Chapter 9 #2
He had stunned her into silence.
He’d taken a knife from the table—one too sharp to have a reason for its dwelling there, given what we were all having for breakfast. Sharp and deadly. And clutched tightly in his fingers as he guided it from left to right across her throat.
Wynter’s face turned a ghostly shade, much whiter than her usual porcelain.
“Get that blade away from me. And put it away. Right now.” Her voice trembled, like her fingers as her own cutlery slipped through them, lashing more gravy onto the already stained tablecloth—its checkered pattern ruined.
A bigger smirk lifted his entire face—a face that was inches from his mother’s when he pulled back the knife and stabbed the blade into the thick wooden table, causing her to jump what looked to be half a mile high out of her seat, all of us shadowing her movement.
“Ah, so scared. . . of me?” Woodrow, or whatever had taken over—Hell—laughed again.
“You’re trying to be brave. Don’t. I like the fear, Mother.
It’s cute.” He placed a kiss on his mother’s cheek, and she snapped her head away.
“Do I remind you of him? Is it the eyes. . . or, something else? Was it something about my body when the clothes were off? Woodrow has blocked it out, but I remember. I remember everything. How you told them to do the things they did. . . all because you wanted revenge. And you took it on a child, and look what you created. A monster.” He licked her face before laughing in it.
“God dammit, kid!” Ville jumped to his feet, but he had no intention of helping his wife, and she hadn’t even voiced her annoyance over his blasphemy.
They were both, now that the alcohol was fading from Ville’s tongue, too scared of their son.
Scared of what Wynter apparently turned him into.
Which made no sense as to why they insisted on antagonizing him until this side of him appeared.
The diary had told me so much. Told me of all Woodrow’s feelings before this alter took over.
Ville’s sausage fingers proved his fear, shaking as they bashed the table in heavy fists—the rouse of calmness fooled no one, not even Nessie, who shook from her head to her tiny toes.
I watched gravy vibrate from the dishes, making Ville’s dish dry again. I reached for a napkin to clean the spill, giving myself something else to focus on, but as soon as Hell started talking, I froze.
“You don’t have to do that. You’re not their slave. You’re mine. You were a gift for me. . . it’s not the lie they’ve fooled you into believing.”
Ville huffed, not liking the exposure of Hell’s words.
“Problem, Dad?” He laughed again, and he sounded like a maniac.
Ville said no more. Hell went back to terrorizing his mother after winking his pretty eyes at me—eyes, that looked colder than ever.
With the blade back in hand, he tickled the inside of his mother’s thigh.
His eyes darted between both parents before stilling on his father.
“Why don’t you sit down, or I’ll shove into her cun—”
“Don’t say that word!” Wynter shook, trying to edge back into the seat.
The words caught me off guard, too, my eyes widening in horror. My brain tried to convince myself that he wouldn’t really do it, but the energy in the room told me I was the only one who thought that way.
“Apologies, for once again offending you, Mother. Ask your God to fucking forgive me, huh?”
Ville moved around my chair, finally moving from his. He was using me as a distraction. . . as bait.
And Hell took it instantly.
His eyes met mine for a second. His lips lifted as he looked at the man behind me, who now had his rough fingers on the back of my chair.
Close to my skin. So close, I could smell the dirt beneath his nails.
. . it smelt like blood. . . like death.
. . and it hinted how I feared the next minutes could play out.
“Don’t listen to the things he says, as you can see, he’s out of his mind.” Ville’s hands began weaving through my hair, and I found myself pleading, “Woodrow. . .” come back. . .
Woodrow didn’t answer, but Hell spoke again. “Is it not as joyous? Not as fun when someone is touching your girl? Did you not like seeing the fear in her poppy eyes?”
Ville didn’t answer.
No one dared to answer. No one dared to move.
I was pinned to my seat. My back glued to the chair, rigid and terrified. My eyes bugged massively as Ville’s hands moved to my shoulders.
“What made you think you could do that?” Hell quizzed, tightening his grip on the blade. “Drop your hands lower. I dare you.” His smile grew.
“Hell, you’re scaring me.” Nessie’s little voice trembled, cutting through the thick atmosphere like she had a blade of her own. “Daddy, I’m scared.” She was wondering why he had chosen to stand by me, and not protect her. . .
She didn’t see the sinister reasons.
She thought it was because he cared about me more than her; she didn’t realize it was because I was the only one disposable to him.
Ville eyed his wife; a silent plea headed his way from her eyes, that I heard and felt, even if he didn’t.
Don’t let him hurt her.
But it didn’t hold the emotion I’d expected.
Hell tucked away his knife. . . a dangerous smirk on his face as he turned to his tiny sister.
“Tuck your chair in, Jolie.” Ville kicked the leg of my seat before he sat back in his own, moving from me in an act of surrender.
I pulled my chair closer to the table, not having realized how far back I’d pushed through my fear when all this first kicked off.
A chain brushed across the floor, shifted by my giant slippers.
The sound brought all the attention to me, including Hell’s.
. . and for once, I didn’t want it, but I was glad it was no longer on Nessie, who’d trembled beneath his glare.
“Don’t worry about that,” Wynter told me—her voice still unsteady with nerves—before I had a chance to glance beneath the gingham cloth hiding the mystery item from my view. Not that I would have. I wouldn’t take my eyes off Hell. “It’s not important. For the dogs,” she continued.
“You have dogs?” I questioned, trying to focus on anything other than what was happening in the here and now. But still found myself blinking back in confusion, knowing how much Ville hated animals as I waited for any clarification.
But none came.
And even if Ville was to tolerate man’s best friend, I’d been here weeks, and the only animal I’d witnessed around here was Bonny.
“Just one right now.” Wynter was back to eating, back to talking with a full mouth. She deemed her hand-hidden chewing acceptable.
“What kind?” I asked a question to stay present. My mind desperately encouraged me into a dreamland, but if I drifted away now, I may never come back.
I started forcing small chunks of the now-cold breakfast into my mouth.
In reality, I didn’t care what kind of dog it was, especially since I was more of a cat person, and I wasn’t crazy about them, either.
I just wanted something other than the breakfast outburst and all that had caused it off my mind.
“Oh, it’s just a mongrel. Nothing special. It’s a little fatter than it should be, with lots of hair. Not all of God’s creatures could be born beautiful.”
“I’m sure he’s still beautiful.” I smiled, catching Hell’s attention as he looked across to me from the mush he was hating every spoonful of.
His nostrils flared with anger. His stare was cold, despite the fire burning inside him. The fire burning just for me.
He side-glanced at his mother, taking in all the hate he felt from her, and saving it, so he could use it against her.
“It’s a girl,” Wynter told me.
“Sorry.” I assumed boy, no idea why.
“It’s fine. . . a good shave, and no one would know the difference.”
Wynter’s words didn’t make sense. I couldn’t understand how shaving a female dog could make it look more like a male. If anything, surely, it would make it easier to tell the difference.
Hell heard something I didn’t, and the knife was in his hand once again. But before anyone could scream any objections, he forced it into the side of his mother’s thigh.
Her crimson blood rushed over his hand. Over her white skin. Her scream echoed in the air, lungs straining for air that she couldn’t suck in quickly enough.
She eyed him, her eyes bulging and filling with more tears. Her conscious stayed long enough to hear his reasoning.
“You don’t get to talk about her like that. You don’t have to like my gift. I do.”
The term gift stalled my heart. Hell’s diary entries left a lot to the imagination. But there was that word again. The word I was referred to on day one. And Hell said it with such vehemence, I knew there was more to it than what I’d been led to believe.
I was distracted from my thoughts when he spoke again, “And if you bad mouth her ever again. . .” he pulled the blood-coated blade from her thigh and lifted it into the morning light, bringing it up to her throat where he traced a slit with her blood.
“I’ll slit your fucking throat, and I’ll watch as you choke. As you suffer. As you die.”
“Hell. . . please. Please, stop,” Nessie’s little voice cut in again.
But she was standing closer to me now, realizing her father would only offer minimum protection, or maybe, figuring that Hell liked me best. Either way, she felt safest with me, hidden behind the wood of my chair.
Her little fingers brushed my skin, in a totally different way from her father’s.
I clutched her hand, showing her a little protection.
Hoping that whatever God this family believed in, would take pity on me and offer the same.
Ville finally climbed from his chair, moving to kneel at Wynter’s side, his knees clicking as he lowered to a squat. A quick analyzation of the wound—it was grim, and his face told us all what his mouth didn’t.
Wynter needed immediate help.
“You need to pray to God. Pray for forgiveness, because you will never get it from me.” Wynter slipped from the chair and into Ville’s embrace.