Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Alone
Zaiden
Z achary’s laughter and Bach mingle with the cries of the man splayed across the metal slab, ankles and wrists secured with cuffs. Red angry skin press against the tethers every time my twin makes a cut with the serrated blade in one hand and rips off a fingernail with the pliers in his other.
The man will saw his wrists off if he keeps doing that. Dried, caked blood already paints his skin. Some of it is left over from the attack, like the blood coating his flaccid cock. Zac said he’s saving that for last.
A shrill scream crawls from a hoarse throat. I watch my brother work, uncertain of when I should step in and aid him. He turns a grinning face to me.
“So, are you excited about the baby?” he asks, glancing down again to rip off the next fingernail. By the time I’d arrived, he’d finished the left hand and both toes. I’m not sure if he was joking when he pondered aloud if it was possible to do the same to eyelashes.
“Yes and no,” I say without elaborating. My brows dip, wondering if he genuinely cares or is just making small talk in between the screaming.
Why can’t I read people like my Sarah?
He cocks a blond brow in askance. I guess that answers my unspoken question.
“Yes, I love that my rav—Sarah is carrying my child and seeing the changes. I can’t wait to meet them. But,” I glance down, which unfortunately brings my gaze to the blood-stained limp cock surrounded by dark hair between the man’s legs. “I worry things won’t go smoothly. I can’t lose her.” I jerk my eyes toward Zac, hoping he understands my fear.
After all, if anything happens to Sarah, it’ll affect her sister, Natalia, which will trickle to Zac. So, even if he doesn’t care about me and the mother of my child, he cares for his own future wife.
He grimaces, tossing the fingernail into a bucket at his feet. “For a pet project,” he said when I asked about it. His other hand makes a slash down the length of the forearm of our captive. Tears mix with snot, streaming down a ruddy red face.
Why make dumb decisions if you aren’t prepared for the consequences?
Or maybe he never thought he’d get caught by worse creatures than himself. Zac and I would never stoop to animalistic behavior, such as violating another person with the thing between our legs.
No, I’d much rather they become a part of the natural circle of life. Their flesh providing sustenance to the insects that pollinate our flowers or whose droppings fertilize the land. I could’ve chopped him up into pieces and fed him bit by bit to Sheba.
The python back at home isn’t the same as the one I’d owned at Daniels’ Manor, but she soothes me all the same on bad days. And she likes her food fresh. Sheba felt like an apt name for her.
Buzz . I jolt, the sound reminding me of the insects I’d just been thinking about. Pulling my phone, my lungs seize at Sarah’s name.
“I’ve got to take this,” I say, legs already carrying me outside the soundproof room. My Sarah doesn’t need to hear that pathetic excuse of a human’s whimpers.
“Hi—”
“Where are you, Zaiden?” Sarah snaps at me for the first time in our relationship since we’d walked out Daniels’ Manor together. Wide-eyed, I bring my free hand to my chest, commanding the organ inside to calm down.
“I-I’m a-at Z-Zac’s,” I stutter out, mind flipping through scenarios, wondering what I’d done to upset my future wife.
“Okay,” she says, weariness weighing down her normally melodic voice. “I’m on my way.”
Beep . The call ends and I stare at the device in confusion.
She should be at work.
Did I do something wrong? I glance behind me at the slightly ajar door of Zac’s “playroom.” Does she suspect—No.
I haven’t spoken to her since right before she left for work, running my eyes down her luscious form and committing it to memory until she returns home, where I’ll urge her off her feet and massage them while she tells me about her day.
It’s become our routine. Only tragedy would disrupt it.
I turn my head, catching the flicker of red and blue before it disappears.
No. Not today.
Whatever Sarah needs, I’ll be.
But they are dead. Gone.
In my head, I am alone.
Alone.
Alone.
Alone.
Sarah
I am fucking fuming!
How dare he?! Today, of all days?
Words fail me, and angry tears sting my eyes, but I refuse to allow them space to exist.
Zaiden should’ve been at home, waiting for me, not collaborating with— No, bad Sarah , I admonish, automatically correcting my thinking.
Zachary—or Dalton, as Nat calls him—has mental health issues, and it’s not my place to judge. But, dammit, I want to, swiping tears from my cheeks.
I’d needed my—my husband. My mind blanks, hands wrapped around the steering wheel and staring blindly at the traffic light.
My husband.
We haven’t tied the knot yet, but that’s how I see him, my husband, the father of my child. My entire damn universe.
And he’s not at home when I’d needed him to be, expecting the monotonous routine we’d established on his days off.
Today, I’d needed routine. Today, I need to feel…
Words get scrambled in my brain and I push my foot on the gas when the light turns green.
Today, I’d needed to be reminded of humanity.
Zaiden is the sweetest, most innocent soul I’ve ever encountered. If the world of medicine hadn’t failed him, we might not have crossed paths.
I know that desperation drove him to kill my coworkers, to connect. Murder is not a symptom of his illness. He thought he had no choice. Could I understand what that’s like, to be completely alone, no family, no friends and everyone in healthcare painting me as a villain? When given the space to be himself, to exist, to nurture the side of him that wants to improve and treat his condition, removes that desperation.
A person that has schizophrenia is not predetermined to be a killer. I know that better than anyone from my rotation in mental health. They’re just people, we all are. People who need us to do better, to remove our prejudice. It allows the stigma to grow and take a life of its own. And people like Zaiden suffer because of it.
Today, I’d needed a whiff of Zaiden’s inherent innocence, his childlike joy, to glide my skin across his and soak up the essence that makes him him . Because, I need him.
Instead of the fantasy I concocted in my head, I’m shifting my expectations, driving to the house Natalia shares with Zachary Lewis, Zaiden’s long-lost twin.
Is it selfish that I wish he’d never encountered or heard of the male?
Zaine and Xavier for the most part, appeared as civil, logical human beings. Zachary wormed his way under my skin and I don’t relish any time spent in his company, on my or Zaiden’s behalf.
And that fucking grin of his says he relishes his effect on people, exploiting it to his advantage. How else did he rope my fiancé into stopping by and participating in whatever depraved act he cooked up?
Mine . Zaiden is mine. And if I have to fight Zachary Lewis for him, I will.
I’d paid my dues, did my debts. I’m owed a happy ending, and that ending involves Zaiden.
“Bite me, motherfucker,” I want to growl aloud whenever my thoughts wander.
Zaiden is mine and may God fuck anyone who threatens that reality.
All fucking mine.