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They call it therapy. I call it torment.
“But I also know how little to give someone to delay the effects. Just enough to let it sink in, to give us time for this . . . conversation. A slow burn, if you will.”
“Here’s a secret, my dear fiancé,” I murmur, my voice sweet like honey. “I’ve been fucking Klaus for months. So, I suppose we’ve both been cheating . . . just with the same man. Isn’t that poetic?”
You’re graded on a scale of one to five. Level 1’s? They’re the “safe” ones. The ones who still have a chance of blending into the outside world if they ever get out. Level 3’s might get into a fight or two, but nothing a nurse can’t handle. And then there’s us: Level 5’s. The ones they call the “criminally insane.” We get sent straight to the top floor where security is tighter than a noose.
Very mysterious heroine in a gothic novel.
“Sure, Rina. I’ll pencil him in between my lobotomy and shock therapy.”
Outside these walls, people believe in justice. In rehabilitation. They believe that places like this exist to heal.
I know better. I am not here to heal them. I am here to make them useful.
Patient Files: Eliza Marlowe & Theodore Graves Both are ideal subjects; their dynamic is already evident. Eliza is all sharp edges and resistance, and Theodore is meek, easily swayed. She thrives in defiance; he crumbles under pressure. A natural oppositional balance. The perfect conditions for control—for submission. For reformation.
don’t just see her, I feel her. Like a pulse in the air, a current under my skin. A wound I can’t stop pressing my fingers against, an itch deep inside my skull that I will never be able to scratch. I want to split her open and crawl inside—wear her like a second skin. Make her mine in a way that can never be undone.
“So reactive. So, precious. You’re going to be a good girl for me and get on your knees. As long as you obey, you’ll be rewarded.”
She looks so ruined. So fragile. Like a doll.
I don’t want to break her. I want to own her. I want her wrecked, gasping, ruined. Mine.
One. Two. Three. Breathe. Don’t think. Don’t feel. But my skin is crawling. I can still feel them. Still feel him.
I wanted him to be different. But he wasn’t. He was just like the rest of them. Men always take. Their disgusting greed makes me surrender everything to them willingly or not.
“You are mine to break, mine to put back together. My perfect little doll.”
The human body betrays itself when stripped of control.
warning. A reminder. “Breathe, Pet. Feel it.”
“But I’d rather burn the whole fucking world down than stay here another second without you.”
Dreams are dangerous. They taste too much like hope, and hope is a fucking sickness. But for her? I let myself imagine.