by LP Lovell
His body falls limp and he releases a long breath of surrender. The rattle of chains breaks the silence when Caleb drops the heavy metal on the floor beside me.
“Chain his arms and hang him up.” I point to the ceiling.
Caleb’s gaze locks on Bob as he closes the handcuff around his wrists. He unfolds the step stool, the worn metal legs scratching against the floor as he climbs up to hook the chains to the ceiling.
My gaze is fixated on Bob. “You will stay here until you realize how wrong you were.”
Bob laughs while his body is raised slightly from the ground. “You’re the one who’s wrong. You’re the one that’s fucked up.”
I can’t stop myself. My vision goes red from the amount of blood coursing through my body. I slam my fists across the bridge of his nose. Warm blood splatters over my forearm and the front of my jeans. I want to fucking kill him, but I have something else in mind right now. I stand, glaring at him, angry as hell, and have to force myself to leave.
“Come on,” I say to Caleb
On the way out of the room, I catch the glint of something on the floor. Tor’s necklace. I pick it up and continue out of the room.
“He shouldn’t have done that to her,” Caleb says.
I nod, shoving the necklace in my pocket. “We shouldn’t have done that to her. I should have let her go the second she got here,” I mumble, climbing the stairs, my chest tightening with regret and guilt.
I feel responsible for her, and in that moment, my mother and sister flash through my mind. I need a fucking line, and Tor is that line. I draw in a labored breath as we step onto the landing. “Every fucking piece of shit that put her
here will pay, I’ll see to that.”
I floor the accelerator, the momentum forcing my head against the leather headrest. I’ve had an entire day to mull over what happened, and all the anger has festered into full-on wrath.
I know Tor’s here because of Joe. That bastard never should have put an innocent woman in that situation, and I will not let him use her the way he planned. She’s mine now, and I will fucking kill him. I will torture him, then kill him in the most brutal way I can think up. He made me choose between my business, my life, and my dignity. He made me realize what kind of person I really am—he made it apparent that I’m just like him. I am exactly like the man I fucking hate. And I will fucking murder him for that.
I’m going a good fifty miles over the speed limit and coming up on traffic. I swerve around an eighteen-wheeler, my tires losing traction for a moment, and the car fishtails across the lane.
“Get the fuck outta my way!” I shout, clenching my jaw and gripping the stick shift.
I pull up to the apartment complex and park the rental car by the exit. The ground is covered in a thin layer of snow, which crunches underneath my boots as I make my way toward the apartment. The tendons in my neck tighten, and my breath grows more heated with each hard step I take. I check to make sure my gun is secured in the waist of my jeans, then stop in front of apartment 3C.Tapping my fingers over the door, I wait.
Nothing.
I pound my fist over the door, but not too hard. I don’t want to give away that the person on this side of the door is ready to fucking kill someone.
I hear movement inside and pull the mask down over my face as I move out of the peephole’s view.
Footsteps stop right on the other side of the door, and I hear him breathing nervously.
“Your uncle sent me. There’s been a problem.”
He clears his throat but doesn’t say anything.
“Come on, Euan.”
Silence.
“They killed her. She’s dead, and now they’re after you. We’ve gotta get you to a safe place. Joe sent me to get you.”
There’s a loud sigh and then the knob turns. The door barely cracks, then I shove my way in, grabbing the dumb bastard by his throat and knocking him to the ground.
“You fucking worthless little shit,” I hiss.
His eyes widen, pupils dilate, and his skin washes white.
“Who the fuck do you think you’re messing with, huh?” I roar as I tighten my grip on his neck, squeezing so hard I can feel the delicate bones crush underneath my fingertips. He chokes. His arms flail. His fingers dig into my hands, trying to pry them away from his throat. He’s so small compared to me, barely what I would call a man.
“Ah, ah, ah.” I shake my head. “You calm the fuck down right now, or I’ll just go ahead and end your pathetic life right here.”
His eyes widen more and he struggles beneath me, managing to nod his head. When I loosen my hold, he pulls in a desperate breath.
“You answer every last question I ask you, or I will kill you fucking slowly. Understand?”
He frantically nods again.
Out of all the questions I can ask him, out of all the information I could actually use to my advantage, the only thing I want to ask him is why he gave her away.
“Why?” I swallow and try to regulate my breathing. “Why did you hand her over?” The thought of it and of everything that ensued once she arrived at my house flips through my mind. An angry heat consumes me. Leaning over his face, I shout at him, “Why would you do that to her?”
Euan closes his eyes. Like that can make any of this go away. “Did they really kill her?” he chokes out.
My fingers claw into his throat again. “What the fuck do you think? You handed her over to low-lifes. She’s gone.”
I watch tears trickle down his face, and I can’t help but to jerk his head up and smash it onto the floor. “Don’t fucking cry, you worthless shit. It’s your fault.” I slam his head into the floor again and he whimpers. “You’re a murderer, Euan,” I hiss.
I pull the gun from my pants, and push the barrel against his temple. My hand shakes from anger. “I should blow your fucking brains all over the place just for that. For crying like a little bitch about something you did.”
He’s still crying.
“Get up!” I twist the tip of the gun against his head as I stand, leaning over to drag him to his feet. “Get”—I yank him once more—“up!”
I move the gun to the back of his skull and watch the end of it disappear in his hair. I shove him toward the kitchen. “Face the corner.” Using the gun, I push him against the wall. “Put both your hands behind your back, cross them over one another.”
He doesn’t move.
“Do it now!” The command echoes from the cabinets.
His arms come behind him, noticeably trembling as he crosses them as instructed. He’s not even fighting me. He’s this pathetic that he won’t even fight for his life.
I place my face close to the back of his neck and growl, “You move, and I swear to God, I will make you suffer.” I exhale and wet my lips with my tongue. “I want to know every last person that works with your uncle.”
“Uh, um, I...I don’t know them.”
“Okay,” I nod and grab onto his scrawny bicep, burying my fingers into his flesh. “You sure about that?”
“I don’t,” he whines. The fear must really be setting in now.
Holding onto his arm, I slam my entire body weight into him, pushing against his shoulder until I hear a crack. Euan screeches as his shoulder pops from its socket.
I glance around the kitchen, my eyes honing in on the large chef knife. I snatch it from the counter, wielding it in the air. “Maybe I should do to you what they did to her?”
He won’t open his eyes. He’s just repeating please over and over again, still crying like a pathetic little bitch. “You want me to show you what they did to that pretty little girlfriend of yours?” I take the knife and lay it over his t-shirt, pressing it through the material until I see bright red stain the fabric. I slowly carve ‘P’ into his chest. He’s screaming, shrieking, trying to jerk away from me. “Shut up!”
Next I cut a ‘U’.
Between yells he shouts, “Dan—Daniel.”
“Not good enough,” I say, and focu
s on the letters I’m slicing over his chest. Blood stains his shirt, dripping from the tattered pieces. I watch some of it splatter onto the toe of my boot before I finish carving the ‘Y.’ I lean in and point the knife under his chin. “That’s what you are, a pussy,” I whisper into his ear.
“Daniel. Daniel Capes,” he shouts.
“Oh, so you do know?”
“Yes. Daniel's his hit man. And then there’s Fisher, I don’t know his first name, but he’s a cop, and the only other one I know of is Simon DeLucas.”
“So,” I say as I lock my eyes with his and feel a coldness creep through me, “why did you give Tor up?”
His brow scrunches. He doesn’t know who Tor is.
“Victoria, you dumb-fuck. Why would you do that?”
His face crumples and he shakes his head. “Joe said he’d kill her if I didn’t.”
Hanging my head, I mutter, “She was dead no matter what you did.” I look up at him. “You didn’t even try to save her.”
“Did she suffer?” he asks. I have to shut my eyes at that question.
“What the fuck do you think?” I ask as I wipe the bloody knife over my jeans.
His eyes slam shut and tears pour down his face. “I loved her.”
That comment enrages me. He loved her yet he gave her up, he bowed to the wishes of his uncle?
I grit my teeth. “How hard did you beg for her?”
He opens his eyes, regret swimming in them as he stares at me. He didn’t beg for her. He didn’t fight for her. He is a coward. A selfish pussy.
I shake him. “How hard did you beg for her?” I scream at him. I’m frantic. My pulse is hammering through my temples, my forehead is dotted with sweat. I feel damn near insane.
His gaze drops to the floor, and my hold on him tightens. “Let’s see how hard you beg for your life, and you tell me if you begged for hers like that, you little shit!”
“Please,” he pleads pathetically.
I smile, chuckling as I grab his hand. Taking a single finger, I snap it backward, my grin deepening when the bone cracks and he screams in agony. I take the next finger and slowly bend it, waiting for the bone to splinter. “Please!” he yells.
“You consider that begging?” I growl, forcing two more fingers back toward his knuckles. “Pathetic!”
I trail the knife over his throat and he sobs, his lips quivering. I’ve never wanted to make someone suffer as much as I do him at this very moment. I place the blade behind his ear, pressing on it with my thumb. I bite down on my lip then jerk the knife forward. Euan howls in pain as the knife slices his ear off. He doubles over. Blood pours down the side of his face and over his neck. I step back, pacing in front of him. He’s still screaming and sobbing, pressing his un-maimed hand against the gory stub that was his ear. The louder he wails, the more my blood boils.
“Please. I’ll do anything,” he pants, “anything, just please, don’t kill me.”
“Stand up.”
He remains bent forward, the blood continuing to flow.
“Stand the fuck up!”
He slowly manages to pull himself upright, and as soon as he does, I punch him in the gut as hard as I can. His back slams against the wall, and he groans as he plummets to the floor. I kick him over and over: in the stomach, the shins, his balls, his face. Visions of my mother and sister flash through my mind, the house burned to the ground and smoldering, Joe’s wife pleading for her life. I swear, there’s a moment of externalism. It’s like I jump out of my own damn body. I smash my fist over his face, grab his head and slam it against the floor. And now, all I can see in my mind is Tor bloodied and crying. The thought of that makes me beat him harder All I can hear is my pulse in my ears, the labored breaths my lungs force out, and the weak wails of Euan as I take all my aggression out on him. When I know he must think he’s close to death, I walk to the side of the room, folding my arms as I lean against the wall. “Go!” I growl.
He moans and attempts to roll onto his hands and knees. With each small movement, loud sobs rack his body. There is most likely not a single bone in him that hasn’t been cracked, broken, or smashed.
“I said, go!”
He can’t support himself. Every time he tries to pull up, he collapses to the floor in a pathetic heap. I watch as he uses his elbows to drag his useless body across the floor toward the door. A trail of cardinal red blood smears the floor behind him. When he gets about a foot from the entrance, I push off the wall, and he freezes. With each loud step I take, his breathing grows more labored. I squat next to him and fist his hair, yanking his head back. “Changed my mind,” I whisper as I flip him over.
I straddle his chest, the blood quickly soaking through my jeans as I pin his shoulders down with my knees. Forcing his jaw open, I manage to grab his tongue and use the sharp knife to saw through the thick muscle. He screams hysterically as he jerks his head from side to side.
“Stay the fuck still,” I say, and put the blade back to the mangled piece of flesh, finally severing it. The scream he lets out is guttural and riddled with pain, but even that’s not enough to satisfy me.
“I want you to lie here in agony. I want you to feel the fucking blood drain out of your pathetic body. I’m gonna let you drown in your own fucking blood, and I’m gonna watch you fucking suffer.”
I force his mouth open, blood spilling from its corners, and cram his tongue far back into his throat. He gags. His mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water, and I just lean against the door to watch him struggle. “This is what you fucking deserve,” I growl. He fights the inevitable for a few more seconds and then falls still.
I step over him and put my hand on the doorknob. I hear him gurgle from the blood pooling in his throat, and I twist the knob. “You were wrong,” I say as I slam the door closed behind me.
Even in the darkest situations, I like to think that you can find a glimmer of light.
I can’t.
Not this time.
There are some things that can break a person, break them to the point of wishing for death with every fibre of their being.
I’ve never understood how anyone can get to the point of contemplating suicide. Turns out that point comes pretty bloody quickly when you’re faced with the possibility of something so horrific you would do anything at all to escape it.
I can take pain. I can take fear. I can take a lot. I can’t comprehend being raped, violated, degraded. I would rather die.
Every time I close my eyes I see Bob’s face, feel his hands crawling over my body, the knife biting into my skin. Whenever I fall asleep I wake up screaming and crying. Each sound, each click of that lock makes me jump. I never thought I would be this person. They made me this person.
Never in my life have I felt so utterly alone, so betrayed, so hurt. I have nothing to live for, because even though I survived this time, he will kill me eventually. He has to. I know it, and so does he. He may have found some trace of a soul this time, but he’s a ticking bomb just waiting to go off. I’m living on borrowed time and I’m never getting out of this.
I slide out of the bed. My legs shake beneath my weight as I make my way to the bathroom and close the door behind me. I turn on the shower, twisting the knobs to the hottest they’ll go before I turn to the vanity and carefully pull my t-shirt over my head. The material brushes against the stitches, making me hiss in pain.
It takes me a few minutes to muster the courage to look in the mirror, and when I do, I wish I hadn’t. I don’t recognise the girl looking back at me. I have to pretend that reflection is someone else, some stranger I don’t know, because this girl is broken and unsalvageable in every way. She’s skinny and frail, her skin sallow. Her skin is a map of bruises and cuts. An ugly red line runs from her chest to her stomach, matching the stitched five-inch long cut across her throat. Her lip is split and face bruised. The part that scares me the most, though, are her eyes, they’re completely lifeless. She looks so sad, so desolate.
Victoria Devaux died
three days ago when a man tried to violate and torture her, and she willingly slit her own throat, praying for death. She did that because she was strong, because she was a fighter who took control of her own fate.
The girl I’m staring at is not strong. I’m nothing anymore.
I step away from the mirror until I feel the cold, tiled wall against my back. Sliding to the floor, I hug my knees to my chest. The dry wound on my stomach crinkles, and I flinch from the sudden pain, but I don’t cry.
I’m past crying.
I’ve accepted my fate in this hell.
I don’t know how long I stay like this; it may be minutes, it may be hours. All I can hear is the sound of the shower running, the water splashing against the floor as the bathroom fills with steam. It’s hard to accept that my life has been stolen from me, and that even if I could be handed freedom, at this point, I wouldn’t want it. I’ve nothing left.
Eventually there’s a soft knock on the door. I don’t move. I just keep staring at a spot on the wall across from me.
My stomach clenches at the sound of his voice, and my nails dig into my shins. I taste bile rise up my throat.
I remember too late that I didn’t lock the door. The door cracks, and I hear his heavy boots move across the floor.
He comes in and rummage through the drawers, mumbling to himself. “Are you okay?” he asks, then I hear him stop beside me, and I look down to see his brown boots with what I assume is dried blood on the toe. I don’t answer him. I don’t want to talk to him. I have nothing to say. All has been well and truly said and done. Some things are just beyond words.
I feel him looming over me and then he crouches down in front of me. He gently lifts my chin and examines the wound on my neck.
I look straight at him. A frown etches between his eyebrows as he studies my face. I blankly hold his gaze for a few seconds before pulling my chin out of his grasp.
I get to my feet slowly, and turn to face him. I stand in front of him completely naked and watch as his eyes skate over the long cut down the centre of my body. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back before dragging his hands through his hair. It’s then that I notice the blood covering his shirt, evidence of his last victim. The monster in all his glory. I can’t even find it within myself to be scared. I’m not scared of him. I don’t fucking care anymore.