Page 22 of Lethal
“Stop,” she rasps, the tears sliding down her face. “No, listen to me, little toy, those tears are useless unless they’re made of joy. You have it in you to be so beautifully broken, so perfect for us, but you have to let go.”
“I don’t... I don’t want... I can’t,” she mumbles, and it fuels the anger spiking inside of me.
“Yes, you do,” I state, leaning in. “Say it, Doctor.Say what you wanted.”
Her eyes widen and meet mine, and rage, guilt, and something else, swim within them, something dark, raw, and desperate. “I wanted him to pay,” she whispers, and her jaw tightens with anger. “I wanted to see him bleed,” she replies, this time more forcefully.
I hum low in my throat with appreciation. “There’s the truth, little toy.”
Wren claps like a child, delighted. “Shefeltit, brother. Didn’t you see? Shefeltthe teeth... she felt the pain, the need to hurt.”
“I don’t belong here,” she chokes, struggling uselessly against the restraints.
“Youdo,“ I declare, quiet and certain. “You’ve always belonged here, you just don’t remember yet, little toy. You don’t remember that you belong tous, but it has always been there, imprinted in the darkness in your soul. It calls out to us, a beacon drawing us near.”
She trembles at my words, but not from fear, from the knowledge that I’m right. The straitjacket holds her tight, like a cocoon, and I’m hoping it provides her with some semblance of comfort. In my mind’s eye, I picture undoing it, just to see what she’d do if she were suddenly free. Will she hit me? Kiss me? Break again? Perhaps she’ll try fruitlessly to run from us. I won’t let it happen. I won’t allow her to go back to the way things were. I can’t permit her to undo all the progress that we’ve made. “Youwere sent to study us,” I say. “To fix us. To spy. But your cousin...Cecelia... she cracked before you ever arrived here.”
Her whole body goes rigid, her eyes narrowing on me, and her lip curls in a fierce snarl. “You don’t get to say her name! Shut your fucking mouth, Bash!” I ignore her, needing to push her closer to the pinnacle, so she’ll fall again, and maybe this time, she’ll remain in the shadows with us, and refuse the light.
“She was already broken when she got here. Halstead didn’t make the monster. Hefoundit. He tortured it out of her, and she became something new, something beautiful but pitiful. She was weak, little toy, she wasn’t like you.”
“You’re lying,” she seethes, her body trying to lift off the table, but Wren reaches forward and digs his fingers into her hair, pushing her back down.
“No,” I reply, my voice soft as silk, but filled with deadly intent. “But if you want the truth, you’ll have to take it like you took the shiv. No denials. No mask. No escape.”
Wren circles behind her now, fingers twitching near her shoulders. His breathing is loud and unstable as he murmurs to himself. “Rip the seams, sew the skin, stitch her mouth, pull her in…” His fingers dance across her strapped back, as if he were playing a musical instrument. He leans forward, sniffs her hair, and licks a line down the side of her face, from the corner of her eye to her chin. “She’s ours,” he says to me, suddenly sharp. “But if she tries to run...”
“She won’t,” I reply with confidence as she begins to whimper, the weight of Wren’s hand pushing her painfully now against the desk.
“Maybe I should cut her first,” Wren growls, “just a little to see if the inside’s as pretty as the outside.”
My hand snaps out, gripping Wren’s wrist hard. I stare at him, and I don’t blink; I let him see his death in my eyes. I guessI’ve made my choice after all, on who I would choose. “She’s not yours to break.”
For a moment, I think he’ll fight me, then he releases a pent-up breath filled with frustration. He laughs instead, wild and shrill, and spins away, sprawling on the floor like a mad jester. I turn back to her, to my little toy, and her eyes are wide, but she’s not terrified of us, not exactly. She’s terrified of herself, of letting go and becoming what she was always meant to be. That’s what I wanted, for her to feel all the emotions, and stop numbing herself. “Do you feel it now?” I question.
She swallows hard. “Feel what?”
I brush her cheek, slowly and gently, and she doesn’t pull away, instead, she leans into my touch. “Freedom,” I whisper. “That thing inside you, Doctor. The one who watched blood spill andsmiled. We know it. Weloveit. It will alwaysbelongto us.”
Tears fill her eyes and spill down her cheeks as she nods.A breath. A shudder. A fall.She releases the chains around herself, and lets me see the real her. “Yes,” she sighs. “I feel it.”
I lean down, mouth at her ear. “Good girl,now we’re going to both claim you. We’ll fill every part of you, until there’s no you and us, we will just be one.”
Ican’t move, not only because of the straitjacket, though that doesn’t help, but because they’re both so close, and they’re tearing at my defenses. The strong, dense walls I had built so long ago are beginning to crumble, and I’m unsure whether to mourn their destruction, or celebrate their demise.
Bash is kneeling in front of me, his gaze cool and endless. He’s a promise of pain and ecstasy all wrapped into one, a blade wrapped in velvet, just waiting to slice me open. Will I survive this night in their hands? Do I even want to, after whatI’ve just done? My eyes try to catch a glimpse of the dead man still lying on the ground, silent now like a tomb. I did that, I ended someone’s life, and I enjoyed it. The truth is glaring and impossible to deny. The monster inside of me stretches wide, impossibly filling every part of me, until there is no her and me, but just us, two entities that both understand that we must now coexist.
“Do you feel it now?” Bash questions, his tone not giving his feelings away.
I try to clear my throat, my mouth filling with saliva and dread. “Feel what?” I have an inkling of what he’s asking me, but I’m not sure I can put words to it yet. To acknowledge the harm I have once again committed.Another person dead at your hands, you’re a murderer, drowning in sin, you’ll never salvage your soul now, and that is glorious.
Bash’s finger caresses my cheek with a soft touch, one I wouldn’t think him capable of. He has been surprising me lately, revealing all these different facets beneath the serial killer persona. Is it the real him that I’m seeing, or the version he wants me to see? I don’t bother attempting to pull away. I can feel Wren stalking behind me, circling, muttering to himself, his footsteps soft and jagged like broken glass. “Freedom,” Bash quietly states, his breath skating over my lips, and my tongue slides out to catch his taste. “That thing inside you, Caterina. The one who watched blood spill andsmiled. We know it. Weloveit. It will alwaysbelongto us.”
“Weloveit.“ His words rumble through my mind, round and round on repeat, like a circus carousel. Are either of them even capable of love? Their past would dictate that impossible, and yet I’m no longer sure. They love each other and refuse to be parted, so why can’t they love someone else, too?Love me.I want so badly to be loved, and wanted. To finally be accepted somewhere, and stop hiding who I am. All the yearsof concealment, of masking my feelings, of living by others’ expectations, have weighed me down like a massive boulder tied around my waist, slowly drowning me. Do I love them? I’m not sure that’s what I feel; it’s more like a tightly woven obsession, one that I no longer want to part with, or make excuses for. They’ve helped release something in me that was a prisoner, and for that, I’ll always be grateful. Hot tears slide down my face as I nod in his direction, trusting that he won’t use my surrender against me.
“Yes,” I agree, “I feel it.”
Bash leans closer, his lips pressing against my ear, and a shiver ripples through my confined limbs. “Good girl,now we are going to both claim you. We’ll fill every part of you, until there’s no you and us, we’ll just be one.”
