“I’m sorry,” she said, replacing the cap on the cream and placing it on the cart next to her.
I laughed bitterly, my body already covered in sweat again. “The fuck you are.”
She frowned, grabbing a bandage and wrapping it around my burns and then draping the bedsheet back over me, mummifying and hiding my horrors from prying eyes.
She removed her gloves and cleared away her torture devices before coming to stand next to the bed again.
“You don’t make it easy, Beast,” she said, her voice softer than it usually was.
“Nothing in this life ever is,” I said, my one eye gazing out the window at the dreary day outside.
Doctor Collins wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to see out of my damaged eye again. Said it needed to heal. It needed time. And maybe, just maybe, if I was real lucky…
“I am sorry. I’m a nurse; I don’t like seeing people in pain.”
I snorted out a laugh. “That’s not what you just said.”
She sighed and I looked back at her. My body felt like it was on fire all over again. Every muscle ached and burned and throbbed in angry, vibrant pain.
“Men like me, we deserve what comes to us, right?” I bit out, and I rejoiced in the sadness that crept across her features and stole the softness that had filled her eyes. “We deserve it, so fuck it. Let’s bring in people and show them what happens to men like me. Ain’t that right, Nurse?”
“That’s not what I said,” she stammered, but we both knew that was a lie.
And we both knew that she was right too.
Men like me didn’t deserve a second chance. We didn’t deserve kindness. We deserved a long, painful death and a one-way ticket to hell. And that was exactly what I’d gotten.
“Yeah it is. How many men have you treated that I put in here, I wonder? How many men with bodies broken and skin destroyed? Men just like me that probably deserved it too, right?” The words tasted good on my tongue, the anger and violence that writhed inside me coming to life as she frowned harder at me and shook her head. “You wanna know a secret, Nurse? I enjoyed it every single time.”
She frowned in confusion at me and I smirked. I was on a roll now, ready to destroy her little bubble of self-righteousness. Cunt thought she could come in here and speak to me like I was nothing. Like I hadn’t earned my place in this world. Like she had the right to judge me.
“Every man that I broke, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the blood I spilled; their screams of pain, their cries of terror. I fucked women afterwards with their blood still on my hands and their cries inside my head.”
I felt alive for the first time in months as I let it all out—every goddamned evil truth that spilled from my viper’s tongue.
She swallowed and took a step back from me with a shake of her head. “I need to go.” She turned away from me and headed to the door.
“I enjoyed the death I brought. The necks I snapped, the fingers I crushed, the hearts I tore apart. I enjoyed it every time. And when I leave here, I’ll go back to enjoying it all over again. Maybe more so, because now I know exactly how it feels. And when I send those men to the hospital, I’ll be sure to tell them to ask for you.”
Jenna turned to look at me from the doorway. “You’re sick, Beast. Or should I say Nathanial?”
I gritted my teeth. “That ain’t my name no more. I’m Beast. Beast by name and Beast by nature.”
She smiled sadly and took a long breath. “Yes, you are, aren’t you.”
“Keep that prissy little bitch out of my room or you’ll regret it,” I bellowed as she opened the door and left. “And bring me my fucking pudding!” I roared.
God, what I would have given to get up and throw something. To smash my fist through the wall. To grab that fucking torture cart and throw it out the window and hopefully crush some poor innocent people below. But as it was, I couldn’t get up and move around like that because if I did I’d be in agony for hours. My scars would likely split back open and I’d be bleeding out on this godforsaken bed all over again.
One day I’d be back on my feet again. One day I’d be strong and I’d be back to doing what I did best: killing and maiming and punishing anyone I saw fit.
One day.
And then the motherfuckers who put me here were gonna pay.
They didn’t know pain. But they would.
“Gauge!” I roared, fury and pain coursing through my blood.
