Page 22 of Psycho Obsession
“Doctor, she almost killed you! Look at your neck, she?—”
“I see it,” Aris rasps, a ghost of a smile touching his bruised lips. He looks down at me, huddled on the floor in a heap of chains and torn cotton, and I see it—the sick, twisted pride of a creator who just realised his monster has teeth. “I felt it. It was… magnificent.”
He walks around the desk, his walk unsteady. He ignores Miller completely. He sinks to his knees in front of me, his expensive trousers soaking up the blood I’ve leaked onto the rug. He reaches out, his fingers shaking as he hooks them under my chin, forcing me to look at the wreckage he’s become.
“You really tried,” he whispers, his voice a scorched vibration. “You actually tried to take the life right out of me.”
“Next time,” I choke out, spitting a mouthful of red at his pristine shirt, “I won’t… miss.”
Aris laughs. It’s a dry, painful sound that turns into a cough, but he doesn’t let go of me. He leans in close, his forehead resting against mine, his hot, laboured breath smelling like copper.
“There won’t be a next time, Hallow. Because from now on, you aren’t leaving this room. Miller, get the heavy restraints from the basement. The ones with the floor bolts.”
Miller blinks, his jaw dropping. “But the Warden said?—”
“I don’t give a fuck what the Warden said!” Aris screams, his voice breaking into a jagged edge. “She’s mine! She’s finally awake, and I’m the only one who gets to watch her burn!”
He grips my hair, pulling my head back until I’m staring at the ceiling. “You wanted to see me human, Hallow? Congratulations. You just found the only part of me that still feels. And it wants to break you until there’s nothing left but the sound of your heart beating against mine.”
Chapter
Six
HALLOW
The office isn’t a sanctuary anymore. It’s an altar.
Miller didn’t just bring the heavy restraints; he brought the drills. I lay flat on the floor, my back pressed against the cold Persian rug, while the high-pitched whine of the power tool chewed into the mahogany floorboards. Four heavy iron bolts, sunk deep into the foundation. My wrists and ankles are spread-eagle, locked into cuffs that are welded directly to the floor. I am pinned like a butterfly in a display case, staring up at the dark wood of Aris’s ceiling.
Aris has changed his shirt again. This one is black, making his skin look like pale marble. He’s sitting in his chair, leaning over me, his throat still a jagged map of purple and red from my chains.
“The brain is an electrical storm, Hallow,” he says, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. He’s holding two silver leads connected to a small, sleek box on his desk. No bulkyhospital machine. This is his private toy. “And yours is stuck in a hurricane. You think you’re a warrior, but you’re just a series of misfiring synapses. We’re going to find the calm.”
He doesn’t use the padded headgear from the infirmary. He reaches down and presses the cold, wet electrodes directly to my temples. He uses a thick, clear gel that smells like ozone.
“You’re a sick… fucking… coward,” I hiss, my breath coming in short, panicked stabs. I pull at the floor bolts, the iron biting into my skin, but I don’t move an inch.
“I’m the only one who cares enough to see what’s under the noise,” he murmurs. He looks down at me, his eyes dark with a manic, focused hunger. He’s not even looking at the dials; he’s looking at my pupils. “Tell me, Hallow. Does the urban legend feel the lightning too?”
He flips the switch.
The world doesn’t go black. It goes white.
It’s not a blow to the head; it’s an invasion. It’s like a thousand serrated knives are being driven through my eyes and out the back of my skull. My muscles don’t just tense; they turn to stone. My back arches so violently off the floor that I can hear my spine pop, the only thing keeping me from snapping in half are the iron cuffs at my wrists.
I try to scream, but my jaw is locked in a bone-shattering grind. I can smell it—the scent of my own hair singeing, the metallic tang of the fillings in my teeth, the ozone of the current cooking my thoughts.
“Deep breaths, Hallow,” Aris’s voice cuts through the static, sounding like it’s coming from miles away.
He kills thepower.
I collapse back onto the rug, my lungs finally dragging in a ragged, sobbing breath. My vision is a fractured mess of purple spots. My tongue is bitten, blood pooling in the back of my throat.
“That was thirty milliamps,” he says, leaning over me. He wipes a bead of sweat from my forehead with a silk handkerchief. He looks fascinated, his hand trembling as he touches my damp skin. “Your heart rate spiked to one-eighty. Your pupils didn’t even react to the light. You were completely, beautifully gone.”
“Kill… you,” I choke out, the words barely formed.
“You’re still fighting the current,” he sighs, looking disappointed. He reaches for the dial on the box. “That’s the psychosis talking. We need to go deeper. We need to find the girl who doesn’t want to be a ghost anymore.”
