Chapter 16 The Fire
It took all five days to recover, but as the week moved on, the dread inside me intensified and my uncle’s words haunted me. I didn’t want the weekend to arrive. I tried and failed to keep calm so I could think about what to do.
Don’t do this.
Don’t go home.
Don’t go home.
Run away.
Go! Don’t go home.
You can still run from all this.
Runnnnn!!
When I arrived, I leaned my back on the car, staring at the mansion before me and all the ruckus of people coming in and out, the music already blasting.
I still had a decision to make. I could run out of the property and leave my mother behind, which was what I’d promised her I would not do, or I could go inside and kill him. Either way, this could not continue.
I refused to move until I made the decision.
They rolled their cars around the circle, disembarking in their fancy attire, and walking in.
Then a six-wheel lorry entered the property, but instead of stopping at the front, it rolled around to the back.
I followed it, keeping in mind that if someone caught me, I could always say I was headed to the kitchen to get dinner.
When I arrived at the kitchen door, I looked to where the truck had parked a few meters behind me.
A man opened the doors to the back of the lorry, and bare feet landed on the pavement.
I couldn’t see the rest of their bodies, only their legs and feet.
As the crowd on the ground grew larger, some came into my full view, naked and blindfolded, with their bodies full of scars and their wrists tied behind them.
I couldn’t help the gasp that escaped me but thank God no one heard it.
I stepped into the kitchen, which was full of the staff losing its mind, cooking every food under the sun. It was so hot and crowded that no one caught my presence. The old cook always had a dish stored for me to grab, so I took what she’d left me in the fridge and hid in her sleeping quarters.
Eating a full meal for the first time in twenty-four hours was life changing.
It aligned my thoughts so I could control my fear and anger.
As soon as I finished the sandwich, apple, and juice, I knew what I would do.
There was a high risk of failing, but I had to try; I had to start doing something.
Even if I only accomplished half of it, that would be good enough.
Through the back halls designated for the servants, I went up the stairs to Mum’s bedroom.
The room was empty and clean. I figured she was downstairs entertaining Uncle’s friends.
Quickly, I searched her drawers and closet for her cell phone, only to find it in her purse which sat on a chair.
Before leaving, I tried to make things look as tidy as before by pushing her clothes back into her drawers, and the ones that had fallen off hangers, I’d hung again.
At the still-closed door, I guessed my birthday as her phone code and set it to video record.
That night, I no longer had the luxury of hiding from everything in fear. I needed to do something. The door was only slightly ajar, but it was enough for the camera to capture what was happening in the halls.
Male visitors, dressed in fancy black suits and masquerade masks, dragged blindfolded naked girls by silver chains attached to their black leather collars into the other bedrooms. Their wrists were still tied with ropes.
I only caught a glimpse of it before shoving the phone into my side pocket and running into my bedroom.
From my desk, I grabbed the tall box of tissues I never used and cut a hole at the bottom and side and placed the phone in it so that it could record everything that happened on my bed the rest of the night.
Then I returned to the kitchen which was almost empty.
No one saw me grab the matches and store them in my backpack.
“Your uncle is looking for you,” the cook said in French, as if she were reprimanding me.
She wasn’t as heartless as she pretended.
After a few minutes of staring at each other without a response from me, she sighed and rolled her eyes.
“Why don’t you go to my room and stay there the night? ” she asked. “Lock the door.”
The sweat sprang from my body when his strong, deep, angry voice filled the kitchen.
“Killian!” The cook’s and my eyes opened wide, and my entire body stiffened like a wooden board.
If he had stepped into the kitchen a second before, he would have heard her.
It wasn’t just us freaking out. His entrance into the kitchen was rare, so all the servants froze at his presence.
Even before I could turn around, he grabbed me by the back of my collar and dragged me into the halls.
As he yanked at me, my eyes full of horror locked on to the cook.
Help me, I mouthed. By the way her fingers tightened on the plate, I knew she wanted to help me, but there was no way she could, not unless she killed him herself.
I hardly had a chance to catch up with him before I stumbled twice. He didn’t care if he had to drag me by my neck all the way or if I gained control and walked alongside him.
At the end of the hall, he stopped at a door and dropped me like a sack of potatoes to unlock it.
I’d never been through there. The halls were so narrow, and the walls were so thin muffled voices could be heard from the other side.
The metal stairs were hardly wide enough for one person, so he had to climb them sideways.
Each of his heavy steps thundered through the hollow hall and shook the stairs.
“Where are we going?” I asked. “Where are you taking me? Tell me now, or I’ll run back!” I demanded, but he kept climbing the steps.
I ran back to where we’d come from, but the door was locked. In trying to break the handle, I’d wasted all my energy and had to sit for a second to gain it back. I heard his steps approaching, and then he stopped right next to me before I looked up at him.
“Ready to accept your fate?” From that angle, he looked much taller, much more intimidating, his eyes deep into the dark circles around the sockets. This time, I didn’t fight him when he grabbed the top of my backpack and pulled me with him.
It was a long way deep and up into the big bad wolf’s den, past the second floor all the way to the third.
My legs became heavy, as if someone had poured concrete into them.
Each step was so difficult and laborious to take because I knew where we were going—to my bedroom—and deep inside, I knew what would happen to me.
I don’t want this. I don’t want this.
Push him down the stairs and run. No one can find him here. Kill him. Kill him.
We were four steps away from the second floor and all I could hear was my heart and loud breathing.
The stairs were dark, with only very dim lighting.
When we stepped onto the landing, the world spun.
I wanted to beg him to not do this, but I knew him; he had no empathy in him, no conscience.
It would do no good to beg or cry, but I couldn’t help grieving for myself.
As soon as he stepped on the landing for the second floor, he continued up. It was the first time that night I’d taken a deep breath.
The image of the elk-headed men coming in flashed in my mind. One of these doors opened to that creepy rug. Behind him, as I passed the two doors, I wondered which of them opened into my bedroom.
There were two doors, and he unlocked the farthest one.
Once we entered, I realized we were in his office.
Inside the door was a bookshelf. There was no way to distinguish it as anything else.
All the relief I’d gained from not ending up in my bedroom left me when I recognized the man sitting on one of two leather chairs facing my uncle’s desk.
It was the same bloke I’d met four years prior at Mum’s wedding. I’d never forget his face.
“Killian,” he called with glee, a smile on his face, and wide opened arms, as if I would run into them.
He appeared genuinely happy to see me. I looked at him, then to my uncle and back.
My breathing rushed, not only because of all the stairs I’d just climbed but because I didn’t like this.
The only thing that calmed me was when I took a look at the main door to the office.
Hopefully, that wasn’t locked like everything else in this mansion of horrors and I could run away through there.
Standing behind his desk and a tall chair, I was met by a glass with my uncle’s long fingers wrapped around it, barely filled with an amber-colored drink. The smell of the whiskey entered my nostrils. “Drink this,” my uncle commanded.
Without looking at him, I took the glass and chugged it, then slammed the glass on his desk.
The alcohol burned my esophagus all the way down to my stomach, making me grit my teeth.
I relished the taste and raked my lower lip with my teeth, wincing, then welcomed its effects.
It had been too long since I’d drank. The relaxation quickly settled inside me.
The man laughed at my advanced ability to drink it. “Good job, little man. It’s been quite a while. Hasn’t it?” While he wore a smile, his eyes were those of crocodiles, predatory. He wasn’t just looking at me. He licked his lips.
I narrowed my eyes into slits, glaring at him. His too wide of a smile evaporated, and with his gaze, he silently protested to my uncle about my lack of manners or cordiality.
“Sit, Killian.” My uncle’s tone had a warning in it. He gestured to the only empty leather chair facing him and his desk. There were a few meters between me and the scary man.