Page 11 of Atrocity (The Wellard Asylum #5)

“I'm not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is just different from yours.”

— Lewis Carroll

N ew meat always smells different.

It’s not the sweat or the fear or even the hospital-grade sedatives still clinging to their pores.

It’s the charge in the air. The way the walls seem to lean in closer.

Like the whole building’s holding its breath, waiting to see who breaks first. A few of us watch from the rec room—zombies in cotton track suits, necks craned like vultures.

The rest pretend not to care, but we all do.

Everyone clocks the new arrivals the second they’re paraded through with their glassy eyes.

Most look half-eaten already. Numb. Feral in that quiet, sloppy kinda way only the broken can be.

I don’t even bother sitting up. Just sink deeper into the recliner with stuffing poking through the armrest, ankles crossed, tongue running lazy circles behind my teeth. I flick a dead-eyed glance across the procession. Boring. Boring. Boring.

And then— him.

He doesn’t shuffle like the rest. Doesn’t blink like a beaten dog.

He strides in like he’s already bored of the place.

Lanky, all wiry limbs and ink-stained hands.

Hair hanging in his eyes, mouth curled in a crooked grin like he’s thinking something you wouldn’t want to hear. Something nasty, and real.

Fucking hell. He looks like me. If someone chewed me up and spat me out with better cheekbones.

He catches me staring and doesn’t flinch. Just tips his chin, smirking like we’ve already shared a secret.

I push to my feet, stretch, crack my knuckles. Might as well say hello.

He watches me approach, still grinning. No fear. Just that familiar curiosity I have flowing through me. Like he’s wondering what kind of freak magnetized to his orbit this time.

“Cute shoes,” I say, nodding at his state-issued slippers.

He glances down, wiggling his toes. “Fucking high fashion, right?”

I snort. “What’re you in for?”

He doesn’t even blink. “Killed the judge at my trial.”

I tilt my head. “During?”

“Nah.” He cracks his neck like he’s bored of the question already. “Waited until the sentence was out. Thought it’d be poetic, y’know? Let him damn me before I slit his throat. Made a real mess of his robes. Red’s a better color anyway.”

I don’t respond right away. Just let that sit. Let it rot.

Finally, I hum. “Well, shit. At least you’ve got flair.”

He grins. Wide. Unhinged. “I wanted to wear his gavel as a necklace. But apparently, that’s where they draw the line.”

“They always do. Never at the body count. Always the accessories.”

He laughs, sharp and clean and completely wrong. “See. You fucking get it.”

“That I do.”

He looks around the room like he’s sizing up the livestock. Juice Box Girl’s rocking and muttering to her drink. Hump-Yourself Harry is moaning in the corner again. Someone’s bleeding from the ear and no one’s done shit about it.

“Christ,” he mutters. “This shit is like a daycare for demons. Only somehow less fucking supervised.”

“Welcome to Wellard.” I grin. “Where they dose you into a coma and still act surprised when someone starts eating their own fingers.”

“Shit,” he says, stretching out like he owns the place. “And here I was worried I’d be bored locked up in this shit hole.”

I glance at him. “Nah. Stir crazy, sure, but never bored.”

“Yeah, well.” He flashes teeth. “They call me Happy.”

I raise a brow. “Fitting.” I take his hand when he offers it. His grip’s got that twitchy tension, like he could snap or snap you without warning. I squeeze back. “Johnny.”

“Pleasure,” he says, low.

We hold eye contact a beat too long. Like two animals sniffing out the same blood.

Then a voice cuts through it. “Happy,” an orderly barks from the doorway, clipboard clutched like a weapon. “Time.”

Happy groans, dragging his feet like a kid called to the principal’s office. “Already? I was just starting to bond.”

“Try not to bite anyone,” I call after him.

He glances back over his shoulder, that feral smile still carved into his face. “Only if they ask nice.”

Then he’s gone, slipping into the hall like a shadow that forgot how to stay still.

I lean back, staring at the space he left behind.

Yeah. That one’s gonna be fun.

Then just like that, he’s gone, but not forgotten.

I tuck his name somewhere in the rotted filing cabinet of my brain, under possibly useful , above definitely dangerous . Might need him later. Might gut him first. Depends on the day.

But right now?

Right now, my attention drifts across the room.

To Gabriel.

Still hunched in the same chair, fingernail pressed to his lip, staring through the floor like he’s hoping it’ll open up and swallow him.

Mine.

He already feels it. That low thrum of dread, curling into something delicious. Something useful. Shame blooming into loyalty, like a bruise that decides it likes being touched.

It always starts that way—violence, violation, and a few whisper-thin promises you almost want to believe. The kind of promises that make you wet when you should run. The kind that twist obedience into love and call it fate.

I saw it this morning. Saw it in the way he flinched when I passed behind him in line. Like he could feel my breath on his neck. Like the ghost of my hands was still gripping his hips.

His eyes dropped. His lips parted.

Like he was hoping I’d do it again.

Like part of him wanted it, and I didn’t.

Didn’t even touch him.

I want him feral with it—starving.

I want him shaking under the weight of it, biting down sobs just to keep from fucking begging.

I want him lying awake, fists clenched in his sheets, wondering if I’m coming for him tonight or tomorrow or never.

I want the not-knowing to peel the skin off his sanity, to make him ache in that place shame lives—deep, hot, writhing.

Because that’s how you make them yours.

Not with tenderness.

With hunger. With pain wrapped in pleasure, too filthy to separate. With guilt that festers until it sounds like gospel in their ears.

I’m not done breaking him.

Not yet.

But God, he’s cracking so pretty.

I wait till the cafeteria clears. Wait till the nurses start shuffling the drooling freaks back to their padded corners. Gabriel slips away—quiet, tense, like routine might protect him.

It won’t.

I follow. Just a few steps behind. Enough to make his neck twitch with that sixth sense. I can practically taste the adrenaline leaking out of his pores.

“Hey, pretty toy,” I purr, voice a serrated whisper. “You get the card like you were supposed to?”

He stops. Shoulders tight. Doesn’t turn. “Yeah… I got it.”

“Where is it?”

“My room. Under the mattress.”

I grin wide, a stretch of teeth and violence. “Then let’s go get it.”

He turns slightly, blinking like he thought he misunderstood. “I thought… I didn’t think we were doing anything yet.”

“Oh, we’re not,” I say, brushing past him. “But I want it. Now.”

I don’t ask twice. And he follows.

He always fucking follows.

His room smells like bleach and fear. Sterile rot. A shrine to every sleepless night he’s spent trying not to remember what I did to him and failing.

Gabriel moves slow, like he’s afraid to wake something. Maybe himself. Maybe me.

He peels back the mattress. Pulls out the card.

Sleek. Scratched. Beautiful.

He holds it out, trembling.

I don’t take it. Not right away. I just stare at him. At the way his hand shakes like he’s offering me a piece of himself, and maybe he is. Maybe he already knows there’s no fucking difference anymore.

I take it. Fingers grazing his palm, slow and heavy.

“Good boy,” I murmur. “That’s it. Just like I told you.”

He flinches like I slapped him. Or maybe he shivers like he liked it.

Same thing.

I pocket the card and lean against the wall, arms crossed, staring him down like I’m deciding whether I want to fuck him or flay him.

Not yet. Not tonight.

Because this isn’t the end.

It’s just the start.

That card gets me through the first two staff doors. Admin wing. East exit. But there's one more. A final checkpoint. Staff-only. Fully logged. I trip that alarm, and we’re both strapped to tables before I can say lights out.

So I need silence.

I need complicity.

I need control.

Dyer’s easy. That greasy fuck thinks I don’t know about the pills he skims, the Oxy he trades for favors behind the med supply closet. I do. And I will use it.

Porter’s worse. Weak. Sweet. All bleeding heart and trembling hands. I’ll sell her a sob story about Gabriel, make her think she’s saving him. Poor, fragile Gabriel, abused and afraid. My boy wonder, my broken lamb.

People will turn their backs if they think it’s for a good cause.

But not Halstead.

That fucker doesn’t blink, doesn’t breathe wrong. One whiff of this and he’ll lock me in solitary till my bones hum with Ativan and restraints.

Gold’s worse. Eager. Ambitious. He watches everything, waiting for his chance to be a hero. One slip and he’ll have the whole ward pinned to the floor with my face full of needles and his cock hard from the power trip.

I’ll need to distract him. Start a fire. Maybe a riot. Get someone to smear blood on the wrong pillowcase. Stir up chaos just long enough to disappear into it.

I rub my thumb along the card’s edge.

I’ve got three days.

Three to line everything up.

Three to crush Gabriel down into something obedient and dripping.

Three to walk out like I own the place.

Because I do.

I look back at him now. Still frozen. Still waiting.

Perfect.

I step in. Close. Let him feel it before he sees it.

“You’re gonna come with me,” I growl, leaning until we’re toe to toe, my breath hot on his cheek. “When the time’s right, we walk out of this fucking zoo. You and me. No handlers. No Halstead. No goddamn rules.”

He doesn’t speak. But I feel it. His breath stuttering. Chest shaking like he’s caught between instinct and desire.

I press my palm flat against his chest.

His heart’s a fucking jackhammer.

“Still beats like a bitch,” I snarl. “Like it did when I bent you over that shower bench and made you choke on it.”

He twitches.

I drag my hand down, slow and cruel. Cup his waistband.

“You remember how I split you open, yeah? How you sobbed like a fucking virgin and still begged for more? You fucking came, Gabriel. Came while I ruined you.”

His thighs press together. Too late.

I smirk. “God, you’re disgusting. A pathetic little mutt with no off switch. You get hard the second I speak. You leak when I look at you.”

I shove him, just enough to make him stumble against the wall.

“You liked it,” I hiss. “Say you didn’t, I fucking dare you.”

He can’t. His mouth works, but no sound comes. Just air and shame.

I grab his jaw. Yank his face to mine.

“You’re mine in here,” I growl. “They all treat you like some broken doll, but I know what you are. You’re filth. You’re rot. You’re mine.”

My hand trails down, casual as a threat, until I grip his cock through his pants—tight, possessive—just to feel him jerk beneath it. Just to remind him exactly who the fuck it belongs to.

“You get wet for me. Don’t fucking deny it. Your body’s begging to be split again. Used. Owned.”

He gasps. Shudders. Doesn't move.

I lean in, mouth against his ear, voice dripping.

“Be a good little mutt... and maybe I’ll let you ride it next time. Let you scream for it. Show me how desperate you really are.”

Just as I grab his throat?—

“Johnny. Out.”

I freeze and turn.

The orderly’s in the doorway—broad-shouldered, buzzcut, and the kind of face that looks carved from cement and just as expressive. Arms crossed. Eyes hard and flat like concrete under frost.

“I said out.”

I don’t move. Just grin. Wide and slanted.

“You always interrupt your betters mid-ritual?”

“You know the rules.”

“Rules are for people who fucking matter.”

“Now.”

I stare him down. Then turn back to Gabriel.

His cheeks are red. His throat’s blotchy. His legs shaking. His mouth still open like a punched wound.

Beautiful.

I leave slow, head high, fury coiling under my skin like barbed wire.

This is why I need out.

Why Gabriel’s coming with me.

Because no one—fucking no one—gets to tell me when I can touch what’s mine. No one cuts me off mid-fun. Not for long.

I’ve got the card, the layout, debts waiting to be collected and threats ready to be whispered.

I’ll dance around Halstead. I’ll distract Gold. I’ll play this place like a goddamn fucking fiddle.

Three days.

That’s all I need.

And then?

Then the clown walks free, and my filthy, crying little mutt walks beside me.

On a leash made of blood, bruises, and need.

And this time…

No one’s kicking me out of the fucking room.