Page 8 of Sour (The Wellard Asylum #10)

BJ groaned and I turned to look back at him.

His forehead was busted and swollen, his crisp white uniform stained with Ziggy’s blood.

I knew he was probably hurting, embarrassed that a patient nearly knocked him on his ass.

He grimaced and pointed to the spew of vomit still on the dayroom floor.

“Clean that shit up and get your asses back to your room. Both of you!” He pointed to me and Dream.

“I don’t want to see either of you for the rest of the day!

You’re fucking grounded!” BJ hobbled his pathetic ass from the dayroom and disappeared. “Fuck!”

Seriously?

Two nurses scuttled over and dropped a bucket of cleaning supplies at our feet before turning their noses up and rushing away.

God, I fucking hate this place.

Dream and I groaned. We reluctantly did as we were told and used the supplies to clean up the mess.

I got down on my knees and silently scrubbed the floor, wiping Ziggy’s blood from the chunky vomit and bile I left behind.

Dream helped me, humming peacefully to herself while she cleaned.

A few minutes went by and I noticed her demeanor change.

“What’s wrong, Dream?” I asked.

Dream pulled back and sat there, on her knees, staring at the semi-cleaned floor. She kept her head low and whispered. “I…I lied.” Her words were low and filled with shame.

“What do you mean?”

Dream looked up at me with fog-covered eyes. “I said Dr. Sable wanted to see BJ because of a lost key. I lied. Dr. Sable never said anything to me. I only said that because I knew the whole key thing would make BJ leave.” She picked at her fingers. “Dr. Sable doesn’t even know about the keys.”

Keys?

I couldn’t help but to stop and laugh at her admission. Dream had lied, yes, but she did so to diffuse the whole situation. To help me. “You do realize lying is okay at times, right?” She blinked. “Dream, don’t stress over it. Seriously. Everyone lies.”

“I know.” Dream’s chipper attitude quickly returned. “Oh! I almost forgot!” Dream clapped her hands together cheerfully. “I have some good news.” Dream shuffled closer and whispered in my ear, “Lolita is finally healed!”

My smile fell.

Lolita was BJ’s nickname for Dream, specifically her vagina.

And Dream was one of BJ’s favorite…toys…

in the asylum, as he called them. Every chance he could, BJ would use his key to sneak into the rooms and play with his toys, whether we liked it or not.

Unlike the rest of the patients here, Dream simply let BJ have his way with her, never fighting back or saying no.

I asked her why she let him use her, and all I ever got out of her was something about how BJ had a tattoo that reminded her of someone named Felix.

And that every time BJ raped her, she’d drift away and pretend it was this person she knew instead.

Really fucked up logic if you ask me. But that was Dream, nothing made sense with her.

I knew BJ was abusing her, like the rest of us, but I never imagined how dark things really were between them.

Not until I walked in on Dream naked, sprawled out, and covered in blood on the bathroom floor.

She was shaking and crying, going on and on about how she’d upset BJ and needed to fix Lolita.

I was so fucking shocked by the sight of her, I didn’t know what to do or say. I just cried seeing her like that.

Apparently, BJ didn’t like how willing Dream had become and decided the only way to correct that behavior was to pin her down and cut Lolita with a scalpel.

And not a small cut. If that wasn’t sick enough, he proceeded to rape her after cutting her up, tearing Lolita until Dream had nearly passed out from the pain and blood loss.

And even then, he kept raping her. By the time I had found her, Dream was trembling, soaked in blood and tears, trying to sew her vagina herself.

She begged me to help her, telling me how she needed to mend Lolita or BJ would never play with her again.

How she couldn’t live without those moments of her imagination.

She was so desperate, screaming for my help.

I’d never seen her so broken before. So close to completely falling into insanity.

I knew then that there was something really wrong with her, but seeing her in such a way terrified me.

Whatever was wrong with Dream reached deeper than any other mental illness or disease.

“Dream.” She blinked at my voice. “Promise me something.” She nodded. “Please don’t let BJ play with Lolita. Just not yet, okay?”

“Why?” she asked.

I shook my head and sighed. “Because BJ doesn’t really care about you…or Lolita. He’s just using you for his own sick sexual needs. Plus, you need more time to heal.”

Dream blinked with an obvious look of confusion.

“BJ loves Lolita, Koven. And when he plays with her, I get to feel his skin.” She closed her eyes and moaned faintly.

“I really love the way his flesh feels. The way those raised inked lines of his tattoo glide perfectly along my fingertips. Such joy comes to me when I feel them. And BJ lets me touch him.” She rubbed her fingers together. “Unlike anyone else.”

My heart ached at her deep scars.

“Just promise to wait, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt…again.” I forced a gentle smile.

Dream eyed me for a moment. “Okay.” I exhaled with relief. “I’ll wait longer before playing with BJ, but you have to promise me you’ll talk to Happy.”

I gasped. “What? Why?”

Dream looked away and returned to scrubbing the floor.

“You two obviously have a bunch of unresolved issues. Plus, I never got a chance to talk to him myself. He seemed really taken by Johnny. I tried to eavesdrop, but all I heard was something about a cheeseburger.” She looked up as if staring at a thought bubble.

“Or was it a puppet?” She shook her head and her pigtails waved around her face.

“I don’t know. But he’s here, and he’s your brother. ”

“Stepbrother,” I growled.

“Nonetheless, he’s family. Not everyone has that.

You should talk to him, Koven. I mean, he did just stand up to BJ for you.

Took a brutal beating from him too. Say what you want about Happy, but that means something.

” She stared at me. “People don’t suffer through such pain without some kind of emotion behind their eyes.

Happy’s eyes are filled with emotions, Koven.

He’s drowning in them.” She blinked and shook her oddness away. “What even happened with you two?”

I sat there in silence, thinking. The last thing I wanted to do was fucking see Ziggy, let alone speak to him. “Things didn’t end well with us. He…I—I don’t want to see him.”

Dream shrugged again. “He obviously wants to speak to you.”

“I don’t want to talk about Ziggy anymore.”

Dream popped up and skipped away in the direction of our room. “Where are you going?” I shouted after her.

She spun around and smiled. “To our room. We’re grounded, remember?”

Fuck. That’s right.

I gathered the supplies and handed what was left off to a staff member before following Dream’s lead.

Dream danced towards me and grabbed my hand, swinging it as we walked down the hall together. For a moment, things felt lighter. “Hey, Koven?” she chimed.

“Yes?”

Dream stooped and spun to face me. “You got a clean change of clothes, right?” I looked at her and nodded. “Good, ‘cause you fucking stink!” We both laughed as we made our way to our room.

It was a nice reprieve from thinking about all the dark shit. Just me and Dream. It was almost…normal. And it would’ve been perfect if Ziggy hadn’t shown up.

Fucking Ziggy.