Chapter 13
XIII. DOLL
Three days later
He has had me locked here for three days now, and the only person I have seen was Mia bringing me food and water. There was no music coming from outside anymore; the whole place felt abandoned, empty.
I didn’t even dare to ask where he was.
I was going crazy, chained and bruised, staring at my reflection in the mirror each day, seeing what’s left of me.
He was torturing me, and still I can’t forget that night. Most of the time, I cry. Most nights, I dream he’s here again, fucking me, breaking me a little more each time.
The air became colder. For a moment, I thought something was moving in the corner. I gasped.
The room is filled with human dolls he made, their empty eyes locked on me. Every single one of them was staring at me until something moved.
I screamed, yanking against the chains, metal cutting into my wrists.
A shadow shifted in the corner.
“No, no, no,” I cried, my body shaking. “This is not real. This can’t be real.”
“Chiara,” a whisper came from the dark. “They are coming.”
I trembled harder, the cold seeping into my bones.
“Chiara,” the whisper came again, closer now. I opened my eyes and screamed.
Dahlia stood in front of me. Her eyes were empty. Spiders crawled from her mouth. Her black hair floated around her face. Her neck was bent, her head hanging against her shoulder.
She screamed, and I screamed with her.
My chest tightened. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs burned as if the air had turned to ice. My heart pounded so fast I thought it would burst. Then she was gone. The air was cold again, heavy, empty.
The door opened. Mia stepped inside, carrying clothes. She came closer and unlocked the chains. My body collapsed to the floor. Everything hurt. I felt numb, but I stood.
A single tear slipped down my cheek as I took the clothes from her.
“What did he want now?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. She just turned and walked away.
Was this how it was going to be? Was I going to be ignored, forgotten?
My jaw trembled, but no tears came this time.
“Pull yourself together, Chiara,” I whispered to myself.
This time, the clothes were almost the same, just black and white.
I pulled the black corset on, tightening it until my ribs hurt, then slid the skirt up and straightened it.
Below, I put on the socks and pulled them to my knees.
My hair, instead of braids, I twisted into a messy bun on top of my head.
She didn’t bring me shoes, so I went barefoot, tiptoeing up the stairs until I reached the front door.
She was waiting there, still silent, guiding me toward the house.
The basement was just behind us, so it took only a minute to reach the front stairs of the house. When we did, she stopped, standing behind me, watching as I climbed to the top.
I opened the door.
He was there.
Standing in his black leather coat, his face painted, staring at me like he hadn’t been the one keeping me locked away.
And then, behind him, another man appeared. Dressed the same. Leather coat. Cold expression. When he lifted his face, my breath caught. He had the same face as Rio.
I gasped.
“Rio!” I shouted, a smile breaking through the fear, and I ran toward him, but Oscar caught me, pulling me hard against his chest.
“Where the hell are you going, huh?” he said.
“Let me go!” I struggled, twisting in his arms. I turned back toward the man. “Rio, please, tell him!”
“My name is Enzo,” he said quietly. His eyes were wrong. Completely different. Not Rio’s. He had one eye brown and the other blue.
Oscar reached into his pocket and pulled out a tissue.
As I stepped back, he smeared the paint from his face. Even with streaks of color still clinging to his skin, I could see the same face. The same as the man beside him. The same as Rio’s.
“This isn’t fucking real,” I whispered.
My hands pressed against my face, rubbing hard, pinching my skin, trying to wake up. But it wasn’t a dream.
“How?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“Brothers,” Enzo said.
I looked at Oscar, my eyes locking with his. “Did you…?” My voice cracked as a tear slipped down my cheek.
“Yeah, Doll.” He smiled. “I knew I was fucking my brother’s girlfriend.”
“You’re a monster,” I said between gasps. “You disgust me.”
“Good,” he said, his eyes darkening.
My chest rose and fell so fast it hurt. My breath caught in my throat.
“Rio is alive,” Enzo said, stepping closer. “He might have played us all.”
“No.” The word tore from me. “Rio loved me.”
Oscar’s jaw tightened. He rushed forward, grabbed my wrists, and shook me hard.
“When will you get that love doesn’t fucking exist, huh?”
“It does.” I forced the words out, locking my eyes with his. There was nothing human left in them. “What do you want from me?”
“We want to hunt them,” Enzo said. “The Circle. The Crows. The Family. All of them.”
“Why?” I asked, looking from him to Oscar. “What do I get from all of this?”
“Freedom,” Oscar said. “You no longer belong here. You’ll be free to go anywhere you want.”
I clenched my jaw, holding his stare, searching for any trace of truth in his words.
“The Circle killed your mother,” Enzo said. “They separated us from our family, made our mother sleep with their members, made her believe it was for some greater cause until she lost her mind. They took too many people. Someone has to end it, make them pay for what they’ve done.”
“Fine.” I tilted my head toward him. “What do I have to do?”
“In three weeks, we’ll open the carnival again,” Oscar said. “They’ll get an invite. The theme will be Alice in Wonderland. We’ll make them drink tea with Oleander flowers, and when the poison hits, we’ll make them run. Then we’ll hunt them, one by one.”
He let go of my hands, brushed his fingers across my cheek. “And all you have to do, little Doll, is close your eyes and dream.”
“I haven’t been able to in a while,” I said quietly. “I won’t be able to.”
“Hypno will help you,” he said. “He’ll guide you through every step.”
I nodded, my eyes lifting to his. “And Rio?” I whispered.
Enzo parted his lips, about to say something about Rome, but before he could, Oscar grabbed my arm and pulled me close. His breath brushed my ear as he spoke. “Rio doesn’t give two shits about you, Doll.”
A tear slipped down my cheek. “You’re a liar.” More tears blurred my sight.
“You were nothing but a good fuck. Just like you were to me,” he said, pushing me back.
“Liar!” I shouted. “You’re such a liar!”
Each step I took back, he followed, his shadow swallowing the space between us.
My tears fell faster, my breath breaking apart.
I turned, flung the doors open, and ran.
My bare feet slapped against the cold ground as I moved faster, the sound of his growl behind me, the scrape of boots chasing close.
You know what hurts the most?
It’s not that he didn’t love me. It’s that he pretended to. Rio. Oscar. Same story.
They said all the right words, touched all the right places, looked at me like I was the only thing that ever made sense, and I believed it.
God, I believed it. But I was just a distraction.
A fragile, bleeding heart they could press their thumbs into, just to see how deep I could break.
I was a story they told themselves for a while, maybe even a game they played until it stopped being fun.
I turned and ran toward the Ferris wheel. It stood still in the dark, high above the empty fairgrounds. If I could get inside, maybe I could hide until he was gone.
I reached the lowest seat, climbed in, pulled my legs up, and held my breath as I heard his footsteps approaching.
“Oh, Dolly,” he called, his voice coming closer and closer, “come out, come out.”
His boots paced below, crunching against gravel, then stopped near the control booth.
Please, no.
“You know how this goes, Doll. Hide and seek never ends well for the ones who hide.” His laughter grew louder, followed by the click of a switch. The wheel groaned and began to move.
Fuck.
I bit my lip until I tasted blood. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear my skin off and disappear. My stomach twisted as the ground fell away. When I looked down, he was gone. The control booth stood empty, but the wheel spun faster now, creaking, shrieking.
“Oscar!” I screamed, clinging to the metal frame. “Stop it!”
As the seat neared the ground again, he leapt out of the dark, catching the frame with one hand. “Gotcha,” he said, climbing in with a grin. “Did you miss me?”
I pressed myself back against the seat so hard that my knuckles went white on the frame.
He sat down beside me.
I kicked at him, but he caught my leg, yanking me closer until I was sprawled across him, my legs against his chest. One hand clung to the cold metal beam, and the other gripped the seat.
“Let go of me,” I hissed, jerking my leg, but his grip only tightened.
He laughed low. “You really think you can tell me what to do, Doll?”
The Ferris wheel rocked violently as he dragged me further across the seat, his breath hot against my thighs as he lifted my leg onto his shoulder.
“Stop,” I said, my voice shaking. “Oscar, I swear…”
He tilted his head, that smile spreading too wide.
“Swear what? That you’ll scream? Push me off?”
His hand moved up my skirt, thumb brushing over my clit through the thin fabric of my thong.
“Then do it,” he said, pressing harder before sliding the fabric aside. Cold air bit my skin.
My heart was pounding so hard it hurt. “You’re insane,” I whispered.
He laughed, lifting me higher. His face was suddenly between my thighs, my hips resting on his chest, my legs wrapped around his neck.
He pressed his tongue to my clit, teasing first, then lowering his lips to gently suck. His hands gripped my thighs, holding me still as his tongue traced down to taste me, then back up again, circling, flicking, until a moan slipped out of me.
The wheel spun faster, and my hand clamped over my mouth. I bit into my fist, stifling the sound.
He pushed his fingers inside me, thrusting deep until my body clenched around him. His tongue stayed on my clit, circling, sucking, his fingers curling like a hook, pulling every sound from my throat. And he thrusted in and out, while my moans became shallow and quiet screams.
“Come for me, Doll,” he murmured against my skin.
He thrust harder, deeper, until I tightened around his fingers, unable to let him go. My thighs trembled as he kept licking, relentlessly.
I screamed, but he kept on going, hooking me onto him until release tore through me. My thighs started to shake, moving from him, and he caught me, pulling me into his lap. Then, with one arm still wrapped around me, he shifted the iron beam and jumped down, carrying me in his arms.
“Why are you doing this to me?” The words broke out of me, breathless, my body still trembling from what he had done.
He looked down. “Because I want to ruin every other man for you.” His jaw flexed as he spoke. “I’ll fuck you until you can’t think of anyone else. Until Rio is gone from your little lost mind.”
My pulse stuttered. “That will never happen,” I said, my voice barely touching the air against his chest.
He laughed, his hands sliding away from me, the heat of his touch fading as he lowered me to the ground.
“We’ll see,” he said.
He turned and walked off, leaving silence and the faint echo of his laughter behind.
I stood there, heart hammering. I could’ve run. The path was open, nothing holding me anymore. But my legs wouldn’t move.
I stayed. Not because I wanted to. Because I didn’t know how not to.