CHAPTER 21
Fifteen mirrors crowd Kane as he gets closer to Bianca. The masks are curved to cover the features of the guards beneath them, distorting the reflection of his approach.
Fifteen masks, yet there are thirty reflections staring at him.
Fifteen of him with wild eyes and a goal.
Fifteen of Bianca with her deep red hair, nearly black from the fluids soaked into the strands.
She’s become desensitized to the violence around her, accepted her fate after a lifetime of being Rowan’s object of entertainment.
She learnt at a young age he craved her screams the same way an artist lives for an encore, so she kept her pain to herself.
Which Kane doesn’t understand as he takes his knife from his boot, grabbing the nape of the guard closest to him.
He sees a companion who may understand his torment, so he’s offering her protection.
As he pulls the guard’s head down into his knee, he catches the blur of Bianca’s hair.
Red hair—like his orb that resembled fire.
His marble rolled out of his hand because he couldn’t protect it when he was assaulted.
Here, in this desolate place far removed from humanity, he’s been given an opportunity to stop the marble from rolling away.
Plunging the knife into the soft tissue of the guard’s clavicle, he twists, digging it deeper, further, until the muffled gurgling comes from under the mask. Then he drops them, moving on to his next target.
Each guard wears his face. Kane, the reflection, has his own reflection. One he hates because it shows he’s weak, a victim to his memories. Even though he’s no longer trapped with the torment, he will never truly be able to escape, so his movements are in part fueled by anger and inferiority.
To kill the abusers.
To kill the victim they turned him into.
To kill the abuser he’s become.
He keeps slashing, punching, screaming internally, but each guard falling lifeless to the floor isn’t really dead because his goal is to kill parts of himself.
An unachievable goal after seven failed suicide attempts over the course of his life.
Still, he tries in vain as he drags a guard’s head back, cutting a deep slash across their throat.
The soft cloth of their mask parts and their all-black attire becomes sodden in blood.
None of them attempt to fight back as Rowan eagerly watches on, awaiting the outcome. Beneath his mask, he smiles in pride at what he’s managed to create in Kane.
A son, Rowan thinks. One who may end up becoming worthy once he’s successfully trained. A son who wasn’t born defective like the others. A son I share with Mother, both of us forever together.
Lennox watches in horror, his fists balled to prevent him from reacting as he relies on the only thing he has ever held faith in. Isadora, protect your child, ward him like you did during the first years of his life.
The only person in the room who doesn’t have a reaction of abject terror or joy is the boy.
He watches, waiting to find out who he’ll be gifted to for the night.
It’s the only role he knows, but he has no preference until the masks come off.
His time circulating between the guards before the entertainment began was cut short, so he wasn’t able to find the one who always marks his body to be able to put them at a disadvantage.
He stands beside Rowan, his master—unknowingly, his father—with his small hand in his, awaiting his fate.
Will it be the one who asked his name?
He hopes not, as he knows those who want to befriend him wish to keep him.
And if you’re taken by those who visit The Dollhouse, you’ll become like Bianca.
Those who are given names are owned, so he has the most control when his master plays these games because he can cut the guard before the entertainment begins—make them weaker, less entertaining.
It’s why he gently glides his tongue against the blade hugging the inside of his cheek as a reminder that he can help himself.
Kane has nine mirrors left, eighteen reflections who stand opposite him when he pauses to catch his breath. He’s not the weaker one or the one being overpowered now they’re frozen like he was.
It’s another mark against his soul, telling him he’s the abuser. He abused Delilah, tormented her. Neither of them have used the correct word for what he did. Fucked with her head, played with her emotions, manipulated her, chased her—the list goes on, all detailing that he did abuse her.
That fact, more than anything, is one he can’t bear when he was convinced he was vindicated in how he treated her.
It was poetic justice, not abuse, to him.
He was ensuring she felt the pain she caused him.
Yet as he stands there staring at his broken features—covered in blood—reflected back to him, he has the urge to bring the knife to his own throat to escape the reality of what he’s become.
Each of the nine reflections develop a voice, Asher’s voice. “We’re the same now, reflection. We hit her. We raped her. We took. We lied to her. We manipulated her. We terrified her. We made her question herself. We brought her to Rowan.”
To block out the truth, he looks down. Only, there’s a tenth reflection staring up at him as a guard rolls over. This one has blood sprayed on the surface of the mirror, yet it doesn’t distort the voice as Asher says, “We’re the reason she dies.”
“NO!” Kane screams as he lifts his foot and brings it down with enough force to crack the mask, fracturing his reflection.
Which isn’t enough. Nothing can allow him to destroy the monster when it’s deep inside him.
The voice in his head isn’t his own, it’s a ghost who clings to him, refusing to let go after keeping him company in solitary—controlling his life since he was released.
There’s no other option when there’s a steady stream of venom dripped in your ear, but he can’t simply walk away from Asher when he’s become part of him.
The screams and cracking of bones makes Bianca look up.
She hasn’t lifted her head in years so the movement aches.
She makes the mistake now as she witnesses the carnage around her.
Mutilated genitals, blood, the tools of her torment laid lifeless on the floor have an involuntary smile lifting her lips.
Her cheeks ache from the new movement as she swallows, wetting her throat before she hoarsely whispers, “End it all.”
That small croak snaps something inside of Kane due to the arrangement of the words. His fourth attempt at taking his life had him in the infirmary for months. When he was being administered a sedative during one of his mental episodes, he begged the doctors to end it all.
He doesn’t react the way they did—prolonging Bianca’s agony. He tells himself it’s an act of compassion as he steps over the dead guards and lowers to his knees in front of her, nodding. “End it all.”
She nods too, the alien smile growing.
He shows her respect for the first time in the seventeen-years-long torment she’s existed in as he wipes the knife so it doesn’t have her abusers’ blood on it, then his hands.
Once he’s cleaned as much off as he can, he wraps his fingers around the handle, gently holds the top of her head with his other hand, then carefully tilts her head backwards.
In one swift motion, he buries the knife in the side of her neck, just behind her ear, before he drags it across to meet the other side of her spinal cord.
Bianca, the girl with blood—among other bodily fluids—on her face, will never know what the sun feels like on her skin, or how big the world is as she takes her last breath with the first smile on her face within The Dollhouse she was bred for.