Page 106 of Cruel Cravings

He’s always been my protector lurking in the dark. My savior who showed up when I was alone and needed him most.

Brontë sees me when no one else does; he cares when the rest of the world has thrown me away.

We share no words as he sets me down on my feet and cups my hand in his. It’s as if we’re mind readers as we turn toward the door and set off on our new mission.

Making every person who’s caused us harm pay.

I change quickly into the single set of clothes I have on hand. Some jeans and a flannel shirt tucked away in a dresser drawer, the only other piece of furniture in the room.

The hospital is in turmoil now—patients and nurses scattering, doors flying open, people scrambling to flee. But we don’t stop. We don’t slow down.

We emerge in the corridor disheveled and covered in blood as we indulge in a little much-needed chaos.

Brontë grabs a crutch we come across and uses it like a baseball bat, striking at the orderlies who had once drugged me.

I rush toward a nurse on the phone calling 911 and wrench it out of her hand. I wrap the cord around her throat and tug as she shrieks and squirms, choking more the harder I pull.

More nurses race toward the door before Brontë hurls a chair across the lobby and knocks a few of them down. Some of the patients seem to relish the chaotic environment and begin destroying the hospital with us.

Windows are smashed. Furniture is overturned and torn apart. Things like computers and purses are stolen as other patients laugh and dash for freedom still in their hospital gowns.

“You’ll come to regret this!” Nurse Hinkley hisses as she emerges from the fray. Her normally feathered hair is more ruffled than usual, a scratch mark on her cheek from where a patient apparently accosted her. Eyes narrowed in loathing, she starts toward me as if she expects to control me like she’s done so many times.

But I’ve had enough of her. I’ve been manipulated and gaslit and made to feel crazy enough to last me a lifetime.

No more drugging me. No more playing mind games.

I snatch a pen from the nurse’s station and cut off Nurse Big Bird before she can ever reach me—I leap at her and jam the ball point pen in her eye. Her scream is shrill and instant as she covers her face and stumbles back in horror.

I watch her recoil with a deep sense of satisfaction thrumming through me. “I don’t think I’ll ever regret doing that. You should’ve been nicer to me, Big Bird.”

Brontë finds me in the disorder and pulls me toward his side. He’s slicked in even more blood, telling me he’s upped his kill count. It’s almost like a competition between us as he peers down at me through the slits in his mask and asks, “Burn it down?”

A dark smile curves my lips. On the inside, I feel wild and untamed. More alive than I’ve ever been.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

The lighter fluid spills all over the floor as I pour it wherever I can. The scent burns my nose, acrid and chemical, but it’s nothing compared to the stench of this place. The walls reek of bleach and antiseptic and the decades-long suffering that’s been endured by so many. I’ve dreamed of setting fire to the hospitala thousand times in the dark, often in the dazed state I’d be put into after the sedatives they fed me.

Now the dream is reality.

Brontë moves beside me, steady and silent, as he douses the hallways on the ground floor. His breathing is deep and even, the way it always is before destruction. The minotaur, the monster, the man I trust more than I trust myself. His knuckles are bloodied from ripping apart this place, from wrenching the door to my room off, from tearing his father to shreds until he ceased to exist.

When we finish, we meet in the lobby. Brontë pulls a matchbox from his pocket, flicks it open, and hands me the match to do the honors.

My hand trembles, but not from fear. Anticipation pulses through me as I strike the match and prepare to watch it all burn.

The flame licks to life in an instant, hungry and bright. I drop it at our feet, and the fire races outward, climbing the walls, slithering up the stairwell, spreading at once. It catches fast, faster than I expected, and soon the air is thick with heat and the first tendrils of smoke. The fire roars to life, snapping and crackling like it’s alive. I feel it in my bones—the same wild, consuming heat.

The same sense of destruction burning inside me.

We don’t run. Not at first. We watch for a moment as the flames take hold, as the building that held me prisoner begins to die. Then, with a last glance at the flames licking up the walls, Brontë takes my hand, and we flee into the night.

We make it a few buildings down before climbing onto a rooftop, our breath fogging in the cold air, our bodies still buzzing with adrenaline. From here, we can see everything—the fire tearing through the hospital, windows exploding, the roofbeginning to buckle. The night is filled with sirens now, distant wails growing closer. But they’re too late. The damage is done.

It won’t be long before the entire building collapses in on itself.

I sit on the ledge, my legs dangling over the side, the heat of the fire warming my skin from across the street. Brontë is on my left, my protector even now, dutifully by my side. I lean my head against his shoulder, watching as the flames twist and coil, devouring the past.

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