Page 27 of Lethal (Wellard Asylum #1)

S he’s breathing hard, not from running, not anymore, from crossing over, from becoming one of us .

The old straitjacket hugs her naked flesh tightly, its dingy white, thick fabric and leather binding her arms, in a cruel, immaculate knot.

I watch with pleasure as her chest rises and falls frantically, her face flushing a pretty pink color with every labored breath.

Every twitch, every hitch of inhalation, is another crack in the iron mask she hides behind.

The doctor is gone. What sits before me now is a woman, trembling on the edge of a very sharp, very permanent truth. She belongs to us.

She admitted it, the truth ripping from inside of her like a festering wound breaking open, and spilling its rot.

I’m proud of my little toy. Proud that she pierced the orderly’s throat without flinching, proud that she came on his fingers, and took back her power.

That she didn’t ask for permission, and that some corner of her, some putrefying, carefully hidden piece, enjoyed it.

My little toy might be close to panic. I can see it in her eyes as Wren crouches beside her, swaying like a child high on a sugar rush.

He hums under his breath, an old lullaby turned rancid.

“Button eyes and crooked toes, she cuts the throat, and nobody knows…” His grin is blood-smeared and beautiful, and happiness radiates from his pores.

His eyes shimmer, glassy and wet with too much joy, too much desire, too much her .

I keep a watchful distance just in case he spirals too far, and I’ll have to step in and be the one to stop him.

I can’t let him take her from us, from me.

I need her now, just as I need my beating heart, and I won’t allow us to be parted.

Wren’s voice rises high as he continues singing, but he’s too close to the edge. Dammit, I don’t want to have to hurt him. I haven’t seen him this cheerful since we killed our parents. “One little doctor sitting on a chair, kill one man, and they won’t even care…”

“Wren,” I murmur, trying to get his attention to focus on me, and not her.

He stiffens, just a flick of tension across his shoulders, but it’s enough to show me that he’s still in control of himself, and not the voices.

His madness recedes a fraction, the ocean pulling back from the shore.

Not gone, never gone, but controlled, tamed, at least for now.

I breathe a sigh of relief, my mind questioning which one of them I would choose, if I had to only pick one, and devastation fills me that I don’t know the immediate answer.

Her eyes flutter closed for a heartbeat too long, and I worry that she’s coming down already from her bloodlust, and loss of control.

I watch shame and anxiety bloom behind her lashes, now that the blood has cooled, and the ramifications of what we’ve done are settling in.

I can read the doubt and self-loathing filling her, inch by inch, and it makes me furious.

I want her free, unburdened by what she sees as sins.

That man would have brutally raped her without a thought to her consent.

He would have killed her here in this room, and left her to decay to protect his secret, yet she feels guilt for despatching him first to the devil.

My thoughts evoke a sarcastic chuckle at how ironic they are.

It’s not like I ever cared about the consent of any of my victims, but Caterina is different; she’s important to me in a way they weren’t. She’s indispensable.

Fuck that, I want her angry, so angry that shame never touches her again.

I need to cut that out of her, inch by inch, with surgical precision, and make her realize that she owes the world nothing.

She needs to stop fighting against her nature, and playing the role that society has dictated she should play.

My little toy has secrets, ones she’s hidden so deep, in hopes that no one finds out, but I will rip her open until they spill, like intestines all over the floor.

Once you cut them loose from the body, there is no putting them back ever again.

“Why did you do it?” I ask softly, and her eyes meet mine, but she doesn’t respond.

“Why did you take the shiv?” I press, knowing full well that we gave her no choice in the matter, but I want to hear her words, listen to her admit that she enjoyed her actions, that they liberated her.

She shakes her head, no, her eyes filling with unshed tears.

“You didn’t have to. You could have refused, you could have stabbed yourself, or one of us.

” Come on, little toy, tell me what I want to hear. Break for me.

“Stop,” she rasps, the tears sliding down her face. “No, listen to me, little toy, those tears are useless unless they’re made of joy. You have it in you to be so beautifully broken, so perfect for us, but you have to let go.”

“I don’t... I don’t want... I can’t,” she mumbles, and it fuels the anger spiking inside of me.

“Yes, you do,” I state, leaning in. “Say it, Doctor. Say what you wanted. ”

Her eyes widen and meet mine, and rage, guilt, and something else, swim within them, something dark, raw, and desperate. “I wanted him to pay,” she whispers, and her jaw tightens with anger. “I wanted to see him bleed,” she replies, this time more forcefully.

I hum low in my throat with appreciation. “There’s the truth, little toy.”

Wren claps like a child, delighted. “She felt it, brother. Didn’t you see? She felt the teeth... she felt the pain, the need to hurt.”

“I don’t belong here,” she chokes, struggling uselessly against the restraints.

“You do ,“ I declare, quiet and certain. “You’ve always belonged here, you just don’t remember yet, little toy. You don’t remember that you belong to us , but it has always been there, imprinted in the darkness in your soul. It calls out to us, a beacon drawing us near.”

She trembles at my words, but not from fear, from the knowledge that I’m right.

The straitjacket holds her tight, like a cocoon, and I’m hoping it provides her with some semblance of comfort.

In my mind’s eye, I picture undoing it, just to see what she’d do if she were suddenly free.

Will she hit me? Kiss me? Break again? Perhaps she’ll try fruitlessly to run from us.

I won’t let it happen. I won’t allow her to go back to the way things were.

I can’t permit her to undo all the progress that we’ve made.

“You were sent to study us,” I say. “To fix us. To spy. But your cousin... Cecelia. .. she cracked before you ever arrived here.”

Her whole body goes rigid, her eyes narrowing on me, and her lip curls in a fierce snarl.

“You don’t get to say her name! Shut your fucking mouth, Bash!

” I ignore her, needing to push her closer to the pinnacle, so she’ll fall again, and maybe this time, she’ll remain in the shadows with us, and refuse the light.

“She was already broken when she got here. Halstead didn’t make the monster. He found it. He tortured it out of her, and she became something new, something beautiful but pitiful. She was weak, little toy, she wasn’t like you.”

“You’re lying,” she seethes, her body trying to lift off the table, but Wren reaches forward and digs his fingers into her hair, pushing her back down.

“No,” I reply, my voice soft as silk, but filled with deadly intent. “But if you want the truth, you’ll have to take it like you took the shiv. No denials. No mask. No escape.”

Wren circles behind her now, fingers twitching near her shoulders.

His breathing is loud and unstable as he murmurs to himself.

“Rip the seams, sew the skin, stitch her mouth, pull her in…” His fingers dance across her strapped back, as if he were playing a musical instrument.

He leans forward, sniffs her hair, and licks a line down the side of her face, from the corner of her eye to her chin.

“She’s ours,” he says to me, suddenly sharp. “But if she tries to run...”

“She won’t,” I reply with confidence as she begins to whimper, the weight of Wren’s hand pushing her painfully now against the desk.

“Maybe I should cut her first,” Wren growls, “just a little to see if the inside’s as pretty as the outside.”

My hand snaps out, gripping Wren’s wrist hard. I stare at him, and I don’t blink; I let him see his death in my eyes. I guess I’ve made my choice after all, on who I would choose. “She’s not yours to break.”

For a moment, I think he’ll fight me, then he releases a pent-up breath filled with frustration.

He laughs instead, wild and shrill, and spins away, sprawling on the floor like a mad jester.

I turn back to her, to my little toy, and her eyes are wide, but she’s not terrified of us, not exactly.

She’s terrified of herself, of letting go and becoming what she was always meant to be.

That’s what I wanted, for her to feel all the emotions, and stop numbing herself. “Do you feel it now?” I question.

She swallows hard. “Feel what?”

I brush her cheek, slowly and gently, and she doesn’t pull away, instead, she leans into my touch. “Freedom,” I whisper. “That thing inside you, Doctor. The one who watched blood spill and smiled . We know it. We love it. It will always belong to us.”

Tears fill her eyes and spill down her cheeks as she nods. A breath. A shudder. A fall. She releases the chains around herself, and lets me see the real her. “Yes,” she sighs. “I feel it.”

I lean down, mouth at her ear. “ Good girl, now we’re going to both claim you. We’ll fill every part of you, until there’s no you and us, we will just be one.”