29. 29 – Zella
At first glimpse, it looks like an animal.
But then it moves , and the same groan that drew me down here travels out of its throat, filling the air around us with pain.
My breathing stutters to a stop. I take a step back as Enzo raises his hands in the air, slowly.
He takes a step away from the thing he’s working on, a step closer to me.
When I back up, my heels hitting a concrete step, he pauses.
“Oh, little prey,” he breathes. “Why did you have to come down here?”
The air is locked inside my chest, my head swimming. When he takes another step, I shake my head frantically, my eyes darting between him and the table.
“W-why?” I choke out. Instead of answering me, he moves closer, and a terrified noise erupts from my throat. “Stay away!”
He tilts his head. “I can’t do that.”
His voice is low, intimate, as he takes steps that eat up the distance between us. I can’t not look at him, my hands gripping the rail desperately as I try to back up before he reaches me.
His hand shoots out, gripping my wrist and pulling me closer. When I thrash, pulling my other hand up to try and push him away, he grabs that too, yanking me closer to him and dragging me down the steps, carrying me into the dungeon with calm efficiency.
“Look at him,” he snarls, and I shake my head desperately. I don’t want to look at the piece of meat that used to be human, the way its head turns slowly from side to side, with desperate, gurgling sounds coming from its throat.
“I can’t,” I sob. “I don’t want to.”
“But you wanted to know,” Enzo breathes in my ear. “You wanted to see, little prey. You didn’t do as you were told, and now you’re here. What do I do with you now?”
“I’m sorry,” I gasp. “Let me go. I’ll go back upstairs—,” He buries his face in my neck, inhaling, and I flinch. He rips himself away with a snarl, and I lose my balance. My hands shoot out to stop me tipping onto the table, and I moan in horror at the wetness under my hands.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask him, my voice shaking as I stare down. “What did he ever do to you?”
What could any human do to deserve this?
All of Ethan’s warnings run through my mind.
The world is full of evil, Zella.
And I walked straight into it. Ran to it, my arms wide open.
Enzo is silent behind me, and I suck in a rasping breath, steeling myself to turn around.
“Am I next?” I ask, waving my hand at the scene behind me. My voice shakes, but I refuse to let myself cry. “Was this all a game to you? Will you carve me up like this, Enzo?”
His fists clench. “So quick to judge, little prey,” he snaps out. The tendons on his neck stand up in harsh lines under the bulb overhead. “When you have no idea.”
I have nowhere to go when he stalks me, pushing me until my hips are pressed into the hard metal of the trolley behind us.
“You have no idea,” he murmurs, his eyes a bare inch from mine. “You think this is evil? This is what he deserves . He deserves everything he is feeling and more.”
He . I feel sick, and I swallow it down. “I don’t understand.”
He grabs me, spinning me around and sliding his hand around my neck in that familiar way, pushing me down so I’m facing the man on the table.
His breathing is warm against my ear. “John Millers. Fifty-seven years old. Mechanic. Every day, he gets up and goes to work. He’s a hard worker, this one.
Works long days, comes home, has a beer in front of the telly.
A real stand-up guy. Quiet, keeps to himself, but nice enough. Everyone knows John.”
My eyes feel wet as I stare down, looking into the clouded brown eyes of the thing that used to be John Millers.
Enzo rubs his hands up and down my arms. “Breathe, prey.”
I take a gasping breath, my stomach roiling. “Why, then?”
Enzo presses against me. “Angelina Burrows,” he murmurs.
“Seventeen. She was hitchhiking when John picked her up one night. It was an icy December. He was so worried she’d be cold, he wrapped her up in an old duvet when he was finished with her.
She was snug as a bug when he buried her a few hundred yards from the highway. ”
He presses his lips to my shoulder. “Sherileen Jacobs.” I shake my head, but he doesn’t stop.
“Fourteen years old,” he whispers. “She was looking for her dog when he called her over. Told her he’d help her look, and then he buried her, prey.
He buried her so deep, her family never had a chance at finding her. ”
My face crumples, my head bowing. “Enzo.”
“Abby Millers,” he says quietly. “Aged seven, when it started. Her mama couldn’t live with him, so she tried to run, and he buried her for it, just like the others.
Abby grew up a sad, sweet little girl, and everyone said how kind John was to care for her so when her cruel mother ran off and left her.
He was so devoted, he never even looked at another woman.
Why would he when he was such a loving father ? ”
His voice is harder now, and he looks over my shoulder.
“He owes the devil, Zella,” he murmurs. “And I’m right here, collecting my dues.”
“How do you know all this?” My lips feel dry, my mouth like a desert as I look down at what’s left of John Millers.
“There’s always a trail,” he murmurs. “Men like him, they like to revisit the good old times. John here wasn’t particularly smart. Had all of his recordings lined up like trophies. Didn’t you, John?”
There’s no response.
“He can’t hear us,” Enzo says softly. “Can’t see us, either. He’s already in hell, little prey.”
His words are so casual, even as he plays with the edges of my braid. Tearing my eyes away, I turn around, Enzo giving me the barest amount of space before he pushes back against me.
“Are you scared?” he whispers. “You should be, prey. I told you I wasn’t a good man. I don’t tell lies.”
My head is spinning. “Do you do this… a lot?”
He tilts his head. “Depends. There’s a lot of bad people out there. So many sins to atone for.”
He searches my face for a response, so I nod mutely. His hands reach up, cupping my face.
My lips part. I need to understand why he does this. “Where were you?” I ask quietly. “Before you came here?”
His fingers stroke my cheeks gently. “In a cage,” he murmurs. “Such a small little cage, prey. They tried to contain me, but they let me out when they needed me. And they always seemed to need me. Always someone to be punished.”
I try to breathe, try to work through what he’s telling me. “Do you mean… a real cage?”
“Metal bars and everything,” he whispers. “They’d parade me like an animal in a zoo, their little pet demon on a leash. Except they didn’t find me quite so entertaining when I went back for them, that last time.”
“You hurt them?” I ask. Something cold curdles in my stomach. The image of Enzo trapped inside an actual cage. When he nods, I take a breath.
“I’m glad,” I whisper, and his eyes shoot to mine. “I’m glad you hurt them.”
“They were the first on my table,” he motions behind us. “And I thought that would be it. But the burning didn’t stop, prey. They opened something up when they made me, and I can’t put it back. But this… this stops the burning.”
“But it’s only the bad ones?” I ask, my eyes searching this. “You’re sure?”
He nods. “Maverick keeps me in line.”
“But….,” Swallowing, I turn and glance at the table, avoiding the man who deserves everything he’s getting, if what Enzo is telling me is true. “You put me on that table,” I whisper, and I look at him. “You tied me to it.”
His hands move from my face to my neck, gripping it as I hold my breath.
“When I saw you,” he whispers. “The burning was so bright, little prey. Brighter than it’s ever been. And I thought it meant you needed to be on my table. So I put you there, and then I realized.”
His lips are closer to mine now. “What?” I whisper back.
“It’s just you. You make me burn, little prey. You’re like acid in my veins, a knife inside my chest.”
My body trembles as he leans in closer, until his lips press against mine.
“You are my hell, and you are my redemption. And I will never let you go, prey. If you run, I will bring you back,” he murmurs into my mouth. I suck in his words like oxygen, my lungs inflating with air.
When he suddenly steps back, I stagger, the removal of his weight against me making my body feel light as a feather.
“Run now,” he says quietly, looking away. “And decide if this is something you can live with.”
My head feels too full. “I thought—,” His laugh is dark and rich. “You don’t get a choice? But you do. You can come to me by choice. Or you can try to get away, but I will chase you, prey. That’s the only choice I’m willing to give you, and I’m only giving it once.”
He nods towards the stairs. “Go.”
My legs feel unsteady underneath me as I move past him, his gaze heated on my back as I start up the stairs.
By the time I hit the door at the top, I’m running, the little breath left in my lungs burning as I race into the main house and up to my room, slamming the door behind me and backing up as though he’ll make good on his promise right now and burst through the door, ready to drag me back downstairs to his table.
The room feels too small, and my fingers fumble at the latch as I yank the little door open, breathing in the fresh air.
As the shaking in my limbs starts to subside, I pull in a great, shuddering breath.
The evening air is peaceful, the leaves from the trees rustling softly and the scent of autumn in the air. While below me, a man lies on a table with his skin carved apart, careful slices reducing him to nothing more than meat.
I retch over the railing, my dinner threatening to make a reappearance as I force it back down.
My skin feels too hot, but my hands feel ice cold as I press them to my burning cheeks. Enzo’s words play on a loop inside my head, and something Maverick said comes back to me, in his deep, reassuring voice.
Good people deserve good things, and bad people deserve everything bad.
When my stomach stops swirling, I slowly step away from the window.