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.
He’d find out, and I didn’t want to contemplate the concept of him exploiting another weakness. So I wouldn’t create one. I refused to acknowledge that it was even a possibility.
Resolution hardened my chaotic mind.
She was nothing. She was no one.
I couldn’t afford for her to be anything else.
My memory hadn’t given her beauty justice, even at night when I dreamed about her with my palm wrapped around my throbbing cock.
Which is why I’d given in.
We were back in her office, our gazes clashed as I removed the swipe card from my boot and slipped it over the desk between us. Lightning-fast, Dr Chaser reached out, fingers brushing over the back of my hand. Raw electric energy erupted from the light pressure, my skin tingling from the gentle caress. I suppressed a growl ripping from my throat as a thick wave of possession sparked in the depths of my mind, demanding I grab and plaster her body to mine.
My Variant danced along the edges of my consciousness, alert and thriving from my frantic call. However, the barrier’s perusal was thorough, sucking away any semblance of power. It soon snubbed out the slight flicker of my ability.
Regret settled in my bones when Dr Chaser deposited the swipe in her pocket, out of sight.
Escape, freedom, revenge. So close, yet impossible to acquire.
I can easily take the swipe back and get the fuck out of here?
The idea left, wanting and half-hearted, no conviction behind the notion whatsoever. Despite my desperation to flee and hunt down the fucker that sent me here, there remained one obstacle that was entirely impenetrable.
I’d never risk Ava. Not ever.
Dr Chaser didn’t say anything, or address the fact that I’d returned one of the most valuable gifts I’d ever been offered. And in doing so, I’d unwillingly revealed my one weakness.
I never intended to escape. I turned my ire on her, switching my self-loathing on an easier target. One more accessible—and in the vicinity.
MICAH
Psycho was back to his silent, brooding self, as if our last encounter never happened, as if he didn’t just give up his one chance of escape.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose to attention as his gaze drilled into mine with scepticism. My motives, my intentions, my very presence. All questions he sought to dissect the answers to.
