51. Mina
Chapter fifty-one
W hat the hell is happening right now? My eyes dart down again to the strange dress I’m wearing. It’s purple with large white polka dots covering it, and is shaped like a dress for little girls. I’m also wearing white socks that are pulled up to my knees. He’s dressed me like a child.
I’m trying not to freak out about the fact that he changed me while I was unconscious, because I have bigger things to worry about right now. Like the chain attaching my ankle to a metal hoop bolted to the floor in the middle of the room.
I take another bite of the food, eyeing him warily. I’m still worried that he put something in it to drug me with, but I have a feeling I’m going to be here for a while and will need to eat, eventually. I’d rather be on his good side, anyway.
The way his temper keeps flaring, and he jumps from speaking softly to yelling at me, is all sorts of terrifying. Everything he’s said is playing through my mind as I try to piece together exactly what’s going on here.
Why has he kidnapped me?
He seems completely unhinged, like the smallest thing will set off his temper. But I don’t think he wants to hurt me and I don’t want to give him an excuse to. That’s why I decided to play into his strange fantasy he has about me being his little girl.
He said he’s been searching for me for years, that he’s been planning this. But before, he told us that he had been living in California all this time.
A nervous tension fills my body as a deep-seated fear starts to take hold. Unable to hold back my need for answers, I decide to see what information I can get from him.
“Daddy?” The name tastes like acid on my tongue, but I press forward.
“Yes, my little angel?”
“Have you really been searching for me all this time?”
“Of course, honey. I thought maybe something had happened to you, that Mary had hurt you. I never should have brought you home to her.”
I pinch my face in confusion. “Wait—Who’s Mary?”
“Oh, honey. Helen’s real name is Mary. She wasn’t your real mommy.”
I stare at him in shock. She wasn’t really my mother? “I-Is that why she hated me so much?” I ask him, unsure if I’m upset by the news or relieved.
“Mostly, yes. Your real mother, she wanted to keep you for herself, she wasn’t going to let me see you anymore. So I killed her and brought you home for Mary and I to raise.”
He killed my real mother? My stomach turns with the need to vomit.
“What was her name?” I ask, trying to distract myself.
“Helen. Helen Bennett.”
I must look confused because he sighs and clarifies. “Mary took Helen’s identity because it was her name on your birth certificate. It just made things easier for us. ”
I had a real mother, who loved me and wanted to keep me? And he… He killed her. He did it so he could keep me for himself? Then gave her identity to another woman? He’s even more messed up than I imagined.
Trying to hide my fear and need to be sick, I ask him another question. “Are you my real… daddy?” I hope he’s not related to me, either.
“Of course I’m your real daddy.” He holds my hand like he truly believes all of this can be explained away, like he didn’t murder my mother and kidnap me.
He takes a deep breath before continuing. “You have to understand, Mary… she wasn’t right in the head.” He didn’t have to tell me that, I’ve been living with her for the past twenty-one years.
“She has a weird fascination with me. I never paid her any attention, but it only made her want me more. As we grew older, it got worse. One day, in our early twenties, she convinced me to go out drinking with her. I guess I drank too much because I ended up sleeping with her. I knew what we’d done was wrong, we were twins for christ's sake!”
My eyes practically bug out of my head. Did he just say that he and Mary are twins ? As in… siblings?
Holy cow!
This explains so much. He slept with his own sister and she got pregnant with Simon. That’s why they didn’t have a record of his birth, they didn’t want anyone to know about the incest! And it’s why he hates Simon, he’s the product of what Mary forced him into.
And that explains why he’s obsessed with me. After having a child from incest, one as psychopathic as Simon, he saw me as the perfect child.
Unaware of inner ramblings he continues. “She got pregnant with Simon and we moved away from our family. Nobody even knew she had a baby. But Mary wasn’t satisfied, she wanted to build a life with me, but I didn’t want that. I didn’t want her, or Simon. I could barely even look at them.” He takes a breath before he continues.
“I met Helen, the real Helen, at work. Did you know I used to be a lawyer?” He was a lawyer?
“She was the district attorney, and I thought she was the most beautiful and intelligent woman I’d ever met. She never lost a case and was smart as a whip. When she became pregnant, and gave birth to you, I saw you for the first time and knew instantly that you were my perfect little girl. You were already more beautiful than your mother, and I knew you’d be twice as smart.” He reaches out to rub my leg in what he believes is a caring paternal way, but it just makes me want to throw up.
“I brought you back to Mary, thinking we could make it work. She’d have Simon, and I’d have you. But she didn’t want to keep you, and I refused to give you away. You were mine, and I knew I had to keep you safe. But I didn’t exactly know how to raise a baby. She finally agreed to let us stay if I would agree to be with her.” He swallows heavily and I can see the disgust on his face before he relaxes his expressions and looks back up at me.
“I did that for you, honey.” I try not to cringe thinking about all the messed up decisions he’s made for my benefit.
“Your brother grew jealous of how much time I spent with you and his desperate need to please me grew annoying. Between Mary’s desire for me and Simon’s annoying tendencies, I started to drink. In hindsight, I should have taken you away years earlier. But I was weak. By the time you were old enough that I knew I could raise you on my own, I was too much of a drunk.”
“I tried to get sober so I could take you away, but you went missing when I was in rehab. I tried to find you, but I couldn’t figure out where she took you. A few years later, when Simon found me, I thought we’d be able to find you together. But he told me Mary had kicked him out and ran again. Now I know he was lying, he wanted to keep you for himself, and away from me. He was a jealous little pedophile,” he spits out.
He’d been in contact with Simon? A chill goes up my spine and I shiver, the unease growing stronger the more he talks. I want to ask him questions but decide to let him keep talking as he seems to be revealing more truths now than he ever has before.
“He helped me look for you. He even found girls who looked like you… but none of them were a substitute for the real you.”
My blood runs cold and I try to keep the shocked expression from my face. Is he saying what I think he’s saying?
“Every few months he’d bring me another girl, but they were never good enough, they were never you . You understand?”
No. I don’t understand any of this.
“Dad… did you know that Simon had been raping and killing those women?”
“Oh, honey, you need to understand. He would do anything to please me, and I just wanted you. He tried to find substitutes, but they always turned out to be inadequate, flawed, so I would let him have his fun with them, then I’d dispose of them.”
I can’t stop the gasp that escapes me.
“I can’t have inferior copies of you out there. There is only one of you, the rest are just… distractions.”
What the actual hell. My entire body trembles with fear. He’s been working with Simon this entire time. Simon didn’t kill those women, he did. I think he might be more messed up than Simon was. Killing them just because they weren’t me ?
Oh my god! The thought sends a wave of nausea through me and I quickly bend forward, puking up my meal on the floor at his feet. I can’t stop retching and I fear he’s going to punish me, but his hand quickly comes up to stroke down my back as he pulls my hair back.
“My poor little girl is sick. Don’t worry, daddy will take care of you.”
Staring at the chain anchored to the bedroom floor, I wonder, how the hell am I going to get out of here?