Unhinged

"What a good fucking girl you are."

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REVIEW

Would I read this again? Yes No Maybe

Spice Level Legend How spicy is this book?

Tropes	Trigger Warnings
Why choose, Friends to lovers, Enemies to lovers, Forced proximity	Multiple mental illnesses, Murder, Suicide, Violence, Child abuse, Sexual assault

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SUMMARY

Want to just skip to the spice? I got you - Chapters 15, 20, 23, 25

This is book 1 of Dance with my Demons.

Main Characters

Avery - Abused by her dad her whole life; mom committed suicide when she was 13; Dad allowed one of his friends to rape her; she attempted to kill herself by setting the house on fire but instead, she got saved, and he was in the basement and no one knew, and he died. She was charged with murder, but because she didn’t know he was in the house, she got a lighter sentence and was sent to Lilydale Foundation Center.

Grey - Damon’s right hand man. He has killed some people. Falls for Avery basically the first time he sees her.

Theo - Everyone is scared of him, sits by himself at lunch. Avery sits with him the first day because there’s nowhere else to sit, he lets her, they sit in silence together, and he becomes protective over her.

Damon - Seems to be leading the whole thing even though he is a patient. Has the guards under his thumb, his cousin is the psych doctor, he comes and goes around the place as he wishes because he always gets key cards. 

Paige - Avery’s best friend growing up. Also had a shitty family. Her brother killed her and that’s when Avery thought she’d do whatever she could to get out. Even if it meant dying. Which is why she decided to catch her house on fire.

Margaret - her social worker

Mr. Whittingham - runs the place. Big asshole.

Dr. Christopher Smith - the psych doctor. Damon’s cousin.

Mr. Markel - the doctor on site

Charmaine - teacher 

Lilydale Foundation Center is a juvenile facility that describes itself more as a rehab and a school than a prison. They only allow 100 kids in at a time and the Foundation approves each “student”. Maraget takes Avery to the center where Mr. Whittingham shows her inside and to her room. He tells her that not everyone gets this opportunity so maybe she should be appreciative that “someone cared about you enough to try.” Avery does not want to be here but she knows it's better than prison. 

Her first day, Vivian (another student/patient/prisoner) shows her around. Vivian tells her that they are assigned little odd jobs, like the one she is doing, and they earn points for good behavior. She might even get released early next year because of it. Vivian seems friendly enough, trying to give Avery some advice about the day-to-day stuff, who to stay away from, and what the schedule is. They turn a corner and some big dude runs right into Avery. He yells at her to watch where she is going and walks away. Vivian tells her that’s Theo, he’s a psycho, and doesn’t interact with anyone. 

Avery is covered in scars and more recent wounds from her lovely father. Her most recent wound is a burn on her arm that she is the most self conscious about. But she also had a recent broken leg, broken nose, and a huge scar on her back from her dad hitting her with a beer bottle and some of the glass broke off in her back. Dr. Markel checks her out, offers her some pain meds, birth control, anything she might need but Avery turns him down for all of it. 

She has to attend classes while at Lilydale. In her first class, she feels the guy next to her staring. Grey smiles at her and talks to her after class. He calls her “little killer”, which at first, she doesn’t like but it grows on her. Everyone heads into the common room. Avery sees Vivian and immediately goes to her side. A dude gets up on one of the tables and tells them its free time, don’t fuck anything up, and don’t do stupid shit. As everyone is in a rush to get out and go do whatever they want for two hours, Avery gets shoved around, then knocked down. No one tries to help her, including Vivian, as people just walk on her. Damon reaches down and helps her up. He tells her to follow him and he leads her into the library, where Grey is. Damon tells her that he’s in charge here, the staff doesn’t care about them, they only intervene if things get physical. Damon tells him there’s a system in place and she just needs to stay in line and do what they say. 

At the end of free time, they all go back into the hall. The same dude gets on the table as earlier is making hand gestures but not saying anything. Grey comes up behind her and tells her she’s in group three.

After shower time, it's dinner time. There’s only one table that is mostly empty, with only Theo sitting at it. She asks him if she can sit there. He snaps at her but allows her to stay. 

She has another appointment with Dr. Smith the next day. He really seems to be trying to get her to open up. He tells her they don't have to talk about her feelings, they can talk about this place. She talks to him a little but she is still on guard. That night, she’s laying in her bed, and thinks she hears people outside her door, she thinks it's Vivian, but then thinks she must be wrong, how could she be out of her room? 

The next day, Avery is enjoying free time in the library, hiding in one of the aisles. When she hears a bunch of angry male voices come in. Damon, Grey, and some other guys, throw another dude, Sam Hallman, on the table. Damon is yelling at him that why can’t he obey rules? Then she hears him getting his ass beat. Grey sounds super happy to be involved. After they kick his ass, Grey notices something down one of the aisles. He reaches for the feet that are trying to hide and pulls them out. He’s surprised to see Avery. Avery kicks him in the gut and Grey thinks “I might be fucking in love with her.”

Avery tells him she isn’t going to tell anyone and Grey says he knows she won’t because she’s a good girl. He touches her leg and notices that she flinches. So he kisses her temple and then leaves. 

She avoids the library for free time for the rest of the week. She gets into a mind numbing routine that includes eating a silent lunch with Theo. One day, she gets up from the table, and accidentally runs into Sam. Sam yells at her, then as she tries to walk away, he knocks her tray out of her hand, which makes mashed potatoes go everywhere. He then pokes her hard in the shoulder, then walks through the mashed potatoes, spreading them further as he and his friends laugh. No one helps her. She ends up covered in food and when she walks into class, Grey sees her and attempts to find out what happened but she just shuts down. 

After her shower, she returns to her room, and finds a bouquet of roses. Inside the roses is a finger. She freaks out. Not only is there a finger in her room, but if the guards find it, she’ll be blamed for it. She hides it and cleans up before the guards arrive to take her to dinner. At dinner, she hears Grey laughing, and she thinks he’s to blame. She confronts him in the library the next day after class. She accuses him of putting something in her room. He has no idea what she is talking about. She said you didn’t put a finger in my room? He denies it, then tells her he won’t tell anyone, and he’ll take care of it. 

Later, he asks Damon about it. Damon doesn’t know anything about it either but wishes he had one day where people weren’t doing weird shit. He tells Grey that Sam Hallman has “been banned”, so now they need to ban his group of friends too, and now they’re short for the next meeting. He says “the constitution states we need at least another member on board.” Grey says he will try to find someone good to replace Sam. 

When Grey goes to find Sam that he’s banned, he’s surprised to find out that Sam is the one missing a finger. Grey questions him but Sam isn’t telling. That is until Grey pulls out a pill. Sam was addicted to opioids, and now he’s in pain from losing a finger. Sam tells him it was Theo Ashwood who cut his finger off. 

Grey finds Avery in the library again one afternoon and wants to play 20 questions. She asks him about the scar on his neck and he said his dad slit his throat during one of his episodes. Then Grey implies he killed his dad which is why he’s in Lilydale. Then he asks Avery why she flinched when he touched her leg the other day. She doesn’t answer and instead leaves the library.

The next day, Avery isn’t exactly hiding from Grey, but kind of, so she avoids the library. She instead wanders around and checks out some of the empty rooms. She finds Theo in one, giving himself a homemade tattoo. Theo tells her she can stay in there but she needs to leave him alone, he’s concentrating. She keeps nervously fidgeting and Theo tells her to come over and look at what he’s done so far. Then he explains to her how to do it and hands her the needle. She tells him she wanted to get a tattoo but now she’s in there so she can’t. Avery has a bandage that's always on her wrist, covering up her burn scars. He reaches for it and takes the bandage off and correctly assumes that’s where she wanted a tattoo.

When she returns to her room, there’s a white lily on her bed, with a note saying he will pick her up at midnight. Grey leads her to the library where there’s a bunch of other patients. They have a big table set up, with lots of food and drinks available. Grey doesn’t explain anything, just tells her to keep an open mind. Damon runs the meeting. This group is called Cirque des Morts and is exclusive. If they assign you a task, you complete it, no questions asked. If you take care of them, they’ll take care of you.

Not only is there food, there’s also curtained off areas so people can hook up. Grey takes her into one of the curtained areas where there’s people openly hooking up and where one girl is enjoying a glory hole. Grey says Damon sets it up for people who want to have sex but don’t have anyone to do it with. 

Grey takes Avery into another private area and resumes asking his 20 questions. She tells him she has had sex before, but it wasn’t consensual, it was one of her father’s drunk friends. Her dad lost a bet and she was the prize. She doesn’t tell him at this moment but she does tell him later that the trauma was so bad she had to go to the ER. Grey promises her that no one will ever touch her like that there - it's one of the group's rules. Then they make out a bit.

The next day, Avery has an appointment with Dr. Markel, where he checks out her scars, tells her he wants to put her on long term, low dose, pain medication and if she wants anxiety medication. She denies the anxiety medication. As she is being walked back to her room, she sees Vivian talking to another girl, Siobhan. Vivian charges at Avery, slams her into a wall, and scratches her face before the guard can get her off of her. The guard takes Vivian to solitary confinement and Siobhan tells Avery that Vivian is mad at her because of Sam - he’s her boyfriend. Not only did he lose a finger, but now he’s going through withdrawal, and he’s on everyone's shit list. 

Everyone gets summoned to the hall where Mr. Whittingham announces that there will be no free time today or the next three days, classes are canceled, and food will be delivered to their rooms. When they get back to their rooms, all the lights go off. So, even though Vivian got escorted to solitary confinement, they are all really in it. 

Grey and Damon are obviously not normal patients. Grey has an access card that he “borrowed” from one of the teachers and he leaves his room to find Damon, with his door wide open, drinking a beer. Damon and Grey are really close, like brothers. Damon trusts no one but Grey and no one can control Grey when he goes crazy other than Damon. 

Later that night, Grey uses his key card to visit Avery in her room. Grey, knowing her history, is really gentle with her. Letting her know he wants to touch her, where, how, tells her what he’s doing as he’s doing it. He doesn’t want to cause more trauma, just pleasure.

“I’m your god now, little killer. And I’m your fucking devil too.”

After the isolation days are over, Damon announces to everyone that they need to get their shit under control or they will be answering to him, not just Whittingham, next time. Grey takes Avery to the library where they play 20 questions again. Grey has been in there for 26 months-ish. Grey tells her it's not just first come first serve on who gets admitted. There’s a whole review committee and they must have felt like she was something special. Avery tells him that Vivian said Avery got in because someone died. Grey gets all quiet and said yeah, and he knew them, it was about 5 weeks ago (this will be important later). 

“Go fuck yourself with your knitting sticks, Dorothea.”

Damon waltzes into Whittingham's office like he owns the place. He calls him by his first name, Arthur, and tells him that if he pulls a 3 day isolation again, Damon will be forced to step in. Arthur said he should act like a regular patient and his family is unhappy. Damon doesn’t give a shit.

He stops by Christopher’s office where we find out that they are cousins. Christopher makes a comment about how he’s overloaded with 100 patients to just him. Damon asks him about his patient files, Christopher says he will not be giving Damon confidential patient information. Damon sees Grey with Avery and after they part, he pulls Avery into the library to warn her - if she hurts Grey, Damon will destroy her. 

The next day, she finds Theo in a room alone again, so she goes in with him. He notices her fidgeting with her bandage on her arm, and he tells her he’ll fix that, he’ll put a tattoo over it. He tattoos her for about an hour. When she gets back to her room, she has a note telling her there is a meeting tonight and at the bottom it says DEAD (once you read book 3, this makes sense). Grey tells her later that Damon wrote the note and laughs when she’s worried about DEAD being on it. 

During the meeting, Grey sits at Damon’s right side, and Avery sits right next to him. They talk about Operation Clown. One of the girls sitting on Damon’s left side said they have access to the camera feed room. Grey says Sam is out of the hospital and back in the facility, and Vivian will be out of solitary confinement and he will be speaking with them. Operation Ringmaster - not sure what this one is about. Damon says they need access to the files, he tells Avery he needs her to steal Christopher's file cabinet key during their next session.

At first, Avery says she won’t do it. But arguing with Damon gets her nowhere and Grey isn’t much help, so Avery said she’ll do her best. 

The next day in Christopher's office, he notices her glancing at the file cabinet. She won’t tell him what’s going on but he guesses that she needs the key. She says she has no choice so Christopher gives her the key. This makes her happy and mad. Happy because she has succeeded. Mad because here is a doctor who is willingly turning over a key that will let whoever access confidential patient files. At lunch, she slams the key down in front of Damon, and not wanting to be in the same room as the rest of them, tells the guards she needs the doctor for “female problems”. Dr. Markel feels bad for her so excuses her from everything the rest of the day and tells the guards she needs to go to her room and lay down. 

That night, Grey sneaks into her room again. He tells her it's important and she needs to follow him. At first, she thinks Grey might actually kill her for mouthing off to Damon. But nope - he found it very sexy. Then she rides the handle…of a shiv…in the library. 

Anywho, Damon is pissed the next day because the key that Christopher gave Avery, was a fake. Christopher tells him he wasn’t about to let Damon get what he wanted but he also didn’t want Avery to get in trouble with Damon either. Christopher said you still managed to steal a file so what's the big deal? Which is confusing to Damon because Grey couldn’t get any files last night. At lunch, Damon drags Avery out into the hall questioning her about the key. She said she didn’t steal it, Christopher willingly gave it. Damon laughs and says why would he do that, is she fucking him. She slaps him across the face (good he had it coming) and then is shocked that she did it and apologizes. 

After class, Grey is leading her to the library for free time. When they enter the hall, there’s a huge crowd gathered and there’s papers all over the floor. Grey goes to Damon’s side and Avery reaches down to get a paper. It's her patient file. Copied and strewn all over the hall. Grey is looking at her concerned, Damon has no expression whatsoever. She realizes she is standing there crying while everyone is looking at her until someone grabs her arm and drags her away. Theo leads her down a hallway, punches an access pad, and leads her downstairs. He leads her into the morgue, where he likes to come for peace and quiet. 

They’re talking, he’s trying to convince her that her file isn’t that bad, kinda tame actually, when they hear guards. Theo opens up one of the morgue trays and tells Avery to get in, she refuses, he climbs in, she panics and he pulls her in with him. The guards come in, but they don’t find them. After they leave, Avery is having a wee bit of a freak out, so Theo shuts her up - with his lips. 

Then they fuck…in the morgue…in the cooler…

Afterwards, he tells her to go back the way they came, he’ll let himself get caught, she just needs to get back upstairs. 

She gets called to Christopher’s office with Whittingham. He is trying to get her to confess that she was downstairs with Theo, but she won’t, then she snaps at him to leave because she needs to speak with her doctor, then snaps at Christopher that he better make sure Theo doesn’t get in trouble because this is all his fault anyways. 

Later that night, Grey sneaks into her room again. He reassures her that this wasn’t them, they are trying to find out who it was. He takes her to the library where Damon and a select few Circus members are waiting. Jillian says they took their cameras offline today, so Lilydale doesn’t have access. They also have access to past feeds so they can review to see who stole Avery’s file. 

A few days later, Theo is still nowhere to be found. Avery drags Grey into the library (what is it about the library??) and fucks him. Damon comes to collect him and Avery makes her way outside into the courtyard. Sam charges up to her and tells her she isn’t welcome here. She tells him she didn’t do anything to him and he says first Grey, then Theo, why her? Does she have a magical cunt? She tries to get away from him but he says maybe he should see what makes her so special. He grabs her again, and slams her against the wall, she starts throwing hands just trying to get him away from her, he pulls his fist back like he’s going to punch her, until he’s no longer there. Theo pulled him off of her. 

Damon and Grey go to Jillian's room where she has managed to find video footage of who stole the chart - Vivian. Damon asks Jillian to get all the footage from yesterday - he wants to see what Theo was up to. Damon reviews the footage while Grey goes outside and finds out about the fight. He reports back to Damon, who shows him some footage of outside the morgue. Grey gets eerily calm and wants to go for a walk. Damon says no murdering today. 

Grey goes back to the courtyard - Theo, Sam, and Avery are all gone, but Vivian is there. He (aggressively) questions her. She said it was just a prank. He promises he will visit her little boyfriend (Sam) and then come see her. 

Grey goes to Avery’s room. Where she can instantly tell something is very wrong and realizes he must know. Avery picks this very inopportune time to realize that she’s in love with Grey (probably should have realized that before the morgue). This is where you feel really bad for Grey. He says, “I told you that you were mine. That I wanted you. I did everything right, Avery. I waited, I listened…and for what? You just gave it to him like it was nothing.” (this might be where you realize you also want to punch Avery in the face for hurting Grey’s feelings). 

She chooses this moment to tell him she loves him in some type of last ditch effort. He says, “I loved you, Avery. But not anymore.” (Moment of silence for our hearts breaking).

Damon comes to collect, said he found Sam. Damon tells her to stay the fuck away from Grey or she will know why he has the nickname Deadman.

Whittingham and guards come to escort Avery to dinner where Whittingham yells at everyone again. Theo is there - acting just fine. Sam comes up to the table and apologizes to Avery. She asks Theo what he did but he just smiles.

The next day, Avery confronts Grey. He tells her he wants nothing else to do with her and she asks if they can just be civil. He kind of agrees and leaves and then Avery hears a scream. She goes out to the hall and sees Vivian on the ground screaming. Everyone is crowded in there and when Avery feels someone touch her ass, she just thinks it's a mistake. She finds Siobhan who tells her that Sam killed himself this morning. She goes over to Theo, who doesn’t seem surprised or upset that Sam is dead, so naturally she thinks he did it. 

Police enter the hall and head towards Avery. Theo tells her not to say or do anything. They separate Theo and Avery, and Avery thinks this is it, Theo is gone. But the police arrest her instead. They pat her down and find an access card in her back pocket and then lead her away saying she’s under arrest for the murder of Sam.