Page 105 of The Psychopaths

My name on her lips is the final permission I need. Positioned at her entrance, I can feel the warmth of her cunt calling to me. Unlike before, I enter her with excruciating slowness, giving her body time to adjust, to accept. She gasps as I fill her, her inner walls still tender from the earlier abuse yet welcoming me with silken heat. I grit my teeth against the desire to rut into her and pause when fully seated. With our foreheads pressed together, breathing each other’s air, I can feel every shudder and quiver of her body.

“Okay?” I ask, searching her face for any signs of pain or regret.

“Yes,” she breathes, rolling her hips. “Move. Please.”

I establish a gentle rhythm, nothing like the punishing pace of our previous encounter. Each thrust is measured, deliberate, angled to brush that spot inside that makes her gasp. Her armstwine around my neck, holding rather than clawing, as we move together in the steam.

I’ve had sex countless times since escaping the institution. Used it as just another tool for manipulation, for release, for punishing those who deserved it.

This is something else entirely. This is...connection.

After she comes apart in my arms, crying out my name—my name, not his—I carry her still trembling body to my bed. Water droplets glisten on her skin; I haven’t bothered to dry either of us completely. I lay her down, watching as her eyes grow heavy. The chemicals, the trauma, the release—all combine to pull her toward much-needed sleep. Her legs part slightly as she shifts, revealing the evidence of our joining—my cum leaking from her still swollen pussy, marking her in the most primal way possible.

The sight should trigger possessiveness, satisfaction at claiming what Aries tried to take. Instead, it prompts an unfamiliar protective surge. I pull the sheet over her, covering her nakedness as if suddenly conscious of her vulnerability.

“Rest,” I tell her, voice rougher than intended.

She catches my hand as I move to stand, fingers curling weakly around mine. “Stay,” she murmurs, already half asleep. “Please.”

I hesitate, then settle beside her on the bed, above the covers while she’s beneath them. A boundary I’ve never bothered with before. Her fingers remain laced with mine as her breathing deepens, her body surrendering to exhaustion.

In sleep, her face relaxes completely. The wariness she carries even in her most unguarded moments with me fades away, leaving something younger, more innocent. It’s difficult to reconcile this peaceful expression with the sounds she made moments ago—her gasps as I moved inside her, the way she moaned when my fingers circled her clit, the broken cry of completion when she tightened around my cock.

I study her features, committing them to memory.

The subtle architecture of her face, so different from that of the Hayes family despite years in their world. The dark sweep of eyelashes against her cheeks. The slight part of her lips as she breathes. There’s a tightening in my chest, unfamiliar and dangerous.

This was never part of the plan. I trace the line of her cheekbone with my free hand, touch feather-light to avoid waking her. The tenderness of the gesture startles me, foreign to everything I’ve become since the institution.

Dangerous, this softness. Dangerous, this care. Every attachment is vulnerability. Every vulnerability, a potential weapon to be used against me.

Yet I can’t bring myself to pull away. I can’t force myself to reestablish the emotional distance that has kept me alive and focused all these years.

Somewhere in the building below us, Aries lies chained and unconscious. The revenge I’ve planned for years is finally within reach. I should be savoring this victory, planning the next phase, ensuring nothing interferes with what I’ve worked toward for so long.

Instead, I’m watching a girl sleep, wondering what it would be like to be someone worthy of her trust. Someone capable of more than destruction.

Lilian

Islowly return to consciousness. There’s a dull throb of pain between my thighs and in my lower back. I can feel it across my shoulders where someone’s teeth marked my skin.

Then, sensation. Soft sheets against naked skin, the weight of a blanket, the press of a mattress beneath me.

Finally, memory. Violent and fragmented, like glass shards slicing as I try to piece them together.

Aries. Arson. The flood. The chemical mist. Their hands on me. Inside me. Taking, claiming, using.

I should feel violated. Should feel broken. Should feel ashamed. I feel none of those things. The realization is startling enough to make me open my eyes, blinking against the soft light of a bedside lamp. I’m no longer in the basement. I’m in Arson’s bed. The night comes back to me in flashes—the shower, his unexpected gentleness, the way he filled me so differently than Aries had.Not taking. Not claiming.Something else entirely.

I shift slightly, cataloging the damage. There’s a tenderness between my legs that’s bearable but persistent. Finger-shaped bruises on my hips where I was held too hard. A tender spot on my shoulder where teeth broke skin. Not just one set.Both.Matching marks from identical mouths.

The physical evidence of what happened should horrify me. It should make me curl into myself with shame at the trauma of being caught between twin brutalities. Instead, I feel strangely...powerful. I survived them both. Took everything they had to give—the violence and the tenderness—and I’m still here. Still myself.

Is this what it means to be truly seen?Not as the fragile Hayes daughter, the girl with the heart condition, the precious invalid to be protected and controlled. But as a woman capable of withstanding darkness, of containing multitudes.

I examine a bruise on my wrist, pressing it lightly to feel the ache. Proof that it happened. Proof that I’ve been marked by both twins in ways that can never be undone. Their violence. Their desire. Their impossible complexities.

The shame doesn’t come, no matter how I search for it. Perhaps it will find me later, when the strange empowerment fades. For now, there’s only this peculiar strength—the knowledge that I’ve been broken open and somehow emerged more whole than before.

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