by Loretta Lost
Yes, this was actually so difficult that I have begun sweating. Serena better appreciate my efforts. Drinking more water, I try to wash away the memory of having it stuck in my throat. You know when you’ve swallowed a large pill, and you can kind of feel the impression of it somewhere in your throat, and it feels like it’s still stuck there? Yes, this was worse.
But at least now I can talk!
“I’ve always loved sashimi,” I say in sexy way, using the bedsheet to dab at my bloody lips, like a napkin in a fancy restaurant. Joy giggles, although I’m not sure she even knows what that is.
“What have you done?” Benjamin asks in horror. “We need to go to the doctor right now. Maybe he can remove it and reattach—”
“For goodness’ sake, Benjamin. Let a lady digest her dinner, first. Oh, wait. Unless my dinner is something you really don’t want to see digested?”
He clamps two hands over his bloody, remaining stump. “Please,” he begs. “Have mercy. I know that I’ve hurt you, but if you just gave it back…
“Your cock is now right where it belongs. Being dissolved by my stomach acids.”
“Serenity, how could you do this to me?”
“I’m not her. My name is Snow, and the blood of my enemies is the breakfast of champions. Is it breakfast time or dinner? It’s hard to say when you’re locked in a room with no windows. Did you know that in certain cultures, when you eat the flesh of those you’ve conquered, you are said to gain their power? I think it’s one of the main tenets of cannibalism. I mean, I’m not sure if cannibalism has tenets, but if it did, that would be one of them.”
“Please,” Benjamin says as he stumbles forward. The sedative is kicking in, and he is becoming too weak to stand. “Help me. Call an ambulance.”
Pushing him back down to the bed, I use the shackles he had previously used on me, to chain him up. “Do you know how many years I’ve dreamed of doing that?” I whisper huskily into his ear. “It’s true what they say, about visualizing what you want in order to see it materialize. For so many years, I was locked away in the back of Serena’s brain, just fantasizing about hurting you exactly like this. It’s a dream come true, really.”
Laughing softly, I sit on top of him on the bed, straddling him where his penis used to be. “How does this feel, Benjamin? Knowing you will never have the ability to fuck a woman again? Knowing you’ll never hurt anyone else? But you know what, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you do have enough of a penis left to do some damage. What do you think? Let’s check it out. One last time, creepy old man.” Just to add insult to injury, I sit down on severed stump, gasping dramatically and placing my hand over my mouth. “Oh my goodness! There’s nothing there.” I rub my body back and forth on top of him, taunting him. “You couldn’t hurt a fly with this new anatomy of yours. I think it’s a huge improvement. What do you think? Should I be a surgeon? I’m really good at removing unwanted tumors.”
Benjamin groans from blood loss and the sedative, and I imagine he now feels the way I have felt for the last few days, or weeks. While he was repeatedly raping me.
Bouncing up and down on the empty space where his penis used to be, I giggle at the nothingness. “Sorry if this is a little bit emasculating,” I say with glee. “I’m just so proud of my accomplishment. I’ve never severed a man’s penis before, but I’ve also never known someone who needed the procedure quite as much as you did. To think, if someone had done this years ago, you might have been a good man.”
“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know how angry you were.”
Pausing, I grow suddenly serious. “You know, Benjamin, in a way, you are my father. You are the reason Serena needed me, the reason I was born. She needed someone to protect her from the horrors you put her through. But now, what she needs is for you to die, so that you can never hurt her again. I’m sorry, but I must do more than just castrate you.”
“No, please,” Benjamin sobs. “There’s more I need to tell you, about the baby you had in the motel room. I didn’t tell you everything. Just keep me alive, and I promise I will.”
“Sorry, but your time’s up,” I tell him, reaching for one of the broken shards of the lamp he smashed on my head earlier.
“Joy, I want you to step outside. You don’t need to see this.”
“See what, Miss Snow?”
“Joy. Outside. Now.”
She quickly follows my command, and a sadistic smile overtakes my face as I crouch down over Benjamin’s body. Stabbing the ceramic shard into his neck, I dig for the jugular and repeatedly stab at it, until I see the blood pooling around his neck. There is a gurgling sound in his throat when he tries to speak.
But I don’t stop there. I move to his chest, and repeatedly stab at his ribcage, just above his heart.
I may have let him destroy my mind, but it was only to create layers of defense. To tuck the precious parts of me away deeper, where they can’t be harmed. Everyone else who has ever hurt me, has only been able to hurt me partially, because of Benjamin. Because of that initial destruction he caused, that taught me to be an expert in emotional self-defense. I suppose I owe him my thanks.
I let them all destroy me.
I let them think that they’ve destroyed me, so they feel accomplished and give up.
I let them shatter my mind, so they will never let him shatter my heart.
But I will shatter his.
Digging a hole into his chest, I stop only when I’ve gotten deep enough to see his heart slowing down. It is still struggling to pump blood, slowly, most of it pouring out from his jugular, when I reach into his chest cavity with one hand and grasp the organ. I pull, and he gasps. He would scream, but he is so close to death that he doesn’t have the energy. He passes out, just as I begin to cut his heart out of his chest.
When I am holding his heart in my hand, I can see that it is just a muscle. Still, it is the heart that they say is filled with darkness. I cannot see it, but I wonder if I can taste it.
Using my ceramic knife, I cut a slice of his heart out, and place it in my mouth, chewing.
“Yuck!” I say suddenly, spitting it out and wiping my lips.
“They were all right. This was the actually sick part. Your penis was tasty. It was healthy flesh. But your heart is rusted and corroded. Look at this mess,” I say as I pull apart the organ with my fingernails. “What is this? Fungus? Decay? This lump of flesh has been dead for a long time, long before I pulled it out of your chest. There hasn’t been real love in it, in years. A lack of love will do worse things to your heart than high cholesterol ever could—the doctors never tell you that.”
Holding his heart in one hand, I tap my bloody fingers on my knee thoughtfully. “I should harvest your organs, somehow, to commemorate this day. Maybe I can turn them into jewelry. Oh, oh, I know! I could take your arteries and braid them into a friendship bracelet for Joy. She would just love that! As for me, I want something to wear around my neck, like a necklace. Maybe a pendant?”
“What’s good for that sort of thing? An eyeball? It’s got a good shape, and good color, like a gemstone. But it doesn’t age well. You never see anthropologists digging up eyeballs. Maybe if I sealed it in glass? I just want to be wearing this necklace until my dying day. I want to be lying on my deathbed, at age 112, and telling my great-great-great grandkids about how I killed this creepy old pedophile in my 20s, and then I want to show them the necklace containing your ‘blank’—insert item here—and I want them all to say ewwwwwwww! But also to think that their great gran is the coolest, baddest muthafucka they ever met. So what do I harvest from your rotting corpse, Old Benji? What item fills the blank space?”
“Not an ear. Not a finger. Not a rib. It can’t be too large, because fashions are always changing, and big necklaces might be in right now, but what about next year? Not a toe. I already ate your penis. Intestines are interesting. I need a doctor. Oh, I know! I have a brother who’s a doctor. I should call him and ask.” Pulling Benjamin’s phone
out of his pocket, I see that the battery is very low. I consider for only a fraction of a second all the important phone calls I might need to make, but I am too high on rage and adrenaline to care about logistics.
Using Benjamin’s fingerprint, I unlock the phone, and promptly look up Dr. Liam Larson in New York. When I find the number, I call him. He answers after one ring.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Liam!”
“Who is this?”
“This is your little sister. I just had a quick medical question. Hypothetically, if you killed someone who had been awful to you, and you wanted to harvest part of their body to make a pendant for a victory necklace, what part would that be?”
There is a pause on the other end of the line. “Are you writing a book or something? That’s the kind of question Helen would ask me…”
“No, this is serious. Seriously hypothetical. Keep in mind, I don’t have extreme craft skills, or a lot of spare time, so it needs to be fairly simple to do and low maintenance. Can you help me? I considered using tendons or guts or something, to make the strings of the necklace, but I don’t think I’d have time to figure all that out, so I’d probably just want to cheat and buy a normal gold necklace, and hang the body part off it. Hypothetically.”
He clears his throat. “I don’t know. I don’t really do Halloween.”
My eyebrows clench together in a frown. He sounds really depressed. More importantly, his responses have been useless. “Seriously, dude. Give me some inspiration. I had this idea about an eyeball in glass, but I’m not sure. Should it be a kneecap? A carpal bone? I know teeth are cute and small, and classic, like stud earrings, but they bore me. If you’re going to go with teeth, it has to be from a shark or elephant or something, amirite?”
“Um…”
“No, you’re right, not elephants. Technically tusks are elephant teeth and that would be a whole different jewelry situation, valuable ivory and whatnot, but I’m going for sentimental value, and we need to turn our focus back to human beings. What is the most wearable part of the human body that also screams Haha! I totally killed that guy, and now I’m wearing his: insert item here.”
“Wow,” Liam says. “You take Halloween really seriously. Prepping months in advance, too. Well, I might need to do some research, but off the top of my head—or the bottom of my head, rather—the C1 cervical vertebra is pretty important. It’s called the Atlas, because it holds up the whole world of our brain and skull on its shoulders. I always thought that was poetic. Anyway, it would be pretty easy to string it on a necklace. You could even add the C2 and kind of link them together.”
“Brilliant! I knew you could help me with this. Hey, I could totally just run a rope through the whole spinal cord, and wrap it around my neck like a choker. Damn, that would be sexy. I’ll be giving med students and anthropologists boners all day. Haha, get it, boners? Anyway, that would probably be too extreme, and it wouldn’t go with every outfit, so I couldn’t wear it all the time. Plus, it would take so much time to harvest and clean all of that. The things we do for art! I will probably stick with C1 and C2. Thanks, biological brother.”
“Anytime.” He pauses. “Hey, you realize this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had, right? It was a pretty weird one.”
“I thought it was appropriate. What are you supposed to discuss with biological brothers who are doctors? Biology, of course! I would save you an eyeball, but it would probably get squished in my pocket when I sit down. Next time.”
“For sure. Thanks for thinking of me.”
“Toodles!” I say, before ending the call. Then I frown at myself. “Toodles? Serena would never say toodles. I don’t think I’ve ever said toodles. Why the hell did I just say toodles?” I have a moment of careful introspection on this topic, before finding a mirror so I can gaze mournfully into the glass, and think about what I’ve become. But there isn’t much time for melodrama and inner monologuing.
I need to get to work with cutting and snapping a man’s skull off his neck, so I can make myself some souvenirs of this lovely day.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sophie Shields, 2016
When I walked out of the building where I had been held captive, holding Joy’s hand, we discovered that it was a broken-down farmhouse in a very isolated area. It is no wonder Benjamin was able to conceal me for so long. It took a bit of searching to find my suitcase and wallet—with my passport and identification intact—before making our exit. I was disappointed not to find my phone, or any phone on the premises, other than Benjamin’s phone that somehow had a dead battery.
But I didn’t have time to waste on searching—my main goal was to get the hell out of there.
I managed to take a quick shower to rinse off the blood, before leaving. I could have stayed under the therapeutic stream of hot water forever, but I just needed to get outside. To get away. I was grateful to put some real clothes on for the first time in weeks, but disappointed when I could not find the keys to Benjamin’s vehicle. The car must have had extensive upgrades, for I could not break the windows to hotwire the ignition. After struggling with it for a few minutes, my hands were starting to ache.
That’s fine. Joy and I are happy to walk.
Feeling tired, but free, the two of us have been strolling down the side of an empty gravel road. I don’t know how to describe the beauty of the sky when you’ve been trapped underground for a few days. I have no words to explain the taste of fresh air, and the feeling of fading sunlight on your skin. All these things I always took for granted are suddenly precious again.
I didn’t know how much I loved being alive, until this moment. I feel completely in wonder of everything the world has to offer. Crouching down at the sight of some bright yellow dandelions growing at the side of the road, I feel tears pricking my eyes at their unbelievable beauty.
Dandelions. You never realize how gorgeous dandelions are until you’re locked in a room where you’re probably going to be raped and tortured to death. That sort of thing really changes your perspective. People work so hard to remove the flower from their lawns, but why? Today, they are pure happiness and freedom to me. They are a delectable meal for bunny rabbits, and can be brewed to make tea. I see nothing negative about dandelions.
They are tough. Like me. You can try your best to kill them, but they will somehow survive.
Picking a single dandelion, I place it behind Joy’s ear. She giggles and reaches up to touch it with delight.
“Do I look pretty now?” she asks.
“The prettiest,” I tell her honestly, with a tired smile. I say a little prayer on the inside, for Joy. I hope she will grow up to be tough like weeds, like this dandelion, and never be delicate. I hope she will not be the kind of girl who is easily crushed when stepped on.
This world is not the kind of place for girls like that.
Taking her hand again, I set back out on the road. I have no idea how long we will need to walk, but I don’t care. My skin is soaking up every possible drop of sunshine, as the light fades. I remember another long walk, where the sun beat down on me mercilessly until I was blistered and parched like a raisin.
I couldn’t imagine that I would ever want a single sunbeam anywhere near me again, after that. But I do. I feel like all the pain has changed me. I have been reborn, and renewed. I can’t get enough sunshine. I want to chase it down to the west, so I can drink in just a few more rays.
It feels good to be alive.
Holding Joy’s hand, I walk for what feels like hours, following the setting sun. As it sinks in the sky, I feel each footstep growing heavier than the next. I know it hasn’t been that much time before my steps become zigzagged, and it takes great effort to walk in a straight line. I consider just giving up and sitting down for a few minutes, but I know I need to get Joy back to civilization.
As I remember more details of my previous hike to find Cole, I begin to lose heart. That walk took so much emotional and physical strength, and I’m simply not in
the right condition for an Arthurian quest right now. My adrenaline fades, and I begin to feel various kinds of pain throughout my body.
I suddenly remember that I’m broken.
My emotions begin to crash. I realize that I can’t walk for another five minutes, much less an hour.
Pausing, I lean forward and place my hands on my knees. The stitches of my injured thigh rest beneath one of my palms, and the injury is throbbing. Nausea churns my stomach, and I realize that I might experience some physical withdrawal from the drugs. I wish I’d had the foresight to bring some along with me to help wean me off them slowly.
“How much longer?” Joy asks. “I need to tinkle.”
“You should have gone before we left the farmhouse.”
“I wanted to,” Joy argues, “but you were rushing me.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. We just really needed to get out of there. Hopefully we’ll find a gas station, soon.”
“We better!” Joy says, clamping her legs together and walking funny. “’Cause I really gotta go.”
“Just hang on,” I tell her as I keep moving briskly. “If we don’t find somewhere soon, you can just pee behind a bush.”
“Otay. But my legs hurt from walking so much.”
“I know, Joy. Mine too.”
When a car begins driving toward me, down the gravel road, I feel anxiety begin in my chest. Should I wave it down, or head for the hills? It is dark—twilight, now. Being too tired to run, and worried about whether Joy can hold up for the long walk, I lift my hand to signal the driver. My worst fear is that he might not see us, and just continue driving past. But the car is already slowing down and coming to a stop, even at a small distance.
The windows are tinted in the dim light, so I can’t make out who he is from this far away. When I see him jump out of the car and wave excitedly, my heart skips a beat. I look at the shape of his body, his height and his build. “Cole?” I gasp out. Holding Joy’s hand, I begin moving forward quickly, almost at the pace of a run. I only slow down to a halt when I see the driver’s identity.