Chapter Six （Doctor Orson）

CHAPTER SIX (DOCTOR ORSON)

HAZEL

"Shit," I huffed, looking at another empty hall. I wasn't having any luck finding Baz and his friends. It was very rude to decapitate and run. They could have stuck around for some post-death cuddling—make a girl feel special.

I turned around and started to crawl my way back to my room. Suddenly, I was desperate for my terrible mattress. I'd take a week of my arm screaming in pain if I could just get a nap. I'd curse myself when I woke up, but that wasn't important right now.

The thrill of a good chase was bleeding out of me like an aortic wound. If I didn't make it back to the mold cluster constellation above my bed, then I was going to pass out in the hall—a heap of red hair and sudden narcolepsy.

Jobs were always like this: long stretches of anticipation followed by quick bursts of action that took everything and left only an exhausted girl who needed snacks and sleep. Add on top of that the monumental task of dying? I could barely keep my eyelids open.

After nearly ten minutes of searching, I found my room. Which was good, because I was about two seconds from bursting out in tears and looking for someone to strangle. Sobbing and murder were never a pretty combo.

I slammed the door as hard as I could, hoping everyone could hear how upset I was. Then, I turned around and blinked at the unfamiliar furniture. After a quick check to make sure this was indeed my room, I looked around with a sense of relief.

The doctor had made good on his promise—the bed had been upgraded, and my list of needs had arrived.

"Finally," I groaned, dragging myself to the new mattress and flopping down.

My hand slid under the pillow, and I groaned, feeling an empty spot. Of course the gun I'd stashed was gone. What were they going to do? See a pistol and help tuck it under the new pillows like a mint?

Was this pillow goose down? It was so soft—welcoming my head in an embrace of light, airy cushioning. I fisted the blanket beneath me and then wrapped it around my body in a tender cocoon of comfort. I practically melted as the tension leaked out of me. It was feather down too. I think the mattress even had a down topper.

Nothing was better cushioning than feathers. Zero was undoubtedly the reason I was now swaddled in comfort, which meant he hadn't forgotten about me. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing right this minute. I'd worry about it later.

The ache in my arm was better than when I first arrived. Pain had flared to life when I saw my brother, but easily went away when my focus left him. I sighed before rolling my face into the pillow. This was going to be difficult if my brain was inventing aches that didn't really exist.

I thought of the shock in Baz's voice when he realized who I was. Was that really him? There was no way I could be certain.

Not a day had gone by that I hadn't thought of my brother. In one way or another, he'd been the focus of my entire life from the moment he was born. Baz had taken away everything I had and left me with only one thing: the burden to kill him. Uncle Vernon made sure I never forgot that.

My freedom had been stolen the moment that I recovered from Baz's venom. I had came awake from a feverish daze to see my bags packed and Uncle Vernon waiting to take me away.

I had tried to keep life normal—tenderly held on to my naive childish views of my family. I'd spent years writing Baz sibling love letters. I told him about my life, asked about his, and then demanded our mother read each one to him and send me back pictures.

No matter what Uncle Vernon and my parents said, no matter what the entire world told me, I believed my brother was good, and I believed he and I were still destined to be siblings eternally.

I was in love with my brother until the day he killed our parents and vanished.

Something woke me up. Two men were in the room and moving towards me. A flash of light reflected off round glasses. I caught a glance of crazy tattoos. Then, hands wrapped around me, and bodies pressed close—a man on either side.

"What are you doing?" I gasped. I couldn't do this. Gonzo's arms wrapped tightly around my body, keeping me in place for the doctor. Zero ground the heel of his hand between my legs. Instead of complaints, moans fell from my lips.

"It's just an examination, Miss Fury," Zero said. Gonzo chuckled behind me. It wasn't an examination; we all knew it.

"I want to see how quickly you can come."

"Embarrassingly fast, I'm sure," Gonzo said. His arms didn't give an inch as I squirmed. My hips rocked against Zero's hand, desperate.

"Stop," I insisted. This wasn't allowed. They were demanding my pleasure anyway, holding me tighter and rubbing faster.

"Just an examination," Zero whispered. His blank expression was aimed at my mouth. The tension leaked out of me.

"Just an examination," I mumbled, giving in as he leaned in for a kiss.

"Get up," a woman hissed. I snapped awake—for real this time. Immediately, I reached for the missing gun under the pillow and grabbed air. Rachel had to unspool me from the blanket bondage I'd worked myself into before she could drag me off the bed. I stumbled up and out of the room as she pulled me.

"Wha—" I tried to ask, wiping drool from my chin. It felt like the down feathers were stuck in my skull. Rachel dropped my wrist, and I followed blearily—closing one eye and then the other, trying to help my brain snap out of a deep sleep fog.

"You have one-on-one therapy," she said over her shoulder, shuffling quickly in front of me.

"Have I been drugged?" I asked with a thick tongue.

"Of course not, Miss Fury," Rachel said blankly. I shook my head and started to feel sleep slowly slither away as we maneuvered through the long hall.

Well… that dream happened. I wasn't sure if I was relieved or wanted to bash Rachel's head in for interrupting.

I blinked at the graffitied horns and devil tails on C Ward. I didn't know much about the other gangs, but living amongst Infernals made me figure them out pretty quick. Their personalities ranged from hot heads to complete apathy, which made them a varied bunch united under a love of fucking, fighting, and alt clothing. They were anarchist, punk rock, BDSM-loving demons, and they constantly bitched about Rabids—the shifters.

We left C Ward, and the next thing I knew, Rachel was pushing me through a door and guiding me into a chair. It looked like the vampire who bit me a few hours ago was smiling behind a desk while reading my file spread open on his lap.

"Hazel Fury ," my therapist said with a big smile. I blinked at him a few times.

"You look a lot like the guy whose ass I beat. I think he stole your coat."

"No one stole my coat," he said. Maybe I was still sleeping. I liked the other dream better. My eyes flicked down to the jacket's name tag. It was a Velcro-ed patch.

Dr. Orson, M.D., Psy. D.

Therapist, Verfallen Asylum

His eyes ping-ponged between my mismatched eyes. Why had he been in the general population, hamming it up with my brother? Why had he viciously attempted to murder me? That wasn't very professional of him. Well, my profession, yes. I didn't think therapists often took out their unruly patients via blood draining.

I glared at him. He tapped his pen on my file and gave me a pretentious smile.

"Basil's sister," he commented, leaning back in his chair. "Why do you want to kill your brother?"

I guess that was the confirmation I needed. The masked man really was my brother. This was really happening. He was here, I was here… and I wasn't leaving until he was in a body bag. The time for questioning was over.

With a sigh, I decided to play along.

"Shouldn't we talk about what landed me here?" I offered. "I feel like that would be more appropriate."

" Appropriate ," Orson said, biting back a little smile as he began to scribble on the edges of my file. I watched as he drew a dead body split open, the intestines arranged like delicate scarves around his arms and legs.

Patient or doctor? The pendulum kept swinging back and forth.

Verfallen was fucked, and I dropped myself into the middle of it. Gangs? Murderous therapists? So much blood on the walls, they couldn't even manage to clean it. Nurses whose heads looked like they wanted to fall off.

And at the center… Zero. A mysterious, possibly immortal scientist performing experiments on the inmates, and had at least one nurse scared to death.

Doctor Orson was working on the shading in his macabre doodle.

"Sure, let's talk about why you've been committed. But where to start? The abandoned apartment the authorities found? Apparently, everyone who arrived at the scene quit the force the next day—traumatized by the state you left the corpses in. Corpse desecration." He clicked his tongue with mock disapproval, shooting me an entertained smile as he did. "That's not very sane."

"It's not like the corpses minded," I offered blankly. I loved desecrating corpses. Some people liked to crochet and brew beer. I liked to play with bodies. Sometimes, I thought if I could get to know the dead body intimately enough, it would reveal its mortal secrets.

"Or maybe you want to talk about when you crawled out of an incinerator at the city morgue while laughing. When the special forces team arrived to arrest you, they found a peculiar scene…" Orson trailed off as he finished reading. He smiled wider. "Very interesting. You know, that's class six necrophilia? You would be called a necromutilomaniac ." He pronounced the mouthful delicately, making sure I heard all the parts. "There's a whole range. Basil, for instance—"

"We're here about me, not my brother," I snapped. I didn't want to know anything else about him except where he liked to go alone without his bodyguard buddies and maybe what his dumb face looked like… so I could watch the light leave his eyes. It's a shame he'd still be venomous after he was dead. I bet his corpse would have a lot of secrets… Maybe I could keep him behind glass like a prized possession. I'd like that. Then, we'd be together forever, just like we were supposed to be.

"The real reason you ended up here was because you wanted to be. You have that in common with your brother." My eyes narrowed. Was there some asylum-wide announcement about my inner thoughts? How did they all know I wanted to be committed?

"What do you mean my brother wants to be here?" I asked. Orson smiled, pleased with himself that I took the bait. My irritation levels were beginning to rise.

"Even when he's offered the opportunity to leave, he throws a fit and demands we all stay here."

"We all?" I asked in confusion. Something was going on with them beyond a patient-doctor relationship.

Baz sequestered himself in this terrible place and refused to leave. Why would he do that? Was he hiding himself? And if so, what from? From me ?

Nope didn't care. Not one bit. Fuck that little psychopathic asshole.

"Do you love your brother?" Orson asked.

"No," I snapped a little too harshly.

"It's normal to love family," he said with a raised eyebrow.

"He killed our parents. Whatever love I might have had for him died the same day."

"Did it? Or did you just start to feel guilty about it?" Orson looked like he was swallowing laughter as I sent a furious glare his way. It was official; I hated this nosy, narcissistic therapist.

"Your therapy sucks," I said. He didn't seem to care.

"Do you want to kill Baz to rid yourself of your personal guilt?" he asked.

"No," I spat. My increasing anger was increasing his amusement. I needed to stop reacting.

"Do you want to kill your brother because you're angry he left you?" He set my file on the table. My nails were threatening to peel off my fingers as I dug them into the armrests of my chair. Pounding was loud in my ears.

"No," I managed to grind out. Orson chuckled, and the urge to scream in his face was painfully swallowed back down.

"Oh? Hmm. Well, then maybe you want to kill him because you're sexually attracted to him." He said it with a wide smile, vampire teeth peeking out playfully.

I felt like I could bend a steel pipe with the amount of rage exploding within my veins. Orson was playing mind tricks on me, pissing me off for his own entertainment. I said nothing. I couldn't talk. If I opened my mouth, I was going to start screaming, and I wasn't going to stop until I'd made vampire soup.

"You two clearly have complicated feelings when it comes to family," he went on. It was the knowing smile that did it for me. He looked absolutely convinced, as if he knew things about me no one should, ones maybe I didn't even know.

Rachel had dragged me from my room before I could grab a weapon. Maybe I could stab Orson with his fountain pen? No, the tip always broke off on the first thrust.

"Have you seen his lover?" Orson asked, and I blanched.

"Lover?" I wheezed. How the fuck could he have a lover? He couldn't touch people! Who was touching my brother? I felt weirdly angry about the whole concept of him having a lover. There was no way. I didn't even have a lover because of him.

"He can't touch people," I ground out. My eyes snapped to the furniture in the room. On top of his file cabinet, there was a screwdriver someone had forgotten to put away. It even looked a little rusty. Perfect .

"Oh, sorry. I suppose Bree is only one of his lovers, but the resemblance to you is uncanny."

"You're a sick fucking therapist," I seethed, leaping towards his file cabinet and wrapping my fingers around the screwdriver's plastic handle.

"I guess I am a little sick," he commented in amusement, unperturbed by what I was doing.

"Keep your illness away from me," I said, turning around with my weapon and running at him. He grabbed my wrist faster than I could stab him. Not that I expected any different, but it felt good to expend some energy and make it clear how much I hated him.

"I think you've had enough therapy today," Orson said with a sigh.

"You think you know everything, but you don't even know who's really running this place, or what's really going on here," I spat, jerking my arm from his grip. The screwdriver fell to the floor.

"What does that mean?" he asked with narrowed eyes.

"Supra," I said with a smile before leaving. He'd look up Supra, see it's the supernatural pharmaceutical company, and connect the dots. Then, he'd realize he wasn't the only one with information. It felt good to have one over on him.

I wanted very badly to turn back around and kill him, but Orson was the only clue I had to Baz's whereabouts. If he was really that close to my brother, then he'd lead me to him eventually.

I'd follow him after his office hours. Until then, I really needed some self-care in the form of murder. I slipped my hand into the top of my dress, and pulled out the paper from group therapy. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe .

I tucked it back into my dress and headed towards my room.