Chapter 38 Cal
Cal
I didn't have time to refill the syringe before running after him, so I left the needle buried in Bear's neck as he fell to the ground. The knife is all I need, it turns out.
Jenko's attempt to fight was pitiful.
I found him on his knees before the door, searching with his hands for anything to try and get the door lock to release.
Unfortunately for him, he was too busy when we came in to pay attention to how I locked him in.
If he'd paid attention, he'd realize the bolt his hand is closed around just needs to be disengaged and twisted ninety degrees to the side.
He sobs as he yanks at the chain, begging the door to open.
It doesn't budge.
“I liked you most, you know.” I tell him calmly. “But I took a look at your convictions. Jenko.” I tsk my tongue at him as I draw closer, the knife in hand, and he realizes he's trapped. “Your own sister? That's fucking sick.”
“Those charges are bullshit!” Jenko spits. “I never fucking touched her.”
“That's not what she says.” I shrug. “She says you raped her for years. That you let your friends do it, too. Gave her drugs and let them take turns on her.”
“How is it any different from what you do?” He growls. “I saw those pictures on your phone. You do the same goddamn thing! You brought us here to have fun. No one was supposed to get hurt.”
I notice he's not denying it now. How quickly he crumbled. I wonder if it's the look in my eye, the coldness that tells him I'm absolutely going to kill him.
“You were going to hurt my little doll.” I tell him angrily, drawing up to stand in front of him.
“You said she was drugged. She wouldn't even feel it.”
“Wrong.” The sudden addition of her voice makes excitement crash inside my chest.
I turn to see her with blood all down her dress. I think, for a moment, that I should have brought the black one. But the blood is vivid against the pale blue, and it adds a nice touch to the whole thing.
Her wild hair looks like it does when I've spent hours fucking her, dragging my fingers through it. Everything about her is glorious... including the way she throws Browen to his knees before her. He falls silently against the ground, but I can tell he’s not dead yet.
“You think I wouldn't know cause I was asleep?
You think I wouldn't feel it the next day?
You think I wouldn't notice the fingerprints?” She chuckles.
“Jenko, right? You know, you're the one I was most looking forward to playing with.” Her smile is coy.
.. frightening. “I had a brother. Did you know that?”
“I don't fucking know you.” Jenko sobs. “How the fuck would I know that?”
“Because you killed him.”
She says it like it's funny. Her voice is edged in hysteria, and it feeds the chaos that swirls inside of me.
While I know she's teetering on the edge of delirium, Jenko doesn't understand what's funny about that.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I'm not a fucking killer. I don't kill people.”
“Oh?” She looks at me in mock surprise. “I guess that makes him better than us, doesn't it?”
I shrug, peeling my jacket off and letting it drop to the ground. I roll my sleeves slowly, careful to push them over my forearms. The feeling of starched fabric soaked through with anything is unappealing. I don't want his blood saturating my shirt.
“I guess, depending on who you ask.”
“Hmm.” She thinks for a second. “Not according to me. You think you aren't a killer because you've never pulled a blade across someone's throat? Never buried a bullet in someone's skull, and you think that makes you superior?”
His eyes are full of desperation as they dart between the two of us, like he thinks he stands a chance of appealing to either of us.
“You're a child killer, Jenko. You fucking killed that little girl when you started loaning her out to your friends. And you killed her again when she realized you were responsible, too, didn't you?” She shakes her head slowly.
Browen kneels on the ground, his face pressed against the concrete.
I wonder what the fuck she did to him to turn him into such a sniveling bitch when he appears mostly unharmed.
“I was just a kid, too.” Jenko argues. “I had to fucking figure out how to keep us both fed. I had to keep a roof over our heads.”
“You thought you could just sell her body one fuck at a time, and she'd be okay with it because you kept her alive?” Amber laughs coldly.
“Do you know, there are things worse than death?
Things that woman would rather die than endure because there's no instruction manual on how to move past them when they're done.
There are things that shape children for their entire fucking lives, things that you can't justify because you didn't want to go to the goddamn soup kitchen every day.”
“You don't know shit.” Jenko snaps, his comedic persona from earlier entirely gone. He's no longer carefree and unburdened.
“I know that you killed my brother.” She says again.
There's enough conviction in her voice that I am sure she believes it. I, on the other hand, am confused.
She told me she thought her brother died when she was taken.
“I told you, bitch.” He snaps, the venom in his voice rising as we cage him in. “I didn't fucking kill anyone. I've never killed anyone, so I don't know what you're getting at.”
“Like I said,” she sighs. “You don't have to physically stop a person's heart to kill them. But rest assured, you did. You killed the man who worked so hard to heal us both from what we went through as kids. You killed the man who used to come to my room and hold me after my foster father left my room.”
Jenko stares at her, unsure of what to say. I stare at her, waiting for the pieces to fall into place, for the information I won’t ask her to give but will gladly share the burden of knowing.
“He sneaked in the first time when I was asleep, and I was too confused to figure out what was going on or fight until it was too late. He fell asleep in my bed, left me trapped under his sweaty body so that when my brother came in to see why he heard me crying, he found me like that. He pushed him off, and they fought, but I begged him not to tell anyone because I was so ashamed. Ashamed that I’d lost something, ashamed that I didn’t fight harder.
My brother stayed quiet because I begged him to.
But it didn't stop, and eventually he learned all he could do was come hold me when it was over.”
My stomach twists in fucking agony as I imagine my little doll suffering so cruelly.
“That's when the first person I ever loved died... hours after I did for the first time. I died a little every time it happened after that, but eventually it stops hurting. Eventually, you just get numb to it. We healed together. Moved away from that hell.”
I watch her in awe, spellbound by how fucking powerful she is in this moment. She's monologuing like a true fucking villain, and I'm here for it.
My little doll, in her villain era, is even more phenomenal than when she was just powerless and helpless in my basement.
“We moved states, left everything in the past. But we didn't heal as much as we thought we did. I always knew I was a little broken, and I think he knew it too. He tried so hard to take care of me. And then you took him from me. Or, rather, you took me from him.”
“I don't know what you're fucking talking about.” Jenko yells. “I didn't fucking do anything.”
“You sure? This could be your last chance to confess your sins. Anything you want to get off your chest?” She drags the point of the knife, covered in the blood of his poker buddies, down his chest to emphasize her point.
She doesn't use pressure, but it's enough to split the fabric, making it peel away from him and exposing more tattoos on his chest.
“Fuck you.” He snaps. “I haven't done anything wrong.”
“No?” She licks her lips and cocks her head, thoughtful. “You never snatched people off the street?”
Jenko's eyes widen a bit as her words sink in.
“What?”
But she doesn't answer his question. She asks another.
“You never threw people into the back of a semi-truck trailer?”
“I—”
“You don't recognize me, do you?” She chuckles. “That's fucking rude.”
“I don't—” He pants, like the air is getting thin. “I don't know what you're talking about. I've never seen you before tonight."
“It's fine.” She laughs, and I don't know who she's trying to convince... herself, him, or me.
My concern is rising, along with my confusion.
“How would you recognize me like this? I didn’t look like a doll when you tore my clothes off of me…”
She slips the dress down her shoulders, letting her breasts fall free.
Fucking hell.
I've never seen someone look so scared by a pair of tits, particularly considering hers are glorious.
Little pink nipples against creamy skin, and they're the perfect shape to fill my palms.
I’m not sure exactly what’s going on right now.
She continues undressing, and part of me wants to stop her.
But this is her moment, now. And it is exquisite.
When the dress falls to the floor, she kicks it at Jenko.
“Do I look familiar now?”
When I shared their files with her, she gave me absolutely zero indication that she knew any of these men beyond her recognizing them as the men from my theater, but I can gather what she's getting at.
This fucking creep hurt my little doll.
My wife.
We both see the recognition light in his dark eyes. One moment, he looks at her like she's crazy, and then his eyes dip to the scars on her thigh, the place she branded herself a slut with her own blood and pain.
“There it is.” She chuckles. “Did you miss me? You told me I was the best fuck you ever had. Right in front of my brother, no less.” She shakes her head.
“I'll admit, I was hoping your little friend who beat the hell out of my brother was going to be here tonight. But he's not part of your little poker nights, is he? Guess I’ll have to get him another time.”
“I'm sorry!” He sobs, snot and tears streaming down his face as he realizes now why he's here and why he’s going to die.
We've realized it at the same time, too.
“You fucking raped my wife?”
I want to hear him admit to it.
The beast is straining at every bar of his cage, desperate to be unleashed to wreak havoc and rain fury down on the man who hurt my girl.
My fucking everything.
“I didn't know it was your brother!” He sobs again, as if raping her in front of a friend or her boyfriend would have been better. It wouldn't. He shouldn’t have touched her at all, but he can’t help himself. It’s who he is.
“It's okay.” She says softly. “I'm not going to hurt you.”
“Well, I sure as fuck am.” I snap, lunging at him with the knife.
“Just keep him alive.” She says gently. “I don't want it to be quick.”