23. Dahlia
Leavingthe bodies of the other dolls behind, we made our way through the house again, sweeping the rooms for any sign of Owen. I had no sympathy for the men and the woman we’d killed. They had been barriers between life and death. If we’d pitied them, then Drake and I would both be dead now. The tattooed man had tried to rape me, that alone told me those people may or may not have been worth saving. In another timeline, perhaps I would have been the one torturing them to death for their crimes.
“Stop,” Drake whispered, putting a hand across my chest.
“What’s wrong? Did you hear something?” I strained to pick up any noises.
He shook his head and pointed at our feet. “Take your shoes off.”
I understood immediately and slipped them off. Most of the floors had carpet or rugs, but most of the house had dark hardwood floors or marble tile. In just socks, we could move almost silently through the building. Would Owen do the same? Somehow I didn’t think so.
Drake led me to the gymnasium first. It was a bit smaller than the old one but still large enough to make life a living hell for anyone trapped inside. After searching the showers and locker room, we moved on. Every second grew with intensity. Each room we checked without finding him sent my anxiety higher. After the music room, and the movie room, and several others, we double back again, inspecting the doll bedrooms.
“Are you sure he didn’t run?” I asked, putting my mouth to Drake’s ear.
“He didn’t run. He knows this is his best chance to take us out. We’ve fucked up everything else for him. He won’t let this chance go. He’s coming for us. Somehow, someway, this ends tonight.”
“Okay,” I said.
Drake knew Owen better than I did. Though, part of me knew he was right. Everything that had happened tonight, from the moment I set foot on that party back at the college, had the distinct feel of fate coming full circle. Here I was back where everything had started. What could I do but follow it until the end?
The two of us stepped back into the dining room, glancing around but finding nothing. The plates from the food we’d eaten from earlier still sat, the leftovers drying out like old paint.
“The kitchen,” Drake whispered, pointing with his chair leg.
Stepping inside, the old lingering smells of cooked food made me nauseous. Drake stood behind me as we walked. We managed to get to the long flat grill cooktop before we heard it. A faint, but distinct thud-thud-thud of running feet.
“Down!” Drake screamed and shoved me to the floor.
A gunshot rang out from behind us, and a perfect hole appeared in the wall, right where I’d been standing only a few moments before. Had Drake not shoved me down, my brains would have been splattered across that wall. A second shot rang out, and the tile beside me, three inches from my face, shattered in a burst of dust and shrapnel.
Leaping to my hands and knees, I scurried behind an oven, and Drake collapsed beside me just as a third shot ricocheted off the industrial dishwasher.
“Got you, you motherfuckers,” Owen screamed. From the strange lilt in his voice, he sounded like he’d gone completely mad.
“Are you okay?” I gasped, looking at Drake.
“I’m fine. Here,” he said, pulling the gun from his waistband and handing it to me. “I’m going to draw his fire. When I do, you shoot that fucker.”
“No, don’t?—”
Bang, another shot exploded, and a bullet thudded into the oven. I could feel the impact of it through my whole body.
“Don’t argue,” he said, and then he was gone, rolling away, staying low.
“Stand still, Drake,” Owen shouted. “I don’t want to kill you. I just want to shoot your god damned dick off. You can’t die until I’ve made you watch me ruin your pretty little girlfriend.”
Bang, bang, bang. I flinched at each shot, sure it would be the one to take Drake down, but he surprised me. I could see him bobbing and weaving through the dozen or so racks of food. A huge sack of flour exploded with one shot, a big can of tomato sauce erupted with another, and all the while he stayed alive, forcing Owen to turn farther and farther from me. I had to do something. Soon. Drake wouldn’t be that lucky for long.
I lowered myself to my stomach, and peered under the oven. It sat on legs, and there was a space about ten inches high that allowed me to see across the kitchen. I couldn’t see Owen, but I could see his feet, clad in sneakers, inching across the kitchen, trying to get a better shot at Drake. My breath heaving and my hands clammy with sweat, I put my hands under the oven, holding the gun clasped in both of them. I aimed and waited for him to stop moving.
Owen sent another bullet at Drake, then I heard the dry snap of the trigger but no explosion.
“Now, Dahlia,” Drake screamed, and I heard him running toward Owen. Owen cursed as he tried to reload his pistol.
I sucked in a breath and pulled the trigger five times in quick succession. The first bullet slammed into the tile in front of Owen, then the second tore apart his left ankle, the next three hit his left calf, the wall behind him, and his left foot. Blood and bone exploded out of his shoes and pants, and he let out a scream that sounded more angry than painful and tumbled to the ground. Before I could get up from my hiding place, Drake was on him, raining fists on his face.
Hurrying to join him, I found Owen unconscious and Drake breathing heavily atop him. Standing there, gaping down at him, I had a hard time believing this man had been the one to have tormented us for so long. He looked so…inconsequential. A man, roughly Drake’s age, well-built but not with the powerful muscles Drake had. He was nothing but a normal man, easily broken once you had the upper hand.
“Help me. Grab his left leg,” Drake said, bending to grab his right.
Ten minutes later, we had Owen strapped down to a chair in the torture room, stripped naked, and tied. His head still hung limp, his broken nose and the bullet wounds in his legs and feet oozing blood in a slow trickle.
Drake’s hand lashed out, slapping Owen. The man’s head rocked back, and his eyes snapped open, glazed and barely conscious. Drake slapped him again, and full alert understanding returned. He took a few deep breaths, and his gaze bounced back and forth from Drake to me. Only a few seconds lapsed before a resigned bitterness creased his expression.
“Go on,” he said. “Fucking do it. Kill me.”
“That will come,” Drake said, and bent over, resting his hands on his knees and bringing his eyes level with Owen’s. “First? Tell me why? Why Owen? After all we went through, why did you betray me?”
Owen smirked sadly. “Do you even care, Drake?”
“I do,” he said quietly. “It matters, Owen.”
Owen spat at Drake, the wad of saliva hitting him in the cheek. “My nephew mattered to me! He fucking mattered, Drake,” he screamed. “And you fucking killed him.”
“That’s true,” Drake said, wiping his face, voice still placid. “But you left me no choice, did you? Plus, I doubt he was a very good young man. This isn’t about him though. Why did you betray me?”
Owen was crying now, tears rolling down his face, cutting streaks through the blood on his lips. He glanced at me. “Because of her.”
Drake turned and looked at me, a confused look on his face, then looked at Owen again. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I knew it from the moment you mentioned her. I could see it in your eyes. For some reason she was special to you. When you set me to researching her and picking her victims for the house, I could read the writing on the wall. You were setting her up to replace me. Eventually, you’d get me out of the way, and then she’d be your assistant. All I did was jump the gun and get the drop on you before you could slit my fucking throat.”
Drake let out a sad and weary laugh. “Owen. I never wanted to replace you. All I wanted was for Dahlia to join us. We would have been a team. Don’t you get that? Can’t you see it?”
Owen chuckled. “Yeah, you can say that now, but we really know the truth. Your little piece of ass over here,” he nodded to me, “was all you could think about. Fucking her, getting her to suck your dick, killing for you, it all made sense. You were going to betray me. I wasn’t going to allow that. So I took matters into my own hands.”
A wicked and ghastly smile spread across his face then. “You know what? After Bri and I caught them? I tied your daddy up, and made him watch your mommy suck my cock. I came down her throat. Told her if she didn’t do a good job, I’d kill her old man. You know what?” Owen winked. “That was the best fucking head I ever got in my life.”
Drake’s stoic emotional control shattered then. His face warped into a visage of unbridled horror and rage. My own fear fluttered up like butterflies in my chest seeing it. Heartbreak and anger threatened to shatter the man I loved, and I wouldn’t allow that.
“Let’s break him, Drake. Together,” I said, putting a hand on his arm. “Make him pay.”
Flinching as though he had forgotten I was there, Drake turned his teary eyes toward me and nodded, not able or willing to speak.
“Yeah,” Owen mocked. “Do your fucking worst. I won’t scream though. You hear me, you cunt?” he yelled. “I won’t scream.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said, and walked over to a table of items Drake had set up before waking Owen, and grabbed a pair of dental pliers, handing them to my lover with the delicacy of an engagement ring.
“Work slow,” I whispered, as Drake’s fingers tightened around the tool.
Drake grinned and turned to Owen. I went behind the man and placed my hands on his forehead, yanking his head back, hard. Drake grabbed Owen’s chin and pressed it down before shoving the pliers into his mouth. The faint clicking sound of metal on teeth was punctuated by Owen’s strained grunt of pain as Drake clamped onto one of his back teeth and began to pull. Tears sprang out fresh in Owen’s eyes as they bulged from the pain. The veins and muscles stood out taut on Drake’s forearm as he struggled to pull.
After a few seconds, a disgusting pop sounded from within Owen’s mouth, and Drake hauled the tooth out, strings of blood and saliva dripping from it. For his part, Owen lived up to his word. He hadn’t screamed, though he was making manic pained grunting sounds, and breath hissed in and out of his nostrils, a snot bubble forming and popping in one.
Drake tossed the tooth aside, and glared at Owen. “That was for betraying me.”
He lunged forward, wrenching Owen’s mouth open again, this time making quicker work of the next tooth. This time, despite his big words, Owen did scream, a high-pitched keening as Drake pulled it free.
“This one,” he said, holding it up to Owen’s eyes. “Is for my father.”
Like an animal going back to a feast, Drake shoved his hands back into the mouth. My hands slipped on Owen’s forehead, the sweat pouring off of him making his skin slick, but I maintained my hold. Barely.
When he pulled the next tooth free, the look on Drake’s face was only one step away from madness. He waited until Owen’s cries abated before speaking again.
“This one is for my mother,” Drake growled and spun the tooth around, so the pointed root pointed down, and then jammed it directly into Owen’s right eye. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, you fucking bastard.”
I released Owen’s head as he thrashed around, screaming until Drake had shoved the entire tooth into the eye. Like the man in the hall earlier, blood and a snot-colored fluid dripped down his cheek, and the rigged surface of the tooth was visible inside the bloody pulpy mess.
“Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou…” Owen’s screams went on as he thrashed about in the chair. His anger and pain exploding as shouts and bellows of agonized rage.
Drake pulled his knife out, and began to cut. Working in thin strips, he began to flay the flesh from Owens arms and shoulders. Thin bands of skin peeled away and the screams became more inarticulate and psychotic. I watched as his arms became red ruins of muscles, fascia, and fat. The more he screamed the wetter and more aroused I became. This was what I’d craved for so long. A final retribution. Drake’s eyes were wide with concentration as he continued tearing away thin sections of flesh and tossed them aside.
Leaving him to work, I strode over to the big chest in the corner of the room, looking for more implements of pain. Inside, I found what I’d been looking for. A small plastic bottle filled with clear liquid. Rubbing alcohol.
Returning, I unscrewed the cap and upended it on Owen’s arms and shoulders. Over sixty percent of the skin had been removed, and I poured alcohol over every square inch of it. Owen went into what I could only call seizures of agony as the liquid rained down upon him.
When his screams dissipated he turned his head and vomited onto the grated floor, gagging and choking on it. Finally he spat and coughed, then turned his lone good eye upon me. Rather than looking defeated and broken, he appeared menacing. A grim smile playing at his lips.
“I guess…now that things are drawing to a close…I should tell you a little secret, dear Dahlia.”
Something about his tone of voice filled me with trepidation. He was far too calm after all that we’d done to him.
“What secret?” I asked, my voice sounding hollow in my own ears.
He laughed, the fucker actually laughed. Missing three teeth, an eyeball, and a quarter of his body skinned, he still managed to laugh. “You dumb bitch. I can’t believe you fell for it.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Drake snarled and slapped him on his bloody skinless arm.
Owen let out a yelp and grimaced, but the smile never left.
Again, that lone baleful eye leveled on me. “Didn’t you wonder why your dear fucking foster father never seemed so bad when you were a kid? A girl like you? Who’d been through all you had? You weren’t able to spot a predator in your midst?”
The floor seemed to tilt beneath me. I could see the man, David Cartwright, in my mind’s eye. Saw him in that old chapel in the woods. I could see him screaming as I destroyed him piece by piece. I could feel his blood on my skin as Drake fucked me in the pool of crimson that oozed from him.
“He…he liked boys,” I whispered. “He told me. That’s why. He had no need for me. He liked young boys.”
Owen spat a wad of bloody phlegm on the ground and glanced at Drake. “Your girl is hot, but she’s not the brightest bulb is she, Drakey boy?”
“What are you saying?” Drake asked, his own face, smeared and spattered with other people’s blood looking confused and horrified.
“David Carwright was never a pedophile. He never did anything wrong. Not a day in his life. He was a straight fucking arrow from birth to grave,” Owen managed to say through his own chuckles.
“No! That’s not true,” I screamed. “He confessed. He told me everything.”
“It is amazing what a man will do to protect the woman he loves,” Owen said. “I kidnapped him and his dearly beloved wife, Michelle. Another fat cunt like him. Told him the story he was to tell. Made sure he knew I’d be watching. Made him understand that if he didn’t stick to the story, even through the pain of death, I’d butcher his wife like the cow she was.”
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I shook my head slowly in horror. “No…that can’t be.”
A flash of memory. David and Michelle taking me for ice cream. The same memory I’d had while torturing and killing him. The only people other than Clint and Marie who’d ever been good and kind to me in my whole miserable life.
“That’s bullshit,” Drake said, taking a threatening step forward. “You showed me the records. The internet history, all of it. He did abuse those boys.”
“Forged,you dumb fuck,” Owen said, grinning at him with blood-stained teeth. “I forged all of it. Usually you’d have seen through it, but you were too hypnotized by Dahlia’s little pussy to realize it. I thought it would be fun to see how an innocent did in the playhouse. I also wanted to fuck with your precious Dahlia here. I have to say, I might have rubbed one out watching you fuck her in that puddle of blood.
The echoing screams of the innocent man, a kind and good man, Owen had manipulated me into killing echoed through my head. The blood, the viscera, all of it.
“What did you do with Michelle?” I asked. I already knew what the answer would be, but I had to hear it.
Owen shrugged but winced at the pain in his arms and shoulders. “Couldn’t put her back out on the streets. Me and my acquaintance who, you’ll remember, you beheaded, had some fun with her.” He leaned toward me, his eye glittering with excitement. “Do you have any idea how long it takes to rape a woman to death? I’m usually not one for fatties, but it was pretty exciting, regardless.”
Something within me snapped. I rounded the chair and leapt upon him, Raining blows down on Owen’s face. Drake was shouting at me, and Owen was screaming in pain as I clawed at the naked muscle of his arms. Gasping screams of rage were coming from me. I could feel the vibration in my throat from them, but they weren’t words, just a high-pitched whine, almost like a blender, buzzing in my ears, mixing with Owen’s screams.
“Go to hell,” I hissed, spit and drool hanging in strings from my mouth, and I shoved my hand into Owen’s mouth. His agonized eyes opened in surprise.
I didn’t stop at his tongue. No, I pushed further, my knuckles dragging across his uvula. Owen gagged and retched as I pushed deeper into his throat, my small hand slipping and sliding further down. He vomited then, or tried to. The hot burning sludge splashed up across my fingers, but I used it as lubrication and pushed harder, even as he tried to bite my forearm. His throat bulged madly as my hand slid down his esophagus. Drake stood beside me, eyes wide and mouth hanging open.
Owen thrashed in animal panic beneath me, and kept trying to cough, vomit filling his lungs, and my hand blocking the oxygen. His face was blood red, and I’d nearly pushed my elbow to his teeth. Deep in his throat, I clawed with my nails, sending fresh spasms of pain through him, until finally, with a hot gush of blood, I managed to grab hold of some delicate and important part of his insides. Clasping it in my fist, I let out a guttural scream, and yanked myself back. There was a tearing sensation deep within him, and a long hunk of cartilage with strips of hanging meat came free in my fist as I pulled free of him.
What looked like a waterfall of blood washed out of his mouth across his chest and into his lap. Owen’s head fell forward, chin resting on his chest, eyes vacant and staring. Dead at last. Dead and gone, and rotting in hell.
“Dahlia,” Drake said, reaching for me. “I didn’t know. I swear I?—”
“Fuck me, Drake.”
“What?”
“I said fuck me, god damn it. I need it.”
He stared at me for several seconds, then gave me a short and quick nod, before reaching down to unzip his pants. A heavy thudding in my chest told me my heart was still beating. Broken, but still going. I couldn’t go back in time and fix what had been done. All I could do was push forward, and live my life. Now that Owen was gone, that would be much easier.
Slipping my own clothes off, I tossed them away, far from the gore. My arms and hands were streaked with viscera, blood, bile, and other bits and pieces of the people I’d killed tonight. Drake walked forward, bare feet on the grated floor, blood sprayed across most of his face and arms, his cock already hard and throbbing. Nothing had ever looked better.
Before either of us could say a word, we were together, lips kissing, tongues probing and fighting each other. The salty metallic taste of other people’s blood slipping across my palate. The taste was the flavor of freedom and revenge. Drake’s cock rubbed against my thigh, warm and hungry.
Pulling my lips from his, I reached down and stroked the length. “Take me.” I looked into his eyes. “I want it hard, Drake. Do you understand? Harder than you ever have before.”
A low growl rumbled in his chest as he stared back at me. “Yes, ma’am.”
Without another word, he spun me around, so that I could see Owen’s face, dead and gape mouthed.
“Look what you did,” he whispered in my ear, reaching around to caress my breasts. “Look how fucking strong you are. He stood no chance.” As he said the last word, he grabbed both my nipples, pinching and twisting so hard that tears of pain leaked from my eyes, my pussy was dripping with delight.
He spun me back, facing him again, then shoved me down so I was sitting on Owen’s dead body. His naked flesh pressed into my back, already cooling, blood smeared across my back as Drake stepped forward. Something about feeling the dead body beneath me sent my desire into a roaring fire.
He grabbed my head, and thrust his thick cock between my lips, shoving it to the back of my throat, making me gag, nearly choking on it.
“I’m gonna fuck your face, baby. You’ll take it like a good girl, understand,” Drake said, grabbing handfuls of my hair in each fist.
I nodded, eagerly, and slid my hand between my legs, rubbing frantically at my clit, as he began to thrust into my mouth. With each surge of his hips, the massive head of his dick slammed into the back of my throat, saliva poured from my lips as he took me, his fingers yanking on my hair, sending electric prickles of pain through my scalp. My clit swelled beneath my fingers with each jolt of pain until an orgasm began to build. I ground my hips back into the blood behind me, enjoying the feel of it on my ass as Drake fucked my face harder and harder. He was giving me everything I wanted and more.
Sliding two fingers inside me, I urged myself to an orgasm, the burst of ecstasy like a lightning bolt bursting through my pelvis and up my back, making my nipples tingle with pleasure. I groaned and moaned around Drake’s cock.
“You came?” He grunted. “My turn.”
He pulled his dick from my mouth and hauled me up, lifting me like I weighed nothing, and lowered me onto him while he stood. Impaling me on his cock. As he slid into me, another climax shattered me, and I called out, screaming for more. He slammed into me, the pain exquisite and mind numbing. I collapsed forward, letting my head rest on his chest as he took me. My pussy throbbed in pain as he fucked me hard, lifting me up and down with his powerful arms like I was a sex toy, using me for his pleasure, and something about that filled me with happiness. I’d been used by men I hated for years. To be used by one I loved was a freeing and emotionally welcoming feeling.
Drake leaned his head forward while fucking me, and bit into my shoulder, hard enough to draw blood. I screamed in agony, but came again, pain and pleasure mixing into a storm that threatened to overwhelm me.
“Fuck me, Drake. Harder,” I said through gritted teeth as blood oozed down my breasts.
He snarled at me, and pulled me off and turned me around, shoving me to the ground, the sharp grating of the floor, digging into my knees. My back and body were nearly covered in blood when he knelt behind me. He reached forward, and ran a hand through the blood pooling in Owen’s lap. I glanced back over my shoulder, and watched him smear it across his cock, turning it red. Then with one quick thrust, he used the blood as lube, and shoved his cock deep into my asshole. I cried out, as the pain burst through me, feeling like I was being torn in two, but a moment later, as he began to ram his hips into me, pleasure returned.
From behind, Drake’s hands reached out, and wrapped around my throat, choking me, as he fucked my ass, squeezing just hard enough to make breathing difficult. My eyes rolled back as he rode me, his blood-stained cock slamming into my ass, pushing me toward another climax, one that might be the strongest ever. All the while, I stared up at Owen’s ghostly face.
His dead eye seemed to watch me as my tits bounced in front of him. Knowing I’d been the one to end him filled me with pride and happiness, even as I put my hands on his knees to steady myself while Drake fucked me.
“I’m gonna come.” Drake groaned, and slammed his dick into me even faster.
“Oh god,” I called out, my vision nearly going black as I came again.
Drake’s cock spasmed within my ass, clenching and flexing as he spurted his cum into me. He cursed and rammed into me again and again, until, exhausted, we both slid to the flood. Drake pulled his cock free of me and wrapped an arm around me, pulling me close, pressing his lips to my ear.
“I love you, Dahlia.”
Reaching back, I ran a hand through his hair with bloody fingers. “I love you, Drake.”