Page 5 of Asylum (The Wellard Asylum #9)

M y routine has remained the same since I arrived a week ago.

I’m greeted every morning by Nurse Carter’s sour expression and shitty demeanor.

Meals are brought to my dungeon, and I sit on the floor, the stream of light from the slot in the door illuminating the food.

I usually only take a few bites, enough to sustain me since I don’t know what the fuck I’m eating.

After each meal, I’m taken to Dr. Stone’s office for my therapy sessions.

It seems a little excessive, but I don’t mind the company.

Our conversations hadn’t delved into anything significant or traumatizing until yesterday.

He’d read Dr. Sweeney’s notes in my file, but he hadn’t asked for any details about what happened.

It’s strange. We had only talked about common things, like two normal people having everyday conversations.

But our last session yesterday left me raw and vulnerable.

After three years, I felt no remorse as I recounted the night I murdered my family.

While they deserved their fate, I find the brutality I’m capable of to be both jarring and concerning.

It’s as if someone else takes over my existence when things become too hard.

I’ll never understand why I didn’t kill my stepbrother the first time he raped me, or the dozens of times after.

I’ve never made sense of why my mind chose that night to kill my family, but I wish the switch would’ve been flipped sooner.

At first, Dr. Sweeney thought I may have multiple personalities, but he quickly dismissed the theory after he witnessed one of my episodes.

He said I responded to my own name, never revealing a second identity.

While I do hear a voice when an episode is coming on, he described it as the devil on my shoulder, not an altered consciousness.

Whatever is wrong with me, it’s ruined my life, and I’m stuck in this fucking place for another seventeen years.

The latch sounds, alerting me to Nurse Carter’s arrival.

I’m sitting on the cot, my back leaning against the wall.

I’m about to move off the thin mattress, but as I look up, a man I’ve never seen stands in the doorway, his hateful gaze burning a hole into me.

My body tenses as he steps into the room, his energy causing my anxiety to skyrocket. “Get up, Sterling.”

My hackles rise at his harsh tone. “Who the fuck are you?”

He lunges forward, backhanding me so hard, the side of my face bounces off the concrete wall before my body crashes to the mattress.

I groan as my vision dims, but a clinking, metal sound in the distance startles me, and I scream.

“No! You’re fucking dead! I killed you!” My stepbrother’s bloody face comes into view, shards of glass protruding from his face as he unbuckles his belt.

His eyes darken, making his sinister intentions known as he saunters towards me.

“He’s baaaaaaack!” The voice sings in my head. “Kill him!”

His hands land on the mattress on either side of me, his large form crawling up my body.

My feet come together as I lift my legs, kicking him in the chest as hard as my cramped position will allow.

He stumbles back, his hand flying out, the wall steadying him as a loud roar fills the room.

“You fucking bitch!” He runs at me full speed as I slide off the bed, darting behind him.

Thrusting my palms against his back, I send him crashing into the concrete wall above the cot.

He bounces backward, falling to the ground, a crunching sound alerting me something is broken.

Gripping the edge of the mattress, I throw it across the room, screaming so loudly, my throat burns with the force of my rage.

Pulling on one of the metal springs from the cot frame, I twist it back and forth until the rusted metal snaps from the pressure.

My stepbrother lies on the ground, holding his head with his hands, groaning in agony.

“Finish him!” The voice demands and I giggle, thrilled I have the opportunity to kill him again.

I pounce on him like a panther, straddling his hips, pressing the metal spring against the side of his throat.

His pulse thunders against my fingertips, and I long to feel it fade away once again.

Pressing the sharp point into his throat, the skin pops, a spray of blood showering my face.

“Did your cock grow back, stepbrother? Do I get to cut it off again?”

He tries to rip the spring from his neck, but I press deeper, ensuring I drain his blood completely this time. Just as I move to put my knee in his balls, a sharp sting shoots through my neck, and before I can see who’s attacking me from behind, I slump forward, and everything goes black.

There’s someone sitting on top of me.

They’re trying to suffocate me.

The pressure in my head, and the burning in my chest has my strangled lungs desperately gasping for air. My eyes snap open, and Linda stands before me, calling me a liar and a whore. Raising the fire poker behind me, my arm freezes mid-swing, the air around me suddenly pressurized and suffocating.

“Olivia! Calm down!” My father’s voice pierces my eardrums, and I fight the resistance, doing everything in my power to knock his ass out with the iron rod in my hand.

“Fuck you!” I grit out, the throbbing in my head almost too much to withstand.

“I’ll kill you again just like I did your beloved, rapist stepson!

” I shout, laughter bursting from my lips as I try to move my limbs, but the air previously restraining me has morphed into leather straps.

“You had to tie me down because you know I’ll kill you again.

Fucking coward!” I snarl, his face becoming blurry, and a wave of dizziness crashes into me.

“Olivia.”

“Shut the fuck up!” I roar, but the voice calling my name sounds different this time. My eyes snap shut, fighting the nausea churning in my stomach.

It’s a trick. It’s a trick. It’s a trick. It’s a trick.

“It’s Atlas, little doll. Your father is dead.”

Little doll. Little doll. Little doll. Little doll.

“Count with me,” Atlas says. “One.”

Atlas? I think he’s Dr. Stone. Yes, Dr. Atlas Stone.

I know him. “One.”

“Good girl. Two.”

“Two.” My fingers begin to tap the side of my thigh as I continue counting along with him, his gentle voice soothing my rage.

He says a number, I repeat the number. We do this back and forth until he reaches ten.

Thank you for ending on an even number.

My body relaxes as I take a few deep breaths, my raw throat working slowly to produce some much-needed lubrication. Opening my eyes, Dr. Stone’s concerned gaze penetrates mine, and I know I’m fucked.

“They’re dead,” I whisper, fighting the tears trying to escape.

“They’re dead,” he states. “So is the orderly you managed to kill with a cot spring.” I swear he’s fighting a smile, and that should concern me, but it eases the tightening in my chest. “Tell me what happened, little doll.”

Holding his gaze, I sniffle. “Can you scratch my nose? It’s itching.”

He chuckles, raising his fingers to do as I asked. He watches me for a moment before undoing the leather restraints. I glance down.

Velcro, no metal.

He remembered.

Metal belt buckles trigger my PTSD, which triggers my IED. The sound is forever ingrained in my memory because of my stepbrother. Every time I heard the noise, it was like an alarm going off, letting me know he was about to rape me.

Nurse Carter enters the room, gasping. “Dr. Stone, I don’t think you should release her!”

His gaze remains on me as he speaks. “Good thing you don’t get paid to think, Nurse Carter. Leave the room and close the door behind you.”

She glares at his back, huffing out her frustration before exiting.

“Tell me,” he demands.

I sigh. “He came into my room being rude. I asked who he was. He backhanded me and unbuckled his belt. The switch flipped, and here we are.”

“Why did you wake up in a rage?” He asks, his brows furrowing.

“Dr. Sweeney figured out the hard way I don’t react well to sedatives. He didn’t put that in my file?”

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry about that, but I’m looking into different ways to calm you down during an episode. You had a spring in his neck, bleeding him dry. I don’t think counting was going to help.” He grins this time without trying to hide it.

“Shouldn’t you be upset or horrified?”

He winks. “I’m not your typical psychiatrist.” He stands, holding out his hand. “He deserved it anyway.” I take his hand as he pulls me up from the cot, brushing his thumb across my lip. “He got you good, little doll.”

“I got him back.”