Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
ANNIKA
When my eyes open I expect to be tied up. I’m not tied up. I’m not… anything… I gasp and sit up and look around.
The room is soft, dark, and smells like sandalwood. I see my mother on the floor and quickly crawl to her and stab two fingers to her neck. Before I feel her pulse she makes a noise and starts to move. Her eyes open and meet mine.
She reaches for me. “Annika…”
Mom…
I don’t say the word.
“It’s time,” a voice says from behind me.
Chills race up my spine. I climb to my feet and turn, making fists, ready to fight. A gigantic, robed figure steps toward me. A black mask on his face.
I’m pissed off.
I reach up and rip the mask off the figure’s face. His face is painted. It’s white with black streaks. Painted like an old skull. It’s terrifying.
It’s…
“Perilous,” I whisper.
“You will never be hurt,” he growls at me. “Ever.”
He puts his mask back on. He steps past me and offers his hand to my mother.
“It’s okay,” I tell my mother.
Peri helps her to her feet. Makes sure she’s steady. He walks to the door and opens it, nodding for us to move.
From the velvety room we are in a completely dark hallway. I blink fast, desperate to see. I feel myself starting to panic a little.
At the end of the hallway there’s another door and that opens up to a familiar room. The room where Peri claimed me.
Where my face was held underwater for far too long. Where Peri touched and teased me. Where Peri inserted a certain toy into my ass.
There are masked men everywhere.
I can sense my mother’s instant fear. I reach for her hand. She’s shaking. I look at her.
It’s okay , I mouth to her.
I don’t exactly know if it’s okay or not, but I know and believe that Peri would never do anything to truly hurt me.
Peri stops and turns. He leans down toward my mother and me.
“I had to do it,” he whispers in a deep voice. “It was the only way to get him to appear. That’s how fucking scummy and greedy he is. Remember that. All it took was the idea of selling his daughter and his ex-wife as a combo package …”
My mother’s hand shakes and I squeeze it.
She’s angry. Hurt. Scared. She feels alone. I realize that her life has been a lie too. Every year that I’ve lived with these lies, so has she.
She’s been drugged over and over, on purpose, ending up in rehab and getting clean, just to be fucked with again. Think about how sick that is. Paying someone to follow your ex-wife and drug her.
We all have problems. We all make bad decisions. Sometimes we get a second chance. That’s what Peri has given me. A second chance.
So maybe I can do the same for my mother. Maybe we can…
My thought fades as a door opens and someone is thrown into the room. Onto the floor. Two masked men lift the person to their feet.
A black cloth is on their head and it’s quickly removed, revealing my father. His left eye looks completely shattered and missing. It’s like a black, hollow socket, blood smeared all over his face.
“Jesus,” my mother whispers.
“I think that’s nothing compared to what is about to happen,” I tell her.
My father is dragged to the front of the room. There waits a pool of water, almost like what happened with me. There’s a throne where someone sits. He wears a gold mask.
He rises up to his feet and makes a gesture with his hand. As soon as he does that, Peri turns and points to my mother and me. He motions for us to come closer to him.
We both hesitate for a second but I know it’s okay to trust Peri. I have to trust Peri. Without Peri I have nothing. He is my everything.
“It’s okay,” I tell my mother.
We walk hand in hand toward Peri. Toward my father.
My father turns his head and looks at us.
I don’t hesitate when I growl and call up a chunk of spit from the back of my throat and spit at his face.
God, that felt so fucking good to do.
Peri produces a large knife.
I shake my head.
He moves closer to myself and my mother. He leans down again.
“You’re going to do it together,” he growls. “Slit his fucking throat. Then I’ll handle the rest.”
Peri inches away and I look at my mother. I see the hesitation in her face, the same as me.
Peri places the knife into my hand. He takes my mother’s left hand and wraps it around my hand.
We have to do this.
Three men in masks hold my father steady. His hands are tied behind his back. Peri holds his hair, pulling his head back, making sure his throat is completely exposed.
It’s safe to admit I have zero experience in slitting someone’s throat. In fact, the only time I ever saw it was when Peri slit Molly’s throat.
My mother and I stand there. I channel everything.
My life. The lies.
My father sitting me down after school one day to tell me my mother was dead.
My father convincing me not to go to her funeral.
Lie after lie.
My father manipulating everything and then wanting to sell me.
He wanted to sell me!
I growl and find the strength and nerve to just do it. I pull my mother’s hand along with mine and I place the blade against my father’s throat. Instantly, the room begins to spin. Panic sets in. Hard. Anxiety makes me want to throw up.
But I’m not going to allow that to happen.
He. Deserves. This.
I look at my mother. She nods. Her grip tightens on my hand. She’s ready too.
“Please don’t do this,” my father says. “I loved you both. I still love you both. I made a mistake. That was it! A mistake!”
“Fuck you,” I say and I push.
Hard. Really hard. My mother pushes against my hand with her own force. The knife cuts into my father’s throat.
Blood leaks. Blood drips.
I move my hand forward and then quickly pull it back toward me. Literally slitting my own father’s throat open.
We drop the knife to the floor and blood starts to spray out of his neck as he tries to scream but can’t. He’s bleeding out. He’s… dying… At the hands of myself and my mother.
The man in the gold mask hands something to Peri. It’s another knife. This one with jagged teeth. Peri turns his head and lifts his mask up, showing his painted face.
“You can look away for this part,” Peri says. “It must be done.”
“I’m never going to look away,” I say.
“He drugged me for over two decades,” my mother says.
Peri lowers his mask and turns back to my father. He grabs him by the hair with his right hand slams the jagged-tooth knife to my father’s throat and he starts to cut. He starts to… saw…
My stomach instantly turns and I need to throw up. I take a few breaths to remain calm as I watch Peri start to cut my father’s head off.
Literally.
I listen to the teeth ripping through flesh and then bone. It’s an awful sound. It’s wet and mushy and then it’s a hard sound.
I have no idea how long it all takes because I’m not sure time actually matters here. The moment comes when my father’s head literally pops free from the rest of his body.
Peri drops the head into the water, along with the knife. He dips his hands into the water to wash away some of the blood.
My father falls to the floor on his right side. I can’t look down to see his headless body. I’m having a hard enough time standing tall right now as it is.
The man in the gold mask approaches Peri and touches his shoulders. Something is said. Peri turns to face me and he takes his mask off once again. He steps toward me. He’s inches away.
I stare up at him, madly in love and madly insane for being so madly in love. I lift my right hand and touch his face, smearing some of the white and black paint onto my fingers. I touch my right cheek and rub the paint onto my face. My chin starts to quiver and my eyes fill with tears.
Peri grabs the back of my neck with his right hand. He slams his mouth down to mine, kissing me hard.
I am his everything.
His is mine.
He’s killed my best friend.
He’s killed my father.
He’s given me the truth.
Murder, truth… and love…
What more could a girl ask for?