I ball my fists until my knuckles blanch. Even if Dr. Ambrose has been watching me for years, even if he’s always wanted me, even if he always planned to take me back—he’s still an abusive, murdering creep who will abuse me mentally, emotionally, physically, and sexually until I die if I let him live. And if I don’t do this?
The asylum will keep calling me back.
“What about my job?” I ask, stalling. “I need to notify?—”
“You were fired due to perversions, my dear. You abandoned your duties all for the hope you could finally find satisfaction, just like your mother.”
My face reddens. I forgot Benji lied to Dr. Ambrose, telling him I was masturbating on the job, that my sexual obsessions were taking over my life.
Maybe that wasn’t a complete lie. Maybe my obsession has taken over my life. I’m here, after all, rationalizing my desire to keep following Dr. Ambrose down this black hole. Maybe Dr. Ambrose always knew I would end up under his control, just like my mother.
He gave her so much attention. He even impregnated her.
Why did he do that?
Why does that upset me?
Why do I want him to like me more than her?
Tears well in my eyes; my throat pangs. I’m so fucking confused.
His nostrils flare. “You need this more than you realize, my sweet one.”
My sweet one?
It’s derogatory, being called “sweet one,” a childish pet name when I’m in my mid-twenties, and yet my core is tender, lust sweeping across my skull, mashing every rational thought until nothing is left but his words: sweet one, sweet one, my sweet one. It’s like I’m really his daughter.
I untwist the acid tube behind my back. I can’t let this happen anymore.
“Dr. Ambrose,” I whisper. The tube’s top drops into the bathtub. I hold the container upright and steady.
He braces himself against the side of the bathtub. “Yes, sweet one?”
I thrust the contents toward him. The acid splatters his face, sizzling at the contact, and he howls, the surprised rage echoing through the basement. His nails scrape at his skin, desperate to get the liquid off. I jump out of the tub and clutch the shower head. As I stand behind him and raise the fixture, everything I’m losing flashes before my eyes. The answers to who I am. My father. My only deep connection. But I can’t stop now. I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t do this.
I’m doing this for my mother. For other women.
I’m doing this for myself.
He cradles his face. Even in the shadows, the erection stretching his pants is obvious. And for a split second, I think about his cock in my mouth. The oozing sores. The sour stench. The ribbed purple veins. The calluses rubbing against my tongue.
I’ll never be able to think clearly again unless I kill him.
I raise the shower head again as if it’s a hammer. I straighten my shoulders. “You killed my mother, Ivy Ward.”
I smack the shower head into the back of his skull. His body dips, and he grunts. Tears stream down my cheeks.
“You were her nurse!” I scream. I whack him in the shoulder blade this time. “You raped her! You killed her!”
I lift the shower head again, aiming for his head; as I swing down, he launches me off of him. I fall on my ass. I scramble for the shower head, but he stomps faster, grabbing it from the floor and throwing it to the side of the room. It ricochets off of the wall.
He lumbers toward me. I pant. Red inflamed craters mark his face. One larger burn on his cheek bubbles white, the acid burning him all the way to the fatty tissue.
His eyes gleam at me, red vessels crowding his pupils. The acid didn’t work like I wanted. He can still see me.
Maybe I want him to see me.
He leers at me, anger boiling his stare. “Go on,” he grunts. “Tell me.”
