by Poppet
“Polina, I told you not to go outside, so you wait until I'm not here to do it. Do you ever get tired of defying me?” Naked now he perches a fist either side of my waist to glare down at me, his body so tense he's all muscle and veins. “Do you ever get exhausted trying my patience?”
“I'm sorry, it wasn't rebellion. I get claustrophobic sometimes. I'm sorry. Please Mikah, please forgive me. I'll never do it agai–”
The glint of the switchblade catches my breath, along with the hand clamped over my throat, squeezing so hard my head grows thick and punishing, the pressure building when he traces my eye with tempered steel.
My blade! My protection! It's now my persecutor.
The last time he rimmed my eye with sharp steel he nearly killed me, the time before that Oleg raped me, and the tenuous grasp on reality slips and shatters.
“P-please Mikah, oh god, pleeeease …” I murmur in ghostly nothingness. The finger puppet grows limp, escaping her hell, only fighting when she becomes possessed with the evil Mikah and Olega put in her.
Slapping, wriggling and kicking, I feel the first slice into my skin, crashing in a tumble to the floor with his weight on top of me, ducking my head when he punches, flailing and shrieking for my life.
“Mikah please! Jesus! Stop, I will do whatever you say! GOD! PLEASE!”
The world hazes and I become adrenaline, instinct, panic, alarm, savage. I scream like a witch burning, I slap and scratch and punch and kick and freak the hell out, my efforts earning me pains and bruises, his momentum powerful, his contact brutal, the knife nicking and slicing and shredding, the fight a wrestle for dominance.
“Pleeeeease! Pleeeease! Meeeeeekah!”
I don't want to break again!
Crawling to the bed I pitch sideways when his knuckles connect with my temple, the rage-haze fading into the eternal fog.
It's warm here.
Death is warm.
The birds tweet when I open my eyes, listening to the beating of my own heart, staring up at the dawn light burning through the seam between the curtains.
An ungodly crunch hinges me upright, alarm cascading back into my blood while I try to identify what the noise is. That's when I look around the bedroom, at the massacre, at the linen splattered in blood, the walls painted with it, and I immediately tremble, feeling for wounds and damage, finding so many abrasions and cuts that I look like I was woven together.
“Get out here you fucking cunt!” bellows to me.
The din erupts and the sound of violence sprints down the passage toward the bedroom and I don't stay to meet the grim reaper, I pounce into action, smearing my blood covered hands all over the bedroom window in a silent scream to Victor for help, getting the window on the left open, climbing through it, and running for my life into the park.
I'm naked, I'm baptized in blood, and I'm screaming for a savior.
“We're going to beat the devil out of you, whore! Stop running, you're just making it worse!” hollers at me.
Glancing behind me I see Ivan and Misha closely followed by Gavril, Pasha, and Bogdan. They're charging after me, yelling for me to stop in Russian, but I keep screaming, plummeting through brambles and bushes, tripping and slamming my head into an oak.
“Na kaleni, suka!” snarls at me. (On your knees, bitch.)
The rough grip of Misha's hands clamps my calm and I wriggle and struggle while shrieking for Victor. Held tight and off my feet it's Bogdan's meaty fist that slams into my face, and I slump in my captor's arms. His words fade with the fog in my ears. “Suka poshel nakhuy uyebok!” (Fuck you bitch motherfucker!)
Oblivion is mercy.
Opening my eyes I see a man standing over me, and a quick recon takes in the tiny cell I'm secured within.
“Polina, I am James. I am here to take your confession.”
Looking at the stranger I pull myself into a sit, sagging against the decaying wall which is frigid against my naked skin, noticing the five faces waiting at the doorway. The bratva block escape, a living barrier of muscle.
“Where's Mikah?” I ask Misha.
James vises his hand to my wrist, squeezing so hard I yelp. “Polina, confess.”
“Confess what?” I whimper, confused by this.
I'm Mikah's woman, why am I here? Why did they chase me when he's the one who hurt me? Is he so angry now he's afraid he'll kill me for real this time?
“Confess your sins!” demands James.
“Where am I?” I ask, looking to the ucheniki gathered at the doorway. “Where's Mikah?”
“This is the Satanarium, now known as the Sinnergog,” answers James, staring at my nipples like he's picturing himself cutting them off.
“What is the Sinnergog?” I whisper, dread creeping into my skin.
“This is a sanitarium for the demonically possessed. Here I will deliver you from evil,” smiles James. It doesn't reach his eyes.
A cold ripple skitters my spine and I acknowledge I am in mortal danger here. “I have no sins to confess, Father James. I–”
His slap is so forceful my teeth thrum.
“Confess!” he bellows so loud the hallways beyond echo with it.
“Forgive me, but I don't remember. My mind is blank. Please, let me see Mikah, he'll explain–”
This time he hits me so hard I go flying off the cot onto the floor, my ears singing, my vision blurred when I reach a shaking hand up to the bratva, mewling, “Please, t-tell him.”
Misha spits on me, turning and walking away, but Ivan stays, looking down at me with his satanic black eyes. “You're not leaving here until the devil is exorcised from you, Polina. You'll die here if you don't give up your addiction to evil.”
The blood drying on my body itches like newly formed scabs and I scratch compulsively at my arms and legs. “Mikah!” I scream, hoping he'll hear me and come get me.
Desperate I look to Pasha, beseeching him, “I'm not allowed outside. Please, I must go back or Mikah will be angry! Please!”
James bends over me, showing me the switchblade Victor gave me. “Where did you get this, Polina?”
“I –” Shit, I can't tell him or they'll know Victor's not dead. “I don't remember.”
He kicks me repeatedly, shunting me across the dirty floor, raking filth across my bloodied skin until my head connects with the wall. “The truth! Confess!”
But I don't know the truth. I don't know what they want to hear because I'm not the one who did evil, it was Mikah. I can't say ask him, hit him, discipline him, because they think they're perfect.
All I am, all I ever was, was owned.
~ Chapter 21 ~
And sorrow, like a sharp sword,
will break your own heart
~ Luke 2:35
Polina:
I have been here for weeks, at least that's how it feels. When they beat you unconscious so often it's hard to reckon days.
Misha comes to my cell door again, sliding the metal bar open to look through at me with his glistening green eyes. “Have you confessed yet?”
“I wish I could, Misha. I would do anything to go home. Doesn't Mikah miss me? Just a little bit?”
“Shut your filthy hole! Don't you ever say his name you despicable slut!”
His hatred is so visceral that I shrink back and wring my arms around my legs, clutching them to my chest, afraid and cold and hungry.
“Show her,” says the deep voice of Ivan.
Show me what?
The door clangs open and they walk in, all five of them, snaring me by the arms and legs and bodily carrying me out, down a hall, up industrial metal stairs, and dumping me on a black leather couch in front of a television screen.
Father James sits at the desk against the wall, watching me like I'm about to dance on the ceiling while screaming 'praise be to satan'. He stares like my very presence sullies his pure soul.
Ivan inserts a flashdrive into the TV thingy, then turns to face me, folding massive arms over his chest, scowling.
Ignori
ng him I watch the camera surveillance from the bedroom, the shivers wracking my body at the trauma unfolding, watching Mikah beat me. I fight so hard that I'm proud of me, staring at the carpet burns when he yanks me back toward him, slamming his fist in the back of my head, slapping me over and over until I'm dizzy and rolling, shrieking for mercy, but he's deaf to my pain and panic.
Bogdan sits with me, one hand gripping both my wrists, restraining me, watching me while I stare at the screen. Leaning closer he hisses in my ear, “Now we know why Oleg wanted rid of you, why he said you were bad for business.”
Ignoring the asshole I swallow the thick mucous blocking my airway, quaking with reborn trauma, convulsing with it when the incomprehensible unfolds.
I crawl on capsizing arms to the bed, passing out, but Mikah beats me back to awareness. The look in my eyes is alien, it's dark and blank and desperate. Slithering my hand under the sheet, extracting the blade, Mikah rips me into a stand by my hair, winding up to smash me across the room with his brutal fist. With a shriek of despair I fall at Mikah, his instinct to catch me, and with the momentum I bury the blade in his neck.
Yanking it out it spurts so far with a stream of blood. I stab over and over, all over his face, in his eyes, his lips, his cheek, until he falls and I slide with him, splicing his naked body open, the skirmish blasting fast pumping blood all over the bedroom. Then like a madwoman I climb into bed and submit to unconsciousness. Like I crawled in there to die, and did!
Ivan fast forwards to where I wake and run, Mikah's body shielded from view on his side of the bed.
Dead.
Oh my god!
He's dead!
I killed him!
No! It's not possible. I didn't! I couldn't!
I was – it was the evil Mikah put in me!
Father James stands between me and the TV. “Ready to confess your sins now, Polina?”
“I – I …” I shiver so severely, the shock and duress clattering my teeth, silent tears ribboning my cheeks. “I blocked it out.”
Misha curls over me, bracing his hands on the padding of the couch either side of my head, snarling, “Like you blocked out the day you killed Oleg's best friend? And the time you murdered Foma's brother? Dirty angels don't get more filthy than you, Polina.”
Shaking my head in denial, I scream, “I didn't! They hurt me! I didn't! I'm the victim here! Me!”
Bogdan grips my wrists tighter, and my bones scream when I spy Misha pulling the nagyka whip out of the belt loops under his shirt. “We did our homework, but it was too little too late. You're psycho, Polina.”
“Noooo! Please noooo! I did nothing wrong! I didn't!”
When Ivan grabs me, hoisting me over his shoulder, carrying me down to a room full of medieval torture devices, and I look at the trailing queue of bratva donning gloves and masks, I shriek for the only man who can redeem me.
“Victor! Vengeance! Save me!”
Oh God, pleeeeease!
Save me from your sons.
Ivan drops me and Misha snares my hair, hissing in my face when he bows over my supine form, “Victor's dead. He can't hear you. Just like Mikah.”
Then he connects his knuckles with my nose, the crunch audible, the heat exploding, the agony ethereal, and I slump at his feet.
It's mercy, because that was just the beginning.
Now I live with one hope.
Victor.
THE END
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states that, worldwide, there are between 12 million and 27 million trafficking victims.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) states, “Each year, as many as 100,000 - 300,000 American children are at risk of being trafficked for commercial sex in the United States.”
During the past decade, the State Department estimated 14,500 to 17,500 people are trafficked into the U.S. each year (TIP Report 2004) and the Justice Department estimated 293,000 minors in the U.S. were at risk of commercial sexual exploitation
(U.S. Attorneys’ Bulletin, 2004).
by
Poppet
A Darkroom Saga Novel
#6
Copyright © 2016/2017 Poppet
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters, and incidents, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales, or any other entity, is entirely coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Cover by Southern Stiles Design
This novel is dedicated to all of you who walk wounded in this world because of religion.
This is THEN
1964
~ Chapter 1 ~
I believe the only way to reform people is to kill them
~ Carl Panzram
“CHRIST!” HE HISSES. The heat of urine warms my jeans, the darkness pressing on my face so close I can’t breathe.
Amy shrieks, and my shaking becomes spastic.
The noises fuel my trauma, the screams, the suffering; soon he will come for me. Opening my mouth I suck in huge lungfuls of blistering black air, clutching to the shelf in the linen closet, forcing myself tighter to the floor, dizzy with terror.
The thumping in my chest aches with every palpitation, my lungs burn, my temples throb. I shuck in air yet still can’t inhale.
My shadow is a silhouette, my bony fingers pressed hard to the seam under the door, rattling with the tremors, reaching for the light, the piss staining my jeans the only warmth I’ve found in hell.
I am Christ. He evokes my name every time he beats her.
Why is my name synonymous with pain?
Christopher – Adam – Ward.
The psychosis blankets my sight and presses suffocation flush to my nose, too heavy, too thick, too black. Lights polkadot across the abyss, my rigid fingers forgetting to rattle the numb-knock from the inside of the door. She suffers.
I suffer too.
She screams. My soul is flogged, tattered and hollow. It destroys me to listen to her screaming like that.
Make it stop!
~ Chapter 2 ~
after too long in the dark
light is too bright
THE DOOR WHIPS wide and he towers in the opening, vitriol painting his expression in shades of disgust, glaring down on me saturated in my own emissions, my skin clammy with the fever of a horror-sweat.
I take him in like a messiah, in a glance, in my periphery, noting it all without moving a muscle, suppressing my nervous twitch now that the persecutor looms large. My focus is frozen on his baleful stare yet noting the blood on his hands. His powerful presence presses into my aura, diminishing me, depleting me.
“Did you piss yourself again, boy?”
My guilt is obvious. The stink of fear and urine are imbedded in me. I try to answer, but I’m hyperventilating again.
Like a swamp creature with failing gills the only noises I emit are the futile gasps, grasping for air which never comes. My shoulders heave, my chest incinerating, consciousness swimming in and out. He dims, etches sharp, blurs, fades, the bare bulb hanging in the passage flickering with my failing awareness.
I can’t run, I can’t move, I’m stuck here because my body fails me when the tears are held in too long, when the screams scythe through my heart, when the pleading poke holes in the delicate membranes of my ears.
“I’ll make a man of you! Christ almighty!” he spits,
bending over me.
Lifting my hands to ward off his fist, it only takes one punch to send me back to oblivion.
~ Chapter 3 ~
A man may be alive in the morning
but die unnoticed before evening comes
~ Job 4:20
Christopher.
.
Christopher!
.
Christ! Wake up! He’s coming!
Hingeing upright, my heart hammering, my pulse speeds as the footsteps on the bare floorboards get louder. The shadow of two boots are silhouetted under the draughty gap of my door when the footfalls falter. The left floorboard creaks. Shrieking, the wood objecting to his weight, I discern his obstructed airflow now that I’m holding my breath to listen. He’s always been a heavy breather, like his nose is so stuffed with hair he can’t suck in enough oxygen. It’s all I can hear when forced to watch TV in the same room as him.
I gave up going to movies with him because every time he inhales I want to take a screwdriver and stab him in the eye, piercing his brain just to get him to shut the fuck up. I hate the way he breathes. He gives me the involuntary reflex of claustrophobia and asthma, inhaling until my lungs burn, as if I can lessen his asphyxiation if I breathe for the both of us. Just hearing his retarded respiration gives me the sympathetic response of shortness of breath.
Sitting next to him in a darkened cinema is torture, like being held under mud until I’m dizzy and needing to block my ears just to quell the panic his congestion incites. The revolting hair spiking out his nostrils makes me feel dirty every time I see it, it’s like his pubes are sprouting out his nose and he has no shame, he lets it all hang out like the old hags do at the beach. All pot bellied, floral one piece, with dark mustaches protruding out either side of the crotch, unmissable against those withered white legs.