5. Xander
CHAPTER 5
XANDER
SINCERELY, FUCK YOU – PARDYALONE
Flashlight swinging from side to side, the beam illuminates my path through the pitch-black night. The emergency lighting that offered a little reprieve has now failed, plunging Harrowdean into total darkness.
Ripley didn’t come back.
The fucking disobedience.
Trembling with a feeling I can’t put a name to, I left the medical wing after growing tired of listening to the others’ fretting. Even the meathead himself, Lennox, seems worried about his so-called least favourite person.
They both wanted to join the search party, but neither would’ve been able to navigate the war zone I’ve encountered while looking for Ripley. After only a handle of days, the institute is unrecognisable.
I didn’t think I shocked easily. Watching patients physically fight over food, scratching eyes and pulling out clumps of hair is the least of what’s unfolding. We knew it was coming. They’re turning on each other.
Scanning my eyes over the crowded cafeteria, I peer through the gloom at various faces scattered all around. Patients shout and threaten, arguing over whatever scraps of food from the kitchen are left.
Nothing.
She isn’t here.
“Woo!” A dirt-streaked blur goes screaming past me. “We’re free, bitches!”
Turning away from the cafeteria, I watch the girl stagger off, quickly deducing that she’s wasted. Alcohol is a less popular form of contraband—too easily spotted by staff. Now, along with raided nurse’s stations and riot fever, it’s fuelling the carnage all around me.
I already had to punch some delirious guy a few hours ago when he came at me with a chair leg, screeching at invisible voices. I have no clue who he thought I was, but I wasn’t hanging around to find out.
Sure, anarchy is fun. It’s a romantic idea. Then reality sets in, and the delirium isn’t so cute after all. The whole intoxicated, frat party atmosphere rife with explosive, unmedicated violence won’t last much longer.
I’d usually enjoy the chaos. It provides ample opportunity to blend into the shadows and stalk my next plaything. Oh, the fun I could have right now while no one is watching.
It’d be easy to find something soft and vulnerable to slice. A pure, untouched specimen, ripe for the taking. Someone who would cry and beg. Vocalise their pain in a sweet symphony of desperation.
I haven’t touched a soul since that night.
When she slept curled up in my arms.
Saucer-like, hazel eyes, brimming with tears. Tangled snarls of mousy-brown hair. Plump, perfectly proportioned lips, begging to be bitten. Her insults and protests turning into whimpers of submission.
My fantasies now have a face.
The woman I hate has become… What? Beyond fascination. Beyond obsession. Beyond everything I thought I knew and wanted from one of my targets. She’s no longer just a toy.
Ripley Bennet has drilled her way into my bone marrow, infiltrated my blood cells and set up shop like a parasitic infection. My interest in her felt different than this before. Intense but under control. She was a collection of cells trapped beneath my microscope.
When she snuggled up to my bare chest, pressing the tip of her nose into my skin, tickling me with each relaxed exhale… my entire existence shifted. It happened so fast, I didn’t see it coming.
I’ve never been touched like that—with gentle care and something akin to tenderness. In my experience, touch only brings pain. Humiliation. Degradation. I torture others to hold that agony at bay.
Without warning, my mind plummets into the black pit I never allow it to linger in for long. A place reserved for pathetic emotions. The weakness of a younger, smaller, more damaged version of the man I’ve become.
Walking faster, I head back in the direction of the medical wing, ignoring the way my lightly-trembling hand causes the flashlight’s beam to shake. The institute’s messy chaos is interwoven with lifelike memories exploding all around me like inkblots.
Mummy’s asleep, Xander.
Don’t wake her up. I’d hate to hurt her.
Revulsion writhes beneath my scar-striped skin at the voice accompanying my vivid flashbacks. I can still see the yellowing carpet adorned with a lumpy, striped mattress. The cracked, still functioning lamp lying on its side where I tried to fight back.
I always slept with that light on, terrified of what would happen in the darkness. It allowed me to stare at the newspaper cutouts of the latest 90s computer model tacked on my bedroom wall.
I loved computers even back then. I’d stare at those clippings through it all. Every second, minute and hour. Every night. Dreaming of the possibilities that my fingertips touching a keyboard would bring.
Technology intrigued me. I dreamed that if I could find a way to make money, I’d be able to run away. Or erase myself like the elusive secret agents I saw in crappy spy movies. I would never fucking return.
Shut up, brat.
I warned you what happens to boys who cry.
Over time, swallowing the sobs became a form of self-preservation. Clamping down on my wails. Extinguishing any protests. By the time my eighth birthday rolled around, I’d perfected the art of detachment.
Lost to the dark miasma clouding my thoughts, I trip over a length of bloodstained carpet that’s been ripped up. I brace myself for a hard impact, dropping the flashlight and sending it spinning.
“Fuck!” I smack a hand against the floor. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
The whole world is tilting. Morphing. Crimson-dipped and filtered through a furious lens. I don’t know how to hold this burden inside—the weight of thinking, feeling and caring about another human being. It hasn’t happened since I switched all those vulnerabilities off.
Wait… Fucking caring?
Is that what this is?
Sprawled out, the most ridiculous details enter my awareness. The hunger pains in my stomach. How stray pieces of shattered glass have embedded in my palms. The coppery scent of a nearby blood spill.
My carefully constructed world is splintering apart. I’ve built it to the highest degree of perfection. Organised. Controlled. Emotionless. A shackled reality, the impenetrable bars of my indifference keeping me safely imprisoned from the entire world.
“We have their attention now. I want all the mattresses thrown outside next.”
“From the windows?”
“Perfect. Wait for daylight so the cameras capture it.”
Voices snap me back to the present moment as effectively as being dunked in ice water. I force a blank expression over the torment twisting my features.
Their footsteps crunch through the corridor’s debris until they reach me. I peer up at the small group of patients holding flashlights. How fortunate. Perhaps I’ll have an outlet for all this distracting emotion after all.
“You,” I spit out.
Rick contemplates me through facial bruises and filth, his smile full of stupid confidence. “Xander, right?”
The son of a bitch beat the shit out of Raine not so long ago. If he hadn’t been shipped off to the Z wing, I would’ve arranged a convenient little accident for him instead. He got off lightly.
“Correct. I was under the impression you were dead.”
He shrugs casually. “Not quite.”
“How unfortunate.”
Sneering, he shares looks with his two friends. “Unfortunate?”
“For you, yes.”
I don’t recognise the patients with him, though the visible signs of torture and the dead look in their eyes are familiar. More of Incendia’s little experiments. Ripley and Lennox clearly didn’t escape the Z wing alone.
I know what this asshole did to her. So why didn’t she leave him there to die? Yet another detail she’s failed to share. Rage crystallises into an ice-cold shard that slices through my chest.
“Where is she?”
“Who?” Rick laughs.
Jump. Slice. Stab.
The temptation is strong.
“Ripley.” I force a calm tone.
The amusement written across his face causes my teeth to grind in irritation. He can smirk all he likes. It won’t change the satisfaction that slitting his throat will give me.
“Why do you assume I would know?” he retorts.
My blood boils. “Did you enjoy carving those marks into her?”
Rick’s eyes flash with surprise. I knew Ripley wouldn’t admit who hurt her; she has too much pride for that. The truth was easy to pry out of Raine’s mouth, though.
“I’m far too busy cleaning up Ripley’s mess to follow her around like the rest of you.” His nose wrinkles in derision. “Look at you. Didn’t take much for her to wrap you around her finger.”
“What gave you that impression?”
He waves a hand over me, visibly dishevelled and sprawled out. “Not your best look.”
Teeth gritted, I climb to my feet. “Perhaps go have a shower before commenting on my appearance.”
I narrow my eyes at the male patient on Rick’s right side who is eyeing me like a piece of meat he’d happily pummel.
“You want to call your attack dog off?” I gesture to him.
“Oh, don’t mind him. He’s just… focused . ” Rick casts his friend a smile. “We all want the same thing. You included.”
“And what’s that?”
“To see the institutes and Incendia burn,” the female patient supplies. “Starting with Harrowdean.”
Laughter rips out of me. “Why would I want that?”
All three of them gape, their silence punctuated by the loud chaos unfolding all around us. Anarchy has resumed, peppered with smashing glass and screeching.
“You think this means anything?” I gesture around at the people running wild. “This little rebellion of yours won’t last.”
“Is that what you want?” Rick’s lip curls. “You think Ripley will return to her seat of power once we’ve all been eliminated? Maybe she’ll toss you some scraps of attention, huh?”
“I have no interest in what Ripley does when this is all over.”
Lies.
Swallowing my tongue to keep my composure, I stand firm as he runs his disgusting eyes all over me. The black shirt I located is short-sleeved, revealing layers of shiny scar tissue that he openly peruses.
“I suppose I did her a favour,” he muses. “Her scars match yours now. You two freaks can compare notes.”
“You touched something that doesn’t belong to you,” I spit venomously, my hands balled into fists by my sides.
“No, I simply made sure she’ll never be able to forget what she did here.”
My brain misfires with the surge of scorching-hot anger that barrels through me. I find myself leaping into his personal space before my common sense comes back online.
We’re chest-to-chest with nothing but anger and violent threat trapped between us. All I see is red, causing my momentary calm to implode.
“For every mark you left on her skin, I’ll break one bone. Would you care to choose which?”
Whatever Rick reads in my expression causes him to falter. He looks around for support, but his new friends don’t jump to his rescue. Both look intrigued. Seems like loyalty only runs so deep.
“But… she—” he splutters.
“Never mind,” I interrupt.
“Wait!”
“Too late. Dealer’s choice.”
My curled first snaps outward to connect with his face. I lavish the sight of his nose exploding into bloody fireworks upon impact. The lurid red splats coating his shocked face are mesmerising.
I wonder what the blood would look like spilling from his broken skull. Shards of bone and soft, squelchy tissue floating in the remains. He wouldn’t lay another finger on Ripley then. Not without his head intact.
Bringing my knee up to smash into his stomach, I wait for his pained wheeze before punching him again. Over and over. The pain slicing across my knuckles is an exquisite shot of pure adrenaline. Heavenly.
His friends stand there, shuffling their feet like they’re stuck watching an uninteresting theatre performance. Neither moves to intervene.
“Tell me, did you scream and beg for mercy when their experiments began?” I ask conversationally.
Punch. Crack. Ooze.
“Perhaps you prayed for someone to come to save you from the big, bad doctor.”
Smack. Crunch. Splat.
“Truthfully? You should’ve stayed down there.” I laugh loudly. “It would’ve been safer.”
Thwack. Grind. Squirt.
His attempts to fight back are feeble at best. Inconsequential. I’ve switched gears and slotted into a less-visited corner of my mind. The primitive part that embraced violence and strength to endure the same torture he did.
The pain of each blow is insignificant. My tired muscles protesting. Stomach growling. Head pounding with exhaustion. Human weakness wasn’t allowed in Priory Lane, so I quickly learned how to block it out.
Pausing, I hold him by the throat, watching the crimson rivulets spill over his cheeks. “At least down there, you were safe from me.”
With a final, bone-grinding hit, I toss his unconscious carcass to the floor. Rick rolls through debris and sharp glass, a wet rattle pushing past his lips. Disappointing. I’d hoped he would beg before passing out.
As satisfying as it would be to bleed the bastard dry, a part of me is curious to see how many pieces Bancroft and his organisation will cut him into as punishment for leading the riot.
I look up at the two patients standing there watching the show, a single brow raised. Still neither moves to attack.
“This piece of shit is going to get himself killed when the authorities decide to intervene. Unless you’d like to join him, I suggest you consider your options.”
“Options?” the female patient repeats. “We’re here to fight.”
“We know the truth about the real experimental program. Incendia will target us first when the riot ends.”
“You weren’t with us.” She pulls her head back in confusion.
“Not in Harrowdean,” I correct with a shrug. “But every institute in the country has a Z wing program.”
Her eyes widen as she seems to view me in a new light. Even her close-mouthed friend seems thoughtful. Regardless of our choices, we’re facing the same threat. Total fucking annihilation.
“This is bigger than all of us.” I look between them. “Your pathetic riot means nothing to a multi-million pound corporation.”
Colour drains from the female patient’s face, making her bruises and visible injuries stand out. Her bravado is vanishing faster than our chances of survival.
“Do you really think we’ll be rescued and released like this asshole is saying?”
“Well… The others… He…” she struggles. “We have hostages!”
The woman is as stupid as the rest of these morons, skipping around with their unearthed contraband and makeshift weapons, thinking this is some kind of game. It’s laughable.
“The only reason management hasn’t stormed Harrowdean and wiped us out is the media attention. When that dies down, they’ll bring in the bulldozers.”
Their posture changes—both seeming to shirk away from the writhing bag of organs at my feet.
“Or are you dumb enough to think Harrowdean will change?” I roll my eyes. “Perhaps they’ll listen to your demands? Or let you skip off into the sunset and rebuild your lives?”
The more I speak, the further their unease seems to spread. Even Mr Silent is glancing at our surroundings and shifting on his feet. My words have made an impact. Good.
“Do what you want. It makes no difference to me.” I draw my leg back to boot Rick in the ribs for good measure. “But think twice before throwing your weight behind this scum.”
Dismissing them with a terse nod, I continue on to the medical wing to regroup. I’ve scooped up my dropped flashlight and taken a few steps from Rick when I set sights on her.
My lungs twist and knot. Oxygen collects in my oesophagus, burning hotter than trapped lava. Resting against the wall, Ripley is watching the interaction from afar, safe and fucking sound.
Relief swims through me.
Sweet, blissful relief.
My blood doesn’t freeze solid in my veins like it used to at the sight of her. Those sad doe eyes and teeth-baring hisses used to be the equivalent of a cold plunge in liquid nitrogen. Enough to send my soul running for the hills to make way for my blood thirst.
Vulnerable. Lonely. Angry. Hate-filled. The most perplexing combination of something so delicate and breakable yet reinforced with a pain-forged strength. I longed to break the last of her resolve.
Just like he once broke mine.
But not now.
Now… I want to bathe in her strength and formidability. To wipe the horrors from her gaze and soothe the pain that others have inflicted. She’s mine to hurt. Mine to own. Mine to fucking cherish .
Standing on opposite ends of the corridor, we stare at each other. Two predators, sizing the other up, calculating the possibility of a quick kill. But… no, that isn’t right at all. It isn’t hatred I see burning in her eyes.
With long strides, I close the distance between us, halting with our noses mere inches apart. Her eyes are wide and glimmering through the dark bruises ringing them, fading from black to lightning-streaked purple.
“Where have you been?” My voice seeps with frustration.
“Why do you care, Xan?” she replies smoothly. “Worried I’ll make a rash decision?”
Rather than strangle her black-and-blue throat like I’m longing to do, I brace a hand either side of her head. Seeing her whole and unharmed allows me to draw my first full breath since she disappeared.
I’m sucked into her orbit. Tumbling through a bottomless wormhole into the unknown emptiness beyond my line of sight. If I’m not careful, I’ll lose myself along the way. Perhaps that would also be a relief.
“I didn’t begrudge your rash decision the night we slept together.”
“You restrained me and held a knife to my throat,” Ripley snarks.
“Yet my little toy still shivered at my touch and begged for more.”
I lean into her space, dragging the tip of my nose up her throat and neck. She shivers against me, a whispered moan daring to break free when I trace the tip of my tongue behind her left earlobe.
“In fact, I think you begged me to fuck you.” My lips follow her ear’s curvature, leaving a featherlight trail. “Tell me, do I have to beg you in return now?”
Her body arches against the wall, pressing her round curves into me. “Hmm. The great Xander Beck begging?”
Sucked into the bottomless, hazel pits peering up at me, I don’t bother to cushion the inevitable fall. I’ll crash land in the innermost parts of her being and happily break every bone in the process. As long as I can stay there.
Seeing her disappear into thin air reacquainted me with an old nemesis. Fear. And fuck if the idea of losing whatever we are now feels far scarier than the emotions she’s reigniting within me.
I lick my lips. “Yes. I’d beg for you.”
“Me?” She drags in a shaky breath.
“Your acceptance.” Blind hope forces me to keep going. “Maybe even your forgiveness.”
Searching my face for any hint of deception, Ripley’s brows crinkle. “You think I could ever forgive you?”
I raise a hand, vaguely noting the way she no longer flinches in my presence. Not a single hint of revulsion as I trace my pointer finger across her lips to map the kissable swell.
How would it feel to be touched by her?
Held by her?
Perhaps… even loved by her?
I don’t know what that’s like. My mother loved her bottles of cheap, supermarket liquor far more than she ever loved me. I doubt she even loved the monster she allowed into our home. And there was certainly no love in the string of foster homes that came after.
Before Ripley entered my life, I’d never been gently touched. Held. Cherished. At least not without the expectation of pain. I have no clue how to earn her affections rather than plotting how to cause her pain.
“I doubt Lennox would be alive now if you hadn’t forgiven him,” I point out. “Why else did you save his life?”
“Because I’m not you.”
A smile pulls at my mouth. “Perhaps we’re not the people you think we are either.”
Still pressing into me, whether consciously or not, she speaks a thousand words with her body language alone. Her grimace deepens as she wrestles with the words she doesn’t want to say aloud.
“I want to believe that,” Ripley finally admits. “I want to stop seeing the triumph on your face when they wheeled my best friend’s body away. I want to forget.”
“Can you forget?”
Her lips pucker and roll. “I don’t know.”
Flush with anticipation, I can’t stop myself from acting on pure instinct. She’s slipping through my fingertips. I can’t have that. Whether she accepts it or not, Ripley Bennet belongs to me. She has for longer than either of us realised.
My mouth strikes hers without the pleasantries of a gentle reintroduction. I don’t intend to entice her with some long, elaborate scheme—I want her to fucking submit. To accept the sick bond that’s grown between us and join me in the torment.
I still want to own her. Break her. Shatter every last recognisable piece. But I also want to help her put those pieces together again. Her pain is no longer my obsession; instead, her will to survive against the odds is.
She hesitates for a moment before responding to my kiss. I wouldn’t begrudge her punching me. Last time I touched her, we collided violently. Her response is no less rough as she bites my bottom lip.
I lift a hand to her short curls and seize a handful. Ripley moans into my mouth when I sharply tug, positioning her head to devour her at a deeper angle. Her lips take the brunt of my determination, smacking together with each kiss.
Her body writhes against mine, trapped between my onslaught and the hard wall with no room to escape. I grind into her soft curves, my cock hardening at the feel of each rounded angle.
Gripping her ass tight, she’s pinned to my chest. I want her to feel the effect she has on me. A mere taste and I’m harder than steel. The sight of her crying out in ecstasy the night I saved her life has haunted me since.
I want that again.
I want her.
I’m ready to admit that.
Her desperate moans increase as I thrust my tongue past her lips, branding her mouth as mine. Our teeth clang. Lips wrestle. Breath intwines. The institute and all its madness fades into the background.
BANG.
Screams follow the loud crash. Ripley tears her mouth from mine, immediately on high alert. Two bickering patients race down the corridor, chasing each other to continue trading blows.
“Shit.” She touches her swollen lips, stained an exquisite shade of cherry red. “We should move.”
All I want is to bend her tight little ass over and roughly plough into her sweet cunt until she cries out my name in surrender. I swallow deeply and force myself to breathe instead.
“You’re probably right.”
“What about him?”
Ripley studies Rick’s unconscious body in the distance. His companions have deserted him already. I wonder if her mind is chewing over whether she could forgive him… Whether she could forget.
Would his death appease her? If I find a sharp instrument to carve out his organs with, will I earn her forgiveness? Will she curl up in my arms again? All she has to do is say the word.
“Would you like me to go back and finish the job?” I ask plainly.
Her teeth seize her inflamed bottom lip. I’m calculating the best place to dissect the bastard, limb from limb, when she shakes her head.
“He’ll get what he deserves. We have bigger concerns.”
Stepping back from me, she crouches to pick up the bag at her side that I didn’t notice. I move the flashlight to illuminate the backpack, noting that it’s bulging as Ripley swings it over her shoulder.
“Some food I scavenged,” she explains quickly. “And the last of my contraband stash.”
“That’s some survival kit.”
Ripley jerks her head towards the medical wing. “We have mouths to feed.”
“You’re done running from us?”
“I’m done running. Period.”
To my surprise, she stretches out a hand in offering. I stare at the tattoo-wrapped limb, uncertain how to respond. What is she offering me? Does she want me to… hold it? How do I even do that?
“Just take the hand, Xan.”
Her palm is warm as it slots into mine.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she jibes.
Our fingers tightly intertwine, and she gives a barely-there squeeze. From the corner of my eye, I watch her frown at our connected grips.
Ripley tugs me onwards, leaving the bloody mess behind us. Illuminating our path to the medical wing, I let her guide the way as I keep a wary eye out for any more patients.
Creeping through the darkness, I’m so focused on our surroundings, I almost smack into her back when she suddenly halts. The door leading into the medical wing is hanging off its hinges.
“Shit,” she mutters softly.
I move fast, stepping in front of her. “Stay here.”
“Forget it.” Ripley quickly drops my hand. “Raine is in there!”
“Rip! Wait!”
Running after her, we race into the darkened wing, picking our way over smashed detritus. Gloom from outside and the swinging flashlight reveals a catastrophic mess.
Furniture overturned. Cabinets raided. Medical supplies scattered. Lennox’s bed is empty, lying on its side with the sheets tangled on the floor. My gaze lands on a puddle of congealed blood smeared across the floor.
“Hello?” Ripley shouts frantically.
Her voice echoes—a panicked reverberation bouncing off the walls and vaulted ceiling. Its high-pitched tenor fades without a response.
The wing is abandoned.
They’re gone.