Page 6 of Sour (The Wellard Asylum #10)

Dream pulled on a strand of her pure white hair and twirled it around her fingers.

She stroked it with her thumbs, obviously feeling the texture.

I couldn’t help but to admire her striking appearance.

The color of her hair nearly blended into the shade of her pale complexion and clashed against her dark hazel eyes.

Such a bold and eerie beauty. The woman giggled and began to braid her hair as she spoke to me with an all too cheery smile.

“We’re not all as depressed as you, Koven.

Some of us rather enjoy our little morning cocktails.

They help keep those naughty little storm clouds away.

” Her finger pointed to my skull as if she could see the dark thoughts hovering around me.

“You should really ask to up your dose and clear those clouds. They can be so harmful.” Her smile fell as her eyes slowly glossed over.

Her entire demeanor shifted as if she were falling into herself and down her own dark rabbit hole.

I watched her closely for a good minute or two before she finally spoke in a low and sullen voice.

“Without them, the world dims and all happiness just falls into this never-ending pit of despair, waiting to eat your soul and shit you out in a hellhole far worse than any of us could imagine.” Her voice trailed off as she stared at the table for a moment, stuck in one of her erratic spirals.

“It’s a pity. Imagine being stuck in the endless loop of despair and darkness, falling and falling with no end in sight.

The world passing you by as if you never existed, making you feel nothing but shame and self-hatred for ever thinking you were worth something.

It’s madness, Koven.” Her frame solidified as she sat there frozen like a Greek statue, captured and carved in a moment of distress.

“Dream?” My hand gently touched hers.

Her eyes blinked and she immediately returned to her overpositive personality filled with too much sunshine and warmth.

I watched as her dark pupils shot past me.

“Hey, who is that?” Dream’s delicate and pale finger pointed behind me.

My eyes reluctantly followed the direction of her aim, and the color drained from my face.

I had to blink a few times to ensure who I was seeing was even fucking real.

No. It can’t be.

The very person Dream was pointing to was the very person I wanted to forget. And now, he was standing across the dayroom.

I turned away and rubbed my eyes, as if that was going to change the reality of what was happening.

It’s the meds. Yeah, it’s just your meds. They’re playing tricks on you.

My head slowly turned again and, sure enough, standing across the room was none other than my fucking stepbrother, Ziggy.

He was real. And he was very much here.

“Happy.” His poisoned nickname whispered from my mouth and I instantly tasted the bitter aftertaste of it. I felt my stomach tighten as I carelessly watched the corners of his mouth curl into his infamously sickened smile. Thankfully, he was too preoccupied to even notice me.

Ziggy was speaking to another patient, Johnny, one of Wellard’s most sinister beings.

That man terrified the shit out of me and everyone else here.

We’d all heard the rumors of the many things he’d done, not to mention how he played with other patients like his own little puppets.

I never so much as breathed in the man’s direction, but there was something about him.

Something dark and menacing. You could smell the evil within him as it rolled from his depraved soul and seeped through his pores.

He was a person you’d pray would never notice you.

Hell, I accidentally locked eyes with him once, and those fucking irises were enough to give me nightmares.

Ever since then, Dream and I had done everything we possibly could to avoid ever being in the same room as him.

Thankfully, he stayed in a different wing than us.

Yet, here we all were in the same room. I guess it was only fitting that Ziggy would end up talking to someone like Johnny.

The two were oddly similar, probably drawn together by their sick souls.

But why the fuck is Ziggy here?

My head quickly snapped around as I forced my eyes away.

I had stared too long and knew if I didn’t stop, he’d see me.

The very idea made me panic. My body tightened as the hairs on my neck rose in a wave of anxiety.

I tried to shrink into myself and hide, praying to every god and entity I could think of in the pure hopes that Ziggy wasn’t really here and instead, I was just fucking crazy.

That somehow, I had slipped into pure insanity.

A prison like that, I could handle. Not one with Ziggy.

“Koven?” Dream leaned forward until her face was inches from mine and her chin sat on the cold table. “Why are we hiding?” she whispered with wide and curious eyes.

“Shhhh!” My eyes frantically stared back into hers. I swear my heart was beating so loud even he could hear it.

Dream was visibly lost, which was nothing new. “Do you know who that is?” she whispered. I reluctantly nodded my head. “Oh, do share!” She was becoming way too excited.

I made a face and shook my head. “No, Dream. You don’t want to know him. Trust me.”

Her eyebrow flicked. “And why is that?” she loudly whispered.

I picked my fingernails and hesitated before quietly explaining. “That man? The tall one with the faded blue hair? That’s Ziggy…my stepbrother.”

Dream’s eyes widened even more. “You mean Happy? The one who—” She motioned her finger along her neck and made a funny noise. I nodded. “But I thought he was arrested?”

“He was.” My head dropped into my hands.

“Last I heard, he was in jail waiting for his arraignment, but no lawyer would keep his case. I hadn’t heard anything since then, but no one really tells me anything anymore.

Dr. Sable stopped telling me shit ‘cause I was ‘hyper-fixated’.” I scoffed and rolled my eyes.

Fuck. What the hell was Ziggy doing here? And why didn’t Dr. Sable tell me or give me any kind of a heads up?

Dream’s long white hair sprawled along the table as she leaned in closer. “If he’s supposed to be in jail, then why is he here? And why is he talking to Johnny?” I shook my head and raised my eyes up to hers. She squinched her nose and pressed her lips together. “Well, why don’t we just ask him?”

What?

Before I could even think to breathe, the white-haired woman shot from the table with a cheery smile and skipped towards Ziggy.

“Dream, no!” It was too late. She had left me there all alone and I was silently panicking.

I couldn’t look or watch. I couldn’t bear the thought of him seeing me, not after everything. Everything had changed that night.

Fuck, I don’t want him to see me. I don’t want him to see me!

I put my head down onto the table, gripped my arms, and waited for some unknown doom to latch onto me. My anxiety made my leg shake as I closed my eyes and began to count to myself, digging my nails into my skin.

One. Two. Three.

I counted each number, pressing harder into myself until eventually reaching one hundred.

Fuck, what is she doing? Why is she taking so long?

Time seemed to drag on.

One hundred one. One hundred two.

My mind was restless as I kept counting. I eventually lost count at three hundred sixty-nine, fading off into a weird trance of reliving the night everything fell apart.

The vivid flashes of being touched and abused mixed with the taste of blood and pills.

I tried to block it all out, but the all too fresh memory of Ziggy licking his bloody fingers, wearing his sickened smile as he ate a chunk of his father flashed through my mind.

I shivered and instantly felt sick thinking about it.

No. Wait. I was actually becoming sick.

My stomach twisted and bubbled. “No,” I breathed.

“Not now. Not right fucking now.” My throat ached as I tried to force the vomit down, but it was no use.

The grotesque memory sat too perfectly in my brain, and just like that night, I fell to my knees and vomited all over the floor.

The commotion triggered a few of the more regressed patients, causing them to holler or panic while the rest gawked and groaned at the sight of me.

Most of the dayroom went silent as the contents of my stomach flooded the floor beneath me.

I felt the hot acid seep along my hands as tears filled my eyes and I cried out from the pain, heaving bile until nothing was left in my stomach but aching regret.

“Fuck,” I whined as my arms trembled. I had not only caused a scene, but as I forced my gaze up, I did the one thing I feared.

I caught his eye. And he wasn’t just watching me. Ziggy was fucking smiling.

I felt the room freeze in that moment as our eyes bore into one another. My heart nearly collapsed from the anxiety I felt. Ziggy saw me. He had his eyes on me, and now, I was fucking locked in here with him.

No.

“Alright, alright!” A loud, obnoxious voice echoed the dayroom and broke the tension.

My eyes retreated from Ziggy’s as the dayroom slowly melted back to life.

“There’s nothing to see here! Move on everybody!

” The male nurse stumbled over and stopped by my side.

He took one look at me and tsked. “Now, you want to tell me what the hell has gotten into you?” I wiped my mouth in shame while my eyes reluctantly raised to meet his, fully aware of who was mocking me.

Fucking Booker Jones. Or, as we all loved to call him, BJ. Nurse BJ. Just like how he loved to give us all our own little pet names. And the name he loved to call me by was—

“Get the hell up, witch.”