…Epilogue?
Drip. Drip. Drip.
It’s a single drop of water, one falling after the other in a rhythm that’s gone on and on and on. One drop, it’s nothing. But the spot on my back that it splashes across is raw, and every drip agitates.
That’s the word I would use for all of this, an agitation. Except once you pile one irritant on top of the other and multiply it by however many fucking days we’ve been locked up here, it’s enough to make you lose your goddamn mind.
That fucking bitch. That petty, useless fucking bitch.
My wrists flex, but the leather ties refuse to allow me a moment of rest for the muscles pulled taut. At first, I shuffled constantly from kneeling to sitting, the only movements I can make since my arms are secured with a band at each wrist, pulling my arms toward a hook on the wall.
The pain is everything. All I can focus on for every second of the day and night.
Emma, the fucking whore that did this to me.
After everything I did for her, the way I tried to keep her out of the world I found myself in.
She was always too weak, too naive and sheltered to handle a single moment in the real world.
In a man’s world. I did what I had to do, made the sacrifices I needed to make to keep her happy and comfortable and hidden. And what did I get in return?
A slut making a fool of my dedication to her. She got me good, I’ll give her that. Not in a million years would I have guessed she had it in her to cheat, let alone fuck half the goddamn mercenary group.
Teeth clenched, a growl rumbles through my chest, the pain in my taut arms flaring as I tug again on the restraints.
Never any movement. It’s hopeless, and at this point I’d fucking beg for death than spend another agonizing moment in this…
place, with the leak on my back and the concrete floor beneath my knees.
Eternal darkness, a feed bag strapped to my head every so often so that I never quite reach death.
The fire hose that beats my skin when the smell of the room gets to be too much.
If I had one wish, it would be a few more moments in here with her. I’d make that cunt feel every single humiliation that I’ve endured, and then some. I can’t believe I’d had the chance ripped away from me, when I’d been so fucking close to snuffing the light out of those pretty brown ey—
Something slams, maybe a few feet away, but in the total darkness it’s so hard to know.
Am I in an open room, aside from the walls I’m chained to?
The black, soundless void I’ve been bound inside has kept me from guessing what my enclosure looks like.
The last thing I remember was being knocked out cold by some green haired freak and waking up here, like this—
The low shuffle stops right in front of me, and my heart gallops in my chest. Any second the freezing water from the hose would smack into my screaming muscles…or a rough feedbag would be strapped around my head.
The silence echoes in my head as I strain for a clue of who’s here, my fingers jerking as anxiety floods my nervous system.
A lighter clicks, and even the minuscule flame after total darkness makes my eyes throb. I squeeze them shut, jerking away from the sight. The orange haze persists against my eyelids, pulsing as the flash of a silhouette registers to me.
The fuck? “Who’s there?” My voice betrays me, the fear clear as day in the shaking words.
A low chuckle comes from only a few feet away, and I know from the sound alone that this is not a friendly visit, or the prelude to my violent showers. It grates, a warning that something dangerous is staring at me from the dark.
The lighter clicks again, and I blink past the dots in my vision to see the crouching figure of a man, dark hair tousled over his blank expression. His eyes rove over my binds, my gaunt body, just to land back on my face with the hint of a pleased smile.
Noah. This is who stole Emma from me and made her the slut she’s become.
“If you’re here to hurt me, get it over with,” I grit out, though I can’t manage the steely tone I wanted. The words just sound weak, hopeless.
“No.” He stands, looming tall over me and I drop my gaze to the concrete floor. I fucking hate looking up at him, the reminder that I’m at his mercy.
Mercy, ha. How fitting, I suppose. As if the men who claim to be a part of it would ever grant it to me. I tried to be good, I did resist all of the little tugs that pulled me toward the impure. I am not a monster, I am not a fucking MONS-
“I just came to see you this way. Filthy.” He smirks. “Fucking wasting away, aren’t you? Finally getting to feel a taste of what’s coming.”
I snort. “I don’t need to hear this shit. Take that gun and shoot me in the head.”
He bites his bottom lip pensively, reaching into his back pocket and pulling his revolver free, holding it loosely so that it points at the floor. “Why would I do that? A quick and painless death? I know you don’t really expect that.”
My jaw clenches. “Aren’t you supposed to be the good guys? Shouldn’t chaining me up be beneath you?”
The smirk disappears, and his thumb tugs at the hammer, the click sending a shiver through me. Excitement, maybe? Getting my brains splattered on the walls would be a fucking miracle right now.
“You kept my girl chained up like one though, didn’t you?” Ice splinters through each word, and I flinch at the image he shoves into my mind. Emma, the cage. The collar.
I turn my head to the sight. I am not a monster. They did that, not me.
“Nothing is beneath me.” He says. “Besides, it’s not me you should be begging for death,” he hints, spinning the gun until it’s pointed lazily at my head, his elbow propped on his knee. He cocks his head to the side, a wicked smile lighting up his face. “It’s him.”
A second lighter flicks, a metal, flip-top zippo, and for a moment the patch of light illuminates the face of a taller man, his face focused on the cigarette he lights before setting it—still open— on the concrete floor.
I watch the movements, the memory of that day streaming back into my head.
This one was easier to place due to the hideous neon hair and the piercings glinting in the firelight. The one who claims Bo.
Oh, fuck.
What does he know? Does he know about the past?
About….everything that went down? What about what happened at Bundy’s?
God damnit, this psychopath would peel the skin from my goddamn bones, I can see it in that insane look on his face that there are some important fucking pieces missing from his head.
“Yeah,” he says, as if he heard my thoughts. Maybe it’s written on my face. “It is me that you need to fucking worry about now.”
“What the fuck are you here for?” I shout, the tension becoming too much for my impossibly frayed nerves. “Just get it over with, whatever you’re going to do to me. I can’t—” I swallow, my throat clenching against my will. “Just fucking do it.”
“Just do it,” the tall one mocks, his laughter raising goosebumps on my skin.
Then, as I watch, the wide smile starts to slowly melt away, until he’s simply blank.
No emotion, no anger, nothing to make him look human.
He leans against the wall, and my breathing is the only sound that cuts through the darkness.
“You’re lucky Bo isn’t here right now, because if he was I would watch him carve you up with my dick in my hand. ”
The crouching figure snorts, laughter breaking free at the sentence, but I don’t see what’s so fucking funny. Neither does the other. “What? I’m serious. Nothing will make me want to come more than seeing Bo dig this fucker’s eyes out.”
A hot shiver runs through me, one that feels like the torture has already started. My body braces itself at the description, despite the fact I’ve spent most of my time picturing all the ways they might try and get their revenge. In my head I take it like a man, but now I’m not so sure.
“Whatever,” the other shrugs. “I guess I get it. If Emma ever decides she wants to take part, I think I’d like to watch that too.”
“I don’t know, she still turns a little green whenever I bring up the fact that she bit that guy's dick almost clean through.”
My stomach rolls, patience lost at the absurdity.
At the twilight sensation that being here brings.
Maybe I’m dead, and this is some kind of hellish purgatory.
“Could you two shut the fuck up?” I spit, trying to keep the bile from making its way up my already raw throat as they discuss who might kill me the slowest. “Bo would never.” I spit. “We’re family.”
My jaw is rocked almost as soon as the words leave my tongue, like he’d thrown the punch as soon as I’d spoken Bo’s name.
The hoarse groan is broken by a bizarre laugh as the pain registers.
Hysteric cackles bubble forth, the insanity of the situation just really making me feel unhinged. Bo’s boyfriend. That must be this guy.
I had him first.
“Hit me if you want, but just know whenever he sucks your dick that it was me that taught him that.” I groan again when he digs his hand into my hair and holds it in place for his knee to break my nose, blood spurting across me.
His furious words are blurred by the ringing in my ears, more threats of violence but I finally gather that he’s being held back.
The other, Noah, is restraining him from killing me.
Death would be a mercy. I’m done. I knew all along it would somehow end this way for me.
Well, not exactly like this. Sometimes good people get lost. I’ve been made out to be the bad guy, like I didn’t provide for all of them.
Give them somewhere to live and a possibility of a life outside of poverty.
Bo would have nothing without me, and Emma?
Well, she’d have been married off to someone possibly even worse.
And as far as that fucking girl that killed herself? Fuck, it’s so hard these days to tell who’s legal when they all act so mature. She’d lied to me. Aren’t I the fucking victim?
I’m not a fucking monster, but I am ready to be done here. And this loose cannon in front of me is my ticket to being put out of my misery.
If I can just shake his friend enough to let him go.
“Now that I think about it,” I say around a mouth of blood.
“I guess I taught both of them everything they know, didn’t I?
” I laugh again, the sound hollow and cruel.
“I’ll have to give you credit though, she was a shy little thing when I was with her.
I wish I would have taken the time to figure out what a dirty slut she could be if I’d pushed hard enough—”
The cold muzzle of his gun pushes back my hair, pressing to my temple.
It’s right fucking there, so close to ending it.
My eyes catch his in the flicker of the small flame, and despite myself, my stomach drops.
It’s not anger inside them, hatred, or even satisfaction at seeing me this way.
There’s nothing. What is it about these guys that makes them look so fucking empty.
This is not a man that I can rile or manipulate, is what that fucking face says. My heart sinks as he watches me realize that, tapping the gun gently against my skin like it’s a caress.
His words are a whisper between us, low and sure and damning.
“Make no mistake, Eric.” His mouth curls like my name tastes of dirt.
“There have been times in my life where my marks have suffered for weeks on end, and I never grew bored, and I never grew tired.” The corner of his mouth quirks as the gun tugs against my skin in a line down to my mouth.
“For you? I could make this last years, and never think twice about it.
While I marry her, give her my fucking children, and make her happier than you ever could, you will be alive, down in this forgotten fucking hole, until I remember once more that I haven't heard you scream in a while.”
The other just laughs, adjusting his pants. “Fuck, that made me hard.”
Teeth clenched, I finally dare to break from Noah’s gaze.
I hate it, the urge to plead with him so close from sputtering from my mouth.
Panic gallops in my chest at the realization that the months I’ve been down here could be nothing in comparison to what’s coming for me.
“What about Bundy? I’m not even the bad guy here, this is so fucked. ”
“Pathetic,” green-hair spits, disgust written in every feature of his face.
“You sick piece of shit. He’ll be dealt with, don’t imagine you’re the only person we have down here.
You’re just the one who stole the most from me.
My baby sister, my girl’s peace of mind, and Bo.
” He shivers, hand reaching out to mine, where he takes the dangling appendage and smiles at me as he snaps the bone in a smooth motion.
My scream only makes him snicker. “You will feel every single fucking thing you put him through, do you understand me?”
I’m howling despite myself, composure failing as I try and fail to bring my hand closer to me, but every motion jostles the injury in a flaring pain.
“That was for when you touched him the very first time,” he says, a sarcastic smile back on his face. “Now think about how many other times you broke him, and that’s how many times I’ll be down here to steal back his pain from you, one fucking snap at a time.”
I finally fail at keeping it down, and hot, sour bile travels up my throat, burning as I choke on it, coughing what I can onto the floor. It smells, the scent heavy in my nose as I can’t wipe it away from my face, from my scraps of clothing.
“Fuck,” the taller one mutters in disgust, backing away from me. “I’ll have to remember he pukes when I do that.”
Noah raises from his crouch, grabbing the lighter Jesse’d left on the floor and giving me a final look over. “Sleep tight. I’d stay longer but I’ve got a little Angel in my bed waiting for me to come fill her up.” He smiles, flicking the lighter shut, and we’re plunged back into blackness.
The footsteps recede, and despite everything, the pain, the humiliation, a part of me still hates to be left alone. To be shut away.
It’s a fucking tomb, and I never deserved this.
The door shuts, lock clicking.
That fucking bitch. Emma.
I hate her, and yet it’s the sight of my girl, that sundress, out by the clotheslines that I remember as my blood hardens on my face.