Page 36 of Lethal (Wellard Asylum #1)

B urning pain wakes me from the nothingness I’m trapped inside of, a deep, dark, chilling void that seems never-ending.

At first, I can’t tell why my body is spasming, all my muscles are tightening, and then I hear it, the screams. They sound like they’re coming from a terrified, wounded animal, who’s being attacked and ripped apart, and it shocks me to the core that they’re expelling from within me.

Pinpricks of light begin to expand my clouded vision, until the present penetrates the void.

“There she is, Miss Vaughan has finally returned to us, gentlemen.”

A large hand slaps violently at my face, causing my mouth to fill with a combination of the taste of rich copper, and bitter bile.

They grasp onto my chin and squeeze, forcing my eyes to pry open with difficulty, only to be confronted with a horrifying sight: Halstead.

He stands before me in his pretentious white doctor’s coat, with a menacing grin painting his lips.

“Hmm, perhaps not quite as alert as I would like, we’ll have to remedy that.

” His hand reaches forward, but from my position, I can’t see where it’s going, and then a sharp pain soars from the side of my neck, as he forces it sideways, before a wave of adrenaline and fire rushes through my veins.

“Miss Vaughan, you disappoint me. I did warn you not to delve too deep with the twins, did I not?” His slim fingers slide across my skin, holding something cold, and rubbing at my forehead before they settle in the corner of my eye, and terror fills me with the sight of a large syringe, and the thought races through me that he’s about to stab my pupil, and cause me to go blind.

“Mon... ster...” I mumble between my bleeding lips, and it seems only to increase his amusement, as the corner of his bearded mouth quirks upward.

A wave of dizziness overtakes me, and Halstead’s image blurs and distorts before recalibrating.

The darkness inside me rises and slams its corporeal form against the bars of its cage, demanding to be released.

It begs to be allowed to tear Halstead apart for daring to touch us.

“Yes, you’re correct, there are monsters here within Wellard’s walls, and I don’t deny being one of them, why would I?

In fact, I make no apology for being a part of their ranks, some would say even their leader .

I’m a firm believer that you can’t learn anything useful unless you know yourself, Miss Vaughan.

You’ll apparently need to discover that for yourself. ”

His fingers leave my face, and my head automatically slumps forward as if it weighs a ton. “What... have... you done... to me?” I question, and every word uttered is a painful lance being stabbed in my chest.

“Done to you? I believe that you’ve done all of this to yourself, dear.

” He studies me, like one does an animal locked behind glass at the zoo, and it frightens me further.

I try to yank on my straining arms that are forced above my head, only to hear a metallic clang, and realize that I’m strapped to some contraption by metal cuffs, chains, wires, and sensors, and my toes are barely touching the floor beneath me.

Frigid water drips down all of my unclad limbs, and pools underneath me in some sort of basin.

“Increase the velocity by point eight and go again, please, Henry.”

I force my head to rise, just enough to look around the room I’m being confined in, and discover who Halstead is speaking to.

The space is large, with dull off-white tiled walls, and overhead lights that are too bright, and painful to my throbbing head.

A slim, balding man in dark scrubs stands by a door, with a stern expression, and refuses to meet my gaze.

When I blink, he morphs into deep, dark shadows, with nothing but glowing eyes distinguishing him.

The floors are made of dingy, cracked tile, with some sections missing flooring altogether.

A large floor drain is located in the center of the room, with rust stains surrounding it.

Easier to clean up his victims, my mind supplies, through the thick fog blanketing my senses.

When I angle my head slightly, I see abandoned gurneys, and sinister-looking wheelchairs, pressed against the walls, that look like they’re metallic skeletons waiting to rip me apart.

No, that can’t be real, none of this is real, I try to reassure myself, as my heart threatens to rip from my chest in terror.

I watch as one of the wheelchairs morphs into a monster, made of metal bones and leather, and it lumbers closer to me.

“NOOO... STAY... AWAY!” I scream, but it doesn’t make the monster halt.

An enormous electric console, with a large man standing in front of it, catches my attention, and I risk prying my frightened eyes away from the wheelchair creature.

The man seems to grow in shape and size, until I’m almost certain that he has two heads, each with horns, and is glaring at me with red eyes.

What has Halstead injected me with? Jesus fuck, where am I?

Am I still even in Wellard, or have they taken me somewhere else?

“Ready, Doctor Halstead,” the demon with the two heads by the console says, his words penetrating through my dulled and dazed skull, just before a sharp burning rips through all of my limbs, forcing my body to bow, my muscles to seize, and haggard screams to tear from my throat.

Powerful waves of electricity surge through all of my nerve endings and organs, boiling them from the inside.

The stench of cooking flesh, and burning hair, fills the air, causing my stomach to lurch.

My teeth rattle together, and my head slams backward into the frame of what I’m attached to.

“Thirty seconds, twenty-seven, twenty-two, eighteen...” I try to hold onto the distorted male voice, calling out how much longer they plan to electrify me, but it’s no use, something inside of me snaps, and I feel my body slump, as waves of pain roll through me.

“I hate weakness, Miss Vaughan. You had so much promise and potential. I even allowed you leeway, which I wouldn’t have given to any of the others.

I thought you would be the perfect specimen, that studying you might give me some of the answers that I need for my research, but I see now that you’re no stronger than the others, and that my expectations have been misplaced in all my patients, the Norwood twins, you, Cecelia.

“ At the utterance of her name, I feel an avalanche of destructive rage surge through my body like an explosion. I reawaken just as the machine comes to a soft hum, and my body seizes with the dispatching energy, and still, even through the agony, I want to kill him, to rip him limb from limb, until he’s unrecognizable.

How dare this fucking monster speak her name!

He caused her so much pain while she was a prisoner of this place.

He broke her, and murdered her, and I can never have her back.

“Kill... you,” I groan, with rage and confusion, as his words replay once more in my mind. Is he taunting me with my dead cousin’s name? These games he plays are nothing but hateful torture. He thinks he can destroy me, but I’m not as weak as he believes me to be.

“Oh, I don’t doubt that you’d try, if you were released from your restraints, Miss Vaughan.

I might even allow you a brief respite to attempt just that, so I can document your actions, and how your body responds to my attempts to free your mind from all the shackles that constrain it.

” I can feel tears sliding down the raw skin of my face, leaving stinging trails behind in their wake, drool lingers from the corner of my mouth to my chin, and pools on my chest. I can’t force myself to meet Halstead’s gaze.

It’s as if deep inside, I know that if I do, I will shatter further into the abyss.

Something within me screams that we are dying, that he’s killing us slowly, bit by bit, until nothing will survive.

He knows who I am. It’s clear to me now that he’s known all along, and has just been biding his time and manipulating me.

I need to escape, I need to tear him apart, rip out his tongue for even daring to utter her name in my presence.

How long have I been here, a prisoner of Halstead and his henchmen?

Where are the twins? Have they not realized that something is wrong, and that I have been taken? Why haven’t they come for me?

T hey probably believe you ran from them, after what happened in that padded room.

They would have thought that you were too feeble to handle them, and perhaps they were right.

Look at you, giving in here. Halstead is right, you’re weak.

You need to fight, Cat, you can’t allow Halstead to break you!

If he breaks you, then he wins. All of this will have been for nothing, and you will never be free.

Another slap rings out in the room, and my head slams against a firm surface.

“Now, now, Miss Vaughan, we can’t have you escaping into your own fragile delusions, can we?

Please stay here in the present. We have much work to do.

Tell me who you’re speaking with? What images do you see before you?

What are the sensations that you’re feeling in this moment?

” Halstead demands, as his hand wraps around my throat and tightens.

I force my lips closed, even as my precious air is quickly evaporating, and my lungs strain inside my chest. Tell him nothing, stay strong.

If he’s worried about who’s now aware of his misdeeds, then there might be hope that he keeps me alive a little longer, and maybe Bash and Wren will find me.

“They... will... kill... yooouuu...” I moan.

They’re not coming, they’re not looking for you. They believe you have abandoned them inside the walls of this hell. You have to save yourself, you’re alone in this.

“ Oh yes, your despicable lovers , the Carnevil Twins. I must say, Miss Vaughan, I am quite intrigued with how attached you have become to them.“ He leans forward, his warm breath skating across my cheek, and his nauseating cologne forcing me to gag. “Wouldn’t you agree that it would be highly inappropriate, and unprofessional, if you were their doctor and having a sexual relationship with your patients?” If? What the hell does that mean? Of course, I’m their doctor, who else would be?

I’ve been seeing them for months. Then it hits me, the realization of what he’s implying.

Oh my god, how much has he seen? Has he been watching us together?

Why is he taunting me this way? Doesn’t he know that Bash and Wren will tear him apart when they find me?

“It would be such a breach of power and trust. Tsk, tsk.” He nods his head, but I see the gleam in his eyes; he’s enjoying this.

A thought squirms at the back of my head, one that I can’t quite grasp, with all the drugs racing through my system.

“Don’t worry, Miss Vaughan, all your misdeeds will never see the light of day, I’ll ensure it.

In fact, no one will ever know you were here. It will be as if you never existed.”

He releases his hold on me and takes a cautious step back, and I force my gaze to hold his.

In his eyes, I witness a type of unbridled madness that more than frightens me, it all but confirms that I’m going to die at his hands.

“I think our Miss Vaughan will require a little more enticement, perhaps another dosage of the scorpion venom, and then we’ll hit her with the hose again, and increase the velocity by another point.

It seems Cecelia here is hesitant to give me the information I seek, so we must pry it out of her, awakening her from her reality. ”

What a fucking sick joke that he keeps using my beautiful cousin’s name, as if he wasn’t the reason that she’s dead. Bash! Wren! Where are you? Please, he’s going to kill me!