Page 9 of Atrocity (The Wellard Asylum #5)

“The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.”

— Horace Walpole

T he thing about control? Once you get a taste—just a sliver on your tongue—it rots everything else.

Food? Useless. Sleep? Who needs it. Even the meds they shoot into your veins like holy water for heathens, can’t drown the hunger once it’s got teeth.

No, no. After that little shower scene with my filthy mutt? After watching him choke on spit and shame and still beg for more?

Nothing else cuts it.

I need more.

And I need it to never fucking stop.

I didn’t sleep.

How could I?

Not after that.

Not with the scent of him still thick on my skin—sweat, soap and shame.

Not with the way he whimpered when I shoved his face into the tile and ground against him like I was carving my name into his spine with every jerk of his dick.

His moans were soft at first. Hesitant. Like maybe if he didn’t admit it, it wouldn’t be real. But his body gave him away.

Fucking beautiful.

The way he trembled. The way he leaked and let me own him without even realizing what that meant.

God, I can still feel the heat of him. Still see the way his cock twitched under my hand, hard, desperate and helpless.

He fucking came for me. All over my palm.

His legs gave out and he collapsed like a ragdoll, panting and pink and ruined, and I swear, I could’ve come again just watching him try to catch his breath.

My pretty little mutt.

Mine.

I lie in bed with my arms behind my head, grinning at the ceiling like it’s some fucked-up constellation of cracked plaster and ghosts. The screams echo down the halls. Someone’s retching. Someone’s praying. Another is fighting restraints with the kind of hope that doesn’t last.

Background noise.

Gabriel is the only sound I care about.

Even when he’s not here.

Even when he’s not making any noise at all.

Then I hear it. The shuffle of rubber soles and jangling keys just outside the door. A knock—barely—and the metal squeaks open like it’s groaning in warning.

“Volunteer duty,” a voice mutters.

I sit up, slow. Stretch my arms above my head like a cat getting ready to shred something soft.

The guy in the doorway is new. Too clean.

Pale skin, wide eyes, clipboard clutched like a fucking bible.

He's one of those temp hires they think we won’t notice, like we don’t clock every new lamb they throw in the lion pen.

He blinks at me. Swallows.

“Uh… rec wing. The old one. You want in?”

I grin. Big. Unblinking.

“Do I want in?” I echo, tilting my head like I’m tasting the words.

He shifts his weight. Nervous. I love it.

“Y-yeah. To mop. Or… wipe down walls, or whatever.”

“Whatever,” I repeat. “Yeah, I like whatever.”

I stand. The cot creaks behind me. My spine cracks loud enough to make him jump. I take my time adjusting the hem of my shirt, still smiling.

Because he has no idea.

No clue what a gift he just gave me.

See, the thing is, I’ve been waiting for an excuse. Waiting for something to bleed this buzzing out of my bones before it boils me alive. If I don’t get it out soon, I’ll end up licking the walls or biting someone’s fingers off for looking at me wrong.

And now?

Now I get to be alone in the rec wing.

Alone.

Where I can plot. Steal. Think.

Where no one will ask what’s under my sleeve or why I’m humming that same old show tune again and again while sorting supplies.

“Yeah,” I say, stepping closer so he has to look up at me. “Sign me the fuck up.”

He scribbles something on his clipboard and practically bolts, leading me down the hall like a nervous tour guide who knows the lions haven’t been fed.

Smart.

For now.

They lock me in the rec wing with a bucket and a broom like that’s gonna stop me from painting the walls with someone’s secrets.

“Cleanup duty. No funny business,” the orderly says—some square-jawed, dad-bodied fuck who reeks of coffee and disappointment. He barely meets my eyes.

Smart.

“Knock once if you need anything. We’ll be back at lunch.”

He slams the door shut like he just dropped a live grenade and doesn’t want to wait around for the bang.

Click.

The bolt slides home, and then it’s just me.

Me and the ghosts in the walls.

I hum to myself as I drag the mop bucket behind me. One of the wheels squeaks like it’s screaming in Morse code. The lights flicker overhead, one buzzing so loud I’m tempted to yank it out and swallow it just to shut it up.

The rec wing’s been abandoned since the incident . Fire, smoke, teeth, a few screams that still echo if you tilt your head just right. They say the south corridor smells like burnt hair and melted flesh. They’re not wrong.

This place is a tomb. A shrine.

And I? I’m the fucking high priest.

But I didn’t volunteer because I care about mop buckets and bleach.

No, no, no.

I need a fix .

Gabriel's still under my skin. I can smell him on my knuckles. I swear there’s blood under my nails that isn’t even his, but it doesn’t matter, he’s the one I taste when I grind my teeth at night.

That whimper in the showers? It plays on loop.

Rent-free. Right behind my eyes. I close them, and boom, there he is. Bent. Red-faced. Beautiful.

Fucked-up little angel.

And me?

I’m buzzing like a storm cloud with nowhere to strike.

If I don’t do something soon, I’ll staple my own eyelids shut just to see how long it takes for the screaming to stop.

So yeah. Cleanup duty . Sure.

Let’s clean up some history .

I ditch the cart the second the hallway bends. Duck through a side door with a cracked label so faded it looks like a scar.

INTAKE STORAGE.

Bingo.

The kind of place where they toss all the fun stuff—shoelaces, sharp things, contraband, and whatever’s left of who you were before the pills kicked in. The stuff they don’t want you remembering.

Perfect.

The door sticks. I shoulder it open, and it groans like a dying animal. The room inside smells like dust, old sweat, and despair that's been fermenting too long.

It’s glorious.

Metal shelves line the walls, stacked high with clear plastic bins. Each one labeled with neat little tags. Names. Dates. Numbers.

Lives.

I run my fingers over a few as I pass.

CLAYTON, W.

GALLOWAY, J.

MALIK, T.

Dead or discharged, who knows? Who cares?

I pry open a few. Inside, bits and pieces. Wallets. Shoes. Half-used notebooks. A stuffed rabbit missing an eye. A pack of cigarettes so stale it crunches when I squeeze it.

And then?—

A bin without a name.

Just a red slash across the front.

My fingers twitch.

Red always means yes .

The bin yawns open like a mouth begging to be fed, and inside, tangled in a nest of crumpled latex gloves and yellowed paperwork, I see it.

A mask.

It's not just a mask. It's the mask.

Melted and misshapen, as if it was never meant to fit a human face.

One side slumps into a warped sneer, the paint peeled back like skin torn from old bone.

Its exaggerated features—bloated cheek, bulbous nose, and cavernous eyeholes—should be funny, maybe even charming in the right lighting.

But here, under the flickering bulb in a forgotten wing of a dead asylum, it’s the stuff of pure, erotic nightmare.

The grin—oh, that grin—it stretches too wide, like the skin’s been pulled into place with meat hooks.

It’s cracked right through the middle, a jagged seam that splits the face like a wound that never healed.

One eye is entirely gone, just a black, gaping void.

The other peers out with flaking paint curling around the edge like a scab being picked.

It doesn’t see , not in the way people see. But it watches.

And it likes me.

I can feel it.

Like recognition. Like lust. Like something ancient pressed its hand against the back of my skull and whispered, “Yes. You.”

My fingers twitch as I pick it up, careful, reverent.

The plastic is cold and greasy with age, but it feels alive in my hands, like it remembers blood.

The grin is sticky, painted over in blood-colored red that’s chipped into the shape of laughter.

Not the kind that makes people smile. The kind that makes them scream.

This isn’t a prop. It’s a promise.

I run my thumb over the mouth, and the curve of it feels like home. I tilt the mask in the light, and shadows cling to the hollows like secrets. I imagine putting it on and becoming something else—no, not something . Someone I’ve always been underneath. Someone I’ve just been too polite to let out.

Until now.

I slip it over my face, and the world changes .

The air tastes better. Thicker. Sweeter. Like sugar rotting on a corpse.

My skin buzzes.

I laugh.

And not a chuckle. Not a smirk. A real, feral fucking sound that rips out of me from somewhere deep. My stomach folds with it. My knees almost go. It’s the first real laugh I’ve had in years, and it feels like being reborn.

I stagger toward the mirror on the inside of the closet door.

The mask stares back.

Me, but not me.

Me if I never held back.

Me if they never tried to cage me.

If I carved the world into the shape I wanted and fucked its mouth with a blade.

My cock twitches.

Because that version of me?

That version would own Gabriel completely.

Wouldn’t wait until no one was watching.

Wouldn’t settle for tile and silence and shame.

No. That version would break him in the light. Would keep him on a leash, in a cage, moaning through the pain with his thighs shaking and his soul gone.

And everyone would watch.

I grab my cock. No ceremony. No warm-up. Just grip, spit, and the kind of friction that makes my teeth clench.

The mirror’s already fogged from my breath. And behind the glass? That fucked-up grin—mine, stretched across the clown mask strapped to my face like a second skin. One cracked eye. Red peeling mouth. It’s smeared in filth now. So am I.

I stare at myself as I stroke.

Slow, at first.

Just to savor it.

My cock twitches in my fist, leaking like it misses him. Like it knows .

Gabriel.

Bent over and begging, fingers slipping on tile, back arched in surrender. That slippery sheen of sweat and shame turning his spine into a goddamn work of art.

"Please, Johnny. Please ? —"

His voice still rings in my ears. Still hits that sick little pleasure center in my brain like it was custom made for my ruin.

I spit again. Grip tighter. Faster.

Fucking perfect , he was. Shaking, whimpering, taking everything I gave him like it hurt to need me so bad. And me? I didn’t even have to try. Just had to want .

And oh, fuck, do I want.

The asylum thinks it can fix this. That it can scrub the hunger out of me with pills and needles and whispered threats.

But hunger doesn’t go away.

It festers.

It breeds, and right now, it’s jerking me off while I stare into the mask’s warped reflection. Its broken smile painted with my filth, its missing eye staring back like it sees everything.

I pant. Fist my cock harder. The ache builds—low and primal and brutal in my gut. Every pump is a countdown. Every memory a fucking trigger.

The way Gabriel gasped. The way his legs trembled. The way he arched into it like he was chasing the devil.

My devil.

Me.

"Mine," I growl to the glass. “Say it again. Beg again. Fucking mean it this time.”

The mirror doesn’t answer. Just drips with fog and filth. My hips snap forward as I picture Gabriel’s throat again, wrecked, raw, and full of me.

I groan. Loud. Violent.

And then I’m coming.

Hard.

Sticky ropes of cum paint the mirror, splattering across the reflection in white streaks—thick and hot and obscene. It smears the clown’s cracked red smile, drips off the plastic like some twisted baptism. The mask stares back through it all, unmoved.

Grinning.

So am I.

My breath ragged. My knuckles tight. My cock still twitching.

I drag my fingers across the glass, smearing the mess. Laughing.

Soft. Crooked. Wrong.

This place tried to bury me.

But monsters don’t rot. We claw. We bite. We burn the whole fucking ward down and take what's ours on the way out.

And Gabriel?

He’s coming with me.

He has to.

I’ll make sure of it.

The last tremor leaves my body, but I don’t stop grinning.

I wipe my hand on the inside of an old nurse’s apron crumpled in the corner, tuck my cock away, and grab the nearest mop like I’m doing something productive. Like I’m a fucking model patient, all cleaned up and ready to serve.

The mask stays on.

I don’t take it off.

Not even when I step out of the room and back into the charred spine of the rec wing. Not when the steam from my skin starts fogging the eyehole. Not when I hear the nurses whispering from down the corridor.

Let them whisper.

Let them pray.

One orderly rounds the corner, clipboard in hand, sees me and freezes. Pale. Like he’s seen a ghost. Or worse.

I tilt my head.

He doesn’t move.

Smart. For now.

I roll the mop slowly across the soot-streaked tiles. Not really cleaning. Just marking territory. The squeak of wet rubber against old ash is rhythmic. Hypnotic. Like I’m conducting my own little opera in this tomb of a hallway.

I hum under my breath. Something off-key. Something that sounds a little too much like screaming.

Every so often, I glance at the mask’s reflection in broken glass and catch a glimpse of myself—the version that matters. The one they tried to erase with their sedatives and group therapy and fucking stickers.

But he’s still here.

I’m still here.

The real me.

And now?

I’ve got a face.

I clutch the mask tighter like it’s a lover. A weapon. A promise. It’s mine now. Like Gabriel’s mine. Like freedom will be mine. I’m taking this back to my room, and if any nurse, guard, or clipboard-carrying do-gooder tries to stop me?

I’ll split their skulls like overripe fruit and mop them up next.

The thought makes me laugh.

Loud. Sudden. Unapologetic.

It echoes off the cracked walls like gunfire in a church.

Yeah.

Let them try.

Let them tell me I can’t have it.

I’ll wear this fucking mask while I gut them. Strip ‘em down. Redecorate the ward in shades of panic and pink insides. And then I’ll go find Gabriel—my soft little sin puppet—and show him just how far I’ll go to keep what’s mine.

One mop stroke at a time.

One body at a time.

One breath closer to out.