Ace tensed at the guard’s name, not that I was surprised. Fern was a heavy-handed brute who found enjoyment beating on others. I gestured to the wound once again. “Was this because of what happened in the games room? Because I challenged him?”

Ace squared his shoulders. “Not a bother, Miss.”

Click. Click.

“I told you to call me Olivia,” I said. “Would you be more comfortable just referring to me as Doctor?”

He nodded. “You can call me Cooks, or Cookie, Mis—eh, Doc. Everyone else does.”

“Do you like that name? Cookie?”

“Not a bother.”

Click. Click.

“You say that a lot, ‘Not a bother.’ Is there anything that does bother you?” He didn’t answer, still choosing to avoid my questions. “What if you were released from Oakview? How would that make you feel?”

“Even if that was a possibility, there’s no point. No one out there is waiting for me. No family, no friends. All of them are dead,” he said with clinical accuracy, his voice void of emotion.

“Your file says you have a grandfather still living.”

His ritualistic movement paused. Teal orbs met mine and what I saw reflected back wasn’t a young seventeen-year-old, but more a hardened, matured man who had experienced a lifetime of despair.

“No one’s ever asked me about him before.” His head tilted. “When I said dead, I didn’t mean unalive in the ground ‘dead’. Technically, I have one living relative. Figuratively, they may as well not be.”

Ace hesitated, pondering his next statement. “I know I’ll never get out of here...I’ve come to terms with that. But in case I don’t remember in the future, I wanted to say thanks. For saving me from the basement. For a little bit longer, at least.” He was despondent, accepting his fate.

“What’s in the basement, exactly? Dr Mudlark’s treatment area, right? The one place I haven’t been yet.”

Ace shuddered. “No need to go down there, Doc. You’re not missing out on anything.”

I relented and referred to the clock, which completed our session. With my hand on the exit, Ace clasped my shoulder. “Promise you won’t go down there. That you won’t go searching.” Amid his touch came the overwhelming impression of obligation. He believed he owed me, and in doing so, gave me his version of a warning.

His concern was unwarranted. I didn’t give a fuck about Oakview. Or the mysterious Dr Mudlark, for that matter. As long as it didn’t affect my mission or myself, I had no interest in exploring more than necessary.

“Not a bother, Ace,” I reassured him.

He flashed a crooked smile, squeezed my shoulder and departed.

I’d surprisingly taken a liking to the kid. Surprising in the sense that I never liked anyone aside from my family. I never had the patience or desire to pursue a connection outside of them. Every other person was considered cannon fodder, my Variant an additional barrier that prevented others from venturing near.

Bewildered, I remained stunned. His physical touch hadn’t caused the world to upend into ruin. Instead, his presence was…tolerable.

What the fuck? This place is turning me soft.

The faster I left Oakview, the better.

Chapter 7Psycho

Ishovelled food into my mouth, not even registering what I was eating.

My next appointment with Dr Chaser was the next day. I was conflicted in my decision whether to accept her invitation or not. I hadn’t seen her since I’d caved earlier, my raspy voice breaking the strained silence between us.

Walter and his pack of mutts strode past my table, approaching the lunch line. They’re what gave Oakview its haunting reputation: pack hunters that thrived on the pain and suffering of innocents, claiming insanity to escape a real prison. Now their group ruled the majority of Oakview, kissing Burner’s ass to escape the mad scientist. Keeping order through violence and coercion.

Weak and pathetic. I loathe them.

Due to their cowardly approach, they never bothered with me. I was the apex predator, and they fucking knew it. They’d forgotten I was there (granted, most did). Regardless of my notoriety and past infamy, I kept to myself.

Technically, I wasn’t a psychopath (in the literal sense of the word, anyway). Psycho was the name given to me in the Caverns, the title born from the fighting pits and renowned from my gladiator death matches in the arena. For anyone that had seen me publicly fight or kill, they’d whisper my name equally in awe and fear.

I felt nothing about my soulless deeds. No remorse, no regret.

To them all, I was a psycho. As for me? I didn’t care how they saw me, as long as they left me the fuck alone.

Then Walter’s sidekick, Zack, made a damning statement, cutting me out of my reverie. “I bet she has a sweet, tight cunt. I have my first session with her this afternoon. I’ll find out for you all,” he finished, licking his lips.

Walter cracked a laugh, his minions following suit. “No chance will you get with her. She’s a fucking doctor. There is no way she will say yes.”

“Who said she has to say yes?”

“You’re fucking deluded. You wouldn’t even get within an inch of her before Fern takes your ass out.”

“Haven’t you heard? Lil’ Cookie said she takes her patient sessions alone. There’s no cameras, and she refuses to have security inside her office. She likes her sessions to be private. Some new shrink thing.”

Walter was livid, his ears reddening from the news. “When were you going to inform me of this?”

“I’m telling you now.” Zack shrugged. “And I’ll tell you how it feels when I rip her open once I’m done with her tonight.”

Adrenaline rushed through my bloodstream and my brain split open from the inner beast carving at my insides, raging to get out. I didn’t have to read him to know what he was thinking, because the same singular thought flooded my mind.

Destroy.

My body was taken over by instinct alone. Jolting to my feet, I launched towards him. No one noticed, the warning too late. With lunch tray in hand, I whipped it across his face, shattering his nose.

I didn’t stop, couldn’t stop.

I continued to pound the platter into his skull, over and over again. With a heaving chest and strained fingers, my grip faltered, the hunk of bent metal falling to the ground.

His mushed face was unrecognisable, his fractured form deathly still, crimson blood free-flowing to mix through my spilled noodles, strewn across the floor.

Ah, that’s what I was eating for lunch. It was hardly appetising anyway.

I retrieved my smokes from the table, ignited one and veered for the exit. Everyone was frozen in place, security barring the walls and doorways. No one stepped up to try and stop me. Instead, they parted so I could walk through, unencumbered.

My beast was preening and I shut that shit down fast, not wanting to add to the growing internal conflict. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so unhinged. And it all came down to her. The bane of my existence.

I couldn’t afford to act this way, and refused to dissect the reasons why I did what I did. It wouldn’t happen again.