Page 7 of Lethal (Wellard Asylum #1)
I slam the folder closed too fast, causing dust motes to fly into the air and tickle my nose.
My stomach twists harshly, but not from nausea.
From something colder, something more alarming.
Doubt. The kind that worms into my spine when I allow myself to breathe.
The kind that threatens to tear me apart, inch by inch, and leave me bleeding, and utterly shattered, on the dirty floor.
The feeling of revulsion that should be there, but is missing, replaced by curiosity and a visceral need to see more, feel what they were feeling, and know what they were thinking when they committed their crimes.
They’re becoming an obsession for me, one I’m not sure I want to part with, and that should scare me the most.
What am I even doing here? What if I’m not ready? This is supposed to be about her, but somehow I’ve allowed them to distract me.
The desk drawer calls to me with rancorous whispers, where the real file I managed to procure just today is hidden.
Not the Norwoods’. Not the one the board approved for her parents, and the public to see, but the other one.
The one with the initials C.V. scrawled on the corner.
The one that they said they had misplaced, and then claimed never to have existed.
The file I dug through the bowels of this insane asylum to find.
The one I bribed everyone I could for. The reason I’m actually here in this godforsaken evil place.
With a quick look toward the closed door, I open the drawer, and move the stack of paperwork aside that I had hastily thrown over it.
My eyes linger on it, but I refuse to open it here in this place where I’m already struggling with my emotions.
I allow myself a brief moment of weakness, as I run my fingers over the edge of the file.
My resolve splintering just a little more. You’re not here for them, not really.
The Norwoods twins… Wren and Bash, made me forget that.
Their larger-than-life presence takes up space, like rot in the walls.
Bash, with his quiet, intense eyes that never blink, and always observe every move I make.
It’s as if we’re playing chess, and he’s ready to checkmate me at any moment, but holds back.
Then there is Wren, who always smiles too wide, like he’s already heard the punchline, and I’m the joke.
His chaotic energy fills every molecule of space in a room, until you’re suffocating on it.
Both of them, with their traumatic childhood, broken homes, and endearing desire never to be parted.
All of it calls to me, like sweet music, luring me to them.
At first, I want to turn away from all the harm they have caused, but I steel my spine.
If these poor victims suffered through it, I can bear witness to it.
I can do this. I can wear this mask as long as it takes to find the truth.
Outside of my office, the asylum grounds lay dead, black, and filled with tortured souls.
The sounds muted by my age-old dingy wallpapered walls, and steel door.
Somewhere down the furthest hall on this floor, two murderers sleep or don’t, I never really know.
I don’t dare approach their room, needing to keep that distance between us.
We should put an ocean between us when we’re done here.
That way, we’re never tempted to return.
The thought rolls through my mind, and yet I know I will ignore it.
Down in the bowels of Wellard Asylum, behind a door I still haven’t managed to unlock, Dr. Halstead prowls his kingdom, like a high priest in a temple of madness.
I’m not ready, I know it deep in my bones, but I don’t have to be, at least not yet.
I can’t leave here, not until I’ve found out the truth.
Not until I see who Halstead really is, and not until I’ve looked the Norwood twins in the eyes, and don’t flinch.
With a deep, shuddering breath, I close the drawer securely, and pull Wren’s file back in front of me, smoothing it open again and forcing myself to stare into the madness.
Let them try to break you. You came here to find monsters, and now you’re surrounded. You’ll walk out of this place alive, but the same can’t be said for them. I will have my vengeance, and the walls of this asylum will run red with their blood, I swear it on all that I once held holy.
The first photo I pick up is labeled with the victim’s name, Francesca Nelson , age nineteen, the third victim.
Sightless, young, brown eyes stare up at me from the photograph, her pale, lifeless face permanently etched in fear, and pain.
I quickly pull out the FBI’s corresponding notes, and engross myself in what happened to Francesca in the last horrifying moments of her life.
Like all the rest of their victims, she was lured from a traveling circus that she had attended with her friends.
That’s where the ‘The Carnevil Brothers’, as they would later become known, first saw and interacted with her.
What was it about you that got their attention, Francesca?
Why you, and not someone else? I scan through the case information, detailing that she was kept captive for over two days, while they tortured, raped, flayed her skin and tissue from her bones, dismembered her with a chainsaw, only to cauterize the wounds, and finally decapitated her.
Her body was found, with the assistance of cadaver dogs, buried in the surrounding woods outside of her town, but not all her parts were recovered.
My empty stomach lurches, when I flip over the next picture, showing the portion of her torso that was salvaged, featuring her missing breasts, which were cut off with surgical precision, and are thought to have been consumed by Wren and Bash. Fuck.
My mind projects the image of the twins laughing with each other, as they took turns raping, and cutting off pieces of her, while she suffered through it, knowing that she was never getting free from them, and she was going to die.
Why terrorize her to this extent? Why rape her?
The medical examiner was clear, in his findings, that she would have still been alive when they flayed the skin from her bones.
That she ultimately died from the decapitation, and not the cauterized limbs. Jesus fuck.
Wren’s words come back to me from earlier, “I want to fuck her pretty mouth, Bash! I want to cover myself in all of her red blood, while filling her skull with my cum.”
Is that what they did to Francesca? My stomach heaves, and I have mere seconds to grab the trash can under my desk, as my stomach purges the nauseating bile from within.
When it’s finally calmed, I use the back of my hand and swipe angrily at my mouth.
I’m weak. A professional wouldn’t react the way I just did.
My strength is my shield, and without it, I will succumb to their merciless hands, just like their victims did.
A sudden knock at the door jolts me from my thoughts, and I have to swallow the scream that becomes trapped in my throat.
Fuck, get it together, Cat! You’re beginning to behave like your patients.
I should probably prescribe myself a Valium, the way I’m going.
“Come in,” I call out, proud that my voice only shakes for a second, and hopefully, the person on the other side of the door can’t hear it.
It is a nurse, fuck, I always forget her name, Elora?
No, that isn’t right, but something with an ‘E’ .
Shit, it doesn’t matter, just wing it. “What can I do for you, nurse?”
“Dr. Halstead is asking to see you. He has requested that you meet him in his office, located in the basement.” Ah fuck, that was not on my bingo card for today.
“Of course, I’ll just finish my notes on this patient, and head straight down.” The nurse nods, but instead of closing the door, she leaves it wide open, and I can see her shadow in the hallway. What. The. Fuck. How inappropriate, I might need to have a word with her superior.
Flashes flicker through my mind, of what I had done that put me on even playing ground as the Norwoods.
Sickness and pride wrap themselves tightly around me, overwhelming all of my senses.
I could be just like them if I let myself go.
I swivel my chair around, catching my own reflection in the darkened, dirty window panes behind my desk.
My eyes stare back at me, filled with sharp, dark daggers, my jaw tight, and lips in a straight line.
I appear to be able to handle anything on the outside, but inside? Everything is starting to crack.
Time to go speak with the biggest monster in this place.