Page 45 of Carved Obsession (The Sanctum Syndicate #4)

Carter

Scarlet told me she’s not sure how to process what I just did to her, but as I watch her walk back from her cottage after running to the bathroom, stark naked, bare feet sinking into the grass, I struggle to process what she’s doing to me.

Slow, sultry sex isn’t my thing. Visualizing a future with a woman isn’t either. But here I am, imagining this dark-haired woman in my home, in my bed, on my lap, in my kitchen, reading next to her, cooking and goddamn murdering together. I can see all of this happening. It’s almost palpable.

She plops down on the blanket, nestling into my side as she wraps her limbs around my body.

There’s no protest on my part as I lay here naked, stretched out, arms braced behind my head as I watch the stars flicker across the dark sky, thinking of Scarlet’s damn dinosaur displayed in the middle of my church.

The thought doesn’t just intrigue me—it excites me.

“How was your childhood, growing up with your condition?” I ask, something inside of me desperate to learn more about her.

She sighs, fingernails digging into the skin covering my ribs. “Likely much more different than yours.”

That wouldn’t be hard to achieve . . .

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s not really pretty. But not entirely bad, either. I have my dad to thank for the latter,” she confesses.

“Your mother for the former?”

“And then some. She’s a crazy fucking bitch.”

Well then, it sounds like we have that in common. Maybe our childhoods weren’t so different after all.

“I don’t remember finding out I can’t feel pain, or hot and cold sensations.

I just remember it always being a thing in my life.

My mom told me about the moment they realized I wasn’t ‘normal.’ Repeatedly.

” The exasperation in her tone shelters buried vulnerability.

“Apparently, I was playing with my brother. I only just started walking, and I fell and cut myself on these big decorative rocks they had around a garden bed. I was bleeding, but I kept playing and didn’t shed one tear. That’s what started it all.”

“It must have been quite difficult to play with other children, where hurting yourself is normal.”

“It wasn’t difficult at all, because I was never really allowed to play with other kids, not without very strict supervision.

Every minor injury, scrape, or stub ended in a doctor’s visit since we had no way of knowing how bad it was.

I didn’t really understand, either. It’s hard to, when ‘pain’ is just a word to you.

It bears no consequence or physical reaction, and it certainly doesn’t strike fear.

” She lets out a deep breath, mindlessly scraping her manicured fingernails over my ribs.

Goosebumps break out all over my body.

“I didn’t make things easy, either. I was a wild child, even after I started understanding what could happen after seeing it happen to others.

With time, things got even worse. Eventually, I wasn’t allowed to leave the house.

That’s how I got good at hacking. I’ve never really been a teenager.

The only reason I remained in school was because of my father’s insistence on it.

But outside of it, I was to stay safe and locked inside.

” She creates air quotes with her fingers.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, love.”

“It wasn’t even the worst of it.” She pauses, untangling herself from my body and lying on her back as she rests her head in the crook of my armpit.

“Paranoia and delusion set in eventually. Mom became consumed by the idea that I would hurt myself and die. Then she found some crazy-ass doctor who believed CIP could be cured by targeting the brain and spine with electroshock therapy and other deeply invasive procedures. It never crossed her mind that the guy could be as delusional as her or be feeding his own fucked-up agenda.”

My muscles tense with every word she speaks, the conversation falling in a direction that I certainly didn’t expect.

They hurt her.

They fucking hurt her!

“What did they do to you, Scarlet?” I ask between gritted teeth.

“Experimented,” she says, too lightheartedly.

Like she’s repeated it to herself so much that it became mundane.

“Mostly electroshock therapy, though there wasn’t anything therapeutic about it.

They strapped me to a table, face down, and shocked my spine.

My neck. My head. Pierced me with needles, cut me and pretended they were making progress.

My mother was so fucking stupid. She believed it. ”

My blood boils by the time she speaks the last word. Now some of her hard limits make so much sense.

“Are they still alive?” I ask.

“The doctor and his assistant, or my mom?”

“All of them.”

“Dad chased Mom away when he found out what she was doing to me. She was brilliant at sneaking around and kept it away from him for months. She threatened me in order to keep my mouth shut. Bribed me too, promising freedom once I was cured. Dad was livid. I really thought he was going to kill her, but he punished himself most of all. To this day, I’m not sure he forgave himself.

And the doctor and his assistant are dead. ”

I’m pleased yet disappointed at the same time, because I would have preferred to be the one to take the assholes’ lives.

“I’m sorry, Scarlet. I’m sorry this was your childhood, that you had to live through such trauma.”

She shrugs. “I made peace with it long ago, I guess. Certain feelings resurface every now and then, but whatever they did to me, whatever my mom did, was emotional. Their experiments felt like I was outside of my body, looking down. Almost foreign. But emotionally...they stripped me bare.” She trails off, her voice distant, a soft whisper in the breeze.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m even entitled to have those feelings, since I never truly suffered. I don’t know. It’s strange, I guess.”

The fact that she’s been made to feel like she can’t be traumatized, can’t suffer as a result of what she was put through, angers me even more.

I’m not good with the emotional side, but I know physical pain, and I certainly understand betrayal and madness at the hands of someone who should care for you unconditionally.

If I ever run into that goddamn woman who calls herself her mother, I will strip her of her skin while she begs for mercy. Scratch that. I will find her, and I’ll enjoy watching her beg for her life.

“I’ve been thinking of dropping her last name.

Glass is hers. She insisted on a double barrel since my parents were never married.

” She snickers under her breath as she continues.

“Bitch was fucking livid when Dad married Carmen. And so fast as well, considering that she tried for years to get him to ask her. I guess he had a feeling about her.”

That he certainly did. Not that I’m not pissed that he didn’t realize what she was doing earlier. Though, I guess I can certainly relate to that. And I don’t blame my father, either.

What I don’t quite understand is why she’s still holding on to her mother’s name. For a woman who means nothing to her, this feels strange. Is there any hope left there?

“How was your father with you?”

“Brilliant.” Her voice turns bubbly, light.

“He wanted me to understand my condition. Learn to live with it safely without being isolated. He taught me anatomy in a way that made me understand what happens in the body rather than shoving ‘pain’ in my face. He was cautious, but he didn’t keep me from situations where I could get hurt.

He taught me to be smart about it. My brother, Marc, joined in too.

He’s fiercely protective of me. He was the one who saw the first signs of what Mom was doing, and there isn’t much he wouldn’t do to protect me. ”

I can relate to that. This need to burn the world to the ground to keep her safe seems to be growing in strength inside of me.

“And they accept the murderous part of you too?”

“Yes. I think Dad believes it’s a consequence of Mom’s actions. Maybe Marc thinks so too. Once again, Dad taught me how to do it safely, after I went batshit crazy once. Or twice,” she says with a giggle. “And Marc owns a crematorium. Well, I’m sure you can figure out how that’s helpful.”

How fascinating. “Is it?”

Did I speak those words out loud?

“I mean, I know I’m lucky to have people around me who didn’t instantly throw me in jail or some insane asylum,” she continues, “but they’re not like me...and sometimes I hate that they have to put up with me.”

Frowning, I mull over her words, trying to identify the underlying emotions and figure out their logical impact.

Loneliness.

That’s it. They accept her, but they will never relate to her psyche. My heart thumps faster, louder in my chest, as the revelation sinks in. Is this why she’s been so keen on me? The need for a kindred spirit she wouldn’t feel so lonely with?

“Once again, you know so much of me, killer-boy, yet I don’t know anything of you.” Scarlet pulls me out of my creeping thoughts.

“What would you like to know?”

“It’s only fair that I learn of your childhood. I have a feeling that growing up without the ability to understand complex emotions is not all that different from growing up without feeling pain.”

I tighten my interlocked fingers, mulling over her words.

“Maybe not. I can only see it from my perspective since I can’t relate to anyone else.

I realized early on that I wasn’t like other people.

Not just kids. All people. It didn’t take long, and my parents acted on their suspicions.

The first discovery was my intelligence level.

I scored remarkably high, and they hoped that was the explanation for everything. ”

Scarlet rises and turns, propping herself on her elbow as she watches me, long fingers caressing my chest.

“But it wasn’t . . .” she whispers.

I shake my head, gaze fixed on her mesmerizing, dark eyes.

“The second discovery, after further doctor visits, was my low emotional intelligence. Looking back, it’s rather amusing how she skirted around the words ‘lacks empathy’ as she explained it to my parents.

The third one was a hunch. The doctor whispered the word to them—psychopathy.

But I was too young for such a diagnosis, so she couldn’t brand me with it.

There were other possible explanations, but I didn’t dwell on any of them. ”

Scarlet doesn’t flinch at my words, though part of me expected her to recoil as I spoke them. Her eyes don’t shift away from me. They don’t fill with indecision or fear, and her touch never falters.

Why?

Any sane being would walk away right about now.

“Did they treat you differently after receiving those results?” she asks.

“Yes and no. Similar to you, my mother didn’t take it very well, and my father insisted on understanding me. But there’s no trauma there.”

For the first time, in the face of Scarlet’s confessions to me, I hear the lie in that last sentence.

“Do they know . . . everything?” She cocks an eyebrow.

“You mean my predilection for slicing into people so I can experience that complex range of emotions I’m not able to otherwise?”

She smiles, and once again, I’m fascinated by her lack of negative reaction. Talking to her is...easy. Unrestricted. No mask needed.

“My need surfaced early on. What I have become...my father knew parts of it, before he died.”

“I’m so sorry, Carter. That must have been...difficult.” She chooses her words so well.

And she’s right on the money too, because losing my father was indeed difficult. Frustrating for such a man in my complex world to be taken by a mundane illness. There was anger. Even more so at my lack of grief. Difficult is the right word.

Sadness breaches her gaze. It doesn’t shine.

It’s a dull ache, reflected in the slight crease of her brows, the curve of her lips, and her slowing breaths.

That is empathy, and as much as I appreciate it coming from her, I’m grateful I don’t get to experience the oddity for myself.

It looks tedious. Exhausting. Highly unnecessary.

“And your mother?” she asks.

“Still alive. Living up north. And no, she knows nothing of me.”

She smiles, something interesting flickering through her gaze. “You know you’re not that bad, right? I remember what you were doing the first time we met. You guys might be a feared criminal organization, or whatever you call yourselves, but what you were fighting for then was good.”

“I know,” I agree. “But I could have just as easily been a lone serial killer seeking only my pleasure.”

“What stopped you?”

“It was a choice, Scarlet. I do not need to be...stopped.”

I don’t miss how my words sink in, the gentle realization of what I’m capable of but choose not to do. I’m still a serial killer, but my chosen family weaved a moral compass through my cruelty.

Would she run away if I became something else?

Something worse?

Myself?