Chapter Three – Abby
My heart pounds in my chest. I stand in front of a closed door, feeling out of sorts, and yet a wickedly weird sense that I’ve been here before crawls all over me like maggots on dead flesh in the heat of summer.
I need to go in, but at the same time, a part of me already knows what I’ll find, so I remain rooted in place.
But there’s nowhere else for me to go. I’m stuck. Everything around me is hazy, but the door in front of me is crystal clear, every detail burned in my mind.
I let out a loud breath, and then it’s all I can hear: my own breathing. Over and over until it grows too loud, as if my breathing is wired into speakers blasting on full volume.
I don’t want to go in there. I don’t want to see.
Something pulls at me, some invisible string that’s tied to my limbs, because after an eternity of listening to my own breathing, I lift my hand toward the door knob, shaking only a little bit. My hand is inches away from the knob, and then…
Then everything is pulled away from me as I wake up with a jerk.
Okay, maybe not so much a jerk. More like a groan and a pounding headache. I roll over and lift a hand to my head, slow in sitting up as I open my eyes. Everything is fuzzy, just like the dream, but unlike the dream, the fuzziness disappears fast as my gaze focuses on where I am.
A bedroom, looks like. I’m on top of a bed, and I am curiously free, no part of me chained or tied up.
Huh. That’s weird, isn’t it?
And then I see the two guys nearby. One of them leans against the wall in front of the bed, while the other paces the length of the room, and just like that, everything my aching brain is trying to hide from me comes full-focus, and I remember exactly where I was before I woke up here.
I was in the closet at Brock Hard’s house. I was going to kill him, and then, by some teeny, tiny chance, I wasn’t alone. D.D.K. isn’t a single man. He’s two men, and as I let my gaze flick between both men, I come to the horrific realization that the two men are actually not bad on the eyes.
Their faces, I mean, since they’re not wearing their vintage hockey masks anymore. They’re hot.
The guy pacing abruptly stops when he sees me sitting, and he freezes as his blue eyes widen.
Masked man number two, based on the fact that he’s a few inches taller than the guy leaning against the wall.
His hair is short and blond, and now that there is no mask hiding his face, I can see the fact that his nose is a bit crooked, like it’s been broken in the past and didn’t heal quite right.
A clean-shaven face, a square jaw; everything that makes a drop-dead gorgeous hunk of a man with all the muscles a girl could dream of.
And the guy leaning against the wall like he’s cool shit?
He’s muscled, too. His hair, on the other hand, is a dark, charcoal gray color, cut short on the sides and left longer on top.
His gaze is pitch black, and he only takes it off me when he pulls out a phone and types something on the screen.
His left eye has a scar through it, from an inch or so above his eyebrow to his upper cheek. Masked man number one.
I look around the room. It seems like an ordinary bedroom, but just because it looks like something doesn’t mean that’s what it is. “Um,” I say, breaking the silence of the room, “where am I? Eh, no, I don’t care about that. What are you going to do to me?”
Even as I say it, I feel kind of stupid.
If they were going to kill me, obviously they would have killed me earlier.
Or maybe they brought me here to kill me, so I wouldn’t mess up their crime scene.
D.D.K.’s victims are always found later, when the rancid, decaying smell alerts neighbors or the authorities that something nasty went on there.
As far as I know, D.D.K. doesn’t kill women, but maybe there’s a first time for everything.
They don’t say a word, but they do exchange glances.
While they’re busy having an imaginary conversation between the two of them, I look toward the door, wondering if I could make a run for it.
I was never one for running, and even if I do some cool gymnastics to get off the bed, I’d still have to run past guy number one to make it to that door.
He’d catch me. He’d catch me and probably just get pissed.
Crap. I’m stuck. I’m stuck here with my hands tied… even if, you know, my hands aren’t tied. There’s nothing I can do except wait for the inevitable to happen.
A few seconds later, a third man strolls into the room, and I sit a little straighter as I level a question at him: “Who the hell are you?”
This third man is tall, too, but he’s different than the others.
While the others are muscled and all-around intimidating, this guy is leaner, thinner.
He wears a button-up black shirt neatly tucked into dark slacks.
Beneath his semi-wavy, short black hair, thin-rimmed glasses sit on his nose, shielding parts of his warm, amber eyes.
Clean-shaven, with angular, bony features.
I’d put him near the age of the other two, somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties.
All of them are nice to look at, not that that means anything. It doesn’t. Good-looking guys can turn on a dime and kill you just as fast as anyone else. If anything, they’re typically worse because they can charm the rest of the world into believing whatever lies they say.
“Who are you?” I ask. “Are you part of this whole D.D.K. thing, too? How many of you are there? I have to say, kudos to you guys. I had no idea the Downtown Dismemberer was more than one person. A team. Not something you expect when you’re thinking about a serial killer.”
The new man looks between the other two before landing his amber gaze on me. “You know who we are.”
“Well, it was an educated guess,” I say with a shrug. “I don’t know of anyone else who dismembers people quite like that. You guys have a routine down. Mad respect. Say, you’re not feeling extra merciful right now, are you? Because, it’s actually kind of funny, I don’t feel like dying today.”
The third man approaches the bed. He leaves a good three or so feet between his body and the mattress, where I currently sit. “What’s your name?” he asks, totally ignoring everything I said.
Should I give them a fake name? It isn’t like I have my I.D.
on me or even my phone. For reasons that should be obvious, I left all that stuff back at my place, just in case.
Technically, it was just in case the police got me somehow, not in case a group of serial killers kidnapped me, but I guess the same notion applies.
As I think that, however, I also wonder what the point would be in a fake name. If they’re going to kill me, they’re going to kill me regardless of what name I give them. Might as well just tell them the truth.
“Abby,” I say.
“Abby,” the third guy says with a nod. “Why were you in Brock’s house?”
“I’d ask your friends what they were doing in there, but I saw enough, so does it really matter what I was doing there?”
The man sighs, pulls off his glasses, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Let me phrase it a different way.” He puts his glasses back on and holds my stare with an intensity I cannot look away from. “Did Brock hurt you?”
Out of everything he could’ve asked me, that was the last thing I’m expecting, and I sit there for a while, letting it sink in.
Did Brock hurt me? That’s not something a random person asks someone else without having evidence that said man had done things similar in the past. These guys know about Brock’s proclivities, and they’re assuming I was one of his victims.
I should say yes. I mean, maybe that would paint me to look a certain way in their eyes and they wouldn’t kill me. But, on the flipside, I can’t claim victimization. No man has ever laid a hand on me like that.
The things I do, I don’t do them for myself. I do them for the memory of someone else, someone who should still be here.
“Not exactly,” I say after a while.
“Not exactly,” the third man echoes me. “Then why were you there?”
“Does it matter? He’s dead now. Deader than dead, and your buddies here sawed him apart.
” I’m suddenly so very tired, it’s as if the weight of it all is finally coming down upon my shoulders, a weight I’m not used to.
“Look, I know I saw something I shouldn’t have, and now I know things I shouldn’t know, so let’s just cut to the chase already and get it over with.
If you’re going to kill me, just do it. All I ask is that you make it fast.”
The third man looks to the others, and a few seconds pass before he says to me, “We’re not going to kill you, Abby.”
I perk up like a dog that just heard it’s going for a walk. “You’re not? Are you… going to let me go, then?” It’s too much to hope for, I know it the moment those words leave me.
“We can’t do that, either.”
My shoulders slump. “What other option is there?”
“Unfortunately, you’re right in that you know things you shouldn’t know. We are a team here, and we can’t let any details of this operation slip out into the public. That said, we don’t kill women.”
Well, getting confirmation of the last part makes me feel better, although not much. The way he said it makes it sound like I’m not going to appreciate what he’s going to say next.
“Since you can’t be set free and we won’t kill you, that leaves only one option for you.” The third man pauses for a few seconds as it dawns on me, what he’s going to say. “You must stay here with us.”
“What?” I don’t know why I sound so shocked. If they aren’t going to kill me and they can’t trust me to keep my mouth shut in the real world, what other option is there other than to keep me where they can keep an eye on me, so to speak. “You’re going to keep me prisoner here?”
“Prisoner is such an ugly word,” the blond-haired, blue-eyed one says, breaking his silence for the first time.
“Okay,” I say, “then captive. Is that better? Does that offend your delicate sensibilities less?” Hmm.
Maybe it’s not the greatest idea to antagonize any of these guys.
I need to tone it down a bit, dial it back.
Be grateful that they’re not killing me and dumping my body somewhere.
I need to focus on the little victories.
The guy with charcoal gray hair chuckles, but he stops the moment the man with glasses shoots him a look.
“I will be working to lock the house down,” the one with glasses tells me. “Installing locks on every outer door, along with the windows, and with a few other things. Until then, one of these two will be watching you at all times.”
“And what happens when it’s time for D.D.K. to kill again?” I ask.
The one with glasses mutters, “Then I suppose it’ll be just you and me. Royal and Ezra are the ones who go out for the business. I’m more of the logistics type.” The way he talks about it makes it sound like being a serial killing team is their job.
But that’s just silly, isn’t it? If it’s a job, that means someone is giving them a paycheck, and last I heard being a serial killer is more of a hobby than anything else.
“And you are…” I trail off.
“I’m Hawthorne,” he says. “And you already met Ezra and Royal.” As he says their names again, he points to them. Ezra is the blond, while Royal is the gray-haired guy with the scar on his face.
I look around the room we’re in. “So, Hawthorne, Ezra, and Royal… is this my room? Or are you going to keep me in a closet somewhere? I like to be prepared.”
“You can have the room,” Hawthorne says.
“Okay, and what about the things I’ll need?” The guys are silent, and it quickly becomes clear they have no idea what I’m talking about, so I say, “Like clothes, toiletries… that sort of thing? Believe it or not, I don’t dress in all black every day.”
“Oh.” He looks to the others. “I suppose either Royal or Ezra could run out to fetch a few things tomorrow—or later today, I suppose. Make them a list.”
I nod. “Will do. Now, besides my head hurting from what I assume was chloroform—” I get off the bed and stand. “—how ‘bout a tour? I’d love to see D.D.K.’s secret lair.” Am I being too normal about all of this? Probably. I should be freaking out more than I am, but I just can’t.
This whole thing took a turn I wasn’t expecting. I don’t know how it’s going to end, but I am curious how the ride will go. Sooner or later, though, all rides end. I know this better than anyone. Might as well enjoy what I can while I can, right?