Insanity Read Online Free Page A

clothes. The room felt cold and weird and ... wrong, and it didn’t help when dark-light guy growled like one of his dogs. I widened my stance, ready for him to come at me again, but he reeled back like I’d hit him with a cattle prod.
    “Don’t let him out of that room,” Decker whispered. “Please!”
    My breath echoed in my ears, but this was getting easier. A pissed guy, a scared guy—but no dogs, no geese, no bells, no glowing crap. Things were making more sense, and I knew what to do. “Mr. Decker, which ward are you from?”
    Decker gazed at me, slack-jawed. He had dark, curly hair trimmed close to his head, flawless skin, and an attractive face,but his eyes were wide and scared like a lot of the psychotic patients I’d worked with before. I figured he was about thirty, maybe older. His jeans and white T-shirt were filthy. Who let him out after hours—and who on earth hadn’t given the man a shower and helped him put on clean clothes?
    He didn’t answer me about the ward. Maybe he didn’t know.
    As for the guy in the clothing room, I needed to figure out where he belonged, too. I glanced in his direction. “What’s your name?”
    He was younger than Decker, maybe not much older than me, and wickedly handsome. He didn’t seem psychotic, but he had his hand pressed against the spot on his chest where he’d made contact with my palm, and he acted like he was in pain.
    “Levi,” he said, as though my question tore the word right out of him. Southern accent, but he so didn’t look like a Never farm boy.
    He blinked in surprise, as if he hadn’t meant to answer me. Then his eyes narrowed, and he seemed to be cataloging everything about me, from my curly hair to my shaking hands to my rowan bracelet.
    I knew enough to treat patients with respect, and I recognized fear when I saw it, even when it was painted over to look like anger. “I usually work on the geriatric ward, mostly second shift. That’s why you don’t know me. I promise I’ll take good care of both of you.”
    “Sure you will,” Levi murmured, fixated on my face with an intensity that made me nervous.
    “I need to get you back to your wards,” I told them both. “It’slate, and there’s a lot going on tonight. You need some rest, up where it’s safe.”
    Neither guy said anything.
    I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go. Now.”
    When I risked lowering my hands, Levi turned, walked a few steps farther into the clothing room, and vanished.
    Like, poof . Just— poof !
    I stared at the place where he’d been, not believing what I had just seen.
    Then Decker started to cry.
    When I turned toward him, he dropped to his knees, like he was bowing before me.
    “Hey, look. It’s okay.” I shoved away the image of Levi vanishing and got down next to Decker to put my hand on his shoulder. Too much weirdness. Too much not-realness.
    I was at work. I had to keep working. I needed to take care of crying guy first, then ... there was no way Levi had just disappeared. He had to be in that room somewhere.
    “Mr. Decker, come with me to the switchboard, and we’ll figure out where you belong.”
    He kept his head bowed like he was terrified to look at me.
    “Mr. Decker—”
    “Do you know what he was?” Decker looked up so suddenly I almost fell backward, but I held it together, at least until he asked, “Do you know what you are?”
    That question struck me like a fist to the chin, and I sank back, staring at him, taking in his perfect skin and his powerfulbuild, and his now-clean clothes. Not jeans anymore, but overalls. Pressed, maybe even new. His shirt was clean.
    He looked familiar. Was he—
    No. “Do you know what you can do?” he whispered, keeping his eyes fixed on mine—eyes I had seen earlier this evening, gazing up at me from a picture I held in the palm of my hand.
    I was talking to the man in Miss Sally’s photograph.

Chapter Three
    “An hour.” Arleen pretended to