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Liam swallowed hard, and took a step toward the bound woman. Having heard her fate, she thrashed and jerked at the plastic zip ties holding her down, but it was no use.
Sam had one last bit of advice for us. "Dahlia. Look into her eyes, and remember this. Remember her screams, and know that all who disobey are punished."
I did as he asked. I looked at the woman’s face, into my own face and when the blade cut into her skin, I couldn’t help but think her scream sounded like mine.
Liam was methodical as he worked, slicing long strips of flesh off her legs then her arms, being sure to leave a small patch around the IV. I couldn’t tear my eyes away, even as the woman went into some sort of pain induced seizure. Blood was everywhere, pouring from the wounds like a waterfall, dripping to the floor and draining into the grates below.
The skin on the woman’s breasts came off in chunks, and the pain there must have been more severe than the other spots. When Liam slid the razor sharp blade across the mound of flesh and sliced off her nipple, her screams grew in volume. She jerked at her hand. Liam had skinned it from the shoulder to the wrist but left the hand unharmed.
"I think the fingers will be too tough to do," he said.
When she ripped at her ties, the plastic dug under the wrist, caught on the skin of her hand, and proceeded to deglove her entire extremity. The bloody sagging flesh tore away, hitting the floor with a splat.
I leaped back in surprise as she brought her newly freed hand down to slap Liam in the face. He yelped, jumping back and dropping his knife. The woman was psychotic with pain, the bag of blood was almost totally depleted, but soon she’d tear her other hand free. We couldn’t let that happen.
She made a high keening noise and flailed her arm around madly, slinging blood everywhere.
"Grab her," I screamed.
"You grab her," Liam barked back. "I did the fucking hard part."
He wasn’t lying. His hands and forearms were coated in blood. The woman was being even more violent in her struggles. There was no time to argue. I rushed around the bloody torture table, grabbed a fresh filet knife, and spun and slammed the blade into the woman’s chest. The blade grated against her ribs and sternum until sliding home. A strange crackling sensation shot up the handle of the knife making me think it had broken through cartilage.
In an instant, the blade was buried to the hilt in the woman’s chest. She was as good as dead, but instead of falling back to the table, lifeless, she stayed where she was, frozen in time. The body could no longer be called human, it was a mass of flexing muscles, tendons, and facia. My hand still gripped the blade, my knuckles white with exertion, and I looked into my own face. I stared into my own eyes as the life flooded out of this woman.
When she finally collapsed onto the table, I had the strange sense that I’d murdered myself. Some strange, self inflicted murder/suicide. I stood above her gasping for breath and staring at the pile of bloody flesh that had been a person thirty minutes prior.
The door of the torture room clicked open.
"Remember this moment, Dahlia Belrose. Remember it well," Sam said.
Liam pulled his sweater off and began wiping the blood and gore from his hands, his wrist device, and forearms. Sweat trickled down his torso. "I’m outta here." He turned and left the room.
As awful as the sight was, I had a hard time making my feet move. My device had informed me that I was to go back to my room until lunch, but I stood staring at the dead woman. The mask had been twisted in her struggles and death throes, but it still gazed out at me. Was this Sam’s way of saying I was a dead woman? A walking zombie who didn’t realize she’d already killed herself? When I left, I could still hear blood dripping from the table.
Chapter 3
DAHLIA
The next day was much the same as what we’d experienced every day I’d been there. Nothing had changed. We were assigned tasks, we made and ate meals, we slept and woke. The problem was there was a tense undercurrent of anxiety permeating everything about the house now. Sam kept making subtle yet threatening remarks to us, but there had been no violence toward us yet. Even Drake had become strained and more uncomfortable than I’d ever seen him before. The overall mood in the house was one of pervasive dread. It all came to a head at dinner on the second night since our breakout attempt.
The dining room was as it usually was, prepped and ready for our meal, but this evening, soothing jazz music played from the hidden speakers. That was something that had never happened before. The music was quiet and mellow, but somehow also chaotic and disconcerting. We sat to eat the dinner provided, chicken parmesan, salad, and garlic bread, but no one looked happy about what was happening. It was Elise who finally broke.
With an exasperated grunt, she threw her fork across the room, sending it clattering against the ruined wall.
"I can’t take this," Elise shouted down at her plate.
The room went silent during the outburst. Elise slowly raised her eyes until they met mine, and an icy trickle of fear slid down my body like frigid honey was being poured over me. Involuntarily I leaned back in my seat, putting distance between the two of us.
"You did this," Elise hissed through clenched teeth. "All of this is your fault. If we hadn’t listened to you, we’d be safe, and everything would be normal again."
Perhaps I could have told her that nothing had ever been normal in this house, but it may not have been the best time to bring that up. Before I could defend myself, or say anything at all to her, Elise leaped to her feet. Moving so fast the chair shot from under her, toppling backward onto the floor with a thud.
She looked up at the ceiling as if she spoke directly to God, then screamed, "I’ll kill her. Is that what you want? I’ll do it right now." She snatched up the knife beside her plate, looking more panicked by the second. "I’ll do it slowly. Whatever you want."
"Elise?" Liam said, slowly standing and backing away from her in fear.
She turned and glared at him. "Don’t. You know I’m right. It’s gonna be bad for all of us. If she’s gone, he might take pity."
