Page 31 of Bloody Quarter

“Your mother is a cunt and never gave a fuck what happened to you, but I do. Don’t call me your mother again, or you will taste my brand of punishment.” She swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet house. Fuck, I loved the blue of her eyes, they were like looking into two cold blue pools, and yet they somehow warmed me. She nodded, and the flash of rage settled.

“It was you, wasn’t it,” she asked as I let go of her face.

“If you mean was it me that killed the man fucking your mother, then yes, I killed Dave.”

She closed her eyes, and her head rocked from side to side. “Why?”

“He turned around. He shouldn’t have turned around,” I said, hitting the power on the old entertainment center. The player fired up, and I picked up the mix CD that I’d found in Alora’s box labeled A&E’s Favs.

“I don’t know what that means.”

I shrugged as I dropped the CD in the player, snapping the cover shut. “It means that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he needed to die.”

“I’m assuming you’re telling me this because you never plan on letting me go?”

Picking up the remote, I hit shuffle, and the first song began to play. Walking over to Alora, I stared down at her and loved how her blue hair looked wild as it splayed out around her head and the contrast of it against the deep honey-colored wood.

“Correct, but to be fair, I never let anyone go once I have them. Don’t worry. When I’m done with you, you’ll either beg me to stay or you’ll be dead. Either way is a win. Isn’t it?” I held up the CD case to show her, and her eyes shimmered with tears. “This is why Dave died. I was looking for clues as to who you are, Alora. What does my doll like? What makes her tick? What was she like before the accident that brutally killed her sister?”

She turned her head away from me, the tears falling from her eyes and slipping down her cheeks.

“Please just let me go. If begging is what you want, I will beg you to let me leave,” she said, her voice breathy with fear. But I wasn’t sure if it was fear of me or what she felt.

“Where would you go, Doll? You have no home, no family, no friends, no reason to go on. I’m all you have. So…tell me, where would you go?” She didn’t answer. Her bottom lip trembled as I ran my hand up her arm and felt her shudder, but her nipples hardened. “No, you don’t want to leave. You were ready to kill yourself, and what I’m offering you is a chance to have a whole new life and a reason to live again.”

“I just want to die. Please…please kill me.”

I sighed before leaning down and licking the droplets of salty tears from her cheeks. “I already told you no. Now stop asking. The first thing you’re going to learn about me is that I don’t like to repeat myself. So don’t ask again. It wastes time and breath.” Cupping her face, I rubbed my thumb over her soft skin. “Fuck, you’re beautiful. The brightest star picked from the sky and dropped here on earth for me. It’s no wonder you don’t fit in. The rest of this world can never understand you.”

“But you do,” she asked, voice soft and willowy.

“I do. Now rest up. You’ll feel better once you get some food, and I get the rest of the poison out of your stomach.”

“The poison in my stomach isn’t the problem. It’s the stuff running through my veins,” she said.

“We’ll see.” Picking up a blanket, I laid it over her body to keep her warm. Holding up the remote, she looked at it and then my face. I made a show of putting it down just out of her reach. “Let’s start with facing your past.” Grabbing the sleep mask, I pulled it down over her eyes.

“No, please turn it off.” I turned it up and walked out of the room. “Please! Please!” Fuck I loved that word on her lips. Now I just needed her to say please fuck me. It would come, it would take time, but she would hand herself over, or I’d slit her throat.

Picking up the ham and cheese sandwich I’d made while Alora was passed out, I sat down and took a bite as she screamed from the other room for me to shut off the music. Now, this was life.

Alora

What day of the week was it? Who knew anymore? I couldn’t even confirm how many days I’d been at Greyson’s house or his family’s house, as he kept calling it. To me, it was just another prison. Every part of my body was sore from laying on a hard surface for so long, and my brain had gone into the same protection mode it had when I was locked up. The first couple of days had been the worst. After that, it was rinse and repeat. If I thought about the fact that I was being held captive by a serial killer, then I would lose my mind. It was far safer to believe I just had an over-the-top boyfriend, and we were out for a fucked-up date night.

I couldn’t figure out what his end game was. Greyson kept me strapped to the table, playing my old songs or showing me slides of my past that I’d long been trying to forget. He poked me and my mind with a million questions or yanked on the strings of my heart as he analyzed everything. He called them therapy sessions. I called them mental manipulation. But it didn’t stop it from feeling like he was reaching into my chest and ripping out my heart.

You’d think that tying me naked on a table or being led around with a collar on or forced to shower as he watched like a fucking creeper would be the most disturbing things he could do to me. But I was wrong. He’d found ways to make me feel more exposed and stripped bare than any lack of clothing could do, and I had an awful sinking feeling that this was only the beginning. Like round one in a game, I hadn’t figured out how to play.

I kept thinking that someone would come and save me, that there had to be at least one person looking for me, but who was I kidding? All of the belongings I had in the world were in one pack, which I didn’t remember dropping. Greyson found it, and it was now in his possession. Miss Harper was selling her diner to the man who captured me. I’d already quit Molisano’s Artesian and the shelter didn’t look for anyone. No one would give a shit what happened, or even if they did, they wouldn’t look. I was nothing more than a ghost coated in flesh.

I glanced over at him in the truck and wondered where the hell we were going. He’d clothed me, ordering me to behave, or he’d find all the people I cared about. It wasn’t one of those yelling, idle threats you saw in movies. No, he whispered it in my ear and told me to be a good girl, or Rex would lose his eyes, Miss Harper her tongue, and anyone else I cared for would meet a gruesome end. I believed him. There was absolutely nothing about Greyson that screamed he was lying. In fact, what worried me more was how he managed to say so much more with just a look. I could see the edge of mania in his eyes that spoke volumes of the depraved things that frolicked in his mind. The worst part was that he knew me well enough to know that I’d sacrifice my body or life and put my neck on the guillotine for him to leave those I cared about alone.

“Where are we going,” I asked as we entered the city.

“My bar,” he said, his voice as light and blasé as if he’d said we were going out on a date.

“Are you going to unhook me? This looks kinda strange,” I said, pulling on the handcuffs that he’d secured to the holy shit handle attached to the ceiling of his truck.