Page 17 of Atrocity (The Wellard Asylum #5)

“Sometimes the worst part of madness is how sane it can feel.”

— A Journal from Within, Dr. Elsa Hartwell

O ur last morning starts with him flat on his back, legs fucking spread, cock in his fist, and me buried so deep inside him it feels like I’m fucking the fear right out of his soul.

No alarms. No breakfast. No meds.

Just steam, sweat, and sin.

The busted plastic bath seat beneath him groans like it knows it wasn’t built for this kind of depravity, but I don’t give a shit. He sure as hell doesn’t. He’s gripping the sides like a good little whore in church, getting railed by the god he’s too scared to worship out loud.

Water crashes down over us like we’re getting baptized in filth. My mask fogs. My hands bruise. And all I can think is, fuck, this is it. Our last sunrise in the madhouse and I’m spending it exactly how I should.

Balls-deep in my mutt.

My muse.

My fucking masterpiece of destruction.

“Stroke it,” I growl, pounding harder, water and sweat and come smearing across his stomach. “Show me how much you fucking love this. Show me what a good little freak you are for me.”

And he does. Of course he does. Because I broke him just right. Because he knows exactly who he belongs to.

Me.

Always me.

And by tonight?

He’ll be free.

Because I’m dragging him out of this hellhole by the throat and baptizing him in chaos. And he’ll thank me for every second of it.

I drive into him like I’m trying to hollow him out and leave my name scrawled in the wreckage. Flesh slapping flesh, water crashing down around us like the heavens are trying to baptize a crime scene.

"Yeah. That’s it,” I growl, teeth bared behind the mask. “Feel that? That’s what freedom costs, puppet. Me. Inside you. Splitting you wide open till you don’t know where I end and you fucking begin.”

I ram into him again—hard, brutal—forcing a strangled sob from his throat.

“Because tonight” —another thrust, sharp enough to rattle his spine— “we fucking disappear.”

His chest heaves. Sweat and steam coat every inch of him. Water streaks down his body like holy tears trying to wash the sin away—too late.

“Johnny—fuck—harder—don’t stop—please, I need it—I need you ? — ”

“Oh, you need me?” I snarl, hand snapping to his throat. I squeeze just enough to make his eyes widen. “Good. That means you remember who the fuck owns you.”

“I do,” he gasps, choking on pleasure. “I remember—I swear—I’m yours?—”

“Damn right you are.”

I slam into him again, unforgiving, using his body like it’s mine to break. Because it is. He gave it to me. Gave me every inch, every sob, every crack in his pretty little brain and I filled them all with me.

“Don’t talk,” I hiss, mask dripping, my breath hot and rabid behind it. “Just fucking feel it. I want you to remember this while you’re crawling through the dark tonight, thinking you can breathe without me.”

I drag out slow. Cruel. Just to hear him whimper.

Then slam forward so hard he yelps.

His whole body jolts. His cock leaks across his stomach, untouched and desperate.

“Hurts?” I sneer. “Good. That’s how you know it’s real.”

“Fuck—Johnny— yes ?—”

I loosen my grip just enough for him to moan.

“You’re my altar, Gabe. My sick little temple. And I don’t give a fuck who thought they made you, you’re mine to wreck.”

I start pounding into him like a beast possessed.

Every thrust is violent.

Every snap of my hips shakes the stool beneath him.

Water slaps tile. My mask fogs. My thighs slap his ass raw and red.

“Take it,” I growl. “Take every inch like the whimpering, perfect fuckhole you are.”

He’s delirious.

Babbling.

“Please—please—I love it—fuck—I love it—I’m your good boy—your fucking property ? — ”

“That’s right,” I spit, leaning over him, hand gripping his hair. “You’re my broken little relic. I’ll fuck the heaven out of you and bury hell in its place.”

He sobs.

Begging.

Clawing the stool like it’s the only thing anchoring him to Earth.

“Touch that pretty pink cock,” I bark.

His hand flies to his cock, jerking like he’s fucking possessed.

“I want to see you fall apart. Come for me, puppet. Now. ”

“I—Johnny—fuck— I’m gonna ? — ”

“Do it,” I snarl. “Cum for me while I’m tearing you open, you filthy fuck.”

And he does.

With a scream.

With a fucking explosion.

It hits his chest, white-hot, messy, filthy, and I don’t stop. I fuck him through it. Harder. Deeper. Until I snap, grinding forward and unloading inside him with a growl like a chainsaw ripping through flesh.

I empty everything I have into him—rage, obsession, love, me.

“Take it,” I pant. “Take it all. Swallow every fucking drop with your ruined little cunt and know it belongs to me .”

He whimpers, twitching, wrecked.

I stay buried inside him, still pulsing, still leaking, still claiming.

Water rains down.

Steam thickens the air like smoke from a pyre.

He’s trembling.

Eyes glassy. Body limp.

Perfect.

I stare down at him.

Mask crooked. Blood rushing in my ears like applause.

“Christ,” I pant, breathless and fucking high. “If that’s the last time we ever fuck in this piss-stained hellhole, I gotta say—” I grin behind the mask, thumb dragging across his spit-slick lips. “Ten outta ten. Would desecrate again.”

After I fucked Gabriel senseless this morning, I left him leaking and limp on that plastic stool like a cracked-open promise. I told him to head back to his room. Stick to the routine. Smile for the cameras. Take the pills but don’t swallow ‘em.

We’re almost there, puppet. Just one last curtain call before the real show begins .

Now I’m prowling down the corridor, slippers hissing against tile like serpents in heat, mask clipped to my hip like a second face with better posture and worse manners.

My hands are in my pockets, fingers twitching with all the things I’d rather be doing.

My thoughts? Filth. Frenzied. Fucking poetry if your idea of art is carving God out of drywall with a toothbrush shiv, and my smile?

That’s just camouflage for the war drum thumping behind my ribs.

The line for meds stretches down the hall like a suicide fashion show—gowns open, eyes empty, souls somewhere between sedation and full-blown scream therapy.

One girl’s chewing her own wrist like it owes her rent.

Another’s reciting Shakespeare to a lightbulb.

And some guy near the front’s got his dick out, yanking it through the slit in his gown like he’s on Wheel of Fortune and just hit the jackpot, and then, like clockwork, they all look up.

They always fucking do.

Their eyes snap to my mask. Black. Cracked. Painted like a smile dipped in gasoline and set on fire. The thing’s twisted at the edge, warped by heat and hate and maybe a little love if you squint real hard and tilt your head.

I feel their stares.

The jealousy. The fear. The question buzzing behind every stitched-up forehead and drool-slick chin:

Why does he get to wear it?

Simple.

I told Halstead it was therapeutic .

Said it helped keep the demons in check. Gave the voices something to scream through that wasn’t my own goddamn mouth. Told him it was healing.

He nodded like a good little doctor with his clipboard and his delusions of saving me.

So now?

I’m the only freak in this funhouse with a free pass to madness.

And I wear it like a crown made of barbed wire and bad intentions.

I grin as I pass a girl scratching smiley faces into her thighs with a plastic spoon. A boy mutters numbers under his breath like a prayer someone broke in half.

The whole hall’s humming with static. Like the walls know what’s coming. Like the air’s already cracking from the pressure of everything I’ve planned, and then… Ziggy.

He’s slouched against the wall near the nurse’s station, looking like he was built out of warning labels and junkyard secrets. His fingers twist through his dark hair, eyes darting toward the hallway Gabriel slipped down earlier.

“You hear?” Ziggy mutters as I pass, voice low, barely more than a breath against the hum of fluorescent lights.

“Hear what?”

He doesn’t look up. Just twirls a makeshift shiv between his fingers. Something dangerous. His gaze stays fixed on the hallway Gabriel disappeared down, and that alone sets something crawling under my skin.

“Your dog,” he says finally, casual, like it’s not a landmine. “Growling at shadows.”

I stop walking.

The corridor stretches quiet and long ahead of me, slippers whispering against tile, the air thick with bleach, meds, and the usual fog of despair.

I glance at Ziggy, but he doesn’t meet my eye, he doesn’t have to.

His lips twitch, a sliver of a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes.

It’s not taunting. It’s not a joke. It’s a fucking warning, and shit, do I hear it.

This ain’t one of his riddles. Not some cracked-out lullaby or brain-soup punchline he cackles into the tiles.

This is Ziggy. The only other freak in this festering hellhole who gets it, who hears the music in screaming, sees the art in arterial spray.

We’ve swapped stories and psychosis, chain-smoked through lockdowns, carved messages into each other’s skin just to feel real.

I even let him fuck my pretty little puppet’s mouth once, just to see how Gabriel’d sound when someone else pulled the strings.

So if Ziggy’s twitching now? If his eyes are following shadows and his mouth’s leaking warnings?

Yeah.

I’d be a goddamn idiot not to pay attention.

Still, I don’t let it show. I click my tongue and keep moving like nothing’s shifted. But in my head? The gears start grinding like bones under bootheels.

Because Gabriel’s been off lately.

Too quiet. Too neat. Like he’s rehearsing for a role I didn’t cast him in. That soft compliance, the way he’s been folding under my hands without the usual tremble, it doesn’t feel like surrender anymore, it feels like delay. Like he’s buying time, and now this.

Ziggy saw something.

Someone Gabriel was talking to that he shouldn’t.

Someone who isn’t me .

I don’t like that. I don’t fucking like that.

Because Gabriel is mine.

Not in the flowery, fairy tale way. Not in the way these sedated sheep around here whisper about love through lithium-coated lips. No. Mine in the way that razors are claimed. In the way a scream echoes off padded walls and carves your name into the silence.

I broke him in. Bit by bit. Rewired that soft little thing into something sharp and shaking, something that twitches just right under my hands.

Molded him until even his moans sounded like mine.

When he cries out, it’s not weakness, it’s proof.

When he cums, it’s not relief, it’s allegiance.

That kind of power doesn’t just disappear. It stains. It sticks. It owns.

Unless someone’s been tampering with the strings.

Unless my pretty little puppet’s been tugged in another direction.