Page 32 of Lethal (Wellard Asylum #1)

I can feel the sun’s bright, and cruel, rays on my closed eyelids, a dull orange light that beckons me back to the world of the living.

I force one of my eyes open, and the room immediately spins, as a pained groan exits my lips, and fills the silent space.

I blearily look around with trepidation, and realize that the space is familiar, which helps to calm some of my immediate anxiety.

My neck is at a painful, odd angle, and my body is scrunched up on the small loveseat in my office.

I force both my eyelids open, and attempt to lift my head, while the sunlight taunts me like a knife through the slats of my office blinds, as if trying to flay the truth out of me, inch by inch.

Every golden beam is a verdict, every dust mote an accusation.

All of them condemn me as a sinner and a monster.

Killer, they whisper, and I know they speak the truth.

I blink against the sharp glare, as I force my aching body to sit up, but it doesn’t make anything go away.

As some of the haze begins to clear, I realize I can’t remember how I got back here.

The night dissolved into too many hands, too much depravity, and so much blood.

An image of the syringe coming at my neck, clutched in Bash’s hand, and Wren’s joy-filled face, slips past my defenses.

The sound of my own voice begging them fills my ears.

“Nooooo, ple... ase!” The drug they injected me with still lingers at the edges of my thoughts, like a deadly, heavy fog, and causes my limbs to feel weighty and awkward.

My last memory is of them, and that room filled with horror, misdeeds, and temptation.

You’re just like them now, tarnished beyond redemption, my mind seethes with accusation.

My eyes slowly lower to my body, taking in the blood that is still on my hands, and dark underneath my fingernails.

My coat is ruined, torn, and stained with a dried, brown substance along its surface, resembling rust. No, not rust, the orderly, his blood.

My stomach revolts against the images that attempt to replay inside my mind, and I throw myself off the sofa and force my body to crawl to my waste basket, where I purge nothing but bile up, and sweat trickles down my neck.

When I’m done dry-heaving, I slump against the wall, my shaking hands pushing back my matted hair from my clammy face, and then revulsion fills me as I realize I’m tainting more of myself with every touch.

I sit on the floor, slumped forward, wrists limp over my knees, like a marionette cut from her strings.

The straitjacket is gone now, but I still feel its phantom pressure on my arms, ribs, and across my chest, as if I’m still bound, as if I’m still theirs .

My skin burns and stings on my upper thighs, and I pull back the ragged coat, slowly and deliberately, because some part of me doesn’t want to look at my inflamed skin.

Their names stare back at me, one on each thigh, deep, ragged, and morbid brands of ownership.

The sight of them doesn’t make me sick, not the way it should.

I should feel violated, terrified even, and yet instead, I feel tethered. Marked. Chosen.

What is wrong with me? The clinical doctor part of me is screaming that I should get up and run from this place, that this is all Stockholm Syndrome, and I’m bonding with my abusive captors.

None of this is real; it’s just some sick illusion, to trap me in one of their manipulating games, the ones they played with their previous victims. My heart pounds viciously in my chest, and all I can hear is the sound of my blood whooshing in my ears.

I must report what I’ve done, so they can’t use it against me.

I should scream loudly that I’m the victim, and that they forced me to participate, and held me as a prisoner in that room.

I ought to disappear from Wellard, walk out its wrought iron gates, and never return, and let the cards fall where they may.

You’ll be running all your life, but you can’t run from what you’ll see in the mirror. She won’t let you go so easily.

I can’t stop thinking about Wren’s unhinged laughter, and the pleasure he took from me.

Bash’s voice whispers in my ear, reaffirming that I belong to him, to them.

The memory of the feel of the shiv’s weight in my hand, and the way it felt when I plunged it into that man’s neck, has my core tightening, and prickles of heat spreading along my skin.

Their shared madness should repulse me. It should devastate me that they’re infecting me like parasites.

I’ve studied this, I’ve treated it, and I know the signs of spiraling, of losing self-control, and giving in to baser needs, and now, I see them in myself.

I told them my secret, not the kind you whisper in confession.

Not the sort you write in a journal and hide, for fear of your childish sins being revealed.

The type that rewires your destiny once it’s spoken aloud.

I killed a man. No, I am now responsible for killing two.

Maybe not both with my hands, but I hunted one of them.

I hounded him until I broke him, and then I smiled when the noose did what no court ever would.

A memory of a meeting with Halstead weeks ago rips into my mind. He was sitting there, staring at me with his condescending countenance, his too-perfect tie, and bright white jacket on.

“Miss. Vaughan, do you believe that sinners can ever be forgiven? Heinous sins like murder?” At first, I didn’t know what to make of his question.

Was he asking from personal experience? Does he have sins that he needs forgiven?

As I weighed my answer, I felt the weight of my own sins on my shoulders, and heart, and I knew right then that there would never be any forgiveness for the sins I have committed.

“No, Doctor Halstead, I believe some sins tarnish you too deeply to ever be forgiven.”

I’m pulled back from that odd conversation, with the realization that I confessed to Bash and Wren Norwood my darkest secret, all my deepest sins, and they…

welcomed me. They looked at me like I wasn’t a monster, just one of them.

I felt, in that moment, a sense of connection that I finally belonged somewhere, and I still feel it now.

I press my palm over my rapidly tightening chest. The pain I feel is sharp, clean, and real, but it’s not there from guilt, no, it’s satisfaction I’m feeling.

The one I wasn’t able to dwell in when Thomas died, with his sins hidden behind closed doors.

“Who do you become when you stop pretending?” Am I pretending to be whole?

Pretending to be someone who can help the broken, when I’m the one who needs help?

I don’t want to pretend anymore. I want to live the way I was always meant to.

I want to give in to that beast that rattles the bars of its cage.

God help me, I want to be theirs, the Carnevil Twins.

I press my fingertips to my lips and realize I’m smiling.

I turn my head and get a glimpse of myself in my reflection, in one of my diplomas low on the wall.

The sight that greets me is terrifyingly beautiful, in a depraved way.

She smiles so brightly, even though she is covered in bruises, bites, and blood, a hint of emerald green catches my attention, but I force my mind away from it.

I don’t know when that started, but that’s not me, that can’t be me.

I don’t know where the line blurred, or if it was ever there at all.

I thought I came here for answers, for justice, for Cecelia, but maybe that was a lie too.

Perhaps I came because something in me had already recognized the Norwood twins as kindred spirits.

Something feral, dark, and ugly. Something hungry .

I press my forehead to the side of my desk.

It smells like polish, ink, and quiet desperation.

All the turbulent thoughts race back and forth through my mind, threatening to overwhelm me with a multitude of emotions.

Am I losing my mind, or am I just seeing myself clearly for the very first time?

I want to vomit, and at the same time, I want to find them, and ask them to hold me again.

I want to be torn in half, so I don’t have to choose between the doctor and the thing beneath my skin.

The worst part is that I don’t know which part of me would scream louder.

I drag myself off the floor, and strip the dirty, stained coat from my body, until my naked flesh is caressed by the cool air, and somewhere in the back of my mind, the thought of Halstead watching me shatter and remake myself, through his hidden cameras, whispers to me, but I ignore it.

Let the sick fuck watch, and perhaps he’ll be the next one I hunt.

It’s time I faced this new world, the one I have allowed myself to fall into willingly. I’m Alice, falling through the rabbit hole, and I don’t think I can go back to who I was. I need to know who I’m becoming, and how far I’m willing to go for them, and myself.