Page 60 of Vicious Behaviors
The lines around his eyes soften at the word.
“You haven’t called me that in years,” Vincent murmurs.
It’s still dark outside. Beyond the glass, the world is a quiet void, the moonlight stretching shadows thin. But the warmth in my father’s voice lasts only a moment. It’s so brief that I start to wonder if I didn’t just imagine it. Because just as quickly as it came, it vanished before my eyes as my father’s face shifts, resetting to that familiar, steeled expression I’ve come to know all too well.
“Get dressed, Marcello. You need to come with me,” he says, already standing.
I don’t ask why. I just obey.
As I put on my clothes, he silently roams my room, rummaging through my desk, flipping through textbooks like he’s searching for something I’ve hidden. When he finds a few Psychology textbooks I borrowed from the city library, he doesn’t say a word. And neither do I.
It’s only when I’m dressed that I finally break the silence. “Are we going to the gym?” I ask, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
It’s my usual morning routine before class. The one rule he instilled in me years ago. The one thing that keeps me steady and my only safety net to stay in control.
“Not today,” he replies, his voice flat as concrete.
Something shifts in my gut.
‘He’s up to something,’ the voice inside me begins to growl. ‘Don’t go. Say you’re busy. Say that Jude is expecting you at the gym. Say anything. Just don’t go with him.’
I swallow the unease clawing up my throat and do my best to leash the beast inside me.
After waking up, the demon inside me usually doesn’t make an appearance this fast, but apparently, being woken up by my father triggered him.
To the monster’s bitter resentment, I follow my father out of my room and down the hall. The house remains asleep as we descend the stairs to the ground floor. Even the walls feel as if they’re holding their breath with every step I take.
When we finally step out into the cold silence of morning, my brows knit together. Tony, my father’s usual bodyguard, is nowhere to be found. The hired guards who linger in the shadows of our estate are gone, too.
No footsteps. No whispered radios. Just quiet. Too quiet.
‘Don’t get in that car,’ the voice hisses again, when we both watch my father get into the front seat of his Rolls-Royce Phantom.
But I do. Maybe because I’m curious. Or maybe because fear feels too much like home.
We drive in silence as the sky begins to bruise with light, the early streaks of ash and rose bleeding across the horizon. I count every turn. Every long stretch of road, just in case I need to know my way back.
It takes us over an hour to reach our destiny. The moment we stop at guarded iron gates, the voice in my head goes dead still, too afraid to even breathe out his fury at being here. That’s how I know that this place, whatever it is, scares him.
My father hands something to the guard stationed outside, while I keep my eyes on the tall, rotting building on the hill ahead. The pale walls are cracked, ivy creeping into every dent like veins across its skin. All the windows are narrow, barred, making the structure feel even more imposing.
Once the guard let us through, the iron gate screeched shut behind us like an eerie warning.
We drive towards the main building, and as we slow to a stop, I catch sight of a weather-beaten sign hanging above the entrance, its lettering half-faded but just clear enough to read the words—Forensic Psychiatric Facility.
With apprehension, I step out of the car in sync with my father, my eyes locked on the structure like jaws waiting to snap shut. “What is this place?” I ask.
“You’ll see,” my father says with a clipped tone.
We ascend the steep, concrete steps, and the minute we walk through the menacing building’s doors, the stench of disinfectant mixed with something fouler hits my nostrils, making my stomach drop. Inside, the hallway stretches long and ashen, like the throat of something waiting to swallow us whole. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead as men in white coats move briskly, clipboards clutched like shields.
“Is this a hospital?” I ask, throat tight.
“Of sorts,” he says.
A man in blue approaches, head dipped in deference. “Good morning, Mr. Romano. Please follow me.” My father nods.
I trail after them, every instinct howling in warning. It feels like every corridor we pass twists endlessly. Tile floors echo with each footstep, sterile and unfeeling. As we reach deep inside the belly of the beast,the sounds begin. Loud screams bounce off the walls—animalistic, almost inhuman. The suppressed cries of patients, muttering, growling, babbling from throats torn raw by repetition. All of it concealed behind locked doors, each with only a narrow window set into the metal.
