Page 21 of Atrocity (The Wellard Asylum #5)

"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead."

— Charles Bukowski

I ’ve been walking for fucking hours, and finally, just when I was about to give up on ever seeing civilization again, I spotted some fucking lights in the distance.

The city lies dead beneath a midnight sky, silent and shuttered. Streetlights drip halos over empty sidewalks, long shadows pooling behind locked display windows. Tonight, the mannequins inside look more alive than the people who made them.

I wander the deserted boulevard slow and loose, palms sticky with dried blood.

My mask hangs at my hip, paint cracked, cheek-to-cheek grin still sharp as a promise.

I wear nothing but the institutional tracksuit and slippers, red stains frescoed across the fabric like holy graffiti.

Every step feels like a signature across someone’s arrest warrant.

I catch my reflection in a bakery window, blade of glass splintered with my crooked grin.

“Fuck, you’re pretty.”

The image that looks back isn’t me. It’s chaos in human form. I reach out. Touch the glass. Feel the tremor of all that power packed inside one wrecked shell.

A cigarette sparks behind me. I don’t turn.

“Shit,” a voice drawls, lazy and dry. “Didn’t know blood-spattered asylum chic was back in season.”

I pivot slow.

He’s leaning against the window I just ogled myself in, like he’s been there the whole time, watching the show.

Burn scars crawl down the left side of his face, glossy and mean.

The rest of him’s sharp angles and quiet arrogance.

Dark hair, tousled. Gloves so tight they look stitched on.

One hand lifts the cigarette to his lips with the kind of control that says he doesn’t need to run from anything.

He looks at me like I’m dessert.

“You’re hard to miss,” he adds, smoke curling from his mouth. “Mask. Blood. Hard-on for your own reflection. Hell of a look.”

I tilt my head, the clown mask slipping a little over my brow. I let it stay crooked, fitting.

“Well, you know what they say,” I purr, stepping closer. “Dress for the job you want. Mine just happens to be god of carnage.”

I glance down at myself, shirt clinging wet to my chest, red handprints smeared across my thighs, slippers sticky from the blood trail I left behind.

“Besides,” I add with a grin, “this wasn’t really a look I chose. It’s more of a... happy accident. Like me.”

He huffs a laugh, the corner of his mouth twitching. Not scared. Not flinching.

Curious.

The way he stares at me isn’t normal. It’s not disgust, not intrigue, it’s recognition. Like he’s already figured out the parts I haven’t said yet. The blood. The twitch behind my smile behind the mask. The feral little echo still howling in my ribs.

He sees it, and instead of backing off, he steps closer.

“Happy accidents,” he murmurs. “The best ones usually leave a body count.”

I tilt my head. “You say that like you’d know.”

“I do.”

Simple. Steady. That voice slinks through the dark like it’s wearing boots too clean for this street.

Another siren kicks up in the distance. This one’s lower, meaner. Maybe they found the mess I left in the bowels of the building. Maybe they’re still scraping up pieces of McNamara and paging ghosts through broken intercoms.

I hope someone cried.

I hope someone bled.

I hope someone saw the camera footage and whispered, “What a fucking psycho.”

Pretty boy watches me take it in. The noise. The night. The freedom.

“You know most people see me and run,” he says. Not a question. Just... fact.

“Ha.” I lick my teeth behind the mask. “Only thing I run from is sobriety. Everything else? I chase ‘til it begs.”

His smile widens. “You’ll like where I’m going, then.”

He turns, just turns, and walks like we’ve already agreed I’m going with him to wherever the fuck he’s off to. Like my yes was always inevitable. His silhouette bleeds into the mist like the city’s peeling off its own shadow just to keep up with him.

I stand there for half a breath, watching his back, the swing of his coat, the lazy way his boots don’t bother dodging the broken glass.

Oh, I like this one.

He doesn’t check to see if I’m following.

So I do.

Not because I trust him, but because I’d rather be gutted by something interesting than spoon-fed safety by the same old shit.

The streets are quiet now, real quiet. Not the kind of quiet that means peace, the kind that means something awful just happened, and the city’s pretending it didn’t notice.

Storefronts slump like corpses in Sunday clothes. Neon signs buzz but don’t blink. We pass a boarded tattoo parlor, a strip club with the R burned out in “GIRLS,” and a diner where someone left a half-smoked cigarette still curling in the ashtray.

Like the world just… stepped out for a second.

We turn onto a new street, narrower, grimier, quieter. The kind of place you go to vanish. A streetlamp flickers overhead like it’s trying not to see us.

He walks like the ground owes him something. Like every step is a fuck-you to gravity. Calm. Dangerous. Gorgeous in that cryptid kind of way. Half in shadow, half in fire.

I catch up, blood soaked slippers slapping on the pavement. My blood’s sticky between my toes. Feels like baptism.

“Y’know,” I say, licking a smear off my palm. “I think I’m finally getting into cardio.”

Pretty boy side-eyes me, amused. “Is that what we’re calling murder now?”

“I’m rebranding,” I say cheerfully. “Self-care.”

That gets a chuckle. He pulls on the cigarette, the ember flaring. “Gotta admit, you wear mayhem well.”

I flash him a grin, teeth red. “I treat it like foreplay.”

He glances down at my chest, the dried streaks of blood that make Rorschach blush. “Clearly. You should teach a fucking masterclass.”

“Only if there’s a lab portion. I’ve always liked that real hands-on experience shit.”

Another laugh, lower this time. It curls in my ear like smoke with teeth. I want to bottle it. Use it as lube. Maybe both.

We fall into step again. Somewhere in the distance, the sirens start up again . Same as before. Still late. Still fucking stupid.

“City sounds like it’s trying to spit us out,” he says casually.

I click my tongue. “Good. I like knowing I’ve left a taste.”

He exhales slow. “You sure you’re not here to replace me?”

I shoot him a look. “Darling, I’m not a replacement. I’m the upgrade.”

Pretty boy hums, low and thoughtful, and for a second, it feels like the whole city’s holding its breath to see what we’ll do next. Like we’re the coin in a rigged slot machine, just waiting to see how much we blow up when we hit jackpot.

I stretch my arms overhead, blood cracking at the joints. My tracksuit pulls tight across my ribs. “So. You leading me somewhere? Or are we just flirting and wandering?”

“Little of both,” he says, tossing the cigarette and grinding it out with his boot. “I know a place.”

“Of course you do,” I mutter. “All charming creeps have a lair.”

He just smiles and keeps walking.

And fuck me, I follow.

“You got a name, or do I just keep calling you Pretty boy?”

“Lux,” he says, slower this time. Like it means something. Like I’m supposed to hear something else in it.

I hum. “Lux. Like… deluxe? Or like… luck?”

He smirks. “Like light.”

“Oh, that’s rich.” I nudge him with an elbow. “You’re walking me into the dark and calling yourself a fucking beacon?”

He glances at me sidelong. “Better than pretending I’m your salvation.”

“Mmm. True.” I stretch my arms wide, head tilting back. “I’ve been saved enough. Fuck saving. I want fire.”

Lux stops walking.

Just… stops.

I skid a little in my slippers, grinning.

He turns to face me, fully now. “You want fire?”

“I want gasoline. Want the whole fucking city to choke on my name.”

He nods. Once. Like I just passed a test he didn’t even bother to write down.

“There’s a place,” he says. “No rules. No order, or recovery plans. It’s filled with people like us, you’re not the only one.”

My grin twitches. “Like me? What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means if you come with me,” he says, eyes dark as oil slicks, “you don’t have to hide behind that mask while enjoying the things that make you tick. The things that get you off.”

I stiffen.

He gestures at my face. “You’re still wearing it.”

Slowly, I reach up. Peel it off. The mask comes free with a wet hiss, skin tugging. Sweat-soaked. Blood-speckled. The rubbery grin looks obscene in my hands.

I look at it.

Then at him.

“You keep it,” I say, yanking the mask off my head and holding it out.

Lux raises a brow. “A gift?”

I shove it into his hands, grinning. “A favor. Figured you could use it more than me—y’know, balance out the crispy side.”

His lips twitch. A laugh rolls out, dry and low. “You’re a real fuckin’ sweetheart.”

“Don’t get used to it.” I wink. “That’s who I used to be. Now? I’m worse.”

Lux turns the mask over in his hands, fingers brushing the inside like he can still feel the heat of my chaos baked in.

“Good,” he says, voice dipped in something close to reverence.

He tucks the mask under his arm like a prize. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t wipe his hand.

God, I want to chew on his collarbone.

He turns again. “Let’s go.”

So I do.

We walk deeper. Past where even the rats bother. Where graffiti outnumbers windows. Where the sky disappears and the only thing above us is the low hum of something rotten watching from the rooftops, and I feel it.

The shift.

The click.

Like a rib snapping into place after months dislocated.

I’m not running anymore. No this time, I’m being invited. Into something big. Something fucked. Something fucking mine.

The world I left behind is on fire, and I’m finally, fucking free.