Chapter 22
Jolie—aged eighteen
Ville hadn't done his weekly visit yet. And I'd scratched what I thought to be the right amount of days into the floor of the cage using Jesus' cross. The Lord and Savior—the only decoration in this room—had fallen to the dirt of my cage the same day I arrived, and in my terrified state, I’d convinced myself he’d done it to comfort me because nothing else could.
That was how it went now with Ville. For the last three months, I'd see him once a week, and on that day, he'd feed me if I earned it. I didn't want to think about what kind of meat he was bringing me to scavenge. And I couldn’t. My mind was always on what he’d subject me to.
He hadn’t raped me yet. . . but I knew it was coming. I’d had to suck his dick more than once if I wanted a mouthful of food.
I’d have used the line, “What would your wife think?” if she wasn’t sitting at his side, watching, each time he did it.
If I pleased him enough, he'd leave behind a large bowl of water that I was to lap at like a dog, and I would, because that was the best way to ration it to last for seven days—something I'd found out the hard way.
I stared at the bowl and the three laps of water I had left, licking at my dry lips.
There was no denying my environment had impacted my appearance, ruined it, even.
My hair no longer bounced; my lips weren't pretty and pouty—they were dry and cracked.
My body looked different, with my new narrow shoulders, my depleting leg muscles, and the pot belly that only starvation could have given me.
My skin was awful, too, breaking out in what I thought to be cystic acne.
Thanks a lot, stress.
I surely looked a mess, with all those new traits and the constant tears burning my cheeks, but I didn't even care. All I cared about was already gone. Taken from me with the last breath of the boy I loved.
I wanted to leave this place, to be reunited with Woodrow and my parents. I believed that Woodrow had left me and this earth, moving on to a better place without me. . . and my puffy eyes and tearstained cheeks were proof of how well I was dealing with that.
My heart was broken.
Completely fucking broken.
And it was the most painful thing I'd ever dealt with; finding someone, who, despite everything that had happened between us, that I wanted to spend my life with, had dreamed of a future with, only to have it ripped apart, was the most painful experience of my life.
And it was a pain I had to live with, because apparently, heartbreak, wasn't a quick killer.
I couldn’t think about him.
I could never think about him. It made me useless. A defenseless mess of limbs and tears.
When my throat eased a little, I screamed again, calling Ville and Wynter all the awful names under the sun. Calling them monsters, though I doubted they were listening over the blasting music that constantly played now.
I waited another day, barely having had any sleep when the vibration of Wynter and the deformation of my favorite song was blasting again.
They’d taken everything that brought me comfort. Ville, and the playing with my hair as I was assaulted in his kitchen. Wynter, and the songs I sang myself to sleep when I first arrived, fearful of the nightmares I’d face of my dad’s murder. Their son, who they hadn’t shed a fucking tear for.
I hated them both so much. So fucking much.
I gripped my water bowl—the last drops of water now long gone—and feeling every ounce of anger breed beneath my skin, I smashed it at the side of my cage.
The thin china splintered into pieces I could use as a weapon.
I looked to Jesus, my only companion in the world, and I thanked him before concealing the largest shard with my foot.
My scream clawed its way up my dehydrated throat, and it fucking hurt. But it didn't stop me from screaming again. And again. And again.
Wynter's screeching rivaled mine in a vicious war, and she won. Her brash tone drowned out my pain, making my sound fade into her melody like I was an unwilling backup singer.
I slumped against the side wall, feeling totally defeated.
The stairs to heaven lit up, and I knew for sure I was fucking losing it. Because this house—despite the name printed on the mailbox, Heaven Manor—had no relation to anything heavenly.
Light from the dimly lit kitchen illuminated the steps. Heavy boots had each step creaking like it was about to give way.
The long-hanging light bulb down here no longer worked, exploding only three days after I’d been left here, but no one had bothered to change it. Or, clean the mess. Ville’s feet crunched the dust that was once the bulb’s glass as he moved closer.
I tucked my feet in close to my body, and the shard scraped the floor. The noise, like nails on a chalkboard, irritated my ears. But my situation drove me on. . .
Until I heard it.
The excited lilt of a child's voice pierced through the gloom and my heart. I careened around in time to see another pair of feet jumping down the last three steps.
“Ouch! That hurt!” the little voice declared.
“Woody. . .?” I tried to get a good look at him, my fingers pulling at the wired box.
Thanks to the shadows cloaking Woodrow's height, I couldn't see the look on his face as he called out to me with excitement.
But I saw his fingers reach his chest and rub where the bullet hit.
Luckily, it looked closer to his shoulder than any vital organs, and it should be somewhat healed, but the vibration of jumping down steps still hurt him.
“Woody. . .” I said again, my voice gentle and coaxing. I needed to see him. To feel him. I needed to know he was really here. . . that I wasn’t fantasizing his existence like I had so many other times.
His fingers touched mine through the bars, his eyes meeting mine as he ducked to see me.
I forgot everything the second he looked at me with all the innocence in the world. Nothing else mattered but him and knowing he was okay. Well, knowing he was alive. He’d never be okay here, his medical needs neglected.
“Why are you in a cage?” His words brought my bleak surroundings back to me, and I remembered I was naked and exposed to the younger alter.
Naked, and unhappily living with the goosebumps that permanently inhabited my skin.
I tucked my knees up, placing my feet between my legs so the boy in front of me—younger than his years—couldn't see anything he shouldn't.
He did well to direct his gaze elsewhere, his pretty silver eyes twinkling in the dark.
“She's in a cage because she misbehaved.” Ville set a torch on the folding table he'd brought down with him, and he started pottering around with some other stuff, too.
“And she's still misbehaving now. Breaking her bowl. Tsk. Tsk.” Ville turned to us and headed to the stairs, patting Woody on the head and asking him a favor on the way. “I'll be right back. Keep an eye on her for me, champ?”
What the fuck? I thought to myself. Ville hated Woody as much as he did Hell. And Woodrow, because of them, was a disappointment to him. Their diary had told me everything.
Why the new approach?
Ville left the basement door ajar, and he wasn't quiet as he scoured the kitchen for whatever he went up there for. The noise he made put an end to Wynter's solo concert, and though I couldn't see it, I knew she left the kitchen in a huff, annoyed that he was interrupting her.
“I thought you'd left. I missed you.”
“No, sweetie.” I tried to remain calm, not wanting to scare him away. “Didn't Woodrow tell you anything?”
“He hasn't written in the diary for a long time.
. . and Hell didn't know where you were.
He thought you left us. He's so mad at you.” I listened as Woody spoke, a heavy breath slipping out, knowing all my progress with Hell had been erased.
“He called you lots of bad names. I wrote to him asking him to be nice to you if we ever saw you again. I don't think he's seen it yet.”
I took in his words. . . Woodrow hadn't been around.
He'd slipped into his mind to escape because he thought I had escaped. Either that, or Hell and Woody forced him there because they believed I left without him. And they needed him to heal. Something he’d lose interest in, if I was no longer around.
That was the reason for Ville’s new approach. He brought Woody down here, to me, thinking it would pull Woodrow out, but he was so lost, he couldn't follow my voice back to the surface.
“Woodrow?”
“He's not here. Aren't you happy to see me?” The pain on their shared face broke the last piece of my heart.
“I am.” I smiled. “But I've missed Woodrow, too. He had a really bad day the last time I saw him. I wanted to make sure he was okay.”
“I know. His bunny died. Hell was really mad about that; he knew how much Woodrow loved Bonny. He tried to kill daddy. . . more than once.”
Shame he didn't, I almost muttered aloud.
Ville prowled back into the room, his feet covering the distance between us quickly. He didn't have food in his hands or the jug of water he always brought.
“You're not getting anything today. I have nothing to put it in.” He looked down at my broken bowl as he unlocked the padlock on my cage.
I moved as far back as I could, my touch breaking from Woody’s. I slammed myself against the back wall. Rust dug into my skin, and I shuddered.
“Careful. You'll hurt yourself.” I looked to Woody, his fingers still holding the cage, my big shard left behind, still in front of him.
“Come on out, Jolie. It's time for a bath.”
I shook my head. I didn't want a bath. . . not from Ville. I fucking hated bath time and where his dirty hands would wander. Apparently, I was dirtiest on the inside, because that's where he always focused on cleaning.
“Get her out.”
“But she's naked.”
“I'm not asking you again, Son. Do as your told. Do you want to be my favorite child, or not?”
Woody pondered for a second, until Ville’s temper collided with his line of thought.