Chapter 7
SEVEN
ZAYNE
Nurses wake me up early in the morning when the clock turns six a.m. They led me into one of the rooms on the lower floor, which they use for therapy. I am assigned to receive a few electroshock treatments per the order of Dr. Emily Beckett.
Inside the room, there are two tables with restraints beside the machines, standing at the side. I turn to one of the nurses and chuckle.
“I didn’t know this was group therapy.”
She doesn’t laugh at my joke. She only pushes me further inside until I reach the edge of one of the tables. I sit down, move my legs to the side, and lie back. My hands rest at my sides, and they buckle them in, tightening the straps.
Before I can say a word, the nurse brings a belt close to my lips.
“Bite.”
I bite down, my eyes moving left and right, searching the room, waiting to see if Dr. Beckett shows up.
She never does.
All I feel is cold metal pressed against my temples, and with a second, electricity courses through my brain. My eyes roll back as the flashing light in front of me blazes too bright, and then everything turns black.
I feel it again.
I bite down harder on the belt, the taste of leather filling my mouth. This time, my body starts to shake uncontrollably. I arch my back, lifting off the table as my hands fight the restraints, uselessly pulling and straining.
That doesn’t stop them.
They press the metal against my temples once more. This time, I feel my skin begin to burn. The pressure inside my head grows heavier, crushing every thought I had before until my mind turns blank. My eyes close tight.
Behind my eyelids, small dots of light move and shine, flickering in the darkness until light breaks through again.
But this time, I am not thirty-five-year-old serial killer Zayne Mercer.
I am just an eight-year-old boy.
“Zayne,” my father said. “How are you feeling?”
I nodded.
Metal bars framed my head, locked in place, cables trailing from each side. My hands were bound. My body felt suspended, as if I had been pinned in midair. Only my eyes could move. I darted them left and right, taking in the room.
In front of my father sat an old beige computer, its screen glowing faintly. A stack of files lay beside it, each stamped in red.
PROJECT GEMINI.
He never taught me anything himself. He only brought used toys and left me alone with them.
The nurses were the ones who taught me how to read, how to count, and how to speak.
I absorbed everything they gave me. And when my father finally noticed, he decided learning might be helpful after all.
He started handing me complex books filled with codes and algorithms.
For an eight-year-old with nothing else to do, it felt like candy.
Letters shifted into numbers. Words rearranged themselves into patterns. I stopped writing sentences and started writing sequences. I stopped speaking in words and began answering in codes. Soon, numbers appeared everywhere. Every word translated itself automatically.
My father called me Zerophrenic. A state, he said, where identity, memory, and emotion collapse to zero.
Sometimes men visited. They stood behind him while he drew my blood, their eyes fixed on the screen above my head.
They talked about dividing minds, about creating separate consciences inside the same body.
On days when their voices sounded pleased, and their hands shook in agreement, my father turned on the television.
It was like a reward for me. And I would always watch nature documentaries, wondering what the sun looked like.
The nurses said it burned your eyes if you stared too long. They said the moon lit the night, so it was never completely dark. I had no way to know. I was never allowed outside.
My father said the world would hurt me if it knew I existed, that they would lock me away. But he hurt me, too. Needles breaking my skin, iron bars pressing against my head, doors locking every night when it was time to sleep.
I wasn’t afraid of what was outside.
One nurse told me fear makes us vulnerable. I didn’t want to be vulnerable. Whenever I felt afraid, I forced myself through it again and again until the feeling disappeared.
Fear was for weak boys, and I didn’t want to be weak.
“Ready?” my father asked.
I nodded.
The electricity surged through the cables, and my head began to shake.
My eyes shut immediately, and light turned into dark again.
When I open my eyes, I am back in the present. The memories fade, but they still stay close, sharp, yet I am no longer an eight-year-old boy.
I lie still on the table, not moving. But I hear nurses whispering nearby, I hear the soft click of buckles as the restraints around my hands are undone. They are quick, distracted, and cleaning the equipment.
And for a moment, no one is watching me.
That moment is enough.
My eyes spring wide, and I sit up. I look at them as they laugh quietly, unaware.
I have been receiving this treatment since I was four. My body is numb to it now. The electricity still rattles my nerves, still leaves my head buzzing, but it doesn’t hurt. It only fuels the anger tightening in my chest.
I step towards them.
My hand closes around one nurse’s throat, slamming her back against the wall. Her breath catches instantly. The other nurse reacts, bringing a syringe toward my neck. I grab her wrist and yank it hard. The syringe slips from her fingers and hits the floor.
They freeze.
The nurse I am holding gasps, eyes wide, hands clutching at my wrist as she struggles to breathe.
“Get help,” she whispers to the other nurse.
A laugh tears from me, my jaw tight as I stare at her. The second nurse pulls free and runs for the door.
The one pinned to the wall digs at my fingers with both hands. Her brows pull tight, her mouth shaking as she drags in shallow breaths. Her eyes stay locked on mine.
I lift her off the floor with one hand. Her feet scrape, then kick as I drag her back toward the table. I lean in close, my voice low and rough against her ear.
“Lay down,” I growl.
She lies down shaking. The table rattles beneath her as I strap her in, pulling the restraints tight around her wrists and ankles, buckling them until the leather bites into her skin. I make sure each lock clicks into place before stepping away.
I turn to the tray of sterile tools. I take a scalpel and wrap my fingers around it, then walk back to her.
She stares at the blade, her eyes wide, her breathing quick, in shallow bursts.
I lean in and make a small cut along her left cheek. Just enough to break the skin. A thin line of blood appears, and I shift my hand and angle the blade closer to her left eye.
“Brown,” I say quietly. “Shit color.”
Her body trembles harder. “Please.”
“Please, what?” I chuckle softly. “Please don’t kill you? Please don’t take your eyeballs and have them for breakfast?”
“Mhm,” she cries, her lower lip quivering, her chin shaking as tears spill over her cheeks.
I press the flat edge of the scalpel beneath her eyebrow. “Tell me, nurse,” I say, watching her closely, “how many of you have been working here since 1998?”
She shakes her head. The blade sinks deeper, stretching the skin.
“Please,” she sobs. “I don’t know.”
I press down harder. Her cry breaks into a scream that fills the room.
“Six,” she shouts. “Six.”
I laugh. “You see? That wasn’t so hard.”
Tears slid down the sides of her face, soaking into her hair, dripping onto the table beneath her head.
“Did you know a scalpel is the best tool to peel someone’s skin?” I ask casually. “I’ve never tried.” I chuckle. “But it sounds fun, right?”
She shakes her head, her breath hitching as her eyes squeeze shut.
I ignore her and place the blade against her forehead, dragging it slowly, opening another thin cut. Blood beads and trails toward her temple, sliding down onto the floor.
“I need something from you,” I say, meeting her eyes. I press the tip of the blade in again, just enough to draw another sharp cry from her throat.
She nods frantically, trying to scream through her clenched lips.
“The code to Dr. Beckett’s office,” I say.
“Yes,” she gasps. “Zero seven.” A tear slips down her temple. “Zero five.”
“Wonderful,” I shout.
I drop the scalpel on the floor, followed by a sharp metallic click. I clap my hands together and move back to the table, laughing.
“You know how nurses talk?” I ask. “Patients do too.”
She shakes her head weakly and whispers, “No.”
Her eyes lock onto my hands as I lift the two metal bars.
I move to her head, dragging the cable behind me.
“Oh, I’m not going to hurt you,” I say softly. “Tsk tsk tsk.”
I step to the top of the table, where her head rests, and press the cold metal against her temples.
Her body flinches at the touch.
“I’m just going to,” I laugh quietly, “free your mind.”
I turn the ECT machine on.
The current surges through her temples. Her eyes squeeze shut as her body shakes violently against the restraints. Her muscles lock, then release. Her jaw clamps down hard, too hard. Blood seeps from her gums as her teeth grind together.
Her eyes snap open, rolling back as the shaking intensifies. I keep the metal pressed firmly in place as my grip steadies.
I laugh again.
Her body thrashes harder now, chest straining for breath. I lean closer, then lift the metal away from her temples. Her body still trembles as I speak near her ear.
“That boy on the second floor,” I say quietly, “the one you like to touch, sends his regards.”
I step back and turn off the ECT machine. The hum dies instantly. I crouch down and pick up the scalpel from the floor, my fingers closing around the handle.
My mind races, listing all the possibilities of how long I could make this last. Then I decided not to.
I press the scalpel beneath her jaw and slice.
Her eyes fly open. A wet gurgle escapes her mouth as blood pours from the wound, spilling down her neck, soaking the table, and dripping onto the floor.
I can hear footsteps in the distance.
I have to move fast.