Page 44 of Lethal (Wellard Asylum #1)

T he sound of strange beeping fills my head as I try to lift my hands toward it, but something prevents my movements.

I turn my aching head slightly, and get a glimpse of thick leather and steel straps biting into one of my wrists, slick with blood.

My fingers twitch in the restraints, reaching for something that doesn’t exist, something safe, for them, the twins, but all I have instead is the frigidness of the surface below me, and the static buzzing of the light above me, like a fly stuck in a jar. I’m trapped! Bash! Wren! Where are you?

“Finally awake, my dear,” Dr. Halstead’s cheerful voice slices through the haze like a scalpel, his breath warm against my cheek, and his overwhelming scent foul with smoke, and something metallic.

Something filled with blood, death, and the rot that permanently inhabits this place.

“It’s time we open up that pretty little head and let the poison out.

You’ll thank me once I’ve freed you, Cecelia. Your slate will be scrubbed clean.”

“Jason, check the electrodes are ready and delivering,” Halstead’s voice comes and goes, as if within a tunnel.

My dull vision flickers like flashbulbs in the dark, and suddenly Wren is crouched above me, straddling my legs, but I can’t feel his weight, his blue-gray frantic eyes too wide as he stares down at me.

“I heard a bird escaped its cage,” he singsongs, tapping the side of his skull with one blood-stained finger. “Time to clip her wings, snip-snap, crack-pop! My dolly’s gonna drop.”

“Wren,” I attempt to scream, but it comes out hoarse, muffled, and weak.

Something in my mouth makes my jaw ache in pain, as it forces my lips grotesquely apart.

My tongue lashes forward, tasting the combination of rubber, and my salty tears, as fear pollutes me.

Bash is suddenly at my side, calm and pale as a marble statue, covered in beautiful, sinister artwork.

His eyes meet mine, and in their depths, I witness a deep sense of sorrow.

My ears strain to hear his voice, which doesn’t rise above a whisper, “ You should have attempted to flee when you could have, little toy. You should have saved yourself, and not let him in. The door to your mind needed to remain locked when he knocked, but now it’s too late.”

Tears slide from the corners of my eyes, and bury themselves in my matted, sweat-slicked hair, as Doctor Halstead chuckles, the sound low and indulgent, and causing the hair on my arms to stand on end.

He strokes my hair back with a tenderness that curdles my stomach.

Motherfucker, I will kill you! I scream behind the rubber gag, but it comes out as nothing but mewling sounds.

“You are something very special, Cecelia, with your fascinating delusions, and twin hallucinations. Your damaged mind has created two very distinct personalities for them, and a world that you could have never existed inside of, never mind survived. I’ve never seen a mind split so… symmetrically.”

Click. The sound is loud in my ears, and competes with the rushing of my blood.

I can’t move, I try forcing all of my muscles to strain, terror racing through me, but my limbs are cement, my muscles soaked in static.

I’m trapped, and at Halstead’s mercy, and that is the most dangerous place to be.

My eyes slide upward, and I get a glimpse of Jason looming behind the doctor like a silent sentinel, holding a tray of gleaming instruments.

Halstead lifts an item that looks like a combination of a small hammer with a curved end, and a sharp ice pick.

“This, my dear, is an orbitoclast. This will be an instrument that will change the trajectory of your life, hopefully for the better. That is, if you don’t die during the procedure. ”

The metal glints under the light, as he grabs it tightly between the fingers of his left hand, and comes closer to me with a small hammer in his right.

My head can’t move at all; something holds me tightly at my forehead, as I attempt to thrash.

No, please, no! I scream, only nothing but muffled sounds fill the room.

“Broken dolly, don’t fight, it will only hurt for a moment,” Wren’s distorted voice calls out to me, but I can’t see him in the blinding light Jason shines in my eyes.

“We’ll start with the left, Miss Vaughan.

That’s where you keep your dreams, yes?” Halstead purrs.

“Let’s see if we can extract the twins.” The metal glints, until it comes so close to my eye socket that my vision blurs.

A sharp pain breaks through my face, and it feels like it shatters.

“Just a little more, Cecelia. It will all be over soon,” Halstead croons softly.

“Breathe, little toy, please just breathe!” Bash’s voice screams, but I’m long past the point of listening.

My confinement forces me to stare into the overhead light, Halstead in my peripheral, and if I’m not mistaken, the fucker is humming a cheery tune under his breath.

Crack. The mallet strikes the pick, and there’s a thrust of massive pressure, a blinding pain like a migraine erupting in my skull.

It’s an obscene and foreign sensation, like something violating the back of my eye socket.

Then I feel nothing but burning, liquid fire threading into my brain.

I scream, over and over again, at least I think I do, as the world seems to still, and everything within me goes numb.

All of a sudden, a terrifying sound fills my ears, the sound of manic giggling, and wet flesh parting. “Don’t worry, broken dolly,” Wren cackles. “He’s just stirring the soup until it’s all mixed in!”

Bash enters my sightline, his face lined with strain, and his lips in a stern, angry line.

He leans closer to me until there’s nothing but him left to see.

“Just close your eyes, beautiful. He can’t reach you if you don’t look.

Remember, you belong to us, not him.” My body trembles against the restraints, spasming as I try not to look, but it’s a defeated task.

My vision fractures, then blurs, and the shapes melt into one another in a kaleidoscope of colors, before ending in a smear of nothing but white.

“Ah, the anterior cingulate cortex… mmm, yes, such lovely activity, and such resistance, your mind is fighting me, Cecelia. How delicious and wondrous, it seems you are stronger than I’ve given you credit for.”

Halstead twists the pick and pushes a little deeper, the pain instant and overwhelming.

I feel my body lurch as I vomit, and it slips between the sides of my mouth, and around the rubber attached to my face.

Disgusting warm bile coats my chin, hot and sour, and Jonathon leans forward, and wipes it away without any expression, like he’s dusting off furniture.

My heart skips and then stumbles, as if it can’t hold its rhythm.

I hear the faint whispering of beeping somewhere in the space that coincides with its sound.

Wren’s voice is like thunder breaking through all the pain and terror, except now he’s screaming, and not laughing. His voice peels through my skull, sharp and deafening. “He’s killing us! He’s ripping us out! Stop him, dolly! DO SOMETHING, I DON’T WANT TO BE TRAPPED IN THE DARK!”

Bash leans forward, his hands landing on either side of my face, with a tender look across his handsome features.

“You were always mine, ours, but we were never meant to stay. Come find us in the next life, little toy, we’ll be waiting,” he whispers.

Then both of them stand back and stare at me, as if frozen in time.

The orbitoclast slides out, slick with blood and memories. My left eye pulses. I smell burning, maybe just phantom smoke in my brain, but it makes my stomach lurch once more. Halstead’s malignant shadow leans across me again. “And now, the right, we are almost done now, Cecelia.”

I try to say his name, to beg to die, to be released from all this pain, even though everything within me demands that I fight, but my mouth is utterly useless.

It’s nothing but a carved cavity of voiceless ruin.

Crack. The pick breaches the second socket, and this time, the pain is less intense, and the numbness seems to spread until everything tilts, and the room turns upside down.

Nothing seems to make sense anymore; it’s as if a rainstorm has come through, and washed everything I know and feel away.

I’m barren, just a vessel for whoever Cecelia Vaughan used to be.

Bash and Wren’s sorrowful faces melt into static, then they’re both gone, just like steam evaporating into the air, with no sign they were ever here to begin with.

I’m utterly empty now, and the only thing left inside of me is Halstead, not just his tools, but his will.

He’s peeling me apart layer by layer, until only silence remains.

“There,” he breathes. “We are all done, Cecelia. It’s now time for you to finally have some peace. ”

The last thing I feel is a trickle of something warm from the corner of my eye, perhaps it’s blood, or tears for the loss of who I was, and the men that made me whole, or maybe both. Then, there’s just nothing .

“There’s our pretty girl , now. Time to wake up, little toy,“ Bash’s voice infiltrates my mind, and I force my eyes open, fully prepared to still be strapped down by Halstead, and enduring his torture.

Instead, I find I’m in the Wellard Asylum’s courtyard, sitting on one of the cement garden benches, and the cool breeze is blowing through the trees in a soothing, peaceful way.

I can smell the rich scent of the magnolia trees, just past the tall walls that surround the asylum.

Everywhere I look, there are signs of spring renewal and sunshine, and a sense of hope fills me.

I stare down at myself, and observe I’m wearing one of my prim skirts, and my favorite blue blouse.

My thick hair slides forward, covering my arm, and the shiny, dark waves catch my attention.

A sound has me lifting my head, and staring at the two men standing before me.

The ones I never thought I would see again.

The two I would do anything for, even give up my sanity, or what little I had left.

Joy and relief like I’ve never experienced fill me, saturating all of my pores, and a smile breaks across my face.

They move closer, until they take a seat on either side of me on the bench, and each reaches for one of my hands, intertwining our fingers together, until they have a tight grasp on me.

A sob of happiness slips past my lips, and my chest rises and falls, with the strain of keeping all my emotions together.

“You’re home now, Caterina. No one can ever take you away from us now.” Bash leans forward and presses his lips to the side of my head.

Wren lifts our intertwined fingers and kisses the back of my hand, his eyes meeting mine, and in them, I finally see the real him, not all the madness, not the voices that control him, just Wren. “Now we can eat together whenever we want, broken dolly. You’re a Carnevil, just like we are.”

For never was a story of more horror and woe, than this of Caterina and her Carnevil twins, and finally, nothing can part them.

“These violent delights have violent ends.”

William Shakespeare.

The End.