Page 18 of Atrocity (The Wellard Asylum #5)

"Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides."

— André Malraux

L ights out.

The asylum breathes in shadows. A low hum bleeds through the walls, like the place is trying to warn itself. Too little, too late.

I wait in the dark.

Mask on. Blood thrumming. My heart kicks at my ribs like it’s trying to chew its way out.

This is it.

The corridor stinks of rust, rot and old mop water. The kind of stench that clings to your tongue and seeps into your fucking bones. Pipes overhead hiss with steam, coughing like dying lungs. The air’s wet. Warm. Tastes like copper and mildew, still, I’m smiling.

I wait in the dark, already grinning.

Steam hisses from the pipes above like the building’s bleeding pressure, but I’m the one ready to blow. Every muscle pulled tight, twitching with anticipation.

Then…

It starts.

Screaming. Crashing. Someone howls like they just saw the devil pull off his own skin.

“GET OFF ME, YOU FUCKING LEECHES!”

That’s Nelly. All lungs and lunacy. “I’LL GUT YOU! I’LL PISS IN YOUR MOUTHS AND CALL IT HOLY WATER!”

Something shatters. A tray maybe. Or a nose.

“I’VE GOT THE DEVIL IN ME AND HE’S GOT A KNIFE!”

Good old Nelly.

Somewhere above me, she’s turned the meds hall into a one-woman opera of carnage. Screaming. Flailing. Nurses scrambling like cockroaches under a busted light.

“I’M NOT TAKING YOUR FUCKING POISON! I’M WIDE AWAKE NOW!” she bellows, voice bouncing off the tiles like gospel for the damned. “THE DEVIL WANTS CHAOS. HE CRAVES IT!!”

The panic spreads fast, sirens shriek to life, radios crackle with code reds, and the hallway lights flicker like even the electricity’s nervous.

Perfect.

Every guard, orderly, and half-wit in a lab coat is going to beeline to her, batons up, adrenaline fried. Just like I told her they would.

All part of the plan.

I promised her a cigarette and a dance under moonlight. Said I’d wait for her outside the east fence when the smoke cleared.

Thing is—I won’t.

Not because I’m cruel. Okay, maybe that. But because she’s chaos, and you can’t let chaos loose in the wild. It doesn’t play fetch. It burns the leash and pisses on the ashes.

Still, I’ll miss the look on her face when she realizes I lied. When the smoke clears and the moonlight kisses empty grass.

Bet she’ll scream something real pretty, fucking shame I won’t be around to hear it.

Maybe she’ll name a knife after me.

Security won’t be here for at least five minutes. Maybe less if they skip the body count.

Everything’s set.

Perfect. Beautiful. Bloodstained with promise.

Except one fucking thing.

Gabriel.

He should be here already. Should be barreling around the corner, all breathless and wide-eyed like he just murdered routine with his bare hands. Should have the keycard clutched in his pretty little fingers like a crown he stole off a corpse. His reward. My prize.

But the corridor’s empty.

No footsteps.

No nervous laughter.

No mutt with stars in his eyes and betrayal on his breath.

Just me.

Standing in the dark.

Boiling from the inside out.

Grinning like it’s all fine while my nerves gnaw through bone and start chewing on rage.

He’s late.

And Gabriel? Gabriel doesn’t do late. He does early. Eager. Desperate for praise like a good little leash-licker.

I wait a beat.

Then two.

Fingers twitching. Mask grinning. Blood humming a little meaner now.

Still no Gabriel.

No mutt. No keycard. No breathless grin. No whispered “did I do good?” from a throat I taught to sing only for me.

My spine straightens.

That slow, electric kind of straighten.

Like a matchstick ready to strike.

Something’s wrong, and when something’s wrong with my mutt, it means someone else touched what’s mine, and I don’t fucking share.

The lights flicker above me, buzzing like a dying fly. Paint peels from the ceiling in long yellow strips, fluttering like decayed streamers for a party no one showed up to.

My fists clench.

I move.

Fast. Surgical. Ghost-silent.

My slippers squeak faintly on the tile, barely more than a breath. The radio chatter is rising now. Sirens somewhere in the west wing. Someone’s yelling codes. Screams filter through the walls, warbled like a record played underwater.

I turn the corner and?—

“Hey!”

Oh, sweetheart. Wrong hallway.

The first guard’s eyes blow wide, flashlight jittering as he stumbles into the worst night of his life. I’m already moving. Mask grinning. Knife warm in my palm like it’s been waiting for this.

He opens his mouth?—

I close it for him.

Blade goes up, right under the chin. One hard shove and I feel it carve through tongue and teeth and that soft, squishy brain-meat. His mouth twitches like he’s trying to scream, but all he manages is a wet little gargle and a final, twitchy bow.

I catch him as he drops. Whispering, “Encore,” into what’s left of his ear. Then shove him off me like trash that overstayed its welcome.

The second guard blinks at me.

“SHIT—”

Oh, now he screams.

Cute.

I lunge, slam him shoulder-first into the wall so hard the plaster cracks. He thrashes, goes for his taser, but he’s thinking like a man and I’m thinking like a fucking god.

I grab his face and drag it down the bricks just to hear what kind of sound skin makes when it peels off slow. His scream turns raw, animal.

“You’re loud,” I hiss, burying the blade in his gut. “Let’s fix that.”

Twist.

Twist.

Twist again.

His knees buckle. Blood soaks my shirt like a kiss from inside.

I press in close, cheek to cheek.

“Shhh,” I croon through the mask, panting against his temple. “Trying to think. You're distracting me.”

He gurgles something that might’ve been a prayer, but I shove him off before he finishes it. I’m not in the mood for ghost stories.

I tear the keycard from his belt with a flourish, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his gut. Swipe his radio, too, for ambiance.

My slippers squeak over tile now, slick, sticky, humming with blood and victory. The floor’s a mess of guts and gleam. The air stinks like iron and panic.

Perfect.

I lick my lips inside the mask.

Two down.

One mutt left to muzzle.

I slip into the east corridor. Cold air slithers from the vents, heavy with antiseptic and piss. The fluorescent lights flicker violently here. Shadows jump. The walls moan.

Then…

White coat.

Doctor McNamara.

Older. Balding. Always stared at me like I was a busted puzzle piece he couldn’t jam into the picture. Like maybe, just maybe, he could fix me if he squinted hard enough.

He steps out from behind a column near the stairwell, like a ghost too cowardly to haunt anyone properly. Hands raised, posture all calm-the-beast.

“Johnny,” he says, soft as a sedative. “It’s over.”

I stop mid-step. Tilt my head. Let the silence stretch until it’s uncomfortable. My mask smiles wide for both of us.

“Over?” I echo, voice muffled behind cracked paint and chaos. “Oh, Doc. You sweet-talking me into surrender? You want me to lay down and wag my tail like a good little lab rat?”

He exhales like he’s relieved I haven’t lunged for his throat yet. Amusing.

“Gabriel told us everything,” he says, inching forward. “He came to us. Said he was scared. Said he didn’t want to go through with it.”

My jaw flexes.

“Gabriel,” I repeat, slow. Careful. Like I’m tasting it for poison.

He nods, face sagging with sympathy. “He’s safe now. In a secure room. He’s not going to get hurt.”

Wrong thing to say.

He thinks I’m going to lose it. Tear my hair out. Start gnashing like a dog mid-seizure. But I don’t. I do something much worse.

I soften.

My voice dips into a whisper, syrupy, trembling, laced with the kind of fake regret that makes people lean in. “He… he said that? Really?”

McNamara nods. Eyes soft. Hopeful. Like a fucking idiot. “He asked for help, Johnny. He didn’t want to run anymore. Said he was scared. Scared of what you might do.”

Scared.

That word sours on my tongue like curdled milk.

“Scared?” I echo, blinking slow. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

I step forward. Head lowered. Shoulders slack. Mask tilted like I’m ashamed.

He doesn’t flinch.

Stupid.

When I reach him, I place a hand on his wrist. Gentle. Soft. Like I’m handing him my surrender.

Then I jam the knife into his stomach. Hard.

He gasps. Doubles forward. I grab him by the collar and slam him into the wall, blade still buried deep in his gut.

“Scared,” I hiss in his ear, twisting the handle until I feel something snap. “You really think he was scared?”

McNamara coughs blood. Tries to speak. I don’t let him.

“Wasn’t scared when he begged me to fuck him raw,” I snarl. “Didn’t sound scared with his mouth full of cock, moaning like he was starving for it. He was begging. Shaking. Worshipping. You think that was fear?”

I yank the knife out. Let him slump just enough to slide down the wall. Then I catch him by the throat.

“Where is he?”

“J-Johnny…” he wheezes.

I press the blade under his chin. Real gentle. Real slow. “Wrong answer. Next one comes with a tracheotomy.”

He sputters. His legs kick. Then he finally cracks.

“Ward C,” he chokes out. “Padded room… behind the old therapy wing. He’s sedated—please—he’s… he’s just a kid?—”

“A kid?” I laugh. “That ‘kid’ begged me to own him. Let me turn him inside out like a fucking prayer.”

He’s gurgling now. Slipping.

“You think a rubber room and some sleepy-time juice is gonna keep me from what’s mine?”

I jam the blade up under his chin, slow, and cruel.

His jaw splits open like rotten fruit. The metal slides past the soft palate and into the skull, and for a second, he just twitches.

Then his head knocks back against the wall with a meaty crack, and the blood arcs high, warm and stinking, splashing across the white tile in looping red question marks like the room itself is starting to wonder what kind of monster I really am.

He folds like a busted marionette, limbs twitching. Eyes blank. Mouth still open like he’s waiting to scream.

I crouch beside him, humming under my breath as I fish through the front of his coat, patting down the pockets until I find it—the slick plastic rectangle tucked beside his ID, still smeared with panic sweat and the scent of stale breath mints.

“Thank you, Doc,” I whisper, holding the keycard up to the light. “You’ve just saved me a trip through the vents.”

I wipe the blade on his coat. Straighten my mask. It sticks to my sweat-slicked face, the edges digging into my cheekbones like teeth.

Back to the hallway.

Back to the game.

Ward C’s two floors down, past the therapy wing where they used to make us draw happy trees and talk about our “feelings.” The lights above flicker.

Walls peel. The stink of antiseptic battles with copper and mold.

One of the patients is banging his head against a glass door, chanting the alphabet backwards with blood smeared across his forehead like war paint.

None of it registers.

Not really.

Because I’m already descending, footsteps silent, gliding like smoke, rage simmering just beneath the skin. I cut across the staff hallway, boots slick with blood, past the nurse’s station that’s now a slaughterhouse of overturned chairs and shattered monitors.

The alarms are louder here. My ears ring. My heart’s a bass drum trying to punch its way through my ribs, and Ward C? It’s right ahead.

Steel doors. Cold concrete. No windows. Just me and whatever’s left of the boy I carved into perfection.

If he’s in there, curled up in the padded dark, clutching his knees and crying because he thought he could run from me?

Then he never really knew me at all.

Because this isn’t over.

Not even close.

The leash is still mine.

Let’s see if my mutt remembers how to beg.