Chapter 17
Jolie—aged eighteen
My heart hammered, pounding loud like a drum, blocking out the bloody pleas falling from Woodrow’s lips. Blocking out the pain behind his words.
And then everything stopped. The hand, due to in invade me at any second, pulled back. The man attached moved with it. He took a seat at the table, ignoring me like I wasn’t even in the room.
I glanced over as the cleaver struck the wood, piercing through the tablecloth’s thin material; blood splattered Woodrow’s face as he looked over, too. Shaking fingers pushed him from the ground, trembling knees almost buckled as he stared down at the wooden table from his full height.
Ville was cutting up the meat—cutting up Bonny, the cleaver dragging over the wood, guiding pieces away from the mass, so he could continue to do so.
Woodrow’s eyes closed and didn’t open for the longest time.
“Woodrow. . .” My whisper pulled him from the darkness of closed lids, and his feet brought him closer to me.
I ignored the conversation from the men at the table. Dirty chats of girls like me. . . girls, who had been ripped away from their families, by any means necessary. Girls, stolen and preened for selling.
My hands moved to a kitchen cloth on the table edge. I used it to wipe away the smear on Woodrow’s cheek. The bright red only faded to pink without the help of soap or water.
“Jolie,” Ville snapped impatiently, like he’d been waiting for my cooperation for hours. “Come get this meat.”
I shuffled to the table. “I have no idea how to cook rabbit,” I voiced, trying to find excuses not to become a literal bunny boiler.
“You learn by doing.” The blade of the cleaver blared down against the wood twice, giving me a warning.
I hung my head. “Let me get something to pick her up with.”
“Use your hands.”
I looked between Ville and Woodrow, who looked ready to vomit, and he would have by now, if he had any chance of getting the lumps past the swelling in his throat.
I picked up the bloody pieces, avoiding the ones with fur still attached.
I wanted to tell Ville how disgusting he was. How much I hated him, but I knew well enough to keep my mouth shut, especially because the cleaver was still clutched in his bloodstained fingers.
I dropped chunk after chunk of Bonny into the hot water boiling on the stove. I let a silent tear fall into the already salty water.
Woodrow’s hand rubbed along the small of my back, his other hand tried to brush away the migraine forming at his temple. “It’s not your fault.”
He held me close as tears rushed from both of our eyes.
“I don’t think I’ll be here in a few minutes,” he whispered, only loud enough for me to hear.
My head turned, quick enough that he had to swiftly pull back to avoid me hitting him.
“You’ll be okay.” His voice was still a whisper.
“Not if you switch.” My tone matched his.
“I promise, I won’t hurt you.”
I struggled to believe him. “But it’s not you. Hold on. Please, hold on.”
It felt like a lifetime had passed by the time I layered the table with bowls of vegetables. My hands shook as I placed down bowl after bowl. Glazed carrots, potatoes, peas, and some other green thing that I couldn’t name, all sat in the center, surrounding the meat.
Ville was the first to fill his plate, using forceful orders and my hands to ensure he had the biggest pieces of food.
“Take a seat,” he instructed, once all plates were decorated in dinner. “Sit!” he shouted, his spit flying everywhere, when I failed to follow his orders as quickly as he wanted.
I sat down, waiting for Woodrow to trail the short distance from where he stood near the oven.
My eyes pleaded with his, and he hated that I felt I had to beg him.
The guilt in his expression became easier to see as he got close enough to slide into his chair, his arm wrapped around his broken ribs to ease the pain.
We both sat somewhere in a state between disgust and gratefulness. The table devoured the meal, and we hadn’t been offered any. The relief washed over me, dwelling close to my soul until the meal was over.
Ville pushed away his plate, the other’s following suit. “Dessert!”
“I haven’t prepared a dessert. Wynter never said—” nothing about a dessert, or ever made one. I shook my head confused.
“I always get dessert, darlin’.”
The plates were cleared from the table, but it wasn’t by me. The man in black—who I’d learned throughout the meal was named Sylvia—clearly, not his real name, had collected everything and disposed of it in the kitchen sink before my feet could move.
I didn’t dare ask where that name came from.
I should have forced myself to believe his mother was either on drugs or hated him from birth.
I’d pressed my lips together as they ate, keeping the question inside, and I did, until he was addressed by another man before he stood from the table.
. . Tufts, who’d been groping me—also known as Teena.
My eyes asked the question, wondering why they both had women’s names.
And even as I tried to pretend I wasn’t curious, they answered.
“They were the name of our first girls. The first ones we pulled from their happy lives and into our world,” Teena said, a look of pride on his greasy face.
‘That’s disgusting. You’re disgusting,’ I said without words, my eyes speaking again as they glared across the table.
Woodrow’s eyes were speaking, too, telling me to shut the fuck up, after he’d gripped my attention by brushing the dog chain with his foot.
“Ah, so, you really have a dog chain? I thought these guys were bullshitting me,” the third man said, finally giving up the mystery of whether or not he could speak.
“I didn’t think your wife would approve of watching.
. .” he spoke, but his words grew distant as his head dipped below the tablecloth to examine the heavy chain.
“That’s not true. I’m sure these guys told you the stories.
” Ville stretched back in his chair, the legs groaning as usual.
“She likes involvement, but doesn’t want them to.
. . be around Nessie. It was allowed prior.
The girls were kept in the house until she was born, and then, our fun stopped.
But that will be changing soon. The little brat has had a good start, and she’s starting to play on my nerves. ”
A memory flashed across Woodrow’s face, seeping from the hoarding space of a million and one bad memories inside his brain.
A memory of girls pleading for help. Begging him—a tiny child—to find the key that would open the lock of that chain and many others.
To free them. To end their lives if he couldn’t.
. . because their lives, to them, were no longer worth living.
“Most chains have been removed. Wynter finally got what she wanted, a child to love.”
More pain showed on Woodrow’s face, but he hid it well. So well, no one but me noticed it as he put a hand to his throat and covered, swallowing those feelings as his father continued. “But the novelty is starting to wear off.”
My mouth dropped, and vomit rushed up my throat ready to fall from the opening. Wynter really was in on it. And Nessie was in danger. My head shot to Ville, silent questions firing at him from my eyes.
Hatred paraded through me. Not for Ville, because it was already there, lurking around all fibers of my being, but for his wife. She had told me I was purchased to be saved. To be loved. To be a friend. . . but they had done this before. . . done it with chains and hatred.
I should have believed she was in on it from the start, but I forced myself to believe differently, trying to see the good in her. . . and each time I failed to do that, I blamed it on the house’s poor lighting.
Ville heard my inner turmoil, reading my mind like the devil he was, no doubt. “I know she fed you bullshit about being the first. Being saved. A friend for Woodrow. I know you still don’t want to believe otherwise.”
Woodrow watched, silently, jaw ticking as his eyes moved to his father.
“But you’ve met my wife, Jolie. Do you really think she cares if he has a friend. Do you think she cares about him, at all?”
“She should.” My eyes shifted to their unloved son, and he felt the pull, moving his gaze to me. Feeling love through me. Love that allowed him to stay present. . . stay with me.
“She doesn’t. She doesn’t care about anyone but herself and me. . . I’d like to believe that, at least.”
Ville took a swig from a glass at his side—a fancy decanter, not the usual whatever he grabbed first, which often had a cartoon character fading on the glass.
The fancy stuff was out for tonight. . . in the form of glasses, at least.
I had no idea why he bothered for a crowd who lacked anything of true value—like manners and respect.
Sylvia was back, placing more bottles on the table.
Some whisky, some rum, and one of Wynter’s wines—a drink that would no doubt need replacing.
If I’d learned anything about this man and the woman he was married to—one thing that wasn’t a lie, like everything else that came out of their mouths—it was that they both had drinking problems.
The liquid in the bottles always decreased overnight.
“Did Wynter ever tell you how we met?” Ville asked, unscrewing the cap from the strongest of his drinks, before swigging from the bottle, ignoring his fancy glass.
I no longer cared, and I was sure my expression told him as much. And I was almost convinced that’s why he continued to drone on and tell me.
“I was a psychologist in training, close to getting my degree. I had it all figured out. A job in the city, less than an hour’s drive from here. And I took a vacation, and I met him. . . a man as beautiful as he was evil.”
I listened to Ville’s story, having no idea who this him was, but I didn’t ask. I let him continue, half wondering what could have happened to so badly corrupt a man who started out wanting to help people. What could have turned him into the complete opposite?