Page 135 of Wicked Nightmare

As Rose stumbled through her fragmented memories, something dark and ominous clawed at the edges of my mind. My skin crawled with phantom sensations. Blood on my hands, screaming echoing in a room. I clenched my fists, willing the memories away. But they persisted. Rose continued talking, oblivious to how her constant blabbering was grating against my every nerve. Blabbering that was stirring up some serious shit in my head. God, these fucking women need to stop with the fucking theories. Just shut the fuck up. She stopped talking, giving me an odd look before asking me a question that I didn't even hear.

I tuned her out, lost in a memory I'd tried so hard to bury:

I'm six years old, huddled in a corner of the foster home. The other kids are screaming, fighting over scraps. But I'm different. Special, they told me. I don't feel hunger like the others. I don't need to sleep as much as them either. Pain is just information.

A man in a white coat kneels before me, his smile cold and clinical. "You're doing so well, Cameron. Just a few more tests, and then you can go home." He pushes the back of the syringe and pain fills my veins, but I don't scream. I don't even blink. "That's a good boy."

He stands, talking to someone in a black robe, just out of my line of sight. "He's ready for phase two. Take him to the girl."

I try to ask when I'm going home, when I can go play outside. I want to ask if I can get a hug.

But there is no home, no play and no hug. Just more labs, more shit to do, more lies.

As the others chattered on and on, my mind drifted. The bag babies we'd uncovered triggered me into a kind of stasis. I'd spent years subconsciously burying my past, but now it was clawing its way to the surface. I tried to let it ascend slowly, so as not to rip my psyche apart, but there wasn't much I could control about the vicious way it was invading my senses.

Lakey's voice cut through my thoughts. "Hi sexy. You're awfully quiet. Plotting world domination without me? Want to let me in on your little games?"

I turned to her, drinking in the sight of her smile. My beautiful little psycho. "Just thinking about how sexy you'd look in a lab coat, baby. Maybe we can steal you one and I can fuck you in it."

Her eyes lit up and she looked down at my cock as if expecting it to be naked, hard and waiting. "Ooh, role-play. I like where your head's at."

I chuckled. Kyle had finally started talking, droning on about the lab. I caught snippets about security systems and potential allies. More fucking variables. More people I didn't want to let into my circle. All I could focus on was the growing pit in my stomach. And Lakey. The ray of sunshine, piercing through the veil.

I'd always known I was different. Broken. But Lakey... she saw something in me worth loving. Or at least worth keeping around. The thought of losing that, of seeing disgust replace that adoration in her eyes... it terrified me more than any torture Chimera could devise.

"Hey," Lakey whispered, her teeth biting my ear lobe. "Whatever's going on in that gorgeous head of yours, we'll figure it out."

I nodded, forcing a smirk. "Always, darlin'. Just promise me one thing?"

"Anything," she breathed.

"No matter what, you'll always choose me."

Her eyes grew big as she crossed her heart. "Oh, Cammy, you are everything. I'd choose you a thousand times, in a thousand lives, even if every fucking one was worse than the one before."

Whatever memories surfaced, whatever the future held, at least I had this. At least I had her.

I tuned back in, wanting to ask a question because I didn't do variables, and they just kept introducing new ones. "Just wondering... what if we're walking into something bigger than we can handle? Who is there for backup? You were saying something about potential allies. So, who are they?"

Sarah scoffed. "Since when are you the cautious one?"

I flashed her a grin, shrugging my shoulders at her response. "You don't know me very well. I'm still game for a little mayhem. Just like to know what I'm dealing with. Or who I'm dealing with."

"We have friends. But they're not like us, Cam. They're outliers. Unknowns. We will only bring them in if necessary and right now, it's not. Understood?" Kyle finally spoke for the first time in ages, pinning me with a look.

Yeah. I understand.

Those were the people I'd shoot first and ask questions later if it came down to it.

So, let's hope we don't need to find out where their allegiances lay.

Chapter Forty: Lakey

Tap, tap, tap. My fingers danced across the kitchen table like they had a mind of their own, desperate to escape the shit show brewing in my head. I glared at the stack of files in front of me, wishing I could set the whole damn pile on fire with my mind. Wouldn't that be a neat trick?

Just do it, Lakey. It's only hypnotherapy. What's the worst that could happen?

Oh, I don't know. Maybe unlocking a Pandora's box of fucked-up memories better left buried? Reliving every excruciating detail of whatever those Chimera bastards did to me? No thanks.