16 Olivia
May 21st, 2022
I felt like I was one of those drug addicts lining certain streets in the poorest districts of The Springs.
I was itching for another fix. For something to alleviate this constant need under my skin. I was paranoid that I was being watched everywhere I went.
He had been watching me at the park waiting for him the other day. Didn’t that mean that he was watching me wherever I went? The café, the park, a run to the warehouse district and back, he was everywhere. Every car with tinted windows, every guy with a hood too low, every pair of sunglasses, every face I couldn’t see, it was him.
And I wanted it to be him.
I wanted…
I wanted him to make his move as much as I wanted someone to lobotomize me, erasing every ounce of him from ever existing in the first place.
I wanted him gone.
And I wanted more of him. I needed more of him, because I felt like I was suffocating in this oxygen that didn’t taste of rain and pine.
My phone chimed, pulling me out of my trance. I shook my head and reached across the couch for it.
I had decided that today was a day of movies, wine, and some cheesecake.
It was 2 0’ clock, and I had had my fair share of wine and cheesecake, but this was the third time I had restarted this movie. I couldn’t focus.
Why couldn’t I focus?
My boyfriend texted me. Because I had one of those. One I was constantly cheating on.
Cheating on him because of him. Because I would never have been put into this situation if he hadn’t borrowed the money.
But me liking it? That made it cheating, right? Whether I had a choice or not, which I didn’t, I still liked it. I was still obsessing over it. That made it cheating.
If I hadn’t been before, now I knew for certain; I was definitely, 100% cheating on my boyfriend of three years.
The shame and guilt grew right alongside the anger and hatred. It brewed within my stomach like ingredients in a witch’s cauldron, bubbling and broiling, the smoke drifting over the edges, infecting my skin and bones, my sinew.
I was pathetic.
Steven: Come over.
He knew. He had found out and now I was going to pay for it.
No, don’t be stupid. He had mentioned a surprise a few days ago, this had to be it. A surprise from my dick of a boyfriend even though I was fucking the lacky of a man who was beating the shit out of him for money he borrowed.
Olivia: On my way.
I deserved whatever punishment he gave me if that’s what it actually was, and if not? If it truly was a gift, then I would refuse it because I didn’t deserve to be rewarded. Not for anything.
With a sigh, I got dressed, grabbed my things, hailed a cab, and headed for the other side of town.
It was a small two-bedroom house, nothing fancy or special. Why would it be? He barely had the money to pay rent, that’s why he had to get the loan.
I had often wondered how much the loan had been if he was still asking me for money. Enough to split it into two, according to the man, but where did it all go?
Why did he live in a rundown place in this part of Colorado Springs if he got money from somebody like the masked man and his partner?
I knocked on the door, smoothing out my dress, only to wince as I took it in. I should have worn something else. Something not so easily accessible. I wasn’t in the mood to get fucked, I just wanted to deal with whatever he wanted to talk about and leave.
But if that man showed up again, wouldn’t that state-of-mind change?
Of course it would.
Why?
Why him? Why not my boyfriend? Steven was really nice when he wanted to be. He was good and kind and he cared a lot about me when I wasn’t messing everything up, so why wasn’t I as turned on with him as I was with the other guy?
And the shame grew.
“Come in!”
I made sure my scarf was in place before walking through the door and closing it behind me. It always smelled of old food in here. “Hey,”
I called, trying to act normal.
“Kitchen.”
I looked around the place, old takeout containers still sitting on his coffee table, discarded coffee cups, pizza boxes filled with half-eaten pizzas, and old clothes tossed absentmindedly around the room. I offered to help clean it up, but he just got angry, telling me I was ‘too clean’. Whatever, I didn’t live here, he could live however he wanted, so long as he didn’t bring it back to my place.
I walked into the kitchen, finding him, surprisingly, at the sink, his back towards me. “Hey, what’s up?”
His shoulders were tight, his head low. He certainly wasn’t doing the dishes. And he certainly wasn’t in the mood to give me whatever gift he was talking about the other day. “Your mom called me this morning,”
he said, his voice low.
I felt whatever bare smile I had managed to put on drop, a bad feeling growing in the pit of my stomach as every muscle in my body tightened, preparing for whatever was about to happen. “Oh?”
was all I could say. This. This is what I had been waiting for. Mom said she would call him. Mom said she would talk to him about what I tried to stop telling her.
I thought she had forgotten. She always forgets.
She forgot me at the grocery store when I was 3.
She forgot me at church, the one time we went, when I was 7.
She forgot me at the house when they went on vacation when I was 9.
They forgot me on vacation when I was 13, leaving me alone at a hotel for three days before the police got me on a flight back to America.
But this? No. Why would she ever forget to do something like this?
Because this was something that would destroy my life. It held no effect on hers, but me? This life that I had carefully built over the last three years, of course she would want to destroy it. Whatever thread she could pull to get me back in the cage that was that stupid oversized mansion on the hill. Whatever she could do to shove that thorn-covered silver spoon back into my unwilling mouth and convince me, once again, to give up my third of the company.
It was all she had been trying to do since the day I packed up the car and came here.
Steven straightened and slowly turned to me, something in both his hands. His right hand held a small velvet box, and his left held a butcher knife.
My eyes widened and I suddenly had an overwhelming regret over not bringing Lucy. I should have brought Lucy.
I took a slow step back, holding up my hands, my heart racing. “Steven, she lied,”
I said carefully, keeping my voice low and calm. I could fix this. I would fix this.
His cold wheat eyes met mine, and it wasn’t the same kind of chill I saw in his eyes, this was different. This lacked emotion. It lacked soul. It lacked life. It was evil and horrible, and it terrified me far more than the eyes of that man had. That knife terrified me far more than the loaded gun in my pussy had.
Oh my God, there was something wrong with me.
His knuckles were white. “Did you tell her that you earned it?”
he asked me, walking towards me slowly. “Did you tell her that you drive me to the brink of Hell every time you choose to argue with me?”
I shook my head, my heart pounding. I could run. If I just turned around and ran, I might be able to get out the door and scream loud enough for someone to hear me. “I didn’t tell her anything, Steven, I swear. On my life, I swear.”
“Don’t lie to me,”
he snapped, causing me to flinch back. His brows pulled together, his eyes melting like chocolate over strawberries.
“I’m doing it for us, sweetie. All of it. Everything I sacrifice, everything I say, every action I take, it’s all for us. But you just argue with everything I say, you always talk back. What else am I supposed to do? You don’t give me any other choice,”
he said desperately, as if he were on his knees begging for my forgiveness.
I licked my lips, my mouth suddenly dry. “Please,”
I whispered, tears welling in my eyes, my hands shaking. “I—”
“And,”
he laughed half-psychotically, “how shocked was I to find out that Rose isn’t even your real last name.”
My eyes widened and I froze, my blood running cold. I hadn’t considered that. It never crossed my mind that my mom would tell him that.
“Lemont? You’re the fucking daughter of Trenton Lemont?”
he asked, waving the knife around. “How much money do you have, Olivia? How much?”
he roared without giving me a chance to answer.
I flinched, my back hitting a wall, panic slamming through me in waves. “I left them, Steven. That’s why I changed my name, I don’t have—”
He rushed me and I was too scared to move.
He ran right up to me, slamming the knife into the wall right next to my head.
I felt something warm trickle down my leg, tears spilling down my cheeks as he panted inches from my face, his eyes wild. “Help,”
my pathetic little mind whimpered. “Help me, someone. Please.”
“They told me you own a third of the company. I want to know the number. I want to know how much money you have.”
I had my hands up between us, and I was doing my best not to touch him. I didn’t want to touch him ever again. “I don’t have money,”
I tried, my voice surprisingly even. “I promise. I don’t have money.”
I prayed the lie sounded better than I thought it did. I prayed to everyone and everything I knew of that he would believe me. He had to believe me. I didn’t have another plan.
He leaned in until his nose touched mine. “Liar.”
He released the knife and spun around his back to my front. He grabbed my left hand, using his body to shove me back into the wall, trapping.
“Steven stop,”
I tried, clenching my hand into a fist.
He pried it apart, pain shooting up my arm, causing me to cry out, tears spilling down my cheeks.
“Steven, please!”
I cried, struggling to push him away. But he was stronger than me. Everyone was always fucking stronger than me.
I heard something hit the ground and then felt something cold touch my ring finger and I began thrashing. “Steven!”
I screamed, jerking on my arm with everything I was. “Stop, please! Please,” I sobbed.
He slammed his elbow into my chest, the air leaving my lungs all in one burst.
I coughed, my head spinning, pain screaming over my left ring finger. I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t breathe.
Something far too tight was shoved over my knuckles, straight down to the base of my finger. I could feel warmth sliding across my hand, down my wrist, the pain blinding.
Steven turned back to me and grabbed the hair at the back of my skull, forcing my head to remain in place as he lifted my left hand up, showing me my bright red finger, already swollen around the thin silver band with a shitty ass diamond embedded into the metal, streams of blood flowing freely from where the ring had ripped some of my skin down.
It hurt.
My chest caved in.
My stomach tightened.
My eyes widened.
The walls started closing in around me.
No.
No!
I didn’t want this. I didn’t want this.
“There,”
he said, panting, sweat dotting his forehead. “Now the world knows who you belong to.”
He dropped my other hand, a prideful smile on his face. “Such a pretty little thing, aren’t you? We need to make your outsides match your insides though,”
he explained, his smile dropping. “The pathetic, wasteful whore you are. I need to beat the trash out of you, don’t I? I can’t walk down the aisle with someone so fucking slutty. We have to brighten you up. Make you worthy of a white dress.”
He released my hair only to grab the left side of my face and slam my head into the wall right next to the knife.
The world spun, warmth sliding down the right side of my face. I didn’t know which way was up and which was down. Nothing made sense.
He jerked me off the wall and threw me to the ground where I collapsed into a pile.
I grunted, unable to breathe as I tried to right myself and crawl away, a ringing sounding in my ears, excruciating pain shooting up my left hand every time I put any pressure on it.
I hated my mom.
I hated myself.
This was karma for what I had done. My penance for cheating. For letting that man use me to pay off Steven’s debt.
I deserved all of this.
Every ounce of it, I deserved it.
His hand wrapped around my ankle, jerking me back. “You peed yourself?”
he asked, flipping me onto my back. “That’s fucking disgusting.”
He jumped on top of me and instinct kicked in. I started thrashing, kicking, screaming. I felt something slash through my right hand, pain shooting up my arm, but I kept going, trying to claw deep enough to force him off of me.
Why did I let this happen?
Three years of my life wasted with this piece of shit, and I just stayed. Now I was going to die. I was going to die in his shitty apartment and nobody would know.
Nobody would even realize I was gone.
I would just…I’d disappear. A blip on the map in an endless sea of blips, blinking out of existence, just like the man had said.
He grabbed the hair at the crown of my head and slammed my head down again, spots exploding in my vision, the world tilting, my limbs growing heavy.
“You never fucking smile for me,”
he muttered, releasing my hair and shoving my face to the side. “I’ve seen you smile at television shows, music, art, but never for me. Not even when I ask.”
A sharp pain erupted on the side of my face, my stomach boiling in nausea. What was he doing? I pathetically tried to push his hands away, but nothing was working like it should.
He shoved my head to the other side, the same pain throbbing across my left cheek. “Stop,”
I garbled, the world slowly clearing. “Please.”
“That’s better,”
he said, sitting back to inspect his handy work.
Warmth started trickling down my cheeks into my hairline. The pain was sharp and unforgivable.
“Now we need to deal with that slutty fucking collar. A whore collar.”
My heart was pounding way too hard as my eyes finally started to refocus.
I watched in slow motion as he lifted that knife high above my neck, and the panic slammed back through me.
I threw up my hands, his wrists slamming against mine, pain shooting up my arms as he tried to push down only to snarl, lift it up, and slam it down again right above my eye. “Fucking bitch!”
I caught his wrist in my hands this time, the blood coating my right hand causing my grip to slide as copper coated my tongue.
I was sobbing, my teeth gritted so tightly, I thought I could feel them cracking. I shoved up with everything I was, my muscles flexing, my feet pushing on the ground to try and give me more leverage.
And he gained half an inch.
I screamed, sobbing. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to disappear. I wanted to mean something to this world. To be worth something.
I didn’t want to die.
He leaned forward, the knife getting closer and closer. “I should have done this years ago. You are nothing, Olivia. You mean nothing, you feel nothing. You are nothing.”
“Please,”
I sobbed, watching that knife slowly make its way to my eye. “Please, Steven, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Tell God how sorry you are,”
he grunted.
“Help!”
I screamed. I screamed with everything I was. With every ounce of me, I screamed. That man had to be around, he had to be. Please, let him be around. “HELP ME!”
I screamed bloody murder. “Someone!”
I screamed again.
“Help,”
I sobbed weakly, Steven’s eyes wild with glee.
“Nobody is coming for a nothing whore like you,”
he panted.
I screamed again, my entire body shaking with effort. I was going to die. I was going to watch that knife until it entered my skull. “No, please,”
I begged as it moved a little closer, my hands growing tired. “Please—”
Crunch!
Blood splattered across my face.
My eyes widened, the world going still as the pressure from his hands changed.
My eyes lifted to his, only to find his closed, his body going limp a second later.
I inhaled sharply, shoving him off and scrambling back, my eyes finding the man standing feet away, a bloody gun in his hand, a female standing in the doorway.
He was lowering his gun, pure rage in his eyes.
I couldn’t feel my hands, my heart, my lungs. I couldn’t feel anything.
“I told you not to kill him,”
the woman stated coldly, walking over.
But I looked over to Steven, laying lifeless on the floor. His chest was still moving, blood trickling from a wound on his head. He only knocked him out, but Steven would die soon if that wound wasn’t taken care of.
“You’re bleeding,”
the woman said, pulling my eyes back to her.
I looked down, not seeing anything but blood. I knew some of it was mine, but not all of it. Steven’s blood was there too. I started wiping my arms, trying to get it off of me. I had to get it off of me, only to freeze when I saw the ring still on my left hand, my finger turning purple. I released a shuddering breath and began tearing at my finger, numb to everything but the overwhelming feeling of being caged.
I tore at my finger. “Get it off,”
I said on a panicked breath, blood coating my tongue. “Get it off, get it off, get it off!”
She wrapped her hands around my wrists and pulled my hands apart before grabbing my chin and forcing my eyes to meet hers.
Brown, but not like Steven’s. They were warm, kind, good. They reminded me of cozy Fall afternoons curled around the fire with a good book. They were good.
“I need you to focus, okay? You’re bleeding from a few different places. That ring isn’t coming off without tools, do you understand me? We have to take care of your face first.”
The panic only grew. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t—
The man appeared in front of us and grabbed my right wrist and jerked me to my feet.
“Everett,”
she scolded.
Everett.
It fit him so well.
Everett, derived from the name of one of the most vicious and chilling mountains in this world. Everett, the name of something strong and unwavering. Something unforgiving. Something many people tried to conquer, and several died doing so.
Everett, the name of death.
He dragged me to the sink and turned on the water, shoving my hand under it, pain shooting up my arm.
“You’re going to rip her skin off,”
the woman said, joining my other side, a rag in her hand.
“I don’t think she’ll mind,”
he said, grabbing the bottle of soap and squirting it all over my hand. He began rubbing the soap all over the ring, and I watched in desperation as he worked the soap into the wound, either the pain, or something much worse, causing tears to spill down my face, causing my teeth to grind, and a whimper to escape my lips.
The woman sighed and crouched down, quickly running the rag up and down each leg, my eyes too focused on my hand to worry about being humiliated.
When my legs were completely dry, she tossed the rag and grabbed another towel, reaching for my chin.
“Take care of him,”
Everett ordered, the sound distant.
My heart was pounding. Please, please, please.
He finally wrapped the base of my fingers and hand in one hand and the ring in the other. “This will hurt.”
And he yanked it off without another warning.
I cried out, jerking my hand out of his and clutching it to my chest. I inspected it carefully, blood soaking my right arm. The skin had torn in some places, and it would leave a nasty scar, but I didn’t think it would need stitches.
The woman scowled and took my hands gently, having clearly ignored his orders. “You boys need to learn manners.”
Everett didn’t say a word before he turned away.
I watched after him. He still had the ring in his hand as he headed for Steven, his blood spreading slowly across the floor.
The woman took my chin and gently turned my head away until my eyes found hers again. “You don’t want to see what he’s going to do.”
But I did.
I wanted to know what he would do after knowing me for only a few weeks. I wanted to know what he would do to the man who was about to kill me. Who beat the shit out of me. Who hated me so much, he made my life a living Hell.
I turned back to him as the woman turned the water to a nice warm temperature and gently put my hands under it. The sting felt good this time around.
Everett crouched down on Steven’s left side and picked up the knife, my heart skipping a beat. “He beat me,”
I told him, my voice wavering but strong.
Everett’s eyes lifted to mine, that chill so cold it made me shiver.
I swallowed, the tears burning my throat. “He beat the shit out of me all the time. He made me have sex with him when I didn’t want to. He hated me and I don’t know why. I did everything right. I always did everything exactly how he wanted and he still…he still beat me.”
He studied me for a long time before turning back to Steven. He admired the ring before setting it on Steven’s chest, and then he placed the tip of the knife right in the center of that ring.
“Everett,”
the female warned. “You wanted him for answers, remember? You wanted him alive.”
He paused long enough to look the woman in the eyes before they flicked to mine and finally to Steven. He held the hilt of that butcher knife tightly in his hand, the tip pressing into the center of Steven’s chest, the bloodied ring glinting.
Everett lifted a hand and slapped the shit out of him, his head rocking to the side.
Steven jerked awake, immediately crying out, his hands instinctively reaching for the blade of that knife, his eyes wide. “Wh-what are you doing?”
Everett leaned over him and smiled an evil smile. The kind of smile that would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my days. “I just wanted to hear you plead for mercy before I shove this ring straight into your heart.”
Blood poured from Steven’s hands as he shook his head, kicked his feet. “Come on, man, please,”
he begged. “Please!”
he cried out.
But Everett only leaned back on his heel, gave him a disgusted look, and slid that knife straight down as if he were cutting through nothing but snow. As if Steven’s hands, his bones, his muscles, meant nothing.
I flinched but I didn’t look away. I wouldn’t. I needed to see this. I had to see it.
I wanted to see it.
Steven’s hands and legs fell limply to the floor, blood spreading out from his head wound and now across his shirt. His eyes stared up, unseeing, his mouth parted in a silent scream.
He would never touch me again. Steven would never touch me again. I would never shed blood for him again.
Everett jerked the knife out, the ring gone, and leaned forward, placing the blade of the knife right between Steven’s lips. He began slicing down towards the neck, the sounds filling the room, drowning out the water.
I watched until he reached up to pull his bottom jaw down and then I had to look away. My heart was thudding, my stomach fluttering, my hands shaking, but not for any rational reason.
The woman was right, I shouldn’t have watched that. I never should have looked because it caused something inside of me to stir that shouldn’t have been stirring.
The woman carefully dabbed the sides of my face with a warm cloth, trying to wipe away the blood. “It’s not deep,”
she said softly.
She shut off the water, the sound of cartilage cracking meeting my ears. “Come on, let’s go to the living room. I’ll get the first-aid kit.”
She pressed some paper towels to my hand and led me away.