Page 60 of Psycho Obsession
The sound of his ragged, wet breathing fills the cab. It’s a pathetic, hitching noise—the sound of a man who spent his life building a throne out of other people’s bones, only to realise the chair is on fire.
“You hear that, Dad?” I murmur, not looking back. “That’s the sound of the city forgetting you. Every inch we drive away from that podium is another inch of your legacy turning to ash.”
I see his hand—pale, liver-spotted, and trembling—reach for the handle of the gurney. He’s trying to sit up, trying to find the dignity he traded for power decades ago.
“Jex…” His voice is a broken reed, a thin, whistling sound that makes the hair on my arms stand up. “Jex, son… please…”
I let out a sharp, barking laugh that echoes off the metal interior. “Son? That’s a funny word coming from a man who sold his daughter to a funhouse and left his boy to rot in a cage. You don’t have a son. You have a haunting. And she’s riding right next to you.”
I look over at Hallow. She’s standing up on her pegs now, one hand on the handlebar, the other reaching out to touch the side of the ambulance. She’s stroking the white metal like it’s the skin of a lover.
“I can hear you, Father,” she says into the comms, knowing I’ve patched her into the rear speakers. “I can hear your heart thudding against your ribs. It’s a frantic little rhythm, isn’t it? Like a bird trapped in a chimney. Does it hurt? Or is that just the weight of all the secrets we’re carrying for you?”
I swerve the ambulance slightly, a slow, sickening drift that makes the equipment in the back crash and clang. I hear him groan, the sound of a body being tossed against the reinforced walls.
“We aren’t going to the hospital,” I tell him, my voice dropping into a low, terrifying crawl. “And we aren’tgoing to the bridge’s end. We’re going to take a long, slow drive through the parts of your city you tried to hide. The slums. The docks. The places where the ‘Choir’ sings, Dad. I want you to see the faces of the people you stepped on before we let you go.”
I thumb a button on the dash, locking the rear doors from the inside. Clack-clack.
“He’s trapped, Hallow,” I growl. “He’s in the box. Now… let’s make the ride interesting.”
I reach into the centre console and pull out a small, handheld remote—the twin to the one we used on the anchor. I toss it toward the back partition.
“Use the PA system, Hallow. Tell the city what he did while I find a road that’s bumpy enough to make his stitches scream.”
Chapter
Twenty-Four
HALLOW
The night air is a cold blade against my face, but the fire inside my chest is hotter than the funhouse. I’m riding one-handed, my fingers trembling as I reach for the external PA mic clipped to my collar. My visor is up, and the salt-spray from the harbour is mixing with the hot, stinging tears that are finally, finally breaking through the ice of my skin.
I look at the white metal side of the ambulance. He’s in there. The man who taught me that love was a currency and pain was the only language that didn’t lie.
“City of Saints,” I whisper, my voice cracking, projected through the massive external speakers of the ambulance. It echoes off the concrete barriers, a ghostly, amplified wail that drowns out the wind. “Can you hear the heartbeat of your saviour?”
I let out a broken, jagged sob, my body heavingagainst the Ducati’s tank. I’m not just crying; I’m leaking the last ten years of my life onto the asphalt.
“Do you know what he smells like?” I scream into the mic, the sound distorting, raw and ugly. “He smells like expensive cologne and the copper tang of my own blood. He smells like the bleach they used to scrub the floors of the rooms where he sold me. He sold me!”
I swerve, the bike tilting dangerously as I lose my grip for a second, my vision blurred by the flood of grief. I can see Jex in the driver’s seat through the shattered window. He’s watching me in the side mirror, his eyes dark, blown out with a sick, kinetic hunger. I can feel his gaze crawling over me, feeding on my collapse, turning my agony into his fuel.
“He told me I was special,” I choke out, the words tasting like ash. “He told me the needles were to keep the world away. But the world wasn’t the monster, Dad. You were the one who opened the door. You held my hand while they strapped me down. You kissed my forehead while Aris picked out the scalpels.”
I’m wailing now, a sound so primal and hollow it feels like my ribs are cracking open. I’m broadcasting the blueprints of my ruin to every midnight commuter, every homeless soul under the bridge, every ghost in the city.
“I was six! I was six years old when you realised my pain was worth more than my smile! You traded my childhood for a seat in the Mayor’s office! You traded my body for a fucking campaign budget!”
Through the partition, I hear his muffled, pathetic groans. He’s begging, but I don’t stop. I want the city to choke on the truth.
“Listen to him!” I shriek, my voice breaking into athousand jagged pieces. “Listen to the Great Reformer! He’s crying because his daughter is finally loud enough to drown out his lies! He’s crying because the ‘sanctity of family’ is hanging from a hook in a funhouse, vibrating until she can’t remember her own name!”
I look at Jex. He’s leaning out the window now, his hand reaching out toward me in the wind, his face a mask of terrifying, dark arousal. Seeing me break, hearing the absolute, shivering insanity in my voice—it’s doing something to him. It’s making him harder than the steel of the bike. He’s savouring the kill, the slow-motion car crash of my soul.
“I’m a ghost, Dad!” I sob, the tears blinding me as I gun the engine, the roar of the Ducati punctuated by my own shattered gasps. “And you’re the one who murdered me. You didn’t just break my body—you turned my brother into a monster just so he could be the only one who could find me in the dark!”
I’m shaking so hard the bike is fishtailing, a black streak of pure, unadulterated trauma tearing through the night.
