9. Chapter 9
Chapter 9
Was it morning?
I hadn’t slept, but it had been hours, the bald spot on the side of my head proved many of them. I’d given into temptation.
A noise lingered near the door, a key unlocking it on the other side.
I pushed myself up, peeling my still-exposed cleavage from the floor. I wasn’t worrying about an infection because death was coming either way.
I forced a button through a small hole in my shirt, needing the extra protection, just in case it was the heart collector who was at the door. It wasn’t. It was the painted-faced men. Today, they were white, blue tears added to their cheeks for dramatics.
They looked...terrifying.
I dragged myself back to the wall, Mercer’s scrunched note still clutched tightly in my grip. I held it like a lifeline like it had some power to protect me. But the truth was, I held it because it was all I had of him.
“Where is...” I stuttered, reminding myself more of Mercer, before trailing off, fearing they would say he was dead.
“Mercer?” the perverted one said, his hungry stare locked on where my hand moved to hold my lapels closed together.
I nodded, needing to know either way, needing to know how horrible my life had become.
But I couldn’t imagine.
Because polished shoes clacked on the hard floor and in walked Mercer. More groomed than I had ever seen him, in a fancy suit to match the others, clean and pressed, like he was ready for a business meeting.
His hair was gelled, looking darker under the light. His scruffy stubble was trimmed to a five o’clock shadow. Those black shoes tapped the concrete as he carried a breakfast tray to me. Pancakes drowned in syrup and juice sat atop. The metal tray reverberated with sound as he placed it on the ground.
I reached for his hand; my sweaty palm was so different from his calm skin. It shocked me, but I didn’t let go. I just stared at our joined hands, and so did he, as if something alien held them together.
“I was worried about you.” The words were a whisper that escaped through an open door, almost unheard while he still hovered on his haunches in front of me.
He pulled away from me, and I tried to hold on, but he shrugged me off, and I lost my balance. I put my hands out to save myself before I headbutted the breakfast tray.
My back straightened, and I found him back in the doorway. A wave of his hand encouraged me to eat, but I couldn’t. My mouth was already full of all the questions I couldn’t voice. Even as it opened and closed to talk, I was as silent as him. There was no sound in the room but the ruffle of clothes as I wrapped the creased arms of my shirt around myself.
I broke the silence.
“Have you made some kind of deal with them?” Terror lingered in my tone, and swallowing it down made me feel sick as I waited for an answer.
He shook his head, his dark hair styled and unmoving, so different from his usual floppy mess. His mouth lifted into a cruel smile.
“I don’t understand?” I didn’t want to understand because none of this made sense to me.
Why was he standing with them? Dressed like them?
My eyes moved from Mercer to the others. One’s eyes met mine. They were dark, like chocolate, and sympathetic to my bleak situation. The other guy’s were as cold as this room now that the door was open, and a chill was welcomed in.
“Probably time to explain it to her,” Chocolate Eyes said. He sounded a little like how I thought Mercer might have sounded once upon a time. American, with a tiny hint of Italian loitering on his vowels.
Discomfort slumped him against the wall. His foot kicked up, pressing against the colorful notes and drawings, and it would have painted an ugly look on my face, but my eyes were back on Mercer, my ears waiting for answers.
“Can you talk? Was it all lies? Are you on their side?” My eyes didn’t lower from his face, not even to see the tormenting freedom lurking behind him. They just narrowed on him, giving my tears little room.
Mr. Cold Stare laughed, unable to control himself. Chocolate Eyes kicked away from the wall, already growing restless. The badly drawn little fox was stuck to his black shoe, and it twisted something painful inside me, feeling like an invisible knife stabbing the heart I shouldn’t have.
I didn’t say a word, letting him crush the lie Mercer had painted. I would let him crush them all, making it less painful when each one became exposed.
I lifted my head to the camera.
“You don’t need to worry about that, Feebee.” I froze at the sound of that same robotic voice that barked daily orders.
Mercer held a device in his hand, a small keyboard that could transmit messages to speakers for me to hear. In that voice. That robotic voice I hated.
“I...you?” I didn’t know what to say. “It was all lies? Please say I’m wrong!” My gut knew I wasn’t. Knew he was on their side—no, he wasn’t working with them. They were working for him. I could tell by the way they watched him for direction. Every other part of me couldn’t face that knowledge, but my gut knew. “You’re the voice.”
My shoulders slumped, and my head dropped, missing any reaction on Mercer’s face.
“But you were hurt…instead of me?”
“I was. That had to happen to help accelerate the fictive feelings you think you have for me.” The impersonal twang stabbed into my ears.
“My feelings are real,” I said, my words making Chocolate Eyes uncomfortable.
With them standing so close, I could see a resemblance lurking behind the white paint—it was the mouth, the perfect teeth.
“I thought you were an only child. Was that another lie?”
“We’re cousins,” Chocolate Eyes answered, moving closer to his cousin.
“A family of crazy people who agree with kidnap and torture?” I quipped, overtaken by a rogue feeling of anger that slipped from my control.
Mercer dismissed the outburst.
“This was all your doing?” My voice broke.
“Yes. Though they did go rogue once or twice.” He side-eyed Cold Stare with hate in his eyes, and I knew exactly what he was talking about. “You’re aware of the reason you’re here.”
I couldn’t read anything from his face as my eyes glanced between that blank expression, now that it was back on me, and his fingers rapidly moving on the tiny keyboard.
“You’re not with your girlfriend anymore because she’s dead?”
“Probably wise not to talk about his dearest Chandelle.” Cold Stare laughed.
I waited for him to drop, for the look on Mercer’s face to do what it wanted and kill him. But it didn’t. Eventually, that cruel expression moved toward me.
And in that moment, I wanted his glare to kill me. I wanted it to happen quickly. I wanted out of this room, this world.
“What I told you about Chandelle and me was true. We were attacked on vacation. Then kidnapped and separated, and she was killed.”
“And you blame me?” He couldn’t possibly. “I didn’t kill her.”
“But she is dead because of you. Because Daddy wanted a new heart for his dying little princess.”
I was grateful right now that Mercer couldn’t talk. There was enough emotion in those words without a human voice. He hated me, I could feel it, and it hurt more than anything else he could ever do to me.
“No…”
“Yes. And it’s strained my fucking heart for the last year. Be grateful you’re still alive. I killed everyone else involved with her death…well, all but one. But you being here might have already done that. You told me yourself Daddy couldn’t face losing you. Maybe the cunt has drunk himself to death. If not, he’s next on my list.” He smiled cruelly.
I said nothing, letting him continue and letting anger flare in my nostrils.
“I brought you here, broke into your home in the middle of the night, and drugged you so I could put you in a situation to fall in love with me. I wasn’t sure you would. But you played my little game well. I couldn’t have wished for a better participant.”
Participant, that was all I was to him.
“I comforted you through the trauma. I made us both live so you’d clutch at the good in me. I made us both do unpleasant things. I had these guys rough me up a little. I even fucked you, all so you’d feel something for me. And then, when you finally felt like you had a reason to live...I’d take it all away. Break your heart so you’d know how it feels.”
“You were my first.” My anger was back.
“More fool you for waiting so long. You’ve had years to give it up.”
“I hope you feel guilty for disrespecting your girlfriend by fucking the reason she’s dead.”
My cold words stabbed into his heart. He swallowed hard, definitely affected by the truth in them. And that hurt me. Cold tears fell from my jaw to the pancake I had no intention of eating.
“Eat up. You have nothing else to do now that you’ll be down here alone.”
“I thought what we had was special. Was real.” I let my eyes meet his, our stares similar in color, yet so different as they locked on each other.
“What I had with Chandelle was real. Real struggles, real arguments and disagreements. That’s a real relationship, not what—”
I cut him off, not wanting to hear the next part. “Sounds like you were in the wrong relationship. You didn’t mention the good stuff that comes with being with someone. The gentle touches, the comfort they bring, the way they hold you through a nightmare.” All the things we had experienced together.
Mercer visibly swallowed again, well aware of what I was doing.
“You don’t deserve to know every detail of our life. She is dead because of you.”
The words silenced me.
Retreating footsteps caught my attention, big boots and then squeaky shoes, both annoying me. The men slinked out the door, leaving Mercer and me alone.
I could have begged to go home...but Mercer wouldn’t listen. The voice never did. And, in truth, I didn’t have a home. I had a shiny pink room that invited a monster in from down the hall to abuse me.
This cell was no fucking worse than that.
My only choice was to stay here and starve or eat...and starving meant this shit show life would be over quicker.
The only thing I had, Mercer had taken away.
Fuck him.
Fuck the heart that he adored.
I didn’t want it beating anymore. I looked down at the breakfast tray, praying for a knife, blunt or sharp, anything with a jagged edge that could end my misery.
No knife.
I heard the windy sneer come from his nostrils, but it wasn’t until that voice talked again that my ears prickled. “Do you really think I’d give you a knife? While you’re not strong enough to fight the urge to use it. I have no intention of giving you an easy way out. You’ll live with the guilt. I fucking have to.”
I already lived with enough guilt. Something I had kept private in all our chats, and boy, was I glad I had.
“This is your life, Feebee, stolen like Chandelle’s. Get used to it.” And with that, he left me, the sound of the slamming door haunting the room.
Anger swirled in my stomach, that and the emotional pain mixing into a potion of hate for him. He had brought me here, drugged me, and could have fucking killed me with whatever he had injected me with. He had forced sexual situations on me. Broke my fucking heart.
I hated him.
I hated him so fucking much.
And I was sure I would have been fucking dandy and able to survive, if any of that were true.