The Asylum Confessions: Cults (The Asylum Confession Files, #4)

by Jack Steen

Had the Devil always visited her, or was it something else that caused her to drown her child in a bathtub?

Ministers, preachers, and those who stood behind pulpits were the worst sinners. I'm sure they still are. All those you see on the television, they're liars. The harder they preach against sin, the darker their own hearts are.

My father had to bribe my rapist to marry me. Let that sink in a little.

Gestational thrombocytopenia. It's a very rare condition and one I've only ever seen once myself early on when I was rotating through a maternity ward early on in my career. Gestational thrombocytopenia means a low platelet count. I'm not surprised it wasn't diagnosed when Alyssa was pregnant.

Killing my son wasn't my first and only option. It was the last resort.

I was raising the Antichrist. Do you have any idea the power he would yield once he'd grown into a mature man? It would have been the beginning of the end.

He's a real-life monster, and don't you forget that.

People don't mind being blind sheep when the benefits are theirs for the taking.

My birth certificate was forged because, you know...I was created in a lab.

Everything about me has been created by someone else. I guess you could say my whole being has been fictionalized. Every. Single. Thing.

Every lie is steeped in a truth. Every story, every scenario, every secret has a kernel of truth to it

We have these pretend lives we daydream about and wish we could live. Sometimes we focus so much on those dreams, we stop living in the moment, in the lives we actually have.

"Mom calls it kinnip. The real term is Galuska." The dish is a simple one, everyone asks for it during these meals. It's basically tiny dough pieces boiled and then fried in a mixture of potatoes and onions covered in a ridiculous amount of butter. It's very similar to spaetzle, just without the egg added to the dough. Mom would tell me this was a staple for her family when they lived in Eastern Europe.

Regrets are the poison of life, Jack. They eat away at your soul and leave you questioning so many things.

I learned that the government needs those crisis moments in order to better themselves and whatever sick and twisted plan they have in place. I learned that without those crisis moments, the government doesn't have absolute power. I also learned that you discover people's true characters in times of crisis. Not just other people, though, but your own character, too.

Hell is being stuck in a moment of regret, a moment you can never take back, a moment you can never get out of.