Page 19 of Psycho Obsession
He doesn’t turn. “I’ve stabilised the trauma. You’ll scar, but it will be a clean line. A reminder.”
“A reminder,” I repeat, a dry, jagged laugh bubbling up in my chest. “Is that what you call it? You’re not a doctor, Aris. You’re a fucking taxidermist.”
The scrubbing stops. He rinses his arms, the water swirling down the drain in a pinkish vortex. He turns slowly, drying his hands with a paper towel, his face returning to that smooth, impenetrable mask of ivory.
“You have a flair for the dramatic, Hallow. It’s a defence mechanism. I understand.”
“You don’t understand shit,” I spit, the movement making the fresh stitches pull and sting. “You think because you can sew skin together, you know what’s happening inside it? You’re sick. You’re more broken than anyone in the ‘Low-Risk’ wing. You’re a necrophile who just hasn’t waited for the heart to stop beating yet.”
Aris takes a step toward the table. The clinical light catches the sharp angles of his face, casting long, predatory shadows over his eyes. He doesn’t look insulted. He looks fed.
“Careful,” he whispers.
“Why? What are you going to do? Restrain me more? Lobotomise the parts of me that realise you get off on the scent of iodine and fear?” I lean my head back against the steel, my eyes burning into his. “I saw your face while you were stitching my shoulder. You weren’t looking for a pulse. You were looking for a reaction. You’re a parasite, Aris. You feed on the way I break.You’re so fucking hollow that the only way you feel alive is by watching someone else bleed.”
He’s at the edge of the table now, his hands gripping the cold metal rail. He leans down, his face inches from mine, his breath smelling of mint and something cold.
“You think you’re the first girl to try and psychoanalyse me?” he murmurs.
“I’m the only one who survived the ‘mapping’ long enough to see the truth,” I counter. “You don’t want to cure me. You don’t even want to own me. You want to be the thing that ruined me. You’re jealous of Thorne. You’re jealous of Miller. You’re jealous of every bruise I have that didn’t come from your fingers.”
I lean into his space, the silk thread in my lip stinging like a needle. “You’re a monster in a custom suit, Aris. And the sickest part isn’t that you hurt me. It’s that you think this—this surgical theatre—makes it love.”
For a heartbeat, the mask slips. His pupils dilate until his eyes are nothing but black ink, and a muscle in his jaw pulses. He reaches out, his thumb dragging over my stitched lip, his touch heavy and possessive.
“Love is a word for people who live in the light, Hallow,” he says, his voice a low, vibrating snarl. “What we have is much more permanent.”
He pulls back, tossing the paper towel into the bin with a flick of his wrist. He walks to the door, his hand on the keypad, the red light reflecting in his eyes.
“Sleep, Hallow. Tomorrow, we’ll see if your tongue is still as sharp when the sedatives wear off.”
Chapter
Five
HALLOW
The chains aren’t for my safety; they’re for his ego.
Every step down the corridor is a heavy, rhythmic clink-slap of cold iron against my bare ankles. Miller is behind me, gripping the short lead attached to my wrist cuffs, keeping me on a tight leash like a prize dog. My shoulder is a mess of fire and silk stitches, and my lip feels twice its size, but they’ve pumped me full of enough stimulants to keep me upright. They want me conscious for this.
Miller kicks the heavy oak door open.
Aris’s office doesn’t belong in an asylum. It’s a cathedral of dark mahogany and old money. The walls are lined with leather-bound books that smell like dust and expensive tobacco. There’s a record player in the corner spinning something low and classical that sounds like a funeral march, and the air is thick with the scent ofsandalwood and whatever high-end scotch he’s got decanted on his desk.
He’s sitting behind a massive slab of black marble, the light from the desk lamp carving his face into sharp, jagged lines of shadow and bone.
Fuck, he’s beautiful. It’s the kind of beauty that makes you want to reach for a knife. He’s ditched the surgical apron. He’s back in a crisp, white dress shirt with the top two buttons undone, the sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms that are roped with lean muscle and dusted with dark hair. His jaw is a blade, and his eyes—those terrifying, bottomless pits of obsidian—are fixed on a thick manila folder.
“Leave us, Miller,” Aris says. He doesn’t look up. His voice is a low, vibrating velvet that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
“Doctor, she’s high on the stabiliser, she might?—”
“I said leave.”
The door slams. The click of the lock is the loudest sound in the room.
I stand there in the centre of the Persian rug, shivering in my thin, blood-stained gown, the chains heavy on my bones. Aris finally looks up. He leans back, crossing his legs, watching me with a proprietary hunger that makes my stomach do a slow, sick roll.
