Page 16 of Atrocity (The Wellard Asylum #5)

"The desire to possess completely often disguises itself as love—but it is rooted in domination, not devotion."

— Dr. Marie-France Hirigoyen, The Abuse of Weakness

T hey locked us down.

A whole fucking week.

No rec room, group, not even therapy. Which means no fucking Gabriel.

Just pills shoved through the slot in my door and the kind of silence that makes even the walls itch.

They said it was for our safety. That some monster— how dramatic —murdered Dr. Gold in the basement, and until they sniff out the who and the why, no one gets to play.

No art therapy. No music hour. No unsupervised trips to the flickering underworld where the lights stutter like they’re short-circuiting on my name.

Cute.

But you know what’s not cute?

Being kept from my mutt.

My toy.

My twitchy little shadow who cries so sweet when I bite.

I killed Gold. Obviously. Drove a screw through his gut and watched the light leave his eyes like I was flipping a switch.

I could spell it out in Morse code using his leftover teeth and still walk free.

But the staff? They want something neater.

A confession they can file. A motive they can quote. Blood with a bow.

But I don’t wrap my art in ribbons. I carve it straight into skin.

So I wait.

I rot.

I count the cracks in my ceiling like they’re keeping score. I talk to my knuckles. I practice grinning at nothing until I forget how to stop. And in the quiet moments, those slippery little gaps between sedation and sleep, I wonder if he misses me.

Gabriel.

Does he twitch for my cock?

Does he wrap his fist around himself in the dark, moaning at the memory of how good it feels to split on me?

Does he sob into his pillow when the lights cut out and I’m not there to crawl through his head like a ghost with teeth?

When the police finally pack up their clipboards and body bags, declaring Gold’s death a dead end, the staff pretends like things are normal again. Like nothing happened. Like there isn’t still dried blood behind the boiler. They unlock the doors. Return us to routine, and I see him.

First day back in the common room, during meds.

My little puppet.

He’s thinner. Paler. Like something’s been feeding off him in my absence, sucking the color out of him night by night. His sleeves are too long. His shoulders are too sharp. I catch him hunched on a bench, eyes glued to the floor like it’s whispering something only he can hear.

When he senses me, he freezes, and then he looks away.

Not in fear, or guilt.

But shame.

Ha .

Interesting.

My tongue scrapes the back of my teeth.

Because shame is better than silence. Shame is something I can twist and mold. Something I can fuck and use , and it’s just the emotion I need for tonight.

Tonight is our little dress rehearsal.

Curtain up, sweetheart.

Daddy’s coming home.

Tonight’s the night.

Our final night in Wellard.

The final bow. The fucking curtain call, and I’m in costume.

The mask fits like a second skin now—tight, grinning, and cracked. The white paint’s chipped at the jawline. The red smile bleeds too far up the cheeks. I could be anything behind this face. But tonight?

I’m God.

I spot him on my way back from meds.

That long-abandoned stretch between Nurse Maley’s station and the emergency generator room—the hallway nobody uses anymore, because the last time they wheeled a patient through here, he bit off his own tongue and painted the walls with it.

Now it just hums with neglect. Fluorescents flicker overhead like nervous tics.

The floor’s scuffed, cracked, forgotten.

Like this whole place is trying to rot from the inside out.

And there he is.

Gabriel.

He’s folded in on himself like a broken chair, arms wrapped tight around his middle, rocking gently on the balls of his feet like a metronome that’s forgotten how to keep time. Back and forth. Back and forth. A tick. A tock. A warning.

He doesn’t hear me at first. Too deep in his own mind. Eyes locked on nothing. Lips slightly parted like he’s mouthing prayers he doesn’t believe in.

I smile behind the mask, and step into the dark.

“Gabriel,” I croon, voice low and dripping with smoke. Like fucking velvet soaked in kerosene.

He jolts like he’s been shot. Eyes wide, and pupils bloated and black, swallowing whatever color was left. His chest stutters on a breath. He doesn’t move, just stares, and for a second, I see it.

A flash of relief?

Fear?

Same fucking thing, where I’m concerned.

“Do you know what day it is?” I ask, inching closer. Slow. Predatory. Letting my slippers scrape the cracked tile so he can hear the sound of me coming. So he feels it in his bones.

He nods.

Too quick. Too eager, and then, like he catches himself, he stutters and corrects, “I-I think so.”

I click my tongue. Tsk.

“Almost time,” I whisper, drawing close enough to smell the sharp tang of anxiety clinging to his skin like antiseptic. I lean in until our noses nearly brush. “Our final scene, sweetheart. The curtains are rising. The world’s watching, are you ready to fly?”

His lips twitch, and he licks them like they’re dry. Like they’re waiting to be kissed or cut.

“Yes,” he breathes.

I don’t blink.

Just watch him.

Behind the painted smile of the clown mask, my eyes narrow. He’s trembling. Not visibly.

Not enough that someone else would notice. But I do. The way his shoulder hitches. The way his fingers curl tighter around his ribs, like he’s trying to hold himself together.

“You sure?” I murmur. “You look like a rabbit in a meat grinder.”

“I’m not—” he starts, fast. Too fast. His voice trips over itself like a runner on broken legs. “I swear, Johnny. I’m not scared. I’m just… nervous.”

“Nervous,” I echo.

About what?

I tilt my head. Slowly. The mask exaggerates the gesture, stretching the painted grin like it’s mocking him. My fingers twitch with the urge to grab his jaw and yank it open. Crawl inside and see what’s really hiding there.

“About screwing it up,” he admits. “About letting you down.”

I hum.

Low. Approving.

Because there it is.

Not fear.

Not resistance.

Just submission, wrapped in a fucking shroud of worry. He’s still mine. Still begging for approval even when he thinks he might be slipping.

I reach out, softly, almost tender, and trace a fingertip along the side of his face. He flinches, then leans in.

“You’ve already broken for me,” I murmur, tilting my head like he’s said something stupid.

“You’ve cried in my arms, came on command, begged with my name in your throat like a prayer.

You’ve unraveled for me again and again and still came crawling back.

So tell me, puppet... after all that, you really think you could disappoint me now? ”

He looks up like he’s drowning in the words.

Like they’re air and poison all at once.

“I want to be with you,” he whispers. “I want us to be free. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

I lean in closer.

Close enough that my breath ghosts over the shell of his ear. I know it’s hot. I know it smells like cigarettes and teeth.

“I know you will.”

He shivers, but he’s not cold.

He’s trembling from the weight of it. Of me. Of everything we’ve become behind these walls, these padded confession booths and blood-stained stages.

His lashes flutter. I see the tears before they fall. He blinks them back like a good boy. Like he knows better than to cry before I tell him he can.

I press a kiss to his cheek through the mask. It smears the greasepaint. Leaves a mark.

“Tonight,” I purr, brushing a curl from his damp forehead with all the sweetness of a razor’s kiss.

“It all changes. You and me, we’re writing the final act, puppet.

Blood. Chaos. Sex. No goddamn limits. Just unfiltered freedom.

You’ll see the world the way I do, red, raw and burning, and I’ll keep you safe in it.

I’ll keep you whole, just long enough to tear you apart again. ”

He nods, trembling, eyes glassy, lips parted like they’ve got a death wish. Like he’s about to say something that might piss me off but thinks better of it. Smart fucking mutt.

I step back and hold out my hand. “Come,” I say, voice low and sickly sweet. “Let’s rehearse.” And when he takes it?

I squeeze. Hard.

Hard enough to bruise. Hard enough to mark, and to remind him he’s not a man anymore. Not a patient. Not a victim.

He’s mine, and after tonight?

He’ll be nothing but that.

Fully, completely, irrevocably mine.

We slip into the rec room through the side door I jimmied open months ago with a spoon stolen off someone’s dinner tray—bent, dulled, and christened in chaos.

We’ve already run through the plan. Every step.

Every exit. Every little delicious variable accounted for.

So long as Gabriel plays his part, says his lines, and hits his marks, it should all go smooth as a slit throat.

The lights are dead, but the moon spills through the barred windows like a voyeur. Everything’s silver and shadows, drenched in static, like the whole room’s holding its breath for the next atrocity. Dust drifts in the moonbeams like ghosts waiting for the curtain to rise.

Poetic, right?

I drop onto the old couch. The springs scream beneath me like they know what I’m about to do, like they’re mourning their fate already. The cushion exhales mold and mildew. Fuck, I missed this place.

Gabriel kneels between my legs before I even part my lips.

No command. No coaxing. No fucking hesitation.

Just instinct. Pure, filthy, delicious instinct.

His hands fumble at the waistband of my sweats, nerves twitching like live wires under his skin.

He tugs them down just enough, pulls me out with something between reverence and desperation Like he’s starving, not just for me, but for redemption.

For a way to show he still belongs to me.

That he won’t fuck this up. That he wants this—wants me —more than he’s afraid of losing me.

The mask stays on.

Always.

“Look at you,” I rasp, voice rough behind the mask, all gravel and gasoline. “So eager. So fucking obedient. This what you’ve been dreaming of, puppet? While they kept us apart? While they pumped you full of pills and told you I wasn’t real?”

He doesn’t answer.

He opens his mouth and takes me.

All of me.

His lips seal around the head, and he sinks down like he’s being dragged by gravity, like there’s no other choice but me. Heat wraps around the crown, then deeper, his throat flexing, swallowing, trembling around the length of my cock like it’s trying to reject and worship me all at once.

My head snaps back. I groan.

The mask grins wide where I can’t. Plastic teeth gleam under the moonlight spilling through the barred windows. I tilt my head slightly, watching him from above, watching the way his lashes flutter, the way his jaw strains, the way his throat bulges every time I push deeper.

“Fuck,” I hiss. “You missed this, didn’t you?”

My fingers tangle in his curls, rough, tight, pulling just enough to hear that broken little noise in his throat. He moans around me. Gags. Then does it again like he wants to choke on it. Like that’s the part he craves.

Good little puppet.

My other hand slides down, thumb brushing the spit-slick corner of his mouth, smearing it.

“Tastes better with guilt, doesn’t it?” I murmur. “Bet you touched yourself thinking about this. Bet you came in your little bed, dreaming of choking on your master.”

He grips my thighs like they’re the only thing keeping him from floating away. I feel the desperation in his hands, the penance. He’s not doing this for release.

He’s doing this to prove something.

To me.

To himself.

That he still belongs here. On his knees. Wrapped around my cock like a leash.

I thrust forward—sharp, unrelenting. His nose presses against my pelvis. He shudders.

“That’s it,” I growl. “Take it. Don’t fucking think, just feel.”

The air hisses through the vents, stale and thick. I rock into him again. Again. My hips grind with brutal rhythm, shallow and relentless. His throat spasms. He coughs once but doesn’t pull away. He fucking leans into it. Drool slips down his chin. His eyes blur. Still, he doesn’t stop.

“Good,” I breathe. “Goddamn, you’re good.”

I fuck into his throat with slow, vicious control.

Every inch I take is a claim. Every gag is a prayer.

His lips stretch wide, his jaw trembling.

The mask creaks as I lean forward, the plastic pressing into my face, making my breath echo around me, louder, heavier, like I’m hearing myself from the inside of a coffin, and still, he swallows.

Like I’m sacred.

Like his pretty little mouth was made for this.

He moans again, and I snap my hips harder, grinding against him. His shoulders shake. His hands claw at my thighs. His eyes roll slightly, from the feeling of being used. From submission. Pure and fucking unfiltered.

The back of his throat clamps, milking me.

That’s when I lose it.

My breath stutters, vision blurs behind the mask, and I spill. Hard. Hot. Buried so deep he’s got no choice but to drink it down or drown in it. He swallows fast. Messy. Like he’s been starved. Like this is how he tells me he’ll never leave.

“That’s right,” I pant, chest heaving under the weight of the moment. “That’s what good little puppets do.”

I don’t move. Just stay there. Cock still twitching in his mouth.

Fingers still fisted in his hair. The air’s humid with sweat and sin, and every exhale fogs the inside of the mask.

My reflection stares back at me in the cracked rec room window, painted smile, lifeless eyes, and beneath it all, the truth.

This is mine.

He’s mine, and he just proved it all over again.

“Soon,” I murmur, cupping his jaw with blood-slick fingers, the kind of touch that says I’d gut the world for him if he asked, then laugh while it bled out. “Soon you’ll belong to me completely. No more locks. No more pills.”

He nods, eyes wide, lips kiss-bitten and glistening.

“I’ll show you things,” I promise, stroking his cheek like I’m petting my favorite weapon. “Beautiful things. Ugly things. Shit that’ll make you laugh and cry and cum all at once. Chaos. Fire. Freedom.”

His eyes shine like cracked glass.

“You want that, don’t you?” I whisper.

“I do,” he chokes. “I want you.”

“Forever?”

He nods.

“Then prove it,” I say, voice honeyed and razor-tipped, pulling him to his feet like I’m resurrecting something sacred and unspeakable. “Tonight is our dress rehearsal, baby bird. Time to act like the monster you’re becoming.”

And when he kisses me—soft and desperate, lips trembling like a confession, and I let him. I let him pour it all into me like a last prayer to the wrong god.

“I’m ready,” he says.

And fuck, I almost believe him.