Chapter 42. TARANTINO WOULD BE PROUD
(Sienna)
My head throbbed so hard I thought my skull might just split open from the pressure, and my mouth was so dry that my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. Why did my head hurt so much?
Then I remembered.
The video.
The message to Ander.
Maggie.
The trophy.
MAGGIE…Maggie fucking hit me!
I tried screaming, but the only sounds I was able to make were unintelligible groans. No matter how hard I tried, my voice just wouldn’t cooperate. I was seated in a chair, tightly bound with my hands secured to the armrests and my feet firmly tied to the chair’s legs. I made an effort to free myself by wriggling and twisting, but the knots used to bind me were impressively sturdy and refused to budge.
“Well, well, well. Her Royal Highness is finally awake.”
I opened my eyes slightly until my sight adapted to the brightness of the room. It took some time for everything to come into focus, but the moment it happened, I saw her. Maggie. She stood in front of me, leaning on a kitchen counter with her arms and legs crossed and a sinister smile that would haunt me forever.
I quickly scanned the room, but I didn’t recognize the place. It looked like any other apartment; nothing special about it.
“Where am I?” I asked through quiet sobs. Maggie’s only response was a look of pure and utter confusion.
“Let me get this clear. You wake up tied up to a chair after your bestie hits you and drags you to the middle of fucking nowhere, and your first question is, where am I?” she exclaimed, pressing her fingers against her temples. “What they see in you, I cannot understand, but a hole is a hole, and apparently, you’re very good at letting them fill you up.”
She looked like my friend Maggie, but her tone and her words were those of a stranger. Who is this girl?
“Why are you doing this?”
“There you go. See? You are capable of asking smart questions, then.” She pushed herself away from the counter and slowly walked toward me with the confidence of a predator stalking their prey. She then crouched until her face was level with mine. “I guess it’s story time, so let me tell you one. Spoiler alert. It doesn’t have a happy ending, at least not for you.”
She stood and walked backward a couple of steps just to gain some distance.
“Once upon a time, there was a girl who lost her mother to cancer. Her dad, a great man with the kindest heart, worked in research, but his salary and insurance would not cover the cost of his wife’s treatment. The day she passed away, he not only received her ashes in a metallic urn but a medical bill he couldn’t afford to pay. His child was cold and hungry all the time, frequently eating at her dad’s office cafeteria or showering in their facilities because it was free. She sometimes would see a girl wandering around those offices who would usually complain about not getting the latest dress or ballerina shoes from Dior. She was an entitled bitch.”
My eyes closed just for a moment, but they were opened again the moment I felt the sting of a slap on my face.
“I AM NOT DONE TALKING!” Maggie screamed. She was enraged. “Where were we? Oh, yes…” She continued. “One day, his dad was fired from his job, and nobody would employ him, so he started drinking away his sorrows. He got so depressed that the only exit he saw was to commit suicide. The daughter received a small sum of money from the insurance, a goodbye letter from her dad, and a ticket to Horrorville. I’m sure you can recall the story I shared with you, can’t you? The one about the boogeyman who would lurk in the shadows and come into the girl’s room at night.”
Tears coated my cheeks.
“Yes, I remember,” I whimpered.
“Good. The girl wanted to escape her nightmares so badly that she considered following in her dad’s steps. But one day, she reunited with an old friend who became her knight in shining armor. You see…the knight had also lost everything he’d accomplished at the hands of the same evil man who had fired her dad. He helped her kill the boogeyman and gave her a purpose: seeking revenge. And here we are.”
Could it be true? Did William and Maggie plan my parents’ death together? I tried to recall every conversation, every meeting with him, every smile. They both had access to my drink on New Year’s Eve and Maggie to my apartment.
“Did you and William kill my parents?” My body and voice trembled, and a cold sweat covered my skin. I felt nauseous.
“You haven’t been paying attention, Sienna.”
The cabin door opened, and a tall figure entered the space.
“You.” My eyes widened, and my stomach dropped.
“Hello, Sienna. You’ve missed a few sessions at the lab, but I guess it doesn’t matter now…does it?”
* * *
One moment, Professor James Reed was shutting the cabin door, and the next, Maggie jumped into his arms, her legs encircling his waist. I might as well have been invisible because she kissed him like he was the only air her lungs needed, and he pressed her body against his while he moaned in her mouth and held her by her ass.
I was going to be sick.
“I missed you, love,” Maggie said.
“I missed you too, Lizzie.”
Wait a minute. Lizzie?
“Who’s Lizzie?” I blurted.
Maggie released herself from James’s embrace and placed her feet on the ground.
“Apologies. I haven’t introduced myself properly. Elizabeth Price, but my friends call me Lizzie. You can call me Elizabeth.”
“So your dad was Bob Price?”
“Bingo,” she responded with a hint of amusement. For her, this was a fucking game. Lizzie whispered something to James before she slipped into one of the rooms. I used the opportunity to convince James to free me.
“James, please. Let me go. You don’t have to do this,” I pleaded.
James crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared at me, with his upper lip curled, as if I was the most disgusting being in the entire world.
“Please, James. She’s going to kill me.”
“Not yet. I want to have some fun first,” Lizzie remarked as she entered the living room again. She held a small black leather pouch, which she placed on top of the kitchen counter. James blocked my line of view, so I couldn’t see what she was doing, but the moment she turned around, my eyes focused on the scalpel she held in her right hand. “Babe, do you think our Princess’s blood is blue or red?”
“HELP!” I cried out, feeling my lungs nearing exhaustion and my already sore throat growing worse. I wouldn’t die like this. I refused to. Ander, Zayn, and Noah would come looking for me, but how could I expect them to find me when I had no idea of our whereabouts?
“Cry and scream all you want; nobody’s going to hear your pleas, bitch.”
With the scalpel in her hand, she circled me.
“Mmm. Where should I begin? Any suggestions, love?”
“It’s your choice, baby. I’m sure you’ve already thought about a thousand ways of making it hurt.” James leaned on the wall next to the cabin entrance. He had his arms crossed and checked his watch, looking bored.
“Well, I think I’d like to mark her beautiful skin first. Leave a present if someone ever retrieves her decomposing body from the lake.”
I gulped.
“Please, Maggie…I mean Lizzie. Don’t do this. You’re my friend.”
“For you, I’m Elizabeth. You haven’t earned the right to call me Lizzie. And no. Maybe you’re fucking stupid. Maybe I hit you too hard. But let me make one thing clear: if you haven’t got the memo yet, we were never friends. I just stayed close enough and gained your trust with only one purpose. Finding an opportunity to make you suffer.”
Tears clouded my eyes.
“But why? I haven’t done anything to you.”
“Your father did, and I paid the consequences. You’ll pay for all those months of abuse, and I’ll enjoy every second of it. You were supposed to be on that plane, but I miscalculated your relationship with your family. I made a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
“They’ll eventually find out it was you who killed them!” I yelled.
Lizzie started to laugh until it turned hysterical.
“That’s the beauty of our plan. I’ve left breadcrumbs so that your death leads back to William. He’ll go to jail for your parents’ murder, and I’ll make sure that when your body is found, it traces back to him, too.”
“How?” I asked.
She placed her hand inside her pocket and removed a small envelope.
“I took some hair from his bathroom when we were in Rye. James will make sure to leave some bruises on your body, too. He’s also left-handed like dearest William. That, in addition to an email he sent you threatening you—which I deleted from your laptop—should be enough proof to convince a public jury.”
“He never sent me an email,” I replied.
“You’re fucking thick. I did. I hacked his laptop. It was easier than hacking your parents’ plane,” she retorted.
Tears flowed freely from my eyes.
“Now, now. Where were we? Oh yes.” Lizzie placed the scalpel on my arm and pushed it until my skin broke, and I started bleeding. I thrashed on the chair, screaming, as she attempted to scribble something.
“James. Hold her still. She’s making a mess of my beautiful writing.”
Reed grabbed my neck with his left hand and dug his fingers, crushing my windpipe.
“Stay still, bitch. I won’t ask you again,” Lizzie threatened.
She continued making cuts until she stepped back and said, “Done.”
He released my neck, and I breathed until my lungs expanded. I looked at my bloodied arm. It hurt like a bitch. The words were jagged, but I could clearly read the message.
Whore .
“You can’t torture her too much, Lizzie. We’ve talked about this. We need to make it look like a crime of passion, not one based on torture,” James argued.
“I know…I know. You and your fucking logic are killing my vibe.” She sighed. “Let me grab the Swiss knife I took from William’s office.” Lizzie turned to me and added, “I thought about it for a long time, but I finally decided I’m gonna stab you exactly fifty-two times, like the number of times Carl raped me. Isn’t it poetic?”
Think, Sienna, think.
Looking around, I realized my chair was just like the others in the living room—cheap and easy to break. I assumed that Lizzie or James had picked this spot in a hurry without even caring about the furniture.
Before she left the room, I dropped my head back.
“I’m not feeling well.” I did my best to appear sick without making it too dramatic. My eyes rolled back, and I let a bit of drool dribble down my chin. I was hoping all those drama classes from back when I was fifteen would finally come in handy. “Mmmnot…eling…well. Mmmmy h…ed.”
“How hard did you hit her, baby? Did you give her a concussion?” James asked Lizzie. He came closer and pressed two fingers to my neck to feel my pulse.
“Su…mmmmyck James,” I whispered.
“What did you say?”
James’s ear came closer to my face, and I softly murmured, “Suck my dick, James.” I parted my lips and lunged directly at his neck, desperate for a diversion. One that only the sight of blood could offer. My teeth sank into his carotid artery with a savage determination, applying so much pressure that my mouth was instantly flooded with his crimson life force.
“FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!” James punched the side of my face until I relaxed my jaw. I would probably die today, but the bastard would come with me to hell.
“JAMES!” Lizzie immediately ran to James’s arms, quickly putting pressure on his neck, while his legs gave out, and he sank to the floor. “James, please. Don’t you dare close your eyes!”
I smiled like a fucking psycho, probably with all my mouth and teeth covered in James’s blood. My heart pounded from the rush of adrenaline. Without thinking, I used my feet to push myself off the wooden floor and threw myself to the ground. Everything felt like slow motion until I heard the wood crack under me.
Lizzie lifted her head and screamed, “I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!”
I was lucky she’d tied each leg separately because I needed to run the fuck out of her way. My hands were still bound to my back, but I quickly managed to maneuver them to the front, gingerly passing them over my leg.
Thank you, Pilates classes.
James’s hushed sobs echoed like a haunting melody. Lizzie hesitated for a fleeting moment, realization crashing over her. He was dying, and there was nothing she could do about it.
“You bitch!” She lunged at me and grabbed me by my hair before I had a chance to stand. I found myself pinned against the wall, my face colliding with one of the picture frames hanging there. In response, I instinctively elbowed her in the face. The blow made her gasp and release my hair, giving me a moment to catch my breath. She stumbled backward, her nose bleeding. Lizzie shook her head and brought her fingers to her nose to check if it was broken. I took the opening to run to the kitchen area, but she jumped on my back, and we fell backward. Swiftly, she positioned her forearm against my throat, applying pressure while her legs encircled my waist as her feet exerted pressure on my pelvis. Her right elbow nestled beneath my chin, and her left hand gripped the back of my neck. Desperately, I attempted to pry her hands away, but I couldn’t free myself from her hold. I was choking. I couldn’t draw a single breath into my constricted lungs, and with each passing second, the burning sensation only intensified.
It was said that your life flashed before your eyes in the moments before death. That you could watch your days unfold like a movie reel, both the highs and lows, the good and the bad ones. But for me, all I could see were five things: my parents clapping for me from the audience after my debut piano recital, Zayn’s devastating smile as we cooked together, Noah kissing me good morning every time I spent the night with him, Ander whispering “I love you” when he believed I was sleeping in his arms, and the scalpel that Elizabeth fucking Price had dropped on the floor next to James’s now dead body.
* * *
I’m not fucking dying today!
Lizzie had me in a pretty tight hold, but I lucked out with the best jujitsu teacher around. He had taught me the rear naked choke, and I was about to show off what I had learned. I was determined to survive.
I reached behind my head with both my hands until I could scrape the back of my neck and was able to get ahold of Lizzie’s hand.
“I’ll break your neck like a toothpick!” Lizzie screamed.
As soon as I had full hold of her left arm and pushed it away, she responded by squeezing tighter with her right arm, but I didn’t care. She was just where I wanted her without realizing it. I wriggled and squirmed until I had enough space to give her a headbutt right on the nose. This time, her nose bled as she screamed in pain. I pushed myself forward and crawled toward James.
“You’re gonna regret that, bitch!” she yelled.
My face felt all sticky and gross with blood and sweat mixed, and my heart beat like crazy. Every move I made was like dragging myself through mud, but I kept going. It was like being in a nightmare you can’t wake up from, just trying to get away any way I could.
Lizzie gripped my hair again and pulled me backward.
“Get the fuck away from me!” I shouted.
I spun around, my fist connecting with her cheek with a solid thump.
“Ahh!” Lizzie shrieked.
An intense pain shot from my knuckles to my elbow, but I couldn’t let the pain cloud my mind. I had to survive.
As I straightened up, I caught sight of a vase on the nearby table. Without a second thought, I grabbed it. I swung it with all the force I could muster.
Lizzie saw me coming and covered her face and head with her arms. The vase collided with her left arm, shattering on impact.
She soon retaliated.
A swift kick to my stomach knocked the wind out of me as I fell backward. I gasped for breath, feeling the rage boiling inside me. Lizzie pinned me down and clasped her hands around my throat.
“You’re like a fucking cockroach that never dies. Just. Fucking. Die.” She continued strangling me, her fingers pressing into my soft flesh with a terrifying determination while I struggled for air.
My hand swept across the surface of the floor, fingers searching until they brushed against the cool metal handle of the scalpel. Grasping it tightly, I quickly move my arm, plunging the sharp blade into the side of Lizzie’s throat. Reacting instinctively, Lizzie yanked the scalpel out, tossed it away, and immediately gripped her neck with both hands, trying desperately to stem the flow of blood that poured through her fingers.
The air was filled with the thick, metallic scent of spilled blood.
A look of shock and realization flashed across her face as her pupils expanded in fear and disbelief.
She knew it.
I knew it.
There was no way to undo what I’d just done.
Her body hit the floor as I pushed her off me.
I went into survival mode and knew that it had come down to either me or her making it out of here alive. There was no other way out, but the feeling of victory and relief quickly shifted to guilt once I realized I had taken not just one but two lives.
Sitting on the floor, I cradled her lifeless body in my arms as I rocked back and forth.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Tears streamed down my face like a river, mixing with James’s and Lizzie’s blood. I couldn’t recall ever crying this intensely before, but I’d kept my emotions locked away for far too long. At that moment, I wasn’t entirely sure to whom I was offering my apologies. After all, Lizzie and James were responsible for my parents’ deaths. However, one part of me mourned the loss of my college best friend—the countless nights we spent chatting about everything and nothing, the wild parties where we danced until dawn, and the girl who never judged me when I confessed to her that I was in love with three different guys.
My cries were filled with agony, a pain so deep and dark that it threatened to infest every corner of my soul.