Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
EBONY
“You’re behaving like this, and I even bothered to bring you a present,” Matthew chimes excitedly as he moves around what I’m now calling the head bench where Nathaniel’s trophies are displayed.
With a drum roll on the steel top, he reaches down to the shelf below, pulling out a black box secured with a gossamer red ribbon.
“What’s in the box?” he caterwauls, his Brad Pitt impression mediocre at best as he tugs at the bow. Megan is inconsolable now as Matthew holds up Brandon’s severed head.
Playing chicken with him might just be the worst decision i’ve ever made, but I just can’t seem to help myself. “He doesn’t seem your usual type. I have to be honest, this wasn’t the double date I had in mind.”
“He stuck his nose where it didn’t belong.” He slaps Brandon’s face as though in greeting.
“You’re a sick fuck; he was your friend.”
“He became a liability. Overheard something he shouldn’t have. Shame though, he really did have the best drugs. How do you think we got you girls down here? Never underestimate the power of undiluted GHB. Just enough to have you compliant.”
“Weak,” I say under my breath as I shake loose the stinging pain radiating down to my skull. He drops Brandon’s head back into the box and pushes the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows.
“Excuse me?” he asks, affronted as he grinds his teeth, waiting for my response.
“You’re weak, Matthew. Do you need me to say it a little slower?” I state, using his real name and earning his ire. A glutton for punishment, I don’t stop there. I continue to goad him. Leaning forward, I spit a mouthful of bloody saliva in his face.
I expect another hit, but he surprises me by calming his rage, his neck creaking as he appears to limber up.
“Matthew?” Megan says his name like it’s a question, her brows furrowed. I had almost forgotten she was beside me, lost to the daydream of how easily it would be to slip my blade into his neck if I wasn’t tied up in this chair like a snared rabbit. “Was there ever a Mateo?”
My heart breaks for Megan as the question passes her trembling lips. She had fallen so hard for this man that she would rather believe he’s having some out-of-body experience, and the guy she has grown to love will laugh and tell her it’s all one big joke.
But life is cruel.
She begins to sob, her eyes red and watery as she fights back the tears. “Was any of it real?”
I watch his expression soften as though he’s trying to find the right words to spare her feelings.
I quickly realise he’s just toying with her.
Sparing any of us a kindness is the last thing on his mind.
He lowers to her eye level, preening when she sucks in a jittery breath.
Leaning forward, he kisses her softly, the connection with her shaking lips brief.
Pulling back, he silently commands her gaze to find his as he responds.
“No,” he says simply, pushing his lower lip out in a pout as Megan loses her battle and starts to sob.
He leans back in, his lips caressing her ear closest to me so I won’t miss what he has to say.
“Fucking with you was fun. But now you’re useless to me.”
I hear the squelch of punctured skin and the grinding scrape of steel on bone before I’ve registered what he’s done.
Megan gulps, whatever words are ready to break free lost on the haggard inhale.
Her brows pinch as she winces in pain, glancing down hesitantly at the blade handle protruding from her side.
Little gasps of air fall from her lips, a single tear running down over her cheek and mixing with the blood now coating her lips.
Her skin visibly paler, her face blank, she implores him silently for an explanation.
But any of the light she once saw in him has been extinguished, and what remains is a dark, hollow reminder that she gave herself so freely to a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“Megan!” I cry out, my first genuine show of emotion, as though I have the power to rewind time and make this whole shit show less of a reality.
Fighting against my restraints, the rope tears into my reddened skin.
The friction-burn sears like fire as I thrash helplessly to get free.
Our gazes meet, her glassy eyes losing their shine as her lids grow heavy.
“It’s okay,” she chokes out, trying to soothe me. It just makes me fight harder against my restraints as unbidden tears streak my sore cheeks.
“Stay with me. You can do it. Please, Megan. Please,” I beg, stretching my body to its limits so I can lean over and rest my forehead against hers. “Stay awake, Megan.” I order.
I watch with bated breath as her head falls forward, her eyes closing for the final time. Her chin resting against her chest as all her weight pulls forward on her wrists as the last vestiges of life leak from her body.
“Please?” I don’t know where my cries for help are directed, but it’s clear they’ll remain unanswered. My restless fingers itch to soothe her pain, to fix her, to hold her and tell her everything is going to be okay. Even though I know it’s a lie.
“I’m sorry.” The pitiful broken sound is hollow. It’s not enough.
“Dove. DOVE,” Caleb is the first to break the silence, but I don’t look his way.
“Why?” I growl out, my teeth gnashing together as Matthew turns, his back to me as he fiddles with the radio on the table.
It splutters to life, and he scrolls through the buzz of static as he finds a station he likes.
Seemingly unfazed by the callous murder he committed moments ago, his girlfriend who he professed to love is bleeding out internally as the life drains from her body beside me, and this fucker wants to play DJ.
Happy with his selection, he spins theatrically on his heels to face me. Ignoring the guys’ threats as they continue to try and escape their bindings to get to him. Everything beyond the bubble of him and I feels too distant to comprehend.
“Why?” he mocks, throwing my question back at me finally. “Why not? She was a means to an end.”
“That end being me?” I snap back, my chest hollowing out at the realisation that my best friend is dead because of me.
“Glad to know you’re all caught up.” He winks, dusting off his hands against his jeans leg, moving to fuss with the collar of his pristinely pressed sky-blue shirt decorated with a splash of Megans’s blood.
This immaculate persona was a disguise, and I fell for it; we all fell for it.
But now it’s impossible for him to hide the depravity that lingers beneath his surface.
He’s a monster hiding in plain sight. I see him for what he truly is, what he’s always been.
“You won’t get away with this—if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make you pay.”
A cruel snickering laugh rumbles out of Matthew as he taunts Cooper.
He doesn’t hesitate to backhand me around the face again—a tried and tested tactic that proves to rile up the boys, his way of telling them that he can in fact get away with whatever he likes as they hang there with a hangman’s noose snuggly wound around their necks.
Dipping down to my level, he cups my face with a misplaced show of affection.
I feel dirty as the scrape of his nails against my jaw have me turning to sever the connection.
His words barely register, white spots dancing in my vision as I try to latch onto his voice to centre myself.
“Do you know how many nights I have crept into your room to watch you sleep? I like you compliant.”
“I’m gonna say what everyone else is thinking.
I think you might have issues, Matthew, the kind that only top-shelf meds or a lobotomy can sort out.
Throwing yourself off a bridge is also an option I think everyone here could get on board with.
” I chew on my lip, that anger rising in my chest again at the thought of him so close when I was at my most vulnerable.
“You itching to carve me up, little Ebbie?” He pulls my knife out of my sock and retracts the blade.
Snapping it from its casing, he throws it over his shoulder.
“I carry you with me always.” Tugging up his shirt, I see the poorly healed scar, a gift I’d given him the night of my fifteenth birthday when he’d tried to wrestle me up against a tree in the forest behind my foster home.
He got a beating from Nathaniel and six stitches; I never left home without my blade again. We all learned lessons that day.
A tear escapes as I swallow hard.
“Are you weeping over your blade right now, Dove?” Coop chuckles weakly.
“Maybe.” I grimace.
“Let’s get out of here, and I’ll buy you ten new knives—you can play pin the tail on that dickbag until he’s bled dry.”
“I like that plan,” I reply, eyeing Matthew warily as he reacts to the plan we’re making no effort to hide.
Pride blooms in Coop’s voice when he says, “I thought you might, sweetheart.”
Not done with his monologing, Matthew decides to ignore Cooper completely. “I so wanted to keep you all those years ago. I begged my father to let me have you. But instead, you chose them. That was a mistake you’ll pay for shortly. I’ve played the long game. I’ve waited my turn.”
“I’m not a fucking hand-me-down toy.”
“I am giving you one chance; touch her again, and I will make the hurt last an eternity, fuck face,” Caleb seethes, his body thrumming with rage every time Matthew dares to get too close to me.
“Mighty words for a guy strapped up like a pig ready for slaughter.”
He pulls a baggie from his pocket and prises open my mouth, emptying the pills onto my tongue. I thrash as best as I can, but with his palm smothering my face, I instinctively swallow them.
He roots his disgusting fingers around in my mouth to make sure I haven’t tucked them away under my tongue, and I use the opportunity to bite down as hard as I can.
My senses dulling, my reactions slowing as he prises them from my grip.
Shaking out his hand, he pulls his gun free and turns up the volume on the radio.
“For all those lovers out there. An oldie but a goodie. This one goes out to Ebbie. Now. Forever. Always.’
I bristle at the disc jockey’s dedication as Matthew draws a heart in the air with fingers blackened with dry paint.
He had been my mystery painter; he had been in my room.
Buffalo Springfield’s “For What it’s Worth” echoes around the space, and everyone in attendance is dragged back kicking and screaming to the day of the fire.
“I’m about to rock your fucking world, sweetness.” He inhales my scent, his nose pressed into my tangled mess of hair, his broad chest expanding as he fills his lungs to near bursting.
Riling up the animal he keeps locked away, a frustrated sigh leaves his lips. Murdering Megan as quickly as he had isn’t enough to sate the beast within him.
The drugs begin to kick in, my eyes drooping as my breathing slows to short pants.
He’s quick to test the efficacy of what he’s forced me to ingest by holding up my chin and letting it fall back against my chest. He makes light work of my bindings, and I slump in his hold, trying to talk but unable to get any words out; the hit to my face aches, the blood loss and the drugs a lethal cocktail to my system as unconsciousness beckons me home.
He holds me against his body; my sock clad feet perched on his as he dances us around the space.
“I can’t believe this shit stain thinks he’s man enough for her.”
“I’m surprised he’s gone through all this trouble. He probably can’t even get it up.”
The Knox brothers are nothing if not artfully obtuse when it comes to pushing Matthew’s buttons. Any fool could see what they are doing, but Matthew Turner—boy most likely to raise cattle in secondary school—he falls for it hook, line, and sinker.
He drops me unceremoniously to the ground, and the knock to my head as it hits the concrete has the opposite effect. It wakes me up.
I hear the brother’s screams as Matthew turns on a blow torch , the hiss of burning flesh urging me on to take my revenge.
My nails scrape at the dirt covered floor until they find what I’m looking for.
How easy it would be to give in. To let him take what he wants from my body.
But giving up just isn’t in my DNA.