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My eyes flickered to the other two men. One paced the area between the living room and the office, letting out a frustrated sigh here and there. He was stronger than the rest, muscular, almost like a fighter, and given the squid tattoo on his finger, he was the one who pulled Mother away from me. The last man stood hunched over with folded hands by the fireplace, his gaze darting around the room like this was the last place he wanted to be at the moment. He was leaning heavily on one foot, almost like he was hurting or something.
Minutes later, Mother ran out of the office, clutching a plain gray laptop to her chest. “Here, this has everything you need.” Her trembling fingers pushed it toward the man by the window. Her gaze kept jumping between Ariel and me, her face furrowed in fear, her eyes flickering with helplessness. In all my years, I’d never seen Mother like that.
The man by the window took a slow drag of his cigar before lifting his eyes to Mother and did a once-over, ever so slowly, like he had all the time in the world.
“Check this.” He extended the laptop to the side without breaking his eyes from Mother, who met his stare head-on without blinking, but her entire body quivered like a dry leaf on a windy day. The man from the fireplace stumbled toward the laptop, his movements forced and heavier, as if he used his right foot more than his left. Like he was born with a defect that made him walk that way.
After a few minutes of fiddling with the laptop, he announced, “Looks good, boss, we got everything.”
“You have everything now. Leave us, leave my girls alone,” Mother pleaded. From the rays of moonlight spilling from the windows, I caught her blues, pooled with unshed tears.
A slow smirk crept onto his lips. “I’m not leaving without having some fun.” His eyes turned to the other men in the room. “What do you say, boys?”
“No, no, no.” My mother shook her head violently, and in the next instant, she threw herself over him, rapidly punching his face. “You monster, you fucking monster, you promised you would let us go.”
It lasted for a second before the man with the squid tattoo clamped his arms around her and forcibly pulled her away while she fought in his hold.
A thin line of blood streaked from the corner of the window man’s lips, and that only made his smirk deepen. “The pretty one.” He pointed a finger at me, not even caring to wipe away the blood. “Bring her to me.”
His face was a blank mask. There was nothing in his eyes. They were too dark and vacant. Like two pits of the darkest place in hell.
Nothing about this man suggested he was human. There wasn’t a sinister gleam like the man with the chopped fingers, there wasn’t a hesitation like the man with a limp, there wasn’t the impatience like the man with the squid tattoo, and there certainly wasn’t aggression like the man who spoke funny.
This man was different. There weren’t any emotions in him.
His eyes shone with pure evil.
This man was pure evil.
He inched closer to me, and my feet took an automatic step back, but the man who spoke funny held a tight grip around my ribs.
“Give her to me,” he said, and the man who held me pushed me to him. A gasp left my lips when my head landed with an abrupt thud on his chest, and I was trapped in his sickly hold.
Mother’s wails were just a blur in the background. I could only hear the thunder in my heart as two smoke-caked fingers curled around my chin, lifting my head to see the evil eyes that loomed merely a centimeter away from me.
He was close. Too close for a man his age to be to a girl my age.
“Don’t kiss me.” It was the first thing I blurted for some reason over the panic that rose in my chest, and that was exactly what he did. What I asked him not to. All with a sick smile.
A stupid girl’s dream of a true love first kiss, taken. Stolen. In an instant, a second, like it was nothing. Like it didn’t mean anything.
The smell of his cigar lingered on my skin, and it made my stomach lurch and twist as nausea crawled up my throat. It felt as though my entire world had fallen apart.
Somewhere in the background, I heard a scream rip through the air. It was small and loud, almost like a wounded cat, but I couldn’t hear much above the boom of my heartbeat.
His hold on me didn’t waver as he twisted me toward my mother. “Begin,” he said, holding me to his front, his strange hands crawling over every inch of my skin.
My eyes hazed, a burn stinging them as the man continued to torture me.
“Don’t cry, Bellerose.” Mother’s bright blue eyes held mine, like a sign of reassurance. Like her eyes were telling me that everything was going to be okay. Like she was protecting me. Protecting us. “Brave girls don’t cry.”
The sting in my eyes froze. It felt like ice was being fed into my veins as I stilled. I promise I won’t cry, Mother.
The evil man’s vile grip on my body tightened. My stomach lurched at the things he was doing to me. I didn’t understand what he was doing to me. I didn’t like it.
The music was loud, but Ari’s screams were louder.
“Someone shut that bitch up,” shouted the evil man, and the muscular man with a squid tattoo thrashed Ari’s body, demanding she shut up, but she wouldn’t. She was terrified. He then poured an entire bottle of bourbon down her throat, all the while laughing like it was the most fun he had ever had. But Ari still didn’t stop screaming. And then he continued the act with another bottle, choking her from time to time like he was enjoying it.
