Page 32 of Lethal
Henry leans close to my ear, his warm breath sliding over my chilled skin, as his raspy smoker’s voice attacks my senses. “But it’s just getting good now, watch, you psycho.”
My eyes turn back to the screen, even though I remember clearly what happens next. The man lies bleeding and groaning on the floor, and my small hand rises with a metal shiv tightly grasped in my fingers.“Don’t lie, pretty doctor. We smell it on you. That little monster inside your ribs. The one that’s begging to escape and feast with us.”
“Take it,”my high-pitched voice demands forcefully.“Make it right, little toy.”My hand moves in front of my face, holding the thin piece of metal up, and I lick my lips, clearing off the specks of the man’s blood, and groaning at the taste. A shiver runs down my spine at the excitement clearly on my face. There is no denying that I’m enjoying all of this.“No one will know, no one but us, and we’re yours, your creatures, little toy. We will protect you.”
I watch with horror as I stand, my body shaking, and one of my hands begins to run over the skin of my thigh, caressing myself. My legs part widely as my fingers meet my folds, and I touch myself. A scream of pleasure escapes my lips as I pinch my clit over and over, the man’s blood marring my delicate skin.“Delicious, I can’t wait to feast on you, my sweet, fragile doll.”I moan and my head tilts backward, my eyes shut in enjoyment. My head tips forward once more, and I catch the moment the man’s swelling eyes open just a slit. I can barely hear what he says, but I watch as I fall down to my hands and knees, and crawl over to him, the metal shiv still clutched tightly in my fingers. I spread my legs wide and use my empty hand to spread my asscheeks, before touching myself in my sphincter.
“What a naughty slut you are, Doctor. Look at how your puckered hole clenches, awaiting my cock to fill it up.”The distorted words leave my lips, and a sob rips from my chest. No, that didn’t happen like that, they were there, I was never alone,was I?I try to close my eyes, not wanting to watch anymore, but Henry’s fingers yank on my lashes, forcing them to open once more. On the screen, I widen my lips obscenely before uttering,“Fuck, yes, my pretty dolly, swallow me down. You were meant for me, meant for us.”
In my distracted state, the orderly attempts pitifully to crawl away from me, and toward the hidden doorway. My head turns slightly, predatorily, and a grin crosses my lips.“Excuse me,Doctor, I have to squash a bug. Bash, fuck her ass hard and make her scream, brother.”I stomp my feet over and over on the orderly’s hands, chest, and face with pure enjoyment. Oh my god, what the hell have I done? This can’t be real, I... that can’t be me.
“Pay attention, Miss Vaughan, I do believe the best parts are about to happen.” Halstead’s voice tries to pull me out of the mirage I’m watching, but I’m too engaged. My eyes follow the movements of my body on the screen, where I proceed to fuck myself, touching and bringing myself to orgasm, and all the while it appears an imaginary man or, in this case, men, are touching me. Still, no one else besides the unconscious man and I are ever in the room. My body writhes on the screen, and moans leave my lips, over and over again.
“I want you to get some joy from the man who almost took you away from us. You need to take back your power. You’re not weak. You need to show him that.”My stomach flutters, both with ghastliness, and a sensation I’m terrified to name, but I can feel wetness coating my folds as I watch my depraved actions.“So needy, our little slut. Look at how she squirms, brother,”my distorted voice utters.
A tear slips down my face, followed immediately by another, as the Cecelia on the screen is on her knees with her legs spread wide, forcing an unconscious man’s fingers inside of her pussy. While she moans from the pleasure and depravity, as she begins to ride them like she would a cock.“Bash! I don’t want to share with him. He’s a bad man. He tried to take from us what is ours!”I scream, through the debauchery coursing through me.
“Please, stop this. I don’t want to see any more, please,” I beg Halstead.
“We are almost there, Miss Vaughan, so close to the moment when you became my creature, and no longer theirs.”
The version of me on the screen tightens her hold on the shiv, and plunges it over and over again into the orderly’s neck with rage. The man releases a wet gurgle, as blood pours from his lips, and trails down his cheeks. So much blood coats my face, arms, and chest, as I continue to ride his fingers until my orgasm rips through me, propelling my body to bow with a scream.“That’s a good girl. I knew you were perfect for us, my porcelain doll, just perfect,”mumbles from my parted lips.
The screen suddenly goes blank, and Halstead steps away from me. I don’t know whether to scream, beg, or thank him for not forcing me to watch any more of my insanity. “As you can see, Miss Vaughan, it was always you. You killed that guard all alone, you defiled him as he lay broken, and dying. No one else was ever in the room. Everything you have done for months, while locked deep in your delusions, has all been your actions.”
Henry releases his hold on my face, and wretched sobs rip from deep inside of me. Is it possible that Halstead is telling the truth? Has it been me alone all this time, locked in some break from reality? “Were they ever real or...” I can’t even finish my sentence, I’m terrified at what he’s going to tell me, but at the same time, I know I need to face this.
A bang at the back of the room catches my attention, my heart thunders painfully in my chest, and I dart my eyes in that direction, even though my head spins, and the darkness threatens to take me.
“We were always real, little toy,”a strong voice calls out to me from the shadows.
Iobserve Cecelia carefully as she shatters, her mind devolving rapidly from the implosion of reality, forcing its way into her paranoia, and the delusional world she has created, since killing her cousin, Caterina, months ago. I’ve allowed her to roam freely through the institution for weeks, so I could conduct my research unobstructed, allowing her to fall deeper and deeper into her insanity. One of my men has always kept a close eye on her, and cleaned up the messes she made along the way, like with Sullivan. It was lucky that Jason had been tailing her;Sullivan never should have gotten that close to her. The bastard almost ruined my work in progress. Who knows how another rape would have impacted her mental state? As I watched her on the screen, I was enthralled by the sheer power of her derangement. She truly believed that the Norwood twins were present with her in that padded room. She was beautiful in her self-gratification, savagery, and psychosis. The strength she held within herself, as she brutally murdered a man who meant her harm, and then took her satisfaction from him, was astounding.
I truly believed that she would be my greatest achievement, a mind so malleable, that it could be swayed to think anything I desired. Did I help feed her deadly delusions along the way,of course,but most of the work came right from her own mind. I allowed her to believe that I was the one who hurt her cousin, Cecelia. I encouraged her need for revenge, nourished it with bread crumbs of what was actually happening, and continued to push her forward off a precipice. Do I care that her mind will be utterly broken, now that I’m forcing her to face reality? No, of course not, it’s all in the name of science. Everything I learn from Cecelia Vaughan, I can apply masterfully to my next patient, until I achieve perfection.
“Were they ever real or...” Her voice cracks, and I hate that weakness I now see within her. Everything in me wants to hurt her, to force her back into the monster I know is just lying under the top layer of her skin. That is the one I want, not this pathetic, blubbering version. I lean forward, grasping her chin, and meet her eyes.
“They were always real, but not in the sense your fragile, broken mind believes. They never loved you, Cecelia, they were never yours.”
Pleasure fills every available inch inside my malevolent body, at the pained and devastated expression that immediately crosses her face, as my words hit home. I’m almost done playingwith Cecelia Vaughan, just a few more bloody slices, to force her to bleed out while I watch, and take note of what hurts her the most.
“What? No, I... I... please, just tell me the truth.” I watch as she continues to stare into the corner intently, as if she were seeing one of those despicable heathens now in their corporeal form.
“Do you see them, Cecelia? Are they here with us?” I question softly, needing to hear her answer.
“Yes,” the word is whispered with fear.
“Tell me what they’re saying to you, Cecelia,” I demand, nodding to Henry to loosen his grasp on her, and undo the straps confining her in the chair. I want to see what she does, will she try to run to them? Will her delusions tell her to fight us? I almost hope they do, that way I can inflict even more pain on her, and document the moment her heart finally ceases to beat. She’s so enthralled by her vision, that she doesn’t even notice Henry removing her straitjacket. For a moment, she just sits there completely lost, a broken doll, like she’s always claimed Wren Norwood called her.
A part of me almost feels sorry for her; she’s been handed a difficult life. Everyone who was supposed to protect her failed miserably. This was a cause of nurture, causing the demise of nature. All the abuse, and betrayal, that Cecelia Vaughan has had to endure in her short life, broke her fragile mind, leaving her in this state where I could easily influence her. While I was not the one to introduce the images of the twins to her, I did have a hand in suggesting it to her cousin, Doctor Caterina Vaughan, as a tool to help her engage with an almost catatonic Cecelia, when she first arrived here in Wellard. I supplied Caterina with all the images, videos, and files that she shared with Cecelia, of the notorious Carnevil Twins. Then, I sat back and documentedthe fallout, when both became obsessed with them, but in very different ways.
Caterina’s obsession was more with the fact that it pulled Cecelia back from the edge, at least for a little while. Her guilt, at turning her cousin in for her violent crime, and having her placed in Wellard, ate at her like a festering wound. Both women began to romanticize the twin serial killers into something that they had never been. I remember Bash and Wren Norwood’s time in Wellard Asylum; both were unhinged individuals, with no sense of remorse. They were vicious, violent predators, who enjoyed the chase, and demise, of their prey. I knew there was no point in even attempting to rehabilitate them, so instead, I used my time with them to focus on their unique brotherly bond, and manipulated it, along with their lust for one of my female doctors, so that I could achieve an outcome that could be useful to my research.
“They... they are telling me that they were always real, but how can that be?” Cecelia questions. “They say not to trust you, that you’re lying, and just want to hurt me.”
“They’re right, I won’t deny that I have lied to you, and that hurting you is part of my research, but you see, Cecelia, I believe that I’ve now gone as far as I can with you, there’s only one more piece of you I need to break, to complete your transformation, and document it for my research.”
I release her chin, her tears now coating my skin, repulsing me. “Look back through your memories, Cecelia, you will find the truth of my words.” I move away and grab the files that once belonged to the Norwood twins, the ones that Caterina used, to introduce their storyline to Cecelia. I pull out the photograph that I know will hurt her, like a blade embedding into her fragile heart. “This is who they loved, Cecelia. Not you, it was never you. Her name was Doctor Margaret Fergus, and she was theirpsychiatrist when they were incarcerated here in Wellard, more than twenty years ago, before you were ever born.”
