Tamed

1 The men at the Institute took his money and cut out a piece of my brain. My frontal lobe. Now, I'm a puppet, devoid of emotion, existing only to obey. It all started when my sister's assistant, Ryan, showed up with a forged paternity test, claiming I was an imposter. He wept, telling my family I’d used my position as the family heir to lord over him, that I’d broken his leg in a fit of rage. To make it up to him, they sent me to the Institute. When I got out, I just nodded and agreed to whatever they said. Ryan, disgusted, told me to jump in the pool and wash myself clean. I did. My parents pulled me from the bottom of the pool, their faces masks of horror. My sister, Sophia, accused me of putting on a show. She demanded I break my own leg as an apology. I turned and walked straight into oncoming traffic. She yanked me back, her hand trembling uncontrollably. Later, Ryan framed me again, claiming I’d drugged him and thrown him to a woman with an STD. Sophia slapped me, spitting that if he got sick, I was dead. I picked up a knife and aimed it at my heart. My parents froze in the doorway. Sophia grabbed my hand, her grip like a vice. She called me an idiot, asking why I did everything anyone told me to. I’m not an idiot. ... The tip of the blade broke the skin, a sharp, wet sound piercing the silence. It was only millimeters from my heart, but I felt nothing. My hand moved to push it deeper. Sophia, her hands slick with my blood, wrenched the knife away. "Nolan! Are you insane?!" But my eyes didn't even blink. Her shock was absolute. I wasn't insane. They had performed a lobotomy on me. I had no emotions. I didn't know what pain was. My mother’s eyes welled with tears. "Nolan, what are you doing?" My father, heartbroken, slapped me across the face, trying to knock some sense into me. "You animal! Your sister was kind enough to bring you home! Who are you trying to guilt-trip with this pathetic act?!" Only then did I stop. Without an order from my family, I didn't dare continue. I just curled up on the floor. My docile state only seemed to infuriate Sophia more. "Nolan! Stop playing the fool who can't understand a word! The Ashtons took you back, what more could you possibly want?!" I answered like a machine. "I want for nothing. My sister said I nearly got Ryan infected. I was carrying out my sister’s punishment." Seven years of “re-education” had taught me that resistance was pointless. Obedience was survival. The slightest frown would earn me unspeakable torture at the Institute. A moment later, the world went black as I passed out from blood loss. At the hospital, the doctor who was supposed to be treating me was called away by Ryan, who was suddenly complaining that his old leg injury was acting up. A nurse just poured alcohol directly onto my open wound. The sting woke me, and the first thing I heard was Ryan’s voice, dripping with false sincerity. "Nolan, man, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have come back and… taken your place. Don't do this self-pity routine, please. It just makes the family hate me more." "I haven't seen you in seven years," he continued, "but I've felt guilty every single day." A lie. I remembered him clearly. He was the one who told the Institute to perform the surgery. Strange. Why wouldn't he admit he'd visited me? Blood was still seeping from the gash in my chest. Just as my sister was about to call for a doctor for me, Ryan turned away, his face pale. My mother gasped. "Ryan's faint at the sight of blood! Someone treat Nolan's wound, quickly!" Before a doctor could even approach, I had already torn off my shirt, balled it up, and shoved it hard against the wound. At the Institute, when they beat me until I was a bruised mess, I often used my clothes as bandages. The infections nearly killed me a few times. Ryan sucked in a sharp breath. "Nolan, I'm sorry. It's my fault the doctor left." Sophia pushed down the flicker of pity she felt for me, her brow furrowed in a deep scowl. "Do you really need the victim to apologize to you?" she snapped. "Seven years of re-education, and the Institute didn't teach you the price of your mistakes?" Of course they did. I dropped to my knees in front of Ryan, dragging my injured leg as I slammed my forehead against the floor. "Ryan, it's all my fault! If you're still not satisfied, I promise the next time I stab myself, I'll finish the job!" Ryan sighed dramatically. "You lied to this family for seven years. Are you going to keep treating us like fools?" To make him believe me, I started stabbing myself again, each cut deep enough to show bone. For seven years, this was the only way I could earn a bowl of spoiled leftovers at the Institute. Covered in fresh blood, I offered a placating smile. "Do you believe me now, Ryan?" Sophia's voice was sharp as glass. "You're disgusting!" "The party is about to start. Stop embarrassing the Ashton family!" As they left, Ryan leaned in close, his eyes glinting. "Nolan," he whispered, "if you want us to believe you, get on your knees and wash my feet. In front of everyone at the party tonight. Then we'll know you're not acting." I nodded forcefully. After a quick, messy bandaging job, I made my way to the Ashton's grand ballroom. My mother flinched at the sight of me, wrapped head to toe in gauze. "Nolan, you should be in the hospital! What are you doing here?" Ignoring the confused stares of the guests, I walked directly to Ryan and knelt at his feet. Ignoring the fire in my own wounds, I began to remove his leather shoes to wash his feet. Ryan "accidentally" ground his heel into an open cut on my foot. When my hand trembled, spilling the basin of water, his face twisted from a smirk to a mask of feigned terror. "Nolan! You... you burned me with hot water!" The scalding water had drenched my clothes and skin, but I ignored the searing pain and kept my head bowed to the floor. "I'm sorry, brother." The guests around us turned pale at the sight of my bloody, mangled wounds. Sophia, however, rushed to his side, cradling the foot that had been splashed. "Ryan, are you okay?" He winced. "Sophia, he's just trying to drive me away! I... I should just leave the Ashton family for good..." He stood to leave, ignoring Sophia’s protests as she hurried after him. But a friend of the family, a neuroscientist, grabbed her arm, his expression grave. "Sophia, wait. Look at Nolan. Something's not right with him…" She shot an irritated glance back at me. The skin scalded by the water was already peeling away as I scrubbed at the floor. Blood soaked through the bandages on my torso, but I seemed completely unaware, focused only on cleaning the spill. They didn't know that at the Institute, a single drop of blood left on the floor meant a thousand times more punishment. "It's like he doesn't feel pain anymore," the doctor said, his voice low. "He's just a machine executing commands. A normal person wouldn't mutilate themselves just to follow an order. Sophia, there's something seriously wrong with his brain!" "That's impossible," she murmured, but she hesitated. My father, embarrassed by the scene, scowled. "I doubt it. Making a scene at an event like this… If he's so committed to the act, why doesn't he just kill himself?" Without a second thought, I agreed. I grabbed a steak knife from a nearby table and plunged it toward my heart. The doctor moved like lightning, catching my wrist. "Stop!" I obediently froze. Crash. Sophia’s wine glass shattered on the marble floor. My father stood paralyzed. My mother’s eyes filled with tears again. "That boy… could something have really happened to him at the Institute? Even if he’s not our blood, we raised him for so many years…" Strange. I thought they hated me. Why did they seem so afraid of losing me? My mother stared at my wounds, at a loss. My father's gaze was a mixture of irritation and scrutiny. After a moment, seeing I wasn't dead, Sophia's anger returned. She ordered the butler, "Get him out of here. I don't want Ryan to see him and get upset!" They tied me up in the garden. No one dared to bring me food. For three days, I drank from the sprinkler hose to survive. I slept curled in a pile of dead leaves. Ryan would cruise by in the Maybach, whistling at me like a dog. I'd smile back instinctively, and he’d sneer with open contempt. "Pathetic." Was I? I didn't think so. Compared to the seven years of endless darkness and oppression, sleeping here was paradise. One day, Ryan had the driver stop the car. He held out his wrist to me. "Look at you, Nolan. A pathetic stray. What's the difference between you and a dog?" I gave my customary, agreeable smile. He patted my head. "Good dog. Now, be a good boy and bite me." I bared my teeth and bit down. The next second, a sharp slap sent my head ringing. Sophia had arrived. "Have you completely lost your mind? When did you learn to bite people like an animal?" I didn't argue. I just smiled, like a dog. Ryan scrambled behind his sister, feigning terror. "Sophia, look at him! He's smiling at me! It's terrifying!" Sophia's face was a mask of ice. She ordered the bodyguards to take me to a psychiatric hospital. "I think you've really lost your mind. Go in there and get it treated!" I memorized her words. That night, I swallowed an entire bottle of powerful sedatives. By the time the night nurse noticed something was wrong, my bed was soaked in the black blood I had vomited. The first thing I saw when I regained consciousness was my mother, sobbing uncontrollably as she gently stroked my hair. "How did my Nolan become like this? He wasn't… he wasn't like this before…" She was right. The boy I used to be—bright, dazzling, proud—was dead. He died the day he was thrown into the Institute. A flicker of pity crossed my father's face, but his words were still sharp. "He's not our biological son, after all. Bad genes. He's probably resentful now that he knows the truth, trying to use us, to harm us…" I wanted to say, No, I would never hurt you. But the oxygen tube in my throat silenced me. Ryan's choked voice reached my ears. "Mom, Dad… if Nolan wakes up and really holds a grudge against me… I don't think it will be just my leg he breaks this time." Sophia let out a soft sigh, then made a promise to soothe him. "I'll pay the hospital ten times their usual fee to… delay Nolan's medication." "It would be better… if he just died here." I suddenly understood what my family wanted. The moment I regained a sliver of strength, I used all of it to rip the tube from my throat. My heart rate and blood pressure monitors screamed. The blaring alarm drained the color from Sophia's face. She yelled instinctively. "Doctor! Help my brother! Please!" Ryan’s smile vanished, his eyes flashing with jealousy. The doctor who saved me clutched his chest, catching his breath. "A few more seconds and he would have been gone! What kind of family are you, leaving him unattended like this?!" My parents and Sophia stared, speechless, before stammering apologies. Lying on the edge of death, I was utterly confused. Didn't they want me to die? Why did they save me when I was so close? Ryan’s voice cracked with rage. "Nolan, are you done with your act? It looks like seven years did nothing to fix you!" "I'm going to have Mom and Dad send you back to the Institute!" I listened quietly, my face a blank slate. But unexpectedly, Sophia hesitated, a frown creasing her brow. "Send him back… What if something happens?" My parents fell silent, thinking. After all, when they'd brought me home, I was twenty pounds lighter, covered in bruises, a ghost of my former self. Ryan turned to me. "Nolan, answer me. Are you willing to go back to the Institute to continue your re-education?" I nodded obediently. "Yes. Thank you, Ryan." A short while later, as Ryan was handling my discharge papers, he gave me a cruel smile. "You're going back there to die, Nolan." I had no complaints. I just followed him. He ordered me to get into the driver's seat of the car. "Get in, start the car, and step on the gas. Aim for me." I nodded, confused, and was just about to press the accelerator when the Ashton's Maybach screeched to a halt, cutting me off. A bodyguard ripped my door open and dragged me out. "Nolan! Have you had enough?!" My sister was trembling with rage. "You tried to run Ryan down!" My mother stared at me, her eyes filled with a profound disappointment, before turning to comfort Ryan through her tears. "Ryan, you've suffered so much. From this moment on, the Ashton family will show him no more mercy!" I knew I had made them angry again. And mistakes have consequences. I slammed my head against the car. I heard the crack of my frontal bone as it fractured. Ryan's eyes widened in fake shock. "The more you play the victim, Nolan, the more you must hate me in your heart!" I said nothing, despite the splitting pain in my head. They didn't like it when I talked back. Seven years ago, it was for refuting Ryan’s lies that they threw me into the Institute, where they performed the surgery that made me so obedient. I was all better now. I would do anything they said. I hoped that would make them happy. "No-lan Ash-ton!" It was the second time my sister had said my name with such chilling coldness. "Hasn't this family been good to you? You enjoyed twenty years of luxury that belonged to Ryan! Bringing you home was the biggest mistake of my life! You almost got him killed!" My father shoved my fractured head against the pavement, grinding it into the asphalt. "You ungrateful beast! We should have let you die in the hospital!" I coughed up blood and struggled to my feet. I knew they hadn't forgiven me. I prepared to slam my head against the car again to atone. If I hit it harder this time, hard enough to shatter my skull, surely they would calm down? My mother screamed, a wild, desperate sound. "Enough! Stop torturing yourself…" My father ordered the bodyguards, "Throw him in the Institute. And you, Nolan, you'd better die quickly. Don't keep Ryan from living his life!" My family watched as the bodyguards tossed me into the trunk like a bag of trash. They were only concerned with taking Ryan back to the hospital for a full check-up. I was back in the familiar place. A bodyguard flicked a lit cigarette into a nearby trash can. "Stay put!" I curled up obediently in a corner, unmoving even as I watched the cigarette ignite the trash, the flames catching on the curtains. As the fire roared toward me, a wall of infernal heat, I calmly closed my eyes and waited to die. I just wanted to ask: I've been so good. Once I'm really dead, can I come home? At the hospital, the family breathed a collective sigh of relief as they reviewed Ryan's perfectly normal test results. My father's voice was ice when he heard the bodyguard's report. "Nolan loves his little life-and-death dramas, doesn't he? Fine. Let him stay there and rot. If anyone in this family so much as mentions his name again, they can get out!" But the neuroscientist frowned. He pulled a file from his desk drawer—the surgical report for my frontal lobotomy. "Ms. Ashton, Nolan isn't acting. His behavior is the result of a severe brain injury." Sophia was dismissive. "We all know he's got something wrong in his head!" "This is different!" The doctor slammed the report on the table. The words "Successful Excision" made a sudden, sickening premonition rise in my mother’s chest. She fought to keep her voice steady. "A frontal lobotomy... what does that mean?" The doctor’s expression was grim. "It means the part of Nolan's brain that controls impulse, emotion, and resistance has been surgically removed! He has no feelings, no ability to refuse an order. He will do anything to please, to obey a command, even if that command will lead to his own death!" "The Institute he was in for seven years is a notorious black site for abuse! They arranged the surgery through a private clinic! And this," he said, pointing to the bottom of the page, "is the signature of the family representative who authorized it. Ryan." Seeing Ryan's name on the form, their world exploded. At the same time, the doctor produced another document: the real paternity test. "I found the original in the archives. There's something you've been wrong about for seven years."

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