Page 62 of Dark Therapy

Damien

The walls were too fucking white, the air so sterile it felt like it was eating into my skin. Every goddamn thing about this place was designed tosuffocate—to bleach the color out of you, strip you down to nothing. But they didn’t know me. They didn’t know the black rot in my soul, the fire burning just under my skin. Two years in this pit of shit, and they thought they’d tamed me. Thought I’d bowed my head, licked their boots, swallowed their pills.Fools. Every second I spent in here only sharpened my edges.

The hum of the lights was a taunt. The antiseptic smell was a reminder of how long I’d been buried alive, but it didn’t break me—itfueledme. Every rule I followed, every‘yes, doctor’I muttered, was a calculated move. A fucking chess game, and they were all pawns too stupid to realize they were already dead.

Two years. Two long years playing the role of their broken doll, pretending I gave a shit about “treatment plans” and “progress reports.” Waiting for my opening. The ones who were supposed to free me? Useless. Slow. Cowards who thought they couldleashme, that I wouldn’t notice their hesitation. Theirbetrayal.

But I don’t fucking wait on others. I never have. When the world tries to crush you, you don’t beg for mercy—you tear its goddamn throat out.

And now? Now, it was time to settle the score.

The asshole standing in front of me—he wasthefirst. Smug little bastard with his clipboard and his glasses, looking down at me like I was anexperimenthe couldn’t quite figure out. He thought he held the power, thought I was just some rabid dog waiting for a cage. He had no fucking clue he was already dead.

“You look proud of yourself,” I sneered, leaning back in the chair, wrists chained, but my grin feral. “All that talk about fixing me, making me better. Youreallybelieve your own bullshit, huh?”

He didn’t respond—he just scribbled in his little notebook. A flick of his pen, like my words didn’t matter. LikeIdidn’t matter. And that’s when Iknew. He had no fucking idea I held all the cards.

I leaned forward. “You think this is over? You think you won? That’s cute. But let me tell you something, doc. Power isn’t in your degrees or your syringes or those fucking pills you shove down my throat. Power’s in the person willing toburnthe whole goddamn gameboard to ash.”

He didn’t flinch. He should have. Because I’d already started playing. The guards outside? They wouldn’t be there much longer. The cameras? Blind spots everywhere, thanks to a little improvisation with some loose wires. And this smug son of a bitch? He wouldn’t make it out of this room.

Two years of waiting, of playing the long con. And now, they’d see. I wasn’t broken. I wasn’t tamed.

I was the fuckingstormthey never saw coming.

I smirked, looking at the man in front of me—he was the second one,the one who hadpromisedme freedom but had onlydelivered me to this cold, miserable room for another year ofhell. He didn’t realize how badly he’d fucked up. His mistake? He thought I was just some broken monster, a ticking time bomb that would eventually go off. He didn’t realize I was the one who held the fuse.

The blood pooled beneath him, dark and sticky, soaking into the cracks of the floor. I stared down at the body, my chest rising and falling, but not from exhaustion. No, it was something far better—somethingelectric. The rush ofcontrol, the taste ofpower, sharp and sweet, surged through me like a drug. This wasn’t just satisfaction—it wasecstasy.

I wiped a hand across my face, smearing blood along my jaw, and laughed. Not a quiet chuckle—a full, manic cackle that echoed off the walls. “Traitor,” I spat, kicking the lifeless heap at my feet. “You thought you could fuckingoutsmartme? Thought I wouldn’t see it coming?Pathetic.”

The smirk stretched across my face, a predator’s grin, as I stepped over the body, the soles of my boots leaving crimson prints in my wake.They’d all pay. Every goddamn one of them who thought they could cage me, control me,betrayme.

Now, it washerturn.

Amelia.

She probably thought she wassafe. Thought her quiet little life had gone on, untouched, as if I was nothing but a bad dream she’d woken up from. Poor, stupid Millie. She had no fucking clue.

I hadn’t forgotten. Not for a single second in those two years of sterile walls and fluorescent lights. She was in my veins, under my skin, clawing at my mind like a beautiful, venomous ghost. She thought she was free of me, thought she’d escaped. But freedom was anillusion.

She didn’t just see me—she made me. The spark that lit the fuse, thereasonI’d become everything I am. Amelia didn’t realize it then, but when she looked into my eyes, she made a promise. A silent, unspoken vow.And I never forget a promise.

The first betrayal had been hers, and I can’t let it slide.

I could alreadypictureit—her wide eyes when she sees me again, the way her breath will hitch, her heart will race. She’llfeelit then, the inevitability of it all. She’ll know that no matter how far she ran, no matter how hard she tried to forget,shewasalwaysmine.

I licked the corner of my mouth, tasting the salt of someone else’s blood, and grinned wider. “Oh, Millie,” I whispered to the silence. “You’re gonna feel everything I did. And then some.”

Because this time, I wasn’t coming to play.

I was coming todestroyher. To remind her that monsters don’t just disappear. Theywait. They grow sharper,hungrier. And now? NowIwasfree.

I shoved the door open, the hinges screaming under my force, the kind of sound that cuts through silence like a blade. The air outside hit me like a drug—heavy, raw, electric. My lungs burned as I dragged it in, but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.

The world had changed while they had me locked away, but one thing stayed the same.Her. The only thing that ever mattered. The one thing Icouldn’trip out of my head, no matterhow deep I clawed. She was inevitable, a fuckinggravityI couldn’t escape.

And now? Now she was going tofeelit.Allofit. Every twisted, aching part of me I’d kept bottled up for years.