she finished with the household bills, she sat for a moment at the window. It struck her how far away she and her mom were from home.
    It also occurred to her that her mom had received regular calls from friends back home while Ann Marie hadn’t gotten a single phone call or inquiry about her new job from anyone. Philadelphia had always loved her social butterfly of a mother but after just a few months, the city had forgotten her entirely.
    To take her mind off that and her mom’s drunken laughter, Ann Marie put on her headphones and took to the internet. She had been quietly obsessing about a certain name for several days. Dade Harkenrider had been playing in a loop in her head as though the syllables were endowed with special powers. She kept hearing the name and even caught herself mouthing the syllables out subconsciously. It felt strangely exciting just to say the name to herself. She chalked it up to her compulsive nature.
    She entered “Dade Harkenrider is Dr. Death,” into the internet search engine.
    She felt her heart beat in her chest when she saw all the thousands of webpages and articles spring up in a fraction of a second. “The Antichrist Lives in Southern California!” read one of the headlines on an internet conspiracy page. “Dr. Death and the Laboratory of Doom,” caught her eye as well. She clicked on: “Is Harkenrider the Son of a Prominent Southern California Witch?” To her disappointment, the site had been closed with no further information.
    “ The Definitive Dr. Death Archive ,” seemed the most comprehensive, with articles, photos and videos related to the mysterious scientist. At the top of the webpage, Ann Marie read:
     
    Dade Harkenrider was born under mysterious circumstances to a known leader in the occult and witchcraft community, Elaine Harkenrider. There is no record of a birth certificate. We believe these records were destroyed either by his mother or the man who would later become his guardian, Dr. Bernard Mengel. Dr. Mengel raised Harkenrider from age six after his mother’s disappearance. Mengel is a known murderer and war criminal and we believe his sick scientific experiments go all the way back to the nazis. He currently holds a “special advisor” role at the Asylum Corporation.
     
    Scrolling down, she saw a rough digital photograph showing someone, purportedly Harkenrider, appearing in two locations roughly twenty feet away from one another. The caption read: Has Dr. Death cloned himself?
    There was another grainy photo of Harkenrider standing in front of an old church consumed in flames. Even though the shot didn’t have much detail, Ann Marie could see the black hair and steel features. He was wearing black sunglasses even though the photograph had clearly been taken at night.
    In the background of the picture, there was an odd vehicle, a six-wheeled armored machine that looked like a cross between a tank and an invading spaceship. It looked like the thing had the Asylum Corporation logo on the side. The website claimed the thing was Harkenrider’s personal vehicle, a one-of-a-kind military assault prototype. The website also alleged that the burning church had been the headquarters of a massive human trafficking ring.
    “Who’s that guy, baby? He’s hot,” her mom said, standing behind her and pointing to the screen. Quite drunk by that point, she had to balance herself on Ann Marie’s shoulders. “I thought you were going out tonight.”
    “Like I said,” her daughter told her, “I was going into the other