Chapter 35
I think Vil was still upset about my brother sentencing his brother to prison which in turn led him to dying in the Execution Battle. This was evident as Vil bound my wrists on either side of the table he had forced me to lie down on. He also called me “bitch,” and not in a friendly way.
This was Vil’s second year in the Execution Battle and was yet to find proper accommodation, choosing the less appealing side of town, squatting in an old hairdresser.
Faded posters of women with freshly dyed red, blue, blonde and brunette hair peeled from the walls and a family of rats took housing in a hair dryer.
I beamed, elated at finding a hair straightener still in its box on the shelf, wondering if it still worked and asked Vil if I could have it.
He said I couldn’t.
“We only got two days left.” Vil took out his blade and spat on it before polishing the steel with a burnt towel. “I wanted more time with you, but I guess we’ll have to make these two days count. I’m going to peel your skin off and make you eat it.”
“Please don’t. I’ve just moisturised,” I said. “You’ll ruin it.”
“I couldn’t get up there, I almost broke my neck!” Vil’s friend groaned, a female with a nose ring. She wore a matching pink bathrobe to Vil. It was very sweet.
Their main lodgings were on the second storey of the shop, and the only way up was a staircase which had apparently just collapsed that morning.
They did not appreciate being on ground level because it meant anyone could stroll in off the street and interrupt them.
Vil also had all his torture tools upstairs and groaned about having to bring them all down and reorganise them.
“Why don’t you try a ladder,” I said to Vil’s female friend. “Or perhaps some step stools?”
She rubbed her chin. “Yeah, maybe in the kitchenette.”
“Oh, yes.” I nodded. “Try that.”
Vil also nodded. “Yeah, good idea. Go get it.”
Once his lady friend ducked into the back, I wriggled on the stiff table, trying to find a comfortable position. “Hey, Vil.”
“Shut up.” He arranged his blade to point to me. “The only words I want to hear out of your mouth is begging and screaming.”
“Please,” I begged him. “Please, please can you tell me if you’ve seen a young man in a green basketball t-shirt and a young woman with a sling shot?”
“What?”
“Have you seen them? I’m looking for them.”
“Why aren’t you wearing pants?”
“I can’t find those either.”
“How have you managed to stay alive after all this time?”
“Courtesy and regard. Have you seen a young man in a green basketball t-shirt?”
He used the end of his blade’s handle to scratch his stubble. “Yeah, I saw a kid in a green shirt with a girl get stabbed in the arm the other day. I think they were on their way to the suburbs.”
“Oh freckles.” I lowered my head onto the table. “That’s not good.”
He snickered through ugly snorts, scraping the tip of his blade up my bare leg. “Bitch, you got a lot of other shit you better be worrying about.”
He had used zip ties on my wrists and another on my other ankle to stop me from moving around.
This was a problem. Not for me. For him.
Zip ties were a horrible choice of restraint. Easily broken. All I needed was to move my arms in a specific motion and at a certain speed and they would break. I could take the blade he had left on the table right by my hip and sink it into his throat and do the same to the woman when she returned.
“Look I can’t stay here for too long,” I said.
Vil snorted.
“No, I’m serious. My on-again off-again lover, he always finds me.
And I’ve already been here for an hour. I’m going to have to leave unless you want a visitor.
” I looked around the place. Rust bled from the walls.
It smelled like the underside of an earring.
“It doesn’t really feel like you’re up for visitors. ”
“Shut up, bitch.”
“That’s not very nice.”
He dug the tip of his blade into the flesh on the side of my leg, piercing me until I bled. He watched me with abhorrent excitement.
I watched too.
He watched that I watched and ended up frowning. “I’m stabbing you.”
“Uh-huh.”
A droplet of my blood slipped down the side of my leg. It stung, but he had not gone in far enough to hit anything vital.
He dug the blade in deeper, inspecting my face, further frowning when I made no response. “What the heck?”
“Pain doesn’t really bother me.”
“Why aren’t you crying?”
“I’m not very good at crying.”
“Why aren’t you begging me to stop?”
“There’s a lot of things I’m not very good at.”
“Resist me!”
“No,” I said dully. “Stop.”
He pulled out the blade from my leg and slapped his hand over the wound to stop it from bleeding and narrowed his eyes on me. “I’m going to cut off your ears now. Hold still.”
I was not worried. I had a plan.
“Look,” I said. “You can’t torture me. My aunty Beatrice just died.”
Vil’s face fell. “Your aunty just died?”
“Yes.” I let out a choked sob. “My sweet aunty Beatrice.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Shit. I’m so sorry man. That's really sad.”
“I haven’t even had time to mourn her yet.”
“When my brother died, it took a long time for me just to get out of bed.”
“Of course,” I said. “I wish I could sink into my bed and grieve her.”
He sighed heavily and tugged on the zip tie around my ankle, angling his blade to the plastic. “You know what, why don't we do this another time, yeah?”
I shrugged. “If you really think so.”
In the back room glass smashed, the woman shrieked and then something big slumped on the ground with a loud thud.
I lifted my head. “Freckles.”
Vil lost intertest in me and turned his blade to the door that led into the back room. “Cassie? You okay?”
“I don’t think Cassie’s okay.”
The back door kicked open and my husband arrived.
Dig Graves consumed the doorway. Fresh wet blood dripped from his leather jacket, a spray of red freckled over his face and across the rims of his heart-shaped sunglasses.
He held a baseball bat, the tip bright pink like lipstick on a rave dancer.
His boots crunched down on the glass and debris scattered over the hairdresser’s floor.
He kicked a warped stool out of his pathway.
His lips pressed hard together and twitched with irritation as he found me lying on the table, bound by flimsy zip ties. He turned to see the blood on my leg, his cheek hitched, anger milked into the corners of his face, and he twisted his glower to Vil.
Vil shuddered at first and then seemingly remembered he was an ogre in comparison to Dig and beckoned his valour, plucking his knife from the table and aimed it at Dig.
The two fell into a fight.
I did not watch, I worked quickly.
Heaving myself up, I gritted my teeth and funnelled all my strength into my arms and swung my hands inwards, breaking the zip ties off my wrists and snatched the spare blade off the table, cutting the tie on my leg free.
Someone fell behind me.
The fight ceased.
Fingers teased into my hair and grabbed my ponytail, yanking me up to standing.
I gasped, my legs tried to find balance.
I gripped the knife. Holding on tight to my ponytail, he twisted me so that we could view each other.
I pointed the knife to his chest. He levelled the baseball bat now weeping red to my chin.
Unsmiling, his lips irked into a frown. “Princess.”
“Hello, my Man of Malice, good day to you, how are you going?”
“Pretty fucking not okay.” He tightened his hold on my hair, pulling my strands tighter. “I was in the middle of a damn good fight when I find out my girl isn’t at home having bubble baths anymore. She’s out here, trying to get herself tortured and killed.”
“Why did it take you so long to get here?” I snapped. “It’s been over an hour. Where were you? What were you doing?”
“Outside killing people, what else would I be doing? Did you miss me?”
“No.”
“The answer is ‘yes.’” He spoke ‘yes,’ in a feminine voice as if trying to mimic me.
“A little.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
He let my hair go, dropped the baseball bat and picked me up by my thighs, sitting me on the edge of the table. His fingers brushed across my inner thigh. “I think you might need help with something.”
“I do actually need help with something.”
He looked back to me, smiling with his silly heart-shaped sunglasses and tucked hair behind my ear. “I want to know, Princess, what do you need help with?”
I let out a laugh and grabbed the collar of his jacket, tugging his face close to mine. “I’ll tell you what I need help with.”
He stayed still, waiting to see what I would do.
I punched him in his dick.
“FUCK!” Dig hurled over, clutching his crotch.
I pinched his ear and tugged him to me. “I need help finding Tommy, I think he’s hurt.”