Epilogue
RONI
None of my girly Kung-Fu is working today, and Chloe has been no help at all. I called her to whine about how Phoenix refuses to tell me where we’re going. That he was making me put on a blindfold and to trust him.
Of course, in true Chloe fashion, she told me to “shut the fuck up.” To rub even more salt in my bratty wound, she then had the audacity to remind me “The last time that man had you traveling to a secret location, he gave you the deep dicking of your dreams at the beach.”
Ugh.
She’s not wrong though.
This ride is taking forever, though. Each bump and jostle pulling at my curiosity as gravel pinged against the undercarriage. The SUV's tires crunched over what must have been miles of unpaved country roads, the smell of dust and late summer heat seeping through the air vents.
Finally lurching to stop, Phoenix's calloused fingers find mine, guiding me out into air which hangs heavy with the metallic scent of coming rain.
His palm feels clammy against my skin as he locks his arm in mine, his usual confidence replaced by something I can't quite name.
My boots scrape across what feels like cracked concrete littered with pebbles and debris as he leads me forward, his breath quickening with each step until he tugs me to an abrupt halt.
“Where are we?” I ask for the thousandth time, my voice echoing slightly.
He lets out a long, strained breath that breezes past my ear before finally opening his mouth again.
“I need you to trust me.” His voice cracks somewhere between hesitance and fear as he pulls the blindfold from my face.
“Where—” The question dies in my throat.
Recognition slams into me like a freight train.
The dirt-covered concrete floor with dark stains I know aren't just oil.
The splintered wooden beams along the ceiling where they once hung chains.
Rows of horse stalls with their rusted hinges beneath flickering lights casting sickly yellow shadows.
And the stench—industrial bleach barely masking the metallic tang of old blood and human desperation.
“No, Phoenix. No!” I scream, my voice bouncing off the walls as I wrench my arm, feeling my shoulder socket strain against his grip. My lungs constrict as if the very air is toxic, my feet already pivoting toward the car.
“Shhhhh, Little Temptress. It's okay. I promise,” he whispers, his thumb circling my wrist bone as his eyes plead with mine.
“Why would you bring me back here?” Each word scrapes my throat raw.
Behind my eyes, memories flicker like a grotesque slideshow.
Sweaty palms on my bare skin. The weight of strange bodies.
The sound of betting voices. My stomach heaves, digestive fluid rising as I stare at my husband's face, suddenly as unfamiliar as a stranger's.
“This isn't what you think, Roni. Just breathe.”
Just breathe? While standing in the slaughterhouse of my innocence? Is he fucking serious?
“I can't, Phoenix. I can't be here.” My voice fractures like thin ice, while my eyes burn with unshed tears that blur his face into a hazy smear. My lungs feel like they're filling with concrete.
“This place is ours now,” he proclaims as if I’ll care. “I've planned something special for you.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I snap, as the coppery tang of old blood seems to seep from the walls into my mouth.
My fingers curl into fists so tight my nails break skin.
I never actually thought I could murder him before now.
The sudden urge to slam his head against the nearest rusted stall door pulses through me with each thundering heartbeat.
He must recognize this isn't going as he hoped because he steps in front of me, his boots scraping against the gritty floor. His hands brace against my face, thumbs pressing into my cheekbones just enough to narrow my vision to his blue eyes, which gleam with desperation in shitty light.
“Little Temptress, I'm sorry. I thought you'd—”
“Phoenix,” I sob, the sound ripping from old wounds.
“You've held me while I shook uncontrollably in the night.
You've counted my breaths while I hyperventilated.
You've wiped tears from my cheeks while I shuddered myself back to sleep in your arms. All that stems from this wretched place. This den of nightmares.”
“I know, baby,” he whispers, his breath warm against my forehead.
“Then why, Phoenix?” I insist on an answer. “Why would you bring me here?”
“Because you told me,” he responds, his voice dipping to an evil thrum, “and the rest of your fans, exactly what you wanted to do to those who hurt you.”
“What do you mean?” He's not making any sense, and my heart is on the precipice of vaporizing in my chest, each beat sending shockwaves through my ribcage.
“Come with me, Little Temptress.” He steps back from me and holds out his hand, palm up and fingers slightly curled, offering me the choice to trust him, or die where I stand, petrified like a child seeing a ghost.
“I am so mad at you right now,” I say, grabbing his fingers and following him down the path between the stalls.
As we make our way, the sounds of chains rattling and voices groaning seep out from the wooden enclosures.
Gurgles and muffled screams punctuate the heavy silence.
The cracks of whips slice through the air and the unmistakable panging of riding crops on flesh creates a sickening percussion which matches the rhythm of my footsteps.
“I took what you said to heart, Roni,” Phoenix says with a hint of madness. “That you wanted to hunt down your abusers. Your rapists.”
We stop for a moment, and Phoenix taps on one of the stall doors.
Seconds later it creaks open, the rusted wheels shrieking like a wounded animal as the door slides sideways.
My lungs seize at what I see. A man, about my age, with jaundiced skin stretched taut over his collarbones.
His ribs protrude like piano keys beneath flesh which has gone waxy from malnutrition.
My stomach convulses at the sight of his head encased in a wooden box, identical to the one that once suffocated me.
Hemp twine, frayed and darkened with sweat, binds his wrists and ankles to an elaborate system of pulleys that have wrenched his limbs into a perfect “X.” His body trembles with the strain.
Two separate mechanical winches slowly rotate, one drawing a thin cord wrapped around the purpling head of his shriveled penis outward, the other dragging his testicles back until the skin between them has gone white with tension.
“Hey there, Dex,” Phoenix waves with a casual flick of his wrist, before the rusted stall door grinds shut with a screech that reverberates through my molars.
“You want to end their miserable existences,” he continues, his fingers interlacing with mine as he pulls me deeper down the corridor. “To fuck their dying flesh until they go limp. To cut them into a million tiny pieces and feed them to their loved ones.”
He raps his knuckles against another weathered door, which slides open with the same haunting squeal.
Inside, a man and woman hang crucified on matching St. Andrew's Crosses, the dark wood stained almost black with years of absorbed bodily fluids.
But it's what covers their naked bodies that turns my stomach inside out.
Patches of matted wolf pelts, some midnight black, others salt-and-pepper gray, a few snow white, have been meticulously sewn directly into their flesh with what looks like fishing line.
Where the crude stitching wasn't enough, industrial staples puncture the borders of human and animal skin.
Fresh blood seeps from the jagged seams, trickling down their torsos in crimson rivulets that pool at their feet.
Their heads loll forward at unnatural angles, chins pressed against collarbones, and I find myself counting the seconds, searching for the telltale rise and fall of breathing chests beneath their grotesque patchwork coats.
“Don’t worry,” Phoenix insists. “I’d never harm an animal. These are all faux skins.” I sigh in relief.
“You better not have hurt a cute little wolf. I’ll divorce you.”
He doesn’t say anything and I’m not sure I like it. We’re definitely going to talk about this again, because absolutely not. I will not be okay if he touched one critter in a mean way.
The door slides shut with a metallic scrape and Phoenix guides me further along the path.
At the end, he pushes through a set of heavy double doors that groan through age and use.
The smell hits me first. Stale sweat and despair mixed with the acrid tang of urine.
Then I see it. The auction stage. The wooden platform where spotlights once illuminated my trembling body while men in masks cast bids for the right to hunt and violate me in the dense pine woods beyond.
“You want to ruin everything they hold dear.” Phoenix's voice drops to a reverent whisper as he extends his arm toward the center of the stage.
His fingers frame the rusted iron cage there, its bars casting zebra-stripe shadows across the figure huddled inside.
An older man, with papery skin stretched over a skull-like face.
His filthy gray hair hangs in greasy strands around sunken cheeks.
“Who is that?” I ask, my voice barely audible over the thundering pulse in my ears. My hands tremble so violently I have to press them against my thighs.
“This—” Phoenix steps forward with fluid grace, spreading his arms wide like a gameshow host unveiling the grand prize, “—is the motherfucker who put you up for sale. The auctioneer himself.”
The man's pale eyes flick toward Phoenix, then dart away when they meet my husband's gaze. A whimper escapes his cracked lips.
“Why is he here?” The question is like razors in my throat.
“For you, Little Temptress.” Phoenix's smile is all teeth and darkness. “He's here for you. To do with as you please.”
“I—” My mind spins like a carnival ride, thoughts fragmenting and reassembling in nauseating patterns. My fingers clutch at the hem of my shirt, seeking anything solid. “What am I supposed to do with him?”
“We're going to teach every one of these motherfuckers a lesson,” Phoenix assures me, pressing an old metal ring with a singular skeleton key into my hand.
“What do you mean?” It’s stupid and redundant, but I need to hear him say it. I’m too blinded by my emotions to sort this out for myself. By the rage. The hurt. The suffocating I endure every time I think of the masked man who ruined my life.
“These are just a few of the ones who were here that night—the first time he made you run, and then chased you down himself.” He cups my face in his hands and everything terrible around me goes silent in the moment.
The darkness of my past vanishes is his eyes, and I know everything he’s saying is a promise.
A vow. A dying wish if it comes to that.
“There are so many more. And I will spend my remaining years on this earth making them pay for what he did to you.”
“I love you.” I don’t even think before the words come out. Because it’s true. It’s all I can say to such devotion. “What do I do now?”
“This opens the armory.” He nods his head to another set of doors at the rear of the room. “What do you say we go hunting?”