Chapter 18 #3
My anger took him to the floor. A miracle from God, who wanted revenge for the murder of one of his small creatures.
My father, if he wasn’t choking on his loose teeth and the bleeding they caused, would have said that was my delusions talking.
But why should I believe that? He’d already proved himself a liar.
His head hit the tile, cracking it. . . and hopefully his fucking head, that he immediately reached for with his uninjured hand. He screamed, showing me I’d hurt him. I didn’t relent, my fist slamming down on him until blood splashed from gashes across his nose and cheek.
I was dragged off, kicking a lucky blow to his cock on my departure.
“No,” my father spat through a mouth of blood. “Drop him.”
And they fucking did, on my knees. My bones clicked as I hit the hard ground.
“Get her instead.”
My father’s words hit me like a bullet, one that went straight up my fucking ass and had me moving faster than Barry Allen.
Jolie had shifted position, sitting with her knees under her dress, her arms wrapped around herself.
She had fear on her face. And it deepened, her brown eyes wide, as these creeps put their hands on her.
She tried to fight back, but she couldn’t fight two grown men with years of manhandling experience.
I jumped on Sylvia’s back, my naked dick, still dribbling cum, rubbed against his black t-shirt, staining it. I squeezed my small arms around his throat, reveling in the joy of his ability to breathe slipping away.
I squeezed until I bruised him, until he started swinging around, desperate in the need to get me off. He lunged forward, and I toppled over his head.
The wind rushed from my lungs, my own head cracking against the tiles. I didn’t mimic my father; I didn’t check for blood. I should have. It would have spurred me on. Blood did that to me.
I lurched to my feet, not spending a second on the ground. Sylvia was down on his knees, his hand on his back, patting away. The unnamed had moved from the doorway to assist my father, making it easy to get to the knife I’d left there for this exact, unplanned moment.
I heaved, yanking on the hilt, and it took some doing to pry it free. The wood splintered as I wiggled the blade. A shadow loomed over me. My elbow rammed into the ribs of the man behind, catching him off guard.
I turned, driving the blade into the muscles of his stomach. I pulled out the blade and drove it in again and again and again.
My pale skin become an abstract mess of the abuse I delivered.
Dirty hands clutched the blade, trying to pull it from his body.
Warm, flowing blood rushed out with the metal.
I’d hit an organ, a valuable one. The gurgling noise and additional blood leaking out from his mouth, told me what I already knew.
My eyes lifted to the sound. . . and shock claimed my face, noticing it wasn’t who I thought.
Teena dropped to the ground, disappointing me. I actually wanted my first kill to be Sylvia, who was still on the floor, trying to climb to his feet.
His unsteady steps took him to Jolie, a gun in his hand, aimed at her head.
“Woodrow,” she whispered, irritating me that I’d literally just killed for her, and it was still him she was focused on. “Woodrow,” she said again, as the barrel bashed her temple.
And it was like he fucking heard her.
I felt heavy and confused, like Woodrow and I were fighting for the front position. I knew his fucking lurking was a bad idea.
Blinking away the feeling, unsure if I’d be the one to open my eyes, I stepped forward. I forced him back, not wanting him to wake here with a gun in his face as Sylvia’s aim shifted to me.
My father and his silent friend moved behind me, and my father’s anger seeped out again.
I took a few fists to the face and stomach, delivering twice as many back.
And then, I took the bullet, fired from the gun in Sylvia’s hand.
Jolie’s scream deafened me as I propelled back, my head thumping against the work surface on my fall.
I could no longer hear her. I could no longer hear anything.
Jolie
“Woodrow!” I still screamed, long after leaving my perch on the table, forcing my way around anyone who tried to stop me.
“Woodrow!” My voice hurt, my lungs grew heavy, my heart shattered to pieces.
“Hell!” Desperation had me trying another approach.
I had no idea where the bullet hit, but blood spurted from somewhere near his chest before he went down.
A strong arm, covered in the blackest hair, prevented me from attending to the boy I loved.
I screamed, my nails digging into the wooden doorframe, the banister, anything I could hold on to as Ville dragged me down into the basement.
The smell down here was making me gag each time I took a breath.
Ville, with his less than usual amount of fingers, pulled at my wrists. He careened halfway down the wooden stairs, his boots not even looking to avoid the rusty nails and chunks of carpet that should have been removed long ago.
He tossed me to the ground, and I landed on the floor, this one—pure stone, harder than the kitchen tiles. Both of my knees bruised and bled as the skin scraped away on my landing.
Someone stood in the doorway—whatever his name was—blocking out the only light down here. I desperately wanted to see behind him, my head bobbing constantly, as my focus was still on Woodrow’s body, lying on the cold kitchen tiles, paler than his usual ivory.
The image haunted my head, overpowering every thought and instinct.
Was he alive?
If he was, would he survive, or was he up there dying alone?
Those thoughts circled with his image.
The man blocking the natural light, flooded the room with artificial brightness. His hand, still on the long string with a knot at the bottom when my eyes adjusted.
My eyes didn’t stray from Ville, stood in the center of the stairs, Sylvia just behind him until he pushed his way to the front, moving down the stairs by taking them two at a time.
“Well, you weren’t fucking lying! You got the good stuff.” Sylvia’s voice held glee, not at all affected by the loss of his acquaintance.
I was the only one triggered by that, and only because I hated witnessing anything that could drag me back to painful memories of my dad.
Death, blood, fear. . .
“Should I check your son?” the man at the door asked. A look of fear flicked across his face as his blue eyes brushed along my skin. Fear for me. He didn’t want to leave me here. He knew what would happen. Knew things I didn’t.
But he couldn’t help me.
He could help Woodrow.
“Please do,” I begged, my voice as broken as my soul. “Please.”
“Leave him. He didn’t shoot to kill.” Ville shrugged, like the bullet in the boy he raised was nothing more than a small graze.
“Please, we don’t know that. Please, check on him.” I rose on my pained knees, begging on those knees with my hands clasped. “Please.”
But he dipped his head. He wasn’t high up enough to make his own rules; he had orders to follow. Unfortunately, they weren’t mine.
“What do you think?” Ville asked, his hand still wrapped in a small kitchen towel as he motioned to Sylvia.
“I’m happy. I’ll take both. How much?”
I turned my head, and my body melted to the ground. My knees gave out. My heart rushed to my mouth with the vomit that carried it there. I heaved and the snacks I’d ingested this morning splashed on the concrete.
“Oh, God.”
“Yes, this is your fate, darlin’.” Sylvia’s smile made me sick again. And I was grateful to be looking down when he started groping at the girls to my right as they lay there cold, naked, and lifeless.
They’d died down here.
The rotting smell seeping into the kitchen was them.
“What are you going to do with them?” I wiped at my mouth with the back of my hand.
The girls were both of different ages, different backgrounds, different stages of death and decay.
The younger of the two, had her auburn hair wrapped around her like a blanket. Her pale skin, made whiter by death. Her pretty eyes, sad and blue and still open, stared at me from across the room.
I wished to have been able to save her from the body of the monster—the scum—touching it.
The other girl was older. A woman somewhere between thirty and forty. She wasn’t as pale as her companion, her heritage ensured that, but her short black hair had lost its shine.
I crawled backwards, hitting something behind me in the otherwise empty room.
I spun around to the sound of metal clunking. My fingers rubbed at my back, surprised that something jagged had ripped through my dress and punctured my skin.
And there it was. . .
A nightmare for me to live in.
A dog cage, rusted with old age around the edges.
“No. . .” The word was silent.
I twisted back, forcing myself to my feet. I hadn’t paid attention to Ville’s heavy feet padding towards me. I hadn’t heard him over the sound of my own pulse, echoing in my ears.
He was in my face, his dirty breath burning my eyes as he looked down on me like I was nothing.
“Lose the dress, Jolie.”
I shook my head vehemently.
“Don’t test my patience. I don’t have time. I have business deals to make, and unless you want to be one of them, and go home with Sylvia and the girls, I suggest you do as I say.”
I didn’t speak, still. My eyes drifted around the room, taking in my surroundings and the lack of options to get me out of them.
I had no weapons, nothing to help me.
I pulled the tie done up in a pretty little bow concealing my breasts, and I slipped the dress from my shoulders, allowing it to fall to the floor. I stood, naked and vulnerable, perverted stares on me.
I kept my chin high, determined to hide the fear I felt. I filled my head with thoughts of sunshine. Of a future that I wanted to believe I’d get. Of the past and the people I loved. Woodrow, my dad, my mother. I forced myself to focus on anything else but my current situation.
A blast of pain dragged me back to reality. I looked down in time to see the first droplet of blood rush from my nipple. Ville had a blade in hand, something small and discreet and easy to hide, as he had clearly proved. It was still pressed to my skin, giving its own warning when I met his stare.
“Get in the cage, Jolie.”
“écoute, putain.” Sylvia laughed, before jerking his head—a silent order for the man in the doorway to help him lift the deceased.
My French was rusty, being a subject I always had little desire to learn, but I’d heard those words in movie once, the subtitles dancing around in my head, telling me he’d called me a whore.
I listened, as they wanted me to, dropping low and scooting into the cage, pulling the door behind me without them asking.
I partly did it, hoping to seal myself inside away from them, but Ville did that with a lock from his baggy pocket.
Probably where the blade also came from.
. . a venue for items of my nightmares to dwell.
The clicking sound of the lock closing broke the last piece of my strength, and I started to wonder how I’d survive the night, never mind the duration of my time down here.
“Where are you taking them?” I asked, my body against the back wall of the cage, my hands covering as much of myself as I could.
Sylvia and the man with no name lifted the girls. I glared over at the patches of their DNA, blood and urine, staining the floor.
“Well, maybe one day you’ll find out, you know, if Woodrow doesn’t get his act together.” Ville lit up a cigar, the scent adding to the fumes in this room.
“What will happen to them?”
I wanted to know now. I didn’t want the anticipation to kill me before the brutality of a heavy fist or the gun that may have already killed part of me. More tears fell at that thought.
Was he okay?
Please, please be okay.
“Well, darling, I’m taking them home.” Sylvia smiled down through the wires of my cage. The lifeless eyes of the girl hanging over his shoulder stared at me.
“To their homes?” I didn’t believe that to be true. . . but I wasn’t ready to face another possibility, despite asking the question.
Ville laughed, the sound ominous and oppressing. “Oh, Jolie. You really are too innocent.” He leaned against my cage—the cage. I scolded my inner self for thinking of this contraption as mine. The rumpty pen swayed with his weight, bumping me to my side. “He’s taking them home. His home.”
“Why?”
“I fuck ‘em,” Sylvia told me, plain as day.
I almost thought it was a twisted joke, my mouth forming an O-shape with shock.
“And when they start to decline, I eat them before they go bad.”
“You’re lying.” I prayed that was true.
“Nope. That way, no one will ever find them. You’d be surprised how good human meat tastes.”
Vomit was eager to spill again, but it wasn’t my throat that had to swallow it down. The man with no name was eager to get out, clearing his throat as he asked, “Are we done here?”
A nod was the only reply Sylvia gave.
“Are you taking your friend?” Ville trailed the others to the steps, a puff of smoke billowing behind him as he questioned over Teena.
“Sure, but I won’t be fucking that one. I’ll see to it that he has a good send-off. I’ll let you know when,” Sylvia said, following No Name up the stairs, each with a female body lugged over their broad shoulders.
A good send-off? Something the creep didn’t deserve. The idea of him getting that and those poor women getting . . . eaten, turned me sick. I swallowed the taste down, and I looked up to Ville, smoke around him like an evil sorcerer as he said. . .
“I’ll be back to see you tomorrow, Jolie.”