20. Lola
LOLA
The cabin basement feels as if there is a cold wind blowing, as if snow is piled atop my body. I have not stopped shivering since the mysterious man took me here. My fingers are numb, but that doesn’t stop them from trembling. I hate that I tremble.
But I am just a shivering creature, waiting for the butcher.
The space around me is hollowed out, stripped bare.
Just crumbling concrete, wood beams, and that window: one block of pale, bruised daylight that never reaches my bones.
Above me, floorboards creak, and every sound echoes.
My legs are knotted up beneath the scratchy blanket he left me, but the cold threads through it, a promise.
No matter how many times I wrap myself tighter, there’s no escaping the frost in my marrow.
He hasn’t come back since he brought me down here and left me with the echo of his masked laughter. The skull face is etched into my memory, more myth than flesh.
I don’t know how long I’ve waited. Time stretches weird here. Maybe it’s been an hour. Maybe whole nights have passed and I just haven’t noticed. I try to sing to myself, but it’s useless. The cold eats every noise. My voice disappears before it even leaves my mouth.
I run my hands over my arms, trying to summon heat, comfort, anything.
The skin there is patchy—old bruises from Marcus, fresh ones from the van, the men who held me down and taped my mouth shut.
I trace the shape of the pain, let it ground me.
I remind myself: you survived him, you can survive this.
Somewhere above, a door slams. My whole body goes rigid, my heart is a drumbeat. The door at the top of the stairs unlocks. He wants me to hear it. He wants me to wait for the threat.
The skull mask appears in the doorway, white and grinning, hungry with darkness behind the eye holes.
He fills the entry. Tall, broad, the kind of body that blocks out all the light and makes you feel like prey.
He doesn’t speak, not yet. He just watches me, head tilted, like a collector appraising a rare piece of meat.
My pulse gallops as I force my chin up. “What do you want?” My voice cracks, but I make it loud. “You think you’re some big man, hiding behind that mask?”
Silence.
The mask tilts further, and I can sense how amused he is, even without seeing his face. He moves down the stairs, step by step, heavy boots echoing off the concrete in a slow, measured rhythm.
He stops at the bottom, just out of reach. “You don’t get to ask questions,” he says. The voice is warped, lower than I expect, hoarse with something that sounds like contempt. He leans in, the mask inches from my face. “And I’m the one who owns you now.”
I ball my fists. I want to scratch at him, bite, anything. “You don’t own me. I’m not afraid of you. You’re just another pathetic man playing dress-up—”
He lunges. Cold gloved fingers close around my throat, sudden and hard, pinning me back against the wall. The pain flashes hot, then white, all the blood in my head screaming. My feet kick out, useless against his bulk.
“You think you can talk to me like that?” His voice is a ragged snarl in my ear.
“You think you’re still in control here?
” His grip tightens until my vision pulses with stars.
I choke, clawing at his wrist. I can’t breathe, and panic flares.
He leans in, skull mask so close I can feel the plastic scraping my cheek.
“You’re not in control. You’re not safe.
You’re not even a person in this room, Lola. You’re a thing. My thing.”
He lets go. I collapse onto my knees, gasping, my chest burning from my lungs howling for air.
He circles me. I feel his eyes on every inch of me, measuring, stripping me naked.
He crouches in front of me, gloved hand in my hair.
His fingers knot tight at the roots and he jerks my head back, exposing my throat, making the bruises from Marcus stretch and ache.
“You’re going to learn what happens when you fight me,” he murmurs, voice softer now, almost gentle. “You want to act tough? You want to act like you’re still untouchable?”
I twist in his grip. “Fuck you. I’m not scared of you, you sick fuck. You want to be Marcus so bad? Is this how you get your dick hard, by hurting someone who can’t fight back?”
He snarls, hand tightening in my hair, yanking my head until my neck screams. His other hand rips the blanket off me, baring the thin t-shirt and panties I wore to sleep. I lurch, try to push away, but he’s faster, meaner, hands everywhere, pinning me by the crown of my skull.
“Don’t compare me to that piece of shit,” he hisses. “Marcus breaks things so he can call it love. I break things because I want to. That’s the only reason I need.”
He shoves me back, hard enough that my shoulders slam the wall.
I try to scramble away on my hands and knees, but he’s on me before I can move, one knee in my back, weight pressing me flat.
His hand finds the waistband of my panties and snaps them up, digging the elastic into my flesh, painful and humiliating.
He tears them down, rips them half-off my hips, then lets them dangle at my knees.
I scream, like a feral animal. I try to buck him off. I twist and claw, nails scrabbling at the cold floor. He pins both my wrists behind my back, grinding his knee into my ass.
“You want to fight?” he growls. “Fight all you want. It only makes me harder.” He lets me struggle, lets me waste my strength, then flips me over in one brutal motion.
I’m sprawled on my back, panties twisted at mid-thigh, legs splayed.
His masked face looms over me, all skull and hunger.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, mocking. “Not so tough now, are you, princess? Not so mouthy when you’re on your back.
” He stands, looming over me. His hand goes to his belt.
He unbuckles it slowly, savoring the moment.
“You want to run your mouth? I’ll give you something to put between your lips. ”
Panic flashes, but so does something else, something I hate, something that makes my thighs clench in shame even as I brace myself.
He undoes his zipper, pulls his cock out—thick, heavy, already hard, veins bulging along the shaft.
The sight of it makes my mouth go dry, but I glare up at his mask, defiant, hands balled into fists.
He grabs a fistful of my hair and hauls me up onto my knees. My scalp burns as I try to jerk away, but he clamps a hand over my jaw, squeezing until my lips part. The gloved thumb digs into my cheek, forcing my mouth open.
“You bite me, I break every bone in your fucking hand,” he says. “Understand?”
I don’t answer. I just glare, but his grip tightens until I whimper. He shoves his cock in, rough and sudden, splitting my lips, filling my mouth.
He fucks my face. There’s no other word for it. Brutal, merciless, grinding deep until the head hits the back of my throat and I gag again.
“Keep your eyes open,” he orders. The mask stares down at me, white and grinning, as he uses my mouth. “Look at me. I want you to see who owns you now.”
I can barely breathe. My jaw aches, lips stretched wide, nose mashed against the rough zipper of his jeans. He thrusts in and out, fucking my mouth like he owns it, like it’s not a part of me at all.
“Good little slut,” he grunts. “Now you’re learning. Nothing but a mouth to be used.”
He holds me too tight, controls every breath, every whimper, every inch I try to steal back. He pulls out, long enough for me to gasp a ragged breath, spit and drool stringing from my lips, then slams back in, even deeper. My throat convulses. I try to cough, but he just laughs, rocking his hips.
“Is that the best you can do?” he taunts. “After all the men you’ve fucked for Marcus, I thought you’d be better at this.”
The words are cruel. I sob, but the sound is muffled by his cock, my humiliation complete. He fucks my face harder, brutal, relentless, using me like a doll. Spit and tears drip down my chin, onto my bare thighs. My knees ache against the cold floor. My jaw feels like it’s splitting apart.
“Take it all,” he growls. His hands force my head down, bury me to the root. I gag, nose pressed to his pubic bone, unable to breathe, vision sparking as the world fuzzes black at the edges.
But, despite it all, I’m wet. Why am I wet? When Marcus would do this, I never got wet. But now, I am dripping down my thighs. I want to rub myself so badly.
At the last second, he pulls out, jerks himself with one hand. Hot, bitter ropes of cum splash across my face, streaking my cheeks, lips, chin. He makes sure to aim high, smearing the mask of himself over me.
“Keep it there,” he commands, voice is ruined, breathless. “Don’t wipe it off. I want you to remember who owns you.”
I collapse back on my heels, coughing, face burning with shame and sick, twisted want.
He stands over me, cock still hanging thick and spent, skull mask gleaming in the dim light. He tucks himself away, zips his pants, nothing but contempt in the tilt of his head.
Leaning down, his gloved fingers trace the mess he made across my face, rubbing it in, marking me as thoroughly as any brand. “Cry if you want. Scream. It doesn’t matter. Nobody’s coming for you.”
I glare up at him, shaking, tears mixing with the mess on my cheeks. I make myself hold his gaze, even as every part of me screams to run, to hide, to die rather than let him see me so broken.
“That’s better. I like you better like this.
” He turns and heads for the stairs, boots thudding.
At the door, he pauses, looks back. “Remember this lesson, Lola. Here, you’re nothing.
Here, you’re mine. Mine to fucking keep.
They wanted to take you away, to hurt you, to make you disappear. I couldn’t let that happen.”
I collapse, shuddering. The cold eats at me, inside and out. I am nothing but a thing in the dark.
I shiver, and the wind in the basement feels colder than ever.
And still, I do not stop shivering.