Page 19 of Atrocity (The Wellard Asylum #5)

“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”

—Blade Runner

T he keycard’s still sticky with the doctor’s blood. I don’t even wipe it off.

I slide it through the reader outside Ward C. A beep. A click. The light turns green.

The door creaks open like it's groaning under the weight of what’s coming. The padded room stinks of old piss, antiseptic, and that soft plastic sweat that only comes from bodies pressed too long into false comfort. It’s bright. Artificial. Too clean for what I am.

And there he is.

He sees me the second the door clicks.

Of course he does.

Curled in the corner like a discarded doll, wrists bound in front of him with those soft little straps, like that could save him.

His knees are tucked to his chest. His lip’s split.

There's a smear of dried blood across his cheek, and his eyes go wide, wild, like prey that just caught the scent of something too big, too hungry.

Gabriel.

My mutt.

My fucking traitor.

His head snaps up so fast it knocks against the wall behind him.

His whole body tenses, like prey catching the scent of the predator too late.

His mouth opens, lips forming around the ghost of my name, and when it slips out—soft, terrified, and stupid—I want to laugh and crush him in the same breath.

“Johnny…”

A whisper. A prayer. A fucking mistake.

I step inside, and the door hisses shut behind me with a click that makes Gabriel’s shoulders flinch like a twitchy fucking stray. That sound? I savor it. Let it slide down my spine like a drug I haven’t tasted since they first stuffed me in this loony bin and stitched manners into my mouth.

He’s curled in the corner, strapped wrists clutched to his chest like a toddler pretending he still believes in comfort. Legs shaking. Face blotchy. Blood smeared under his nose like a secret. The picture of betrayal painted in piss and self-pity.

I stalk forward, slow. Measured. Like a butcher inspecting his last kill of the night.

“You pulled a cute little stunt,” I murmur, tone lazy, like I’m chatting across a dinner table. “Ran to the white coats, eyes all wide and wet, sobbing about the big bad man who kissed your bruises and made you scream.”

He looks up, guilt written in every fucking line of his face. “Johnny?—”

“You thought that was the play?” I cut in, tilting my head, voice climbing like a slow, snapping fuse. “Sell me out for a padded cell and a warm blanket? You thought if you wagged hard enough, they’d scratch your ears and call you a good boy ?”

“I was scared,” he breathes, inching forward on his knees like a dog crawling back to its abuser. “I-I didn’t think we’d make it out. I didn’t think the plan would work, Johnny. I didn’t wanna be caught trying?—”

“Oh, scared ,” I hiss, crouching down beside him, so close I can smell the panic bleeding through his skin—sweat, antiseptic, piss, and that soft, pathetic regret .

“You weren’t scared when you begged me to fuck you so deep you forgot your own name.

You weren’t scared when you dropped to your knees in the rec room closet and sucked me off like it was your last fucking meal. ”

His breath catches, throat bobbing.

“And now you’re scared?” I snarl, grabbing his hair and yanking his head back so hard his spine bows. “You little fucking coward. You waited until I made you something. Gave you purpose. Pleasure. Power. And the moment it got real , you pissed yourself and ran.”

He gasps, legs kicking weakly. “I didn’t mean?—”

I slam his head back into the wall. Not enough to knock him out. Just enough to crack the echo through the padded room and leave a ringing behind his eyes.

“You had the keys to the kingdom,” I growl, breath hot against his cheek. “You had me . And now?”

I shove him back. Let him crumple like the spineless, gutless mutt he is.

“Now you’re just meat .”

“I’m sorry,” he sobs, crawling toward me, weaker now. “Johnny, please?—”

I whirl on him, grab his face, dig my thumbs into the soft hollows under his eyes until he cries out. “You think they’ll protect you from me? You think pillows on the walls and straps on your wrists are gonna stop me from getting inside you again?”

He whimpers, tears smearing through the blood.

“You were mine,” I spit, shaking him. “You were fucking mine , and now? You’re a broken toy, mutt. Worthless. You don’t serve a purpose anymore.”

I drag him up by the straps and slam him chest-first into the padding. My knee drives between his legs, locking his stance. He squirms—futile. My hand slides down his back, fingers cruel and possessive.

“You could’ve been everything,” I whisper into his ear. “My shadow. My teeth. My fucking legacy. But you threw it away for a fucking juice box and a therapist with a clipboard.”

He tries to crawl away.

I don’t let him.

I yank him back by the cuffs, flip him onto his back, straddle him with the full weight of what he’s lost.

“Please,” he chokes. “Please, Johnny…”

“No.” I clamp my hand around his throat, lean close until our foreheads touch. “You don’t get to beg. You get to learn .”

I punch him.

Once.

Twice.

His ribs groan beneath my knuckles like they’re begging me to stop. On the third hit, something snaps. Sharp. Wet. Final.

Music.

His mouth drops open, jaw slack, no sound, just agony echoing behind his eyes like a scream trapped in cement.

“I loved you,” he chokes out, stupid and broken.

I freeze.

Then I laugh.

Grin splitting wide behind the mask, teeth bared like a dog that bites first and thinks never.

“Love?” I spit. “You fucking idiot. I didn’t love you. I trained you. Molded you. Sharpened your edges till you could slit a throat with a smile. You were mine. My mutt. And you were perfect .”

I reach for the knife.

But I don’t raise it.

I lower it.

Let it kiss his thigh. Watch it dimple the skin. Watch him watch me.

“But some mutts,” I murmur, voice a coiled thing full of hate and heat, “some mutts just can’t be trained. No matter how tight the leash or how sweet the treat.”

I drag the blade.

Slow.

Precise.

The flesh parts like warm fruit, and the blood comes fast and red and gorgeous. He shrieks—high, raw, almost inhuman. His legs kick like they’re trying to escape without him.

I press deeper.

Twist.

Carve a little more.

Red floods the padded floor like spilled paint in a padded gallery. He bucks, trembles, fingers twitching like he's still trying to find the nerve to fight back.

“Shhh,” I murmur, lips brushing the shell of his ear, hot breath cutting through the chill. “You’re doing so fucking good, mutt. Go on. Bleed for me.”

He jerks.

Convulses.

Like maybe the pain will shake some sense into him.

It won’t.

I trained him too well for that, and now I’m gonna untrain him, one scream at a time.

“I want you to feel it,” I murmur, the words curling out like smoke from a lit fuse, thick with glee and gore. “Every cut, every twitch, every fucking nerve ending screaming my name. I want your skin to remember me longer than your brain does. I want your pain to be mine. ”

The blade dances again. Another line, deep and deliberate, carved beside the last like it’s part of some fucked-up love letter only I know how to read.

Then another.

Then another.

I stop counting somewhere around five. Doesn’t matter. I’m not making tally marks, I’m making fucking art.

Blood rushes out in steady waves now, dark and glistening, puddling beneath us, soaking into the walls, the floor, and my sleeves.

It coats my hands like gloves and warms my thighs where I’m straddling him.

Blood spatters across my mask, warm and metallic, slipping through the mouth slot and hitting my tongue like a communion shot of copper and vengeance.

I don’t stop to wipe it.

Don’t need to.

Instead, I reach up, fingers sticky and trembling, and tear the mask from my face. Yank it off like it’s skin I’ve outgrown. My breath hits the cold air, ragged and soaked in copper, and then I lean in.

I kiss him. Full-mouth. Blood-slick. Tongue to tongue.

His teeth knock against mine, lips split and trembling, and I lap the crimson off him like it’s the last drink I’ll ever get.

He’s choking on it now—on me—drowning in the wreckage we made together, gurgling against my tongue like he knows he earned every fucking drop.

Perfect. That’s how it should end.

“You’ll die as nothing ,” I whisper, dragging the blade up his abdomen with slow, reverent pressure. The skin splits with ease, parting like satin, and I feel the blade grind through something thicker. His muscles convulse beneath the metal, his breath catching in his throat, rasping, panicked.

“I carved you into something, didn’t I?” I press in closer, my voice fraying at the edges now, all static and fury.

“Made you more than just another scared little mutt in the kennel. You were mine. I trained you. God , I trained you so fucking well. You came when I demanded it. You shivered when I smiled. But some mutts… some mutts can’t be saved.

Some just bite the hand that feeds and shit all over the rug. ”

I grab his wrists, sticky with blood, and pin them high above his head like he’s still got a choice.

He doesn’t.

“You could’ve lived like a king,” I sneer, watching his eyes roll, his mouth tremble, his ribs rise and fall in shallow, erratic jerks.

“Crown on your head, collar on your throat, curled up at my feet where you fucking belonged. But no. You ran. You whimpered. You sold me out for a bed, a bland tray of mush, and a pair of sad eyes telling you it’s okay to be broken. ”

I slam my forehead against his. Hard. The thud echoes inside my skull, rattling loose the last thread of anything sane. His face is slack now. Half-aware. Barely breathing. He’s slipping under.

But not yet.

Not until I’m done.

Not until I say he’s done.

“I should’ve left you to rot,” I whisper, breath hot against his skin. “But I didn’t. I gave you purpose. Direction. Meaning. And you… you pissed it all away like the coward you are.”

His body’s twitching now. Little jerks. Reflexes.

He’s almost there.

Almost gone.

I stare down at him, bloodied, half-split, red pooling beneath us like a canvas, and I can’t tell if I want to laugh, scream, or kiss him again until he’s cold.

I settle on all three.

I kiss him. Deep. Tongue dragging across his teeth. Blood coating our mouths. A communion of carnage.

Then I lean back and watch him fade.

Eyes wide but empty.

Mouth parted.

Chest still for the first time since I met him.

And something inside me rips.

Loud.

Silent.

All at once.

A sound I didn’t know I was capable of claws out of my throat—half-sob, half-howl, pure fucking ruin. I bury my face in his shoulder, smearing more blood across both of us, breathing him in like the fucking ghost he’s about to become.

I don’t wipe the blade clean or shut his eyes.

I just lay there. Still straddling him. Still tethered to him by the straps, the sweat, the sickness that made us one in the first place.

Breathing.

Burning.

Unraveling from the inside out.

A masterpiece in reverse.

A signature written in red, and one final fucking goodbye.

I cradle his face as the silence takes him, and I whisper like I’m telling a bedtime story.

“I told you I’d protect you. And I did. From the world. From Dale, and Gold. Even from yourself. Now, little puppet, you never have to be afraid again.”

I close his eyes. Wipe his blood from my hands, then smear it across the wall in a long red line. The room smells like iron and piss and regret.

Then I rise, pulling the mask back over my face, and I leave the room grinning.

Because he was right about one thing.

I really am what he should’ve been afraid of.