Chapter Five
Patient Seventeen
Most nights, I tried not to sleep. Going mad from sleep deprivation was better than suffering the evils that lived in the darkness of my mind.
The drugs they forced into my system made everything vivid and painful.
So when the heavy dose of sedatives took me in its grip, and sleep wrapped my head like barbed wire, I braced for the worst.
When the darkness melted, I found myself in my cell again. I knew I was dreaming. Everything in the drug-induced sleep state was slower, darker, with a constant unease eating at my nerves like a parasite.
Then, delicious clarity. This wasn’t another nightmare brought on by Rook’s drugs.
It was her.
Since the first time she visited me in my sleep, I’d turned over every detail that I could recall of that dream in my mind, over and over. What was she? Why was she here? Those questions had crawled under my skin and festered over the last handful of days, spreading through my body like a fever.
Suddenly, the whirlwind of questions in my mind morphed into something far more disturbing, as I became painfully aware of the fact that she was not only tied to me, but she was strapped inside my straitjacket with me.
Her back was flush to my chest, wedged so close by the leather straps and coarse fabric that I could detect her rampant heartbeat through her shoulder blades, and feel the globes of her asscheeks framing my cock with ball-aching perfection.
Twisted thoughts ran through my mind like a medieval gutter disease.
The delicious contour of her body had my mouth watering, drool leaking from the breathing hole in my leather mask. Her blonde hair shone bright like a halo around her head, even in the dark room.
I’d give anything to feel all of her, to strip her naked, to take her into my mouth and—
A whimper tripped from her lips as my cock twitched and thickened, growing painfully hard against her. My hips instinctively canted, and I pressed my arousal into her tailbone hard enough to leave a bruise.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had sex. They tied me to my bed at night, denying me even the simple pleasure of my own hand.
She bucked against me, and the movement against my dick had me growling in her ear. “Squirm all you want. You’re only making me harder, Doc.”
She stilled and slowly craned her neck to cast a glance over her shoulder. My smile spread wide beneath my mask, and I knew she could see my fangs through the bars by the look on her face.
“Who are you?”
I thought about giving her my real name, but it didn’t feel like mine anymore. Hadn’t in years. “Patient Seventeen.”
Her lashes fluttered, making my heart clench. “That’s no name for a man,” she whispered.
There were two urges warring inside me.
One wanted to split her open and see if her insides were as pretty as her outsides. The other part—fueled by the final vestiges of my humanity—longed to clutch her tight and keep her safe from the horrors of Saint Bart’s and its demons.
There was one thing my halves shared in common—they both wanted to fuck her every hole raw.
Before I could decide my next move, I was forced awake with a slap to my face.
My eyes opened to find an orderly looming over my bed, undoing my straps. He was huge, with slabs of muscles and bulging veins protruding from his starched white uniform. Rook’s Treatment had turned this one into a beast.
“Time for your electroshock therapy, Seventeen,” he rumbled. “Dr. Rook’s orders.”
Punishment for biting off the cock of his latest hire, probably. It was odd that they only sent one man to collect me. It usually took at least three of them. Then again, they probably expected me to have calmed down by now.
Maybe I would have been, if they hadn't woken me up. Forced me from my dream before I could fuck my sweet Tuesday.
Who knew if I’d see her again?
Every muscle in my body clenched as I waited for the man to untie me.
As soon as one wrist was free, I swung my fist into his jaw with a brutal force that had his jawbone cracking. He stumbled back, buying enough time for me to rip free from the leather straps binding the rest of my limbs.
I sprang to my feet just as the orderly collected himself, charging at me like a raging bull.
He shifted into the monster he really was with a roar, his eyes aglow with that same sickly green hue as the Treatment.
He grew even bigger, his uniform shredding as his muscles swelled with unholy power.
A billy club covered in spikes appeared in his hand from nowhere, not that he needed it with the twisted claws tipping his nails into vicious spikes.
He charged. I ducked and whipped around, giving a sharp kick to the back of his knee. He fell to the floor. My shadow covered him as I approached, and I placed the sole of my foot on his brow. If only I had my boots. Fuck, I couldn’t remember the last time I wore shoes.
His face turned red, then purple as I applied more pressure to his head. “I can’t really kill you, since you’re already dead,” I hummed, reveling in his pain. “But I’m going to enjoy killing you over and over again. That’s what you deserve for waking me up.”
Blood lust thrummed through my circulation as I stomped down, crushing his skull beneath my foot with a satisfying crunch.
“Your skull isn’t as thick as it looks,” I mused, taking in the misshapen head as his blood pooled around him.
It wouldn’t be long before he regenerated.
My shock therapy would be more painful than ever now. I didn’t care. There was only one thing on my mind.
Stooping, I dipped my fingers into the orderly’s blood and began to paint the image of Tuesday’s likeness on my wall.
If I couldn’t see her in my sleep, I’d stare at her painting on my cell wall.
I found the human side of me, hoping this was the closest I’d ever come, for her sake. As much as I wanted to protect her from the demons, it wouldn’t be possible.
Not when I was the worst among them.