Page 22

Chapter twenty-one

Crazy

Bound to a chair, coarse rope biting deep into his skin, gag pressing into his mouth with the fabric sour and suffocating, stealing his voice, Aaron’s gaze never strayed from Mel.

She trembled, her own restraints cutting cruelly into her wrists, body taut with terror. Tears welled in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks in silent pleas. She tried to cry out, tried to scream, but the gag swallowed every desperate sound and Aaron’s pulse thundered, a helpless fury boiling beneath his skin. He willed her to understand. I’ll get you out of this. A promise made in silence. One he didn’t know how to keep.

His sister stood before them, poised with eerie elegance, her presence almost serene. Like an artist admiring her own macabre exhibition. The gleaming row of knives and rusted torture instruments laid out beside her spoke volumes, their serrated edges catching the dim, iridescent light like the teeth of some ancient predator.

And then there was the gun .

Brutal. Familiar.

A Winchester Model 1911, its wooden grip worn smooth by years of use, the barrel darkened with age but still deadly in its promise. The sight of it sent a sick lurch through Aaron’s gut. Not just because he recognised it, because he remembered it. His father’s hands gripping the stock, steady and practiced. The echoing crack of shots splitting through the dense woods. He’d been told it was for hunting. For chasing off scavengers, keeping the land clear.

But that had been a lie.

Now, he knew what the hunts had truly been.

That gun hadn’t just been used for killing animals. It had been used to lure people here. To make them run. Create the thrill of the chase before they were brought back. Bound. Broken. Prepared for what came next. Forced into the position he was in.

Just as Mable was about to do now.

She ran a delicate hand over the weapon, her fingers tracing the length of the barrel, slow and reverent, as if it was a relic of their twisted legacy. She curved her lips in a knowing smile as she met Aaron’s gaze.

“Do you remember, little brother?” she said. “How he used to let you watch?”

No. He didn’t.

Kenny getting in his head earlier had made accessing dead memories far easier. He wished he hadn’t. It was the reason his mind had closed him off from it for years. But he’d never been a part of this .

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Mable reached for a blade, trailing her fingers along the hilt with an almost tenderness and she rolled it between her palms, savouring the cool press of steel on her skin before pointing the tip at Aaron. “How everyone thinks you’re the dark one. The dangerous one.”

Aaron didn’t even look at her. Refused to. He kept his eyes on Mel.

“How many people avoided you? Feared you?” She took a step closer. “How many pushed you away? Hurt you? Because they thought you were a monster .” A pause. A smile. “Do you know why that is?”

Silence.

Mable’s icy gaze assessed him. Dissected him. “Because you’re a man.” She shook her head. “People expect men to be violent. They fear it. They watch for it. But women?” She let out a low chuckle, tracing the flat of the blade against her own wrist, like she was testing its sharpness. “They don’t watch us, do they?”

Aaron knew where she was going.

“They underestimate us. See us as victims. Fragile .” Her eyes glowed with amusement. Proud of her own intelligence. “But that’s the real mistake, isn’t it? That’s what Mummy taught me. When she sent me out to lure people to the house. Poor little abandoned girl needs help. No one ever feared me. They followed me willingly. And every time— every damn time —I did as Mummy asked and she never once told me she was proud of me. That I was her good little girl. Like she did you.” She pointed the tip of the knife at Aaron with a sneer.

Aaron wanted to feel sympathy for her. He did. He wanted to summon some flicker of empathy for the broken child beneath her fury. The girl Roisin had twisted into a tool, a bait, a blade. She had been manipulated, used, just as he had. Roisin hadn’t raised children. She’d crafted weapons. Designed them with precision. Gave them different edges, pointed them in different directions. His sister had been forged into a lure, taught that love was earned through obedience and fear, and punished for seeking it.

Aaron, though… Aaron had been crafted into the illusion of innocence. The golden boy. The prodigy. The one she paraded. Told him he was special. That he was the only thing she loved. And then made sure he would never stop chasing that feeling, no matter how much it hurt him.

They were two sides of the same wound.

But all he felt was anger.

Because Roisin hadn’t just broken them. She’d broken them differently . Infected them with opposing hungers so they could never meet in the middle. She gave his sister a taste for cruelty and Aaron a hunger for affection, but poisoned both with the same core lesson: love is something you must earn . Bleed for. Perform for. Suffer for.

“And that’s the thing,” Mable continued. “Men act alone. Strike fast, brutal, messy. But women ?” She grinned. “We don’t need brute force. We whisper in ears. Become the voices in your head.” She bashed her temple as if trying to loosen whatever voice was talking to her then. “Whose voice is in your head, Aaron? Is it Mother’s?”

Aaron’s stomach twisted, Roisin’s voice clear as day. “You’ll suffocate anyone who tries to love you.”

Mable’s grin widened, and she lowered the blade, twirling it between her fingers. “Just like Daddy dearest. You know he did what he did because Mum told him to? Wanted him to. That’s why the roses. Did you know that?”

Aaron didn’t blink.

“She made him leave them behind. Her signature. He used the roses to give Mum her gift.” Mable exhaled, shaking her head wistfully. “I’m not even sure he wanted to kill people. He just wanted Mum to love him. But she never did. And when she snapped her fingers, Pastor Whitmore set it up to get rid of him in prison. Because she was done with him. She thought her golden boy was ready.”

The words slithered through Aaron’s veins like ice.

Mable turned her attention back to Mel. “Did you know?” She traced the blade along Mel’s trembling jaw. “That a cut just deep enough here will scar forever?”

Mel jerked, a sob choking in her throat.

Aaron thrashed against his bindings, his guttural rage muffled by the gag. Mable’s eyes snapped to his, and she smiled.

“This is why love and attachments are a bad thing.” She pressed the tip of the knife to Mel’s cheek. A thin line of red welled up, trickling down her skin like a single, silent tear. “Because they make you do crazy things.”

Mel gasped. Hyperventilating. Spiralling into panic. Aaron wanted to look away. God, he wanted to. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Because turning away, pretending he didn’t see, was exactly why they were here. He’d been shielded his entire life. Kept in the dark, wrapped in ignorance, while the true horrors of his family’s legacy unfolded around him. And now, Mable was making sure he faced it . So he forced himself to watch as she drew the knife down, cutting deeper.

Mel’s eyes rolled back, convulsing so violently the chair rattled beneath her, scraping along the floor with a piercing screech. She gasped, drowning in her own panic.

Aaron fought his restraints, wrists sore from the rough bite of the rope as he wrenched them, desperate, wild. His muscles burned, his pulse hammered in his throat— do something, do something, do something —but just as he arched forward, ready to snap his own bones if it meant breaking free — BANG .

The door slammed against its hinges, rattling the walls.

Everything stopped.

Even Mel, mid-sob, froze. The air went razor thin, a crackling silence stretching through the room. Mable stiffened, knife still dripping blood from Mel’s cheek, before slinking away from her like a shadow retreating into the dark. She crept behind Aaron, curling herself into his space.

Then—a second bang .

The door flew open.

For the briefest moment, relief crashed through Aaron like a breaking wave. But it was short-lived. Because, stood in the doorway, chest heaving, hair damp over his forehead as if he’d run here at full speed, was Kenny.

Alone.

Mable moved like liquid shadow, wrapping herself around Aaron’s back, curling an arm over his chest as she pressed the cold steel of the blade flush to his throat.

“Well, look who it is.”

Kenny met Aaron’s gaze and his body sank. But before he could fall apart, he threw his hands up in surrender. “You don’t have to do this, Mable.”

Mable tightened her grip on the hilt of the knife, and she dipped lower, closer to Aaron, voice a sickly-sweet whisper in his ear. “One more step, Doctor , and I’ll slice him open.”

“Okay, okay.” Kenny remained controlled, but Aaron could see the pulse in his throat, the barely concealed panic ready to overwhelm him. “I’m not moving. I’m doing exactly as you’ve asked. And I’m listening. Whatever you want. Whatever you need. I’ll give it to you. Just, please, don’t hurt him.”

Mable trailed the flat of the blade along Aaron’s throat, just enough for him to feel the promise of it. “See, baby brother? Another demonstration of why attachments are dangerous. Because now here he is, the man you love, hands up, heart pounding, trying to calculate what he’s willing to risk. He could run in here. Grab a knife. Fight me off. I mean, I am just a girl . He knows your weight, right? Knows your body. Inside, fucking out. So he can work out that he could take me in a fight. Then he’d be able to save Mel. But he knows if he does that…” She ghosted her lips to Aaron’s ear. “I’ll have already cut your throat.”

Aaron swallowed hard, the pressure of the blade pressing deeper.

“And poor Mel over there—poor, trembling, terrified Mel— she knows it too. Knows she’s the expendable one. Because if you had to pick between them, Dr Lyons, which one would it be? Your student. Or the student you’ve been fucking for the past year?”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Mel whimpered and Kenny’s hands trembled just slightly , barely perceptible. But Aaron saw it. Felt it. Every second stretching between them. And the worst part? Mable wasn’t wrong.

They all knew it.

“You’re trying to prove a point.” Kenny kept his tone light, casual. Designed to keep her talking. Aaron knew the strategy. Kenny had used on him often enough. “That attachments make us weak. Vulnerability makes us easy to hurt.” He tilted his head, studying her. Not reacting . “And I see is how much effort you’re putting into making sure we know that.”

Mable stilled, the knife tight against Aaron’s throat, but there was a flicker in her eyes.

Kenny pressed. “You don’t have to do this. I know how exhausting it is to hold onto that kind of anger. The need to control. To win. Show everyone what they never saw before. But the problem is… the moment you have to force someone to see your power, you’ve already lost it.”

Mable’s jaw tensed. “Oh, fuck off , doctor.”

Kenny held his hands up, body language open, but his gaze locked onto hers. Not as prey. Not as fear. As someone who saw her . “What do you really want here, Mable? You’ve already won, haven’t you? We’re here. You’re in control. Aaron’s not fighting. Neither am I. So what now? What’s the next move?”

Mable’s fingers twitched around the knife. A small shift. Uncertainty creeping in.

“That’s the problem with control, isn’t it?” Kenny kept his voice gentle. Non-threatening. “Once you have it, you have to decide what to do with it. And that’s the part no one teaches you.”

Mable laughed. “Fucking hell, is he ever off duty?” Keeping the blade at Aaron’s throat, she pressed her lips to his ear. “Does he psychoanalyse you when he’s pounding his dick into you? Ask you how that makes you feel when he’s shoving his cock down your throat? Diagnose your sex kinks?”

“If you want me to be off duty, I can do that.” Kenny lowered his hands. “If you move away from Aaron,” Kenny locked his gaze on hers, steady and unflinching, “I’ll show you exactly who I am off duty .”

Mable tilted her neck, studying him. A lazy blink. But Aaron recognised the change in her expression. The faint pull of intrigue behind her eyes. Mable, for all her theatrics, had spent her life being watched. Observed . Dissected by people who thought they understood her. But Kenny wasn’t trying to analyse her from the outside.

He was inside her head now.

And she liked it.

“Who’s that, Dr Lyons?”

“Just a man very much in love with your brother.” The words were simple. Gentle. Sincere and profound. But his next step into her mind was the real move. Quiet. Simple. Undeniable. “And I will do anything to keep him safe. So, if you need me to beg you, I’ll do it. If you need me to bleed for him, I will.”

Aaron’s stomach twisted. The words hit, sinking into him like a hook. Not just because of what Kenny had said, but because of why he’d said it. He meant every word. Kenny would sacrifice himself for him. But desperation didn’t appeal to Mable. She didn’t care about pleas. Pain. She didn’t feel empathy. Aaron knew that. And Kenny knew that, too.

“But if you need to prove something?” Kenny took a step closer. “If you need to win ? Then you already have.”

Aaron’s breath caught as it clicked into place. Kenny wasn’t trying to appeal to her mercy. He was appealing to her hunger. Mable didn’t care about what Kenny felt. She cared about how she made him feel. She wanted control. Wanted to see someone break in front of her. To watch them unravel at her hands, to crack them open. The way she’d been cracked open as a child.

And Kenny…was giving it to her.

“Did you hear that, Mel?” Mable glanced over at Mel with a smirk. “You’re nothing to him.”

“That’s not true.” Kenny kept his eyes on Mable, not looking at Mel, ensuring his words reached the right person. “Mel isn’t nothing to me. But she is to you. She isn’t who you’re here for. She’s served her purpose. She brought us here. You wanted us, now you have us. There’s no reason to waste your time on someone who doesn’t matter to this.” He tilted his neck. “And time is what you don’t have, Mable. You’re running out of it. The police are right around the corner, so if you want this to mean something. If you want to make sure Aaron and I understand exactly what you want us to understand, then you need to focus.” Kenny held steady. “Let Mel go.” His voice softened just a fraction. “She doesn’t belong in this. You and I both know that.”

Silence.

The room crackled with it.

Mable’s fingers twitched around the knife. She liked that. The recognition. The understanding of where the real power was. A shiver crawled down Aaron’s spine, but before he could process it, she straightened. Then, with a wave of the blade, she gestured toward the empty chair beside Mel. “Sit.”

Kenny hesitated for a second before stepping inside. He obeyed, lowering himself onto the chair, but not before his gaze darted to Aaron, raw emotion poking through his usual restraint. Aaron sank into his chair, eyes locked on Kenny. With him in here, there was no way out. They both knew it.

Mable moved toward Mel with eerie ease, the knife glinting as she reached for the ropes securing her. She untied Mel’s restraints with one hand, the other still gripping the knife, poised, ready to strike at the slightest resistance. Mel sobbed in relief, slumping forward, arms finally freed and for one blissful second, Aaron thought Mable might actually let her go.

She didn’t.

She plunged the knife into her instead.

Mel screamed, a raw, guttural sound as her legs buckled and she collapsed to the floor, clutching wherever the wound was, Aaron couldn’t see as blood spilled in thick rivulets between her trembling fingers.

Aaron jerked against his restraints, a muffled roar of rage strangled in his throat.

Kenny lunged.

Mable barely had time to react before he was on her, one hand striking her wrist, knocking the knife loose, the other slamming against her shoulder to shove her back. The blade clattered to the floor, and for a fleeting second, Kenny had the upper hand. He twisted, reaching for Mel, trying to drag her toward him, but Mable recovered fast. And with a feral snarl, Mable drove an elbow into his ribs, hard enough to knock the air from his lungs and Kenny staggered, but he didn’t go down. He struck back. Fist snapping up, catching Mable’s jaw in a clean, brutal hook sending her stumbling into the table, knives and rusted tools rattling in protest.

But Aaron could see it in the way Kenny’s body swayed, in the slight hesitation before his next move, in the fraction of a second it took him to process what was happening. He wasn’t at full strength, wasn’t himself, and Mable knew it. She was waiting for it.

She grabbed Mel. Not to harm her. To use her .

Before Kenny could land another blow, Mable wrenched Mel up by her bound wrists and threw her into him.

Aaron watched, heart slamming against his ribs, as Kenny stumbled under the weight of Mel’s body. He twisted, trying to absorb the impact, trying to protect her even now. And that split second of hesitation—that moment of fucking humanity —was all Mable needed.

She was on him before he could right himself.

Rope flashed through the air. A loop. Tight .

Aaron choked on his own breath as it snapped around Kenny’s throat.

Kenny bucked, clawing at the sudden, brutal pressure. His body jerked, but his movements were sluggish, dulled. Aaron could see it—the moment Kenny realised he couldn’t fight this.

Mable wrenched him backwards.

He hit the chair hard, knees buckling as she forced him down, twisting the rope so tight Aaron saw the veins in his neck strain. Kenny thrashed, but it wasn’t enough. His reflexes too fucking slow.

“Ah, ah,” Mable tutted, moving around him to shove her knee into his chest for leverage and yanked his arms behind the chair. “You sit down. You’ve probably still got all those drugs in your system, no?”

Aaron thrashed wildly, wrists burning against the ropes. No, no, no .

Kenny should have won this. If he’d been at full strength, he would have had her on the fucking ground, bloodied and broken. But Mable knew exactly what she was doing. She’d planned for this. Who’d dosed him? Weakened him?

Dr Fucking Pryce!

It didn’t matter. Mable now had them both tied, helpless, exactly where she wanted him.

Aaron could have cried.

Mable clapped her hands together, vibrating with excitement. “Right, you know what we need?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She skipped off, boots clunking on the concrete floor, bloodstained knife swinging from her fingertips as she disappeared into the shadows of the warehouse. Aaron’s stomach twisted. The casual glee in her rummaging was worse than the violence. It meant she wasn’t acting on impulse. She was enjoying this.

Kenny twisted his hands against the ropes, testing them, but Mable had tied them well. Too well. He turned his attention to Aaron. “You hurt?”

All Aaron could do was shake his head. Then nod to him.

Kenny exhaled, forcing himself to still, to focus. “I’m okay.” He wasn’t. He was fucked. “Mel? Talk to me! Stay with us.”

Silence.

Then came a heavy, scraping noise, setting Aaron’s teeth on edge. Mable reappeared, pushing an antique wind-up gramophone across the floor, its wooden body scratched and worn with age. The brass horn, tarnished but still striking, gleaming under the weak overhead lights. She positioned it near the centre of the space, directly in front of them, then crouched beside it, winding the crank.

Click. Click. Click.

The spring inside tightened.

Kenny, ever the psychologist, read the room. He adjusted, recalibrated, and tried again. Calm but not placating. A subtle challenge laced in restraint. And his voice, when he finally spoke, was thoughtful . Measured. No false placation, no empty attempts at reason. Just quiet observation probing Mable to keep talking.

“Does that hold a special meaning for you, Mable?”

Aaron was just as captivated by this Kenny—the one who wielded words like scalpels—as he was by the Kenny who held him in the dark. He didn’t just see people; he unravelled them, pulling apart their thoughts, their fears, their deepest wants with surgical precision.

God, Aaron hoped this worked. Hoped Kenny could talk them out of this, pull the right thread, say the right thing. Because if he did—if they made it out of this—Aaron was going to kiss him like he never had before.

Mable stilled. She didn’t answer his question, but they all knew the answer.

“You chose this for a reason.” Kenny’s gaze traced the gramophone, noting its worn edges, the care with which she positioned it. His gaze lifted, locking onto hers. Not a challenge. An invitation. “The setting. The atmosphere. The song you’re about to play. It’s all deliberate, isn’t it? You want this to mean something?”

A beat of silence.

Then, slowly, Mable’s lips curled. “Of course I do.”

Aaron held his breath. Kenny didn’t react. He just kept going, keeping the reins of control loose but present, leading without forcing.

“Then why rush it?” He tilted his head, reading the micro expressions flickering across her face. “You’ve put all this together. The effort, the preparation, it’s intricate. Purposeful. You don’t just want a reaction. You want an experience. A performance worth remembering.”

He let the words sit. Settle.

Then, gently , added, “ And experiences like that… they take time.”

Mable paused for a fraction of a second. Then she lifted a finger and wagged it at him as if he were a naughty student. “Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re trying to not let me enjoy this. You’re putting a time pressure on me.” Her tone dripped with sweetness. “See, you understand the mind, right? The little neurons firing, the trauma responses, the whys of everything. You dissect people. Cut them open with words, label their wounds, put them in little boxes .”

She trailed a hand along the gramophone’s wooden surface, fingers lingering over it like it was an old lover.

“But me? I understand the art of it.” She tapped her nails on the gramophone, a rhythmic taunting. “There’s nothing worse than silence. It’s the death of a moment. The death of a performance. Of power. Without sound, without the right backdrop, it’s all just… violence. That’s what mummy used to say. Silence is abhorrent.”

Kenny watched her, unmoving. Then, finally, with the quiet precision of a man turning the blade inward, “Is that because when it’s quiet, you don’t like your own thoughts?”

The tapping stopped.

And for the first time in this entire, drawn-out nightmare, Mable’s smile didn’t just falter. It froze .

“That’s what your mother told me, once.” Kenny tried to catch her gaze. “When the music stopped, or she didn’t sing, her thoughts were too loud. She said, ‘silence makes the dark things sharper’. Is that what it’s like for you, Mable? When it’s quiet?”

Aaron’s stomach dropped as Mable pulled a thick shellac record from a worn sleeve. She blew dust from its surface, then placed it onto the turntable. The needle dropped . A crackling silence filling the warehouse, the faint hiss of static slithering through the horn, before the music played.

“You’re very good, Dr Lyons.” Mable swayed in place, moving in lazy, hypnotic circles, eyes drifting shut as if lost in the syrupy melody of Be My Baby . “But do you know what Mummy told me? That you’ve been obsessed with her for years. And now that obsession has bled into her son. That you fucking my brother is the pinnacle of your perversion. The thrill. The danger. That he’s just your little game. A walking, talking case study.”

“As with all things your mother says, she’s trying to manipulate you. Aaron isn’t just some thrill to me. He is everything to me. Because of whom he chose to be.”

Aaron could have cried. But the sweetness of the song seeped into the coldness of the warehouse like a fog, thick and sickly, ripping away Kenny’s words and replacing them with a twisted, static-laced melody. Aaron’s chest tightened. That song was a blade between his ribs and it dragged him back. To the kitchen. To soft morning light. To Roisin humming as she danced between cabinets, stirring pancake batter, pressing absentminded kisses into his hair. That song was safety. Love. Home .

And Mable was gutting it. Turning it against him.

Like she was doing now. With Kenny. With them .

She opened her eyes. Eyes that mirrored his own. And then that smile. Crooked. Knowing. Cruel. “Tell me,” she purred. “Does he call you baby, too?”

Aaron shut his eyes, refusing to give her the satisfaction of a reaction.

“Oh, no, no.” Mable danced toward Kenny, her tattered dress billowing, sultry, theatrical. “We can’t have that. We need to experiment. Find out if what he says is true. That he doesn’t get off on the danger of it all.”

She twirled, arms floating gracefully above her head like some grotesque ballerina, then let herself fall forward, landing on Kenny’s lap with unsettling ease. She straddled him, rolling her hips in teasing motions, curling her fingers over his shoulders as she swayed, eyes fluttering closed again and mouthing the lyrics, singing along.

“Open your eyes, Aaron.”

He curled his hands into fists.

“I said, open your eyes ! Or your boyfriend gets a lobotomy . ”

Aaron obeyed. But immediately wished he hadn’t.

Legs locked around Kenny’s waist, she pointed the tip of the knife at his head, then ghosted her fingers along Kenny’s chest, dragging her nails over the fabric of his shirt. Kenny turned his head away, a grimace smeared across his face as Mable licked a wet trail up the column of his throat.

Aaron’s stomach roiled .

Mable grinned, catching Kenny’s earlobe between her teeth, biting down just enough to make him flinch. Then she pulled back, tilting her head. “Kiss me.”

Kenny didn’t move.

Her smile dropped.

“I said, kiss me .” She lifted the knife, threatening the blade at the vulnerable dip of Kenny’s throat, teasing, playful, lethal . She leaned in, ghosting her lips to his, breath mingling in the suffocating space between them.

Aaron’s muscles coiled in silent agony.

“Kiss me like you kiss my brother, or I’ll slice you open and let him watch you bleed out all over the floor. What will that do to his already fragile state of mind?”

Kenny’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t flinch.

He looked her dead in the eye.

Then he kissed her.

It wasn’t tender. It wasn’t passionate. It was cold. Clinical. Deliberately empty . He gave her the shell of a kiss, nothing more than compliance on the surface, a hollow echo of what she wanted. Not a flicker of vulnerability. Not an ounce of surrender. Just a man doing what he had to do to keep Aaron alive.

Still bile rose in Aaron’s throat, and he had to look away.

Mable tried to make it last. Draw it out. Make it something worth witnessing. His lips were still, his body unyielding, a man standing in the rain without acknowledging he was getting wet.

Mable hated it .

When she pulled back, her smile faltered for a fraction of a second before she forced it back into place. “See, Mummy was right. You love the thrill. The danger. You want to kiss the devil and have him kiss you back . You want the beast to surrender under you.”

She dragged the knife down his chest, slicing fabric but not skin. The shirt fell open, exposing bare muscle and coarse chest hair, the blade hovering just close enough to threaten. She sighed, tracing her fingers over his skin, leaning in, nuzzling his neck like a lover. Watching for a reaction. Waiting for him to shudder. To stiffen. To show even the smallest sign of discomfort.

Kenny didn’t give it to her.

“Your mother is wrong,” he said, but his voice had lost its usual edge of control. “She’s emotionally fractured. Unable to distinguish between need and love. Control and care. She sees everything as a transaction. A game. So of course she’d twist us into something ugly.” He paused, eyes flicking to Aaron, just for a second. “She can’t understand how I feel. Because she’s never known what it is to love someone and want nothing from them but the truth of who they are.”

Mable pulled back, expression twisting.

Aaron’s stomach clenched. She was losing control .

Mable recovered quickly, smirking, rolling her hips against Kenny’s lap. “Oh, but love and desire aren’t the same, are they, doctor?” She sat back, eyes gleaming. “Oops.” She bit her lip in mockery. “See, I made you hard .”

Red flooded Aaron’s vision. A pulse of heat and fury behind his eyes. He wanted to lunge, to tear her away, to end this—

But Kenny only exhaled through his nose. A long, slow breath. Then, with a single look at Mable, he smiled, and his voice was almost gentle when he said, “You couldn’t make me hard if you tried.”

Silence.

Mable’s eyes darkened.

Kenny didn’t look away. Didn’t falter. Then, finally, he shifted his gaze away from her and locked onto Aaron’s. And when he spoke next, it was for him . “I adore your brother too much to even see you or anyone else.”

Mable’s grin twisted, lips stretching too wide, too sharp. Like a wound splitting open. Her eyes gleamed, feeding off the tension tightening the air like a noose. Aaron clenched his jaw so hard it ached, knowing what that look meant. Knowing exactly where she was about to take this.

Slithering down like a serpent, body liquid and slow, she sank to her knees in front of Kenny, reaching for his belt, unfastening it, the metallic clink ringing out like a gunshot in the suffocating silence. Aaron’s stomach plunged as he had to watch her slide the zip down, dragging it inch by agonising inch. A torturous unravelling. She hummed— that fucking song still playing in the background —and she dropped lower, palming Kenny through the fabric of his underwear.

Massaging.

Teasing.

Violating.

“Oh, he’s big,” she purred.

Aaron retched, pure, molten rage coiling so tightly, he shook, and Kenny flinched, recoiling from her touch, trying to shift away, but there was nowhere to go. His body strained against the ropes, muscles tensed to breaking.

“Don’t fight it, doctor,” she cooed. “Maybe you’ll like it.”

“You know I won’t like it, but that’s not the point, is it? You’re trying to hurt Aaron for something that isn’t his fault. Trying to regain the control you never had.”

Mable hesitated. Just for a second. Caught off guard by the way Kenny spoke, not as a victim, not as a man at her mercy, but as a surgeon peeling back the skin of her mind. And Kenny didn’t give her time to recover.

“I saw you. I saw you then. What you went through. And I see what you’re trying to do now. You’ve spent your whole life being dismissed. Overlooked. Used . But your mother is still using you. Even now. Getting you to do her dirty work. Aren’t you tired of it? You should be. Because you were a child . A child in a world that never gave you a choice. You weren’t loved. And that leaves scars. That makes you want to tear love apart. Burn it down before it can burn you. But you can’t, Mable. You can’t kill love.”

Aaron held his breath.

“You don’t have to do this,” Kenny said. “You don’t have to be what they want you to be. Not anymore. You’re free. You’re you . Whoever you want to be. Not what they made you. Not your parents. Those doctors who were supposed to help you. Not even Dr Pryce.”

Mable’s lips parted. And she blinked, as if a door had slammed shut inside her. But her fingers clenched, and she laughed, a hollow, brittle sound ringing through the warehouse like breaking glass.

“Oh, Dr Lyons.” Her grin returned, sharp and wicked. “You think you’re trying to save me again, don’t you? Like you did back then. Well, let me tell you something. You didn’t save me. Just like you didn’t save him. He loved the quiet life he had before you dragged him into your twisted obsession. Before you decided to dissect him like a rat in your little academic maze.”

A sharp breath. A twitch.

“And guess what? I loved my life, too. I loved the silence. The devotion. The rituals. The legacy. But you—you came in with your theories and therapy and love stories, trying to rewrite it all like we’re not who we are. Mummy says that’s the real sickness. Thinking you can change a monster into something soft. Thinking love means anything when it’s always going to end in pain.”

Kenny didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. Mable filled the quiet. And Aaron could hear sirens floating in the distance. That’s what Kenny had ben trying to do…keep Mable talking so they could be rescued.

“She told me the truth, you know. Roisin. She told me what I am. Not what society wants me to be. Not what therapists scribble in notebooks. She gave me a name, a shape, a purpose. And I—” her voice cracked with something sharp and reverent, “—I will make her proud.”

Kenny’s jaw tensed, but his voice didn’t break. “No, you won’t. Because she’s not proud. She’s using you.”

Her eyes flared.

“She gave you a mask, not a purpose. And you’re terrified to take it off. Because if you do…” He tilted his head, gaze unwavering. “You’re afraid there’ll be nothing underneath. Just silence. You. And you don’t know who you are.”

Mable snapped.

In a single, violent motion, she slashed the knife across Kenny’s chest, deep enough to make his body jerk, deep enough for the blood to pour, deep enough so Aaron screamed through his gag. The blade sank into flesh, carving a brutal line from collarbone to ribs, splitting skin like wet paper. Blood gushed, seeping in thick rivulets, cascading down his stomach in glistening crimson and Kenny jerked, a ragged gasp tearing from his throat.

“Yes, I fucking do !” Mable screamed into his ear.

Aaron convulsed so violently his chair rocked, lifted, nearly tipped. His wrists burned against the restraints, throat raw from the muffled, agonising roar. Mable took a step back, admiring her handiwork, and she lifted her bloodstained blade to her lips and licked it clean, dragging her tongue over the metal.

Aaron had never wanted to fucking kill someone more in his entire life.

Rage erupted inside him, primal and vicious, burning through his veins like wildfire. Yes, he was a monster, too. He had never denied it. But if he was going to be a monster, let it be now .

Mable sauntered toward him, eyes gleaming with wicked amusement. “While you watch him bleed out for you, I’m going to rip your broken heart out so I can put it in a nice pink box, cover it in roses and send it to Mummy.”

Aaron screamed, thrashing in the chair, face burning red with fury, veins throbbing as he lunged forward, restraints biting into his flesh. He needed to break free. Needed to get his hands on her, to tear her apart, to—

Mable grinned. “There he is.” She lifted the knife, the cold edge threatening his chest. “There’s the psycho.”

Aaron panted, gritting his teeth so hard they might crack.

Mable raised the knife, poised for the strike.

Then—

A blur. A shadow. A fucking war cry.

Something collided with Mable, hard. The impact sending her flying, knife skidding across the concrete with a sharp clatter and Aaron barely had time to register what was happening before Mel—half-limping, half-feral—slammed on top of Mable, a blade of her own clutched in trembling hands.

Mable’s shriek split the air, limbs flailing, but Mel was already there, teeth bared, eyes wild. Primal.

“You fucking —” Mel drove the blade down.

A sickening thud.

Mable screamed, the sound sharp, high-pitched, wrong.

Mel didn’t stop.

She stabbed again. This time lower. Deeper. Her injured leg dragged uselessly behind her, but she didn’t give a shit, and Aaron widened his eyes as Mable twisted, trying to shove Mel off, but Mel snapped. Clawing at Mable’s throat, shaking as she ripped the knife free and plunged it again.

And again.

And again.

Squelch.

Wet.

Warm.

The blade struck home over and over, until Mable’s screams turned into gurgles, until her struggling became twitches, until her body sagged beneath Mel, jerking with the aftershocks of violence. Panting, Mel collapsed forward, forehead on Mable’s bloodied shoulder, and heaved.

Aaron could hear his own breathing, Kenny’s ragged gasps, the faint hiss of the gramophone still spinning in the background —“Be my baby…”

Mel lifted her head, strands of blood-matted hair sticking to her face. Her eyes met Aaron’s. For a second, neither of them moved. Then her bloodstained lips curved into an exhausted, broken victory.

“Crazy bitch !” she rasped, voice shredded, before she slumped forward. “Why do I always swipe right on the fucking psychos !”

Aaron made a strangled noise in his throat, a desperate, broken sound, and Mel snapped back to life. With the last of her strength, she dragged herself toward him, bloodied hands fumbling with the knife, slicing through the ropes binding his arms. The second the restraints gave way, she collapsed, hitting the floor with a groan.

Mable was dead.

And Mel… Mel had fucking saved them all.

She spat on the floor. “Least she was right about one thing. No one ever suspects the girl.”

Aaron ripped the gag from his mouth, gasping in air, hands already moving to untie his legs. His fingers shook, untying the knots, but the moment he was free, he was on his feet—no, falling forward—his body still numb from the tight hold of the ropes.

“Kenny!” Aaron’s voice cracked as he stumbled across the warehouse. “ Kenny! ”

Kenny slumped in the chair, head tilted, chest rising in weak, shallow breaths. Blood soaked his shirt, seeping into the fabric, too much blood , too fast , and Aaron’s heart lurched.

“No, no, no —” He fell to his knees, hands already moving, lifting Kenny’s head. “Kenny, please, fucking please—!”

Hands drenched in blood, he pressed them against the deep gash on Kenny’s chest, trying to hold him together. Behind him, Mel stirred, groaning.

“ Mel! ” Aaron pressed harder into Kenny’s wound. “Get a fucking ambulance! Now! ”

Mel fumbled for something—Mable’s knife, maybe, or a phone—Aaron didn’t care, couldn’t focus, couldn’t do anything except keep Kenny here.

He tended to the knots on Kenny’s wrists, ripping the ropes loose, dragging him off the chair, then cradling him to his chest. He tore his hoodie off in one wild movement, bunching it up and slamming it over the wound, applying pressure. Kenny’s body jerked at the contact, and he let out a low, pained groan.

“Don’t you fucking dare die on me, doc. Don’t you fucking dare .”

Kenny’s eyes fluttered, barely open, the deep brown dulled, unfocused, lost somewhere between consciousness and the void. His lips parted, breath shallow, fragile, hardly there.

Then, in a voice so weak Aaron almost wasn’t sure he heard it, Kenny whispered, “Yes, I still love you, baby.”

Aaron drowned everything else out but those words. Kenny’s voice had never sounded like that before. Fragile. Final. As though it was a confession and a goodbye wrapped into one. And if these were his last thoughts, if this was the last thing Kenny needed him to know before sliding away into whatever came next, it was that even in the face of death, blood, destruction…

Even now. He still loved him.

“Don’t … ” Aaron’s throat burned. “Don’t say it like it’s the last fucking thing you say to me!” He pressed his jumper harder against Kenny’s wound, holding him tighter, refusing to let him go. “I need you to lecture me,” he choked, his voice breaking. “Tell me how fucking stupid I am. Be angry with me. I need you to be you , Kenny.” His grip tightened, dropping his forehead to Kenny’s, tears mixing with the blood between them. “I need you, lover . I fucking need you.”

Kenny’s fingers twitched against Aaron’s arm, the smallest, weakest movement, but it was something.

Aaron sobbed.

And outside, in the distance, sirens wailed.