Chapter One
Raven.
“I bet you’re fucking faking it. FAKING IT! FUCKING FAKER! SHE’S FAKING IT!”
I blink, keeping my composure as Raelynn gets closer to me.
Raelynn, the girl that killed her stepfather, cut off his fingers and ate them.
Raelynn, who they had to wait for a bowel movement for evidence.
She swings but I block, and that makes it worse.
It agitates her more when I defend myself.
So she tries harder, windmilling her arms, but these meds I’m on…
they make my movements less fluid. So she gets them in.
I’m dragged from where I was sitting in the cafeteria across the blinding white tile floors, trying to find purchase. I’m lifted by strong arms; the scent of rainwater soothes me and then–
No, this isn’t right.
I was somewhere else – somewhere good .
I’m in the hallway now, my hand trailing the wall like I always do, only moving when there’s a doorway.
I should run.
Escape.
I will …
But I can’t… remember things. It’s fuzzy in my brain. I have to… there’s things to remember. Faces. Faces. So many faces but they don’t make sense.
Except Shadow.
What if I run and they find me?
What will I say?
Words are garbled messes and faces wear masks. Ugly, ugly perfect teeth. Too white. Blue eyes. They flash green. Chameleon eyes.
“Pssst. Raven!”
I stop, clutching the hem of my long sleeve in my hand. It’s always so cold here. I can’t ever get warm. I can still feel the scratchy material of the asylum approved shirt Axel sent me. God, I miss him so much. I look to my right where my name was called from one of the rooms.
My stomach swirls and dips.
He’s groaning and there’s a slapping sound.
I don’t like Josiah.
“Hobble away, spooky bitch. I bet you did it to yourself! Archer’s fucking pet.
Do you suck him off during your daily meetings?
CUMSSSSSSLUT!” Josiah flicks something my way and the white, thick liquid lands on my face.
Covering me from forehead to chin and it drips down to my scrub top over my long sleeve.
The wicked laugh echoes loudly, bouncing off the sterile walls and I shiver. “Saved that all up for you!”
I look down and I… I… what do I do?
Bile rises in my throat when I realize what he’s done and I violently spew and spew and spew.
I should have run. I will next time. Stupid little crazy Raven, covered in cum.
Strong hands come up from behind me and help me. They walk me to my room and help me undress to shower.
But the shower turns into… the room.
Solitary .
But why?
What did I do?
Why am I here again ?
Oh no, I’m strapped in.
No, no, no. My wrists, please!
This isn’t right.
But it’s foggy how do I-
I was somewhere happy .
It’s too tight. My wrists. They’re bleeding.
“It’s too tight!” I scream but it doesn’t come out. I can’t remember what my voice sounds like.
Nobody hears me.
Lost, lost, lost.
Psycho Raven.
Ghost.
Spooks.
The walls thrum, the fluorescent lights dim.
Closing in.
It’s all… no I can’t be here again!
It’s dark.
Can’t breathe.
No, no, no, no.
I’m there again.
It’s too tight. I can’t breathe.
It’s too small.
I can’t breathe…
I can’t breathe.
I can’t-
“RAVEN!”
Too far. I’m too far.
“Here! I’m here! Please!” I scream but no one’s out there.
Total darkness.
Gone, gone… gone…
“RAVEN, baby, wake up! Come back to me baby. Please. I’m right here. You’re safe.”
Taps on my face like my taps on the locker door.
Taptaptaptaptaptap.
“Amourette. You’re having a dream.”
I’m having a dream .
“You’re safe. You’re not there, Little Bird. I’m here with you. Come back to us.”
I’m not there.
So much pressure. Heavy. It’s so heavy. It feels good. So good. I’m ohhhh …
I feel my lids flutter. I can’t see past the fog.
“There’s my baby. You’re safe, baby. Keep going Damon.”
It’s so warm.
“I love you.”
Love me.
There it is… that pleasure.
“There’s my girl, I’m right here. You’re safe, Amourette. Feel me. Feel me inside of you. Come back to me please.”
Little Love.
“ Mm mmmph ”
“That’s right, baby. Come for Damon, baby, back to us.”
“Damon?”
A deep, masculine groan from above me like a sweet caress, it blankets me, calls to me.
Damon . His name is a whisper in my mind. I wrap my arms around his torso, feeling him, his weight, his body. So strong. My protector. My love. My love. So… perfect. So deep. Need more. I purr for him, still wakening from my nightmare.
Was it a nightmare?
Memories that feel like nightmares… dreams and faces, they blend…
Never-ending.
“Raven, look at me, Little Bird. Open your eyes. See me. I’m here.”
I tighten my legs around him, opening my eyes to see his face in concentrated blissful agony, as he continues his slow, deep, tormenting thrusts, his scent is in my nose, my lungs.
Jonas reaches between me and Damon and plays with my swollen clit. I tense, exploding for Damon in a sleep-filled euphoria.
“My perfect girl.”
“Perfect.” I repeat .
“Yes, my love. Absolute perfection is how you feel wrapped around me. Tailored to fit me like a glove, Raven. I love you.”
I moan again, grinding against Jonas’ fingers still dancing along my clit, seeking just one more. Always one more. To feel alive.
“My perfect girl. Fuck yourself on my cock, Little Bird, that’s it. Make your doctor cum.”
“Deeper,” I beg, shivering beneath him and I’m rewarded with short, deep, strong thrusts and his face goes to the crook of my neck, licking and I shatter all over again just as groans out my name.
He stays inside, letting me feel his weight. Jonas settles beside me, kissing my temple.
I’m safe.
Two weeks later
The ocean feels the pull of the moon, just like I feel my shadow’s - but it’s different now.
He is different now.
This shadow has a name. This shadow loves me or… I thought he did. This shadow watches me, our hold on the other a thing of nightmares, of dreams, of beauty and monstrosity. I am a reaper, he is life . I can feel him in the room every time he’s here.
Haunting me.
Call me delusional. Sick. Tell me I belong to the ghosts and demons that reside at Lorne Wood Asylum because I do. I do I do I do. I belong at Lorne Wood as much as I belong with Damon, with Jonas.
With him .
He belongs with me.
Us.
But I have to wait for him to come to me. No matter how much agony I’ve been in without him, his dominance, his reign, his power over me. I have to stay patient.
So I dance.
“Dance, butterfly.”
I roll my eyes at Stephen Prescott, a Syndicate elder, from beneath the mesh lining on the eye holes of my mask.
It’s a moth. Intricate, beautiful. Positively poisonous.
But I dance. Jonas and Damon stay in their respective places at the bar, not drawing attention to themselves in their own masks as Maverick watches from afar, drunk on spirits he doesn’t need because I’m his specter. His little mouse.
Siren.
Angel.
Of death , of course – I never proclaimed I was a saint.
On the contrary, I gave Maverick the evidence.
Not mine, per se, but the Syndicate’s. The ledger that holds so much power, villainy, sacrilege within the copied and printed pages of the binder I gave him – along with Inferno’s flier soliciting a dancer.
I purposely rolled the ball in Maverick’s court and gave him all the evidence to put me away for life.
To be thrown back into Lorne Wood, where they would drug me for the rest of my life, keeping me in a vegetative state, trapped in my mind and yet, in a sick way, it would be heaven , to be trapped with my memories of Maverick, Jonas and Damon.
Tortuous bliss.
To be mentally trapped in a world away from here with nothing but the men I love.
Except there would be no home visits this time. No way for me to wean myself from my medications and feel alive again. The way he makes me feel alive.
But he saw the evidence himself. Saw the video of me limping across the lawn… likely saw the pictures of the crime scene.
And yet, here I am, a moth, free of her overturned glass confinement box, dancing .
He watches me now, as I writhe on Stephen’s lap, his large hands on the tops of my thighs. It’s the first night he’s alone, without anyone else, to speak to of Syndicate matters, not now that both Whitmore’s are six feet under. And Ashleigh.
Once Damon had… unalived the elder Whitmore, the Syndicate decided to hold off on a funeral for Thadd and Ash until an autopsy was performed.
They found nothing. No tampering. The footage of the hospital was clear.
No nurses could say anything suspicious happened.
They questioned Damon, of course. Good thing I told him to take some flowers.
Like a good colleague he had ‘simply been there to drop off flowers, and when he saw Dean Whitmore sleeping soundly, he left to let him rest. Why, he hadn’t even known the Dean died until he received the message from the board while he was at home, curled up in bed reading a book.’
I’m not sure if Maverick knows it’s me beneath this mask mostly because his pupils are dilated and he looks one drink away from spilling them altogether on the floor. He takes a step forward, and when purple lights flash, he winces like a vampire at the sun.
The light is too bright.
But until he accepts the comfortable darkness that is me, it’s where he needs to stay.
“Chloe…” Stephen breathes against my earlobe, breath hot and it skitters down my spine like a delicious omen.
And yet, my lullaby hasn’t taken over. I am still without all the answers…
and until I have them, members of the Syndicate will continue to fall until I’ve torn off the head of the snake and eaten it to nourish my blackened soul.
Because that’s what I am now, a mere mirage of who I used to be.
A silver specter for all to see. And in the sick way that is my mind, I want Stephen to touch me.
His creation. A pretty little winged demon grinding on his lap.
I mean, they made me like this, didn’t they?
Each curse, each laugh, each hit, each wish for my death as I waited in a locker for my shadow that never came.
No lovely kiss from Death awaited me. No angel to take me away .
After all, Thadd said I was the Monroe Tyler didn’t want. He wanted Axel, my stepbrother. But even if I had been purchased for the younger Prescott, it would have, no – should have - guaranteed my safety. I should have been placed on a perfect gilded pedestal, not a cage and be seen as untouchable.
So why wasn’t I?
Before my hour is up, I make sure to stay seated on Stephen’s lap, pay him the attention he pays me for. I don’t need his money. And tonight was a waste of time. it’s only him, no other members of the Syndicate gossiping.
But I have plenty of time. I have it in spades.
When the bartender/cage master comes to take me away from Stephen when his alarm rings, I ask to be taken to the back room, so I may dress and leave through the dancer exit, where I am secure, my identity remains hidden, so I don’t get stalkers.
I wonder if Stephen would try to stalk me. Would he put me back in my little confinement box, an exhibit for all to see? Trapped, unable to escape?
“Dance, Butterfly…”
And suddenly, I see it – like a haunting premonition.
The irony of slaying him while wearing the mask I use to dance for him.
With no other prominent Syndicate members in sight, I leave instead of going back to my cage – ready to be whisked away into the dark and dreary night and fucked into oblivion by my guys, reminding me who I belong to, punishing me for letting another man touch me.
Each spank a deep caress that awakens the deadest parts of me, each kiss a treasure, each stab of their hips meeting mine a jolt of electricity, reminding me I am alive.
I survived . I live for them , for me… helping me claw my way up from the pits of hell like a demon unleashed, starved and hungry for a pound of flesh.
Jacob Cartwright .
Chase Prescott.
Tyler Prescott.
Thaddeus Whitmore II.
Ashleigh Whitmore.
Simon Hoover .
A …
Tangled in the sheets between Jonas and Damon, I dream of the one missing and let my mind conjure his image as I whisper his name into the dark room, like a mad woman speaking to the walls as flurries of the oncoming snowstorm dance outside of our bedroom window, eerie and silent, a promise of quiet, swift destruction.
Because even the most beautiful things can be catastrophic.