I wanted to tell Ville how disgusting he was. How much I hated him, but I knew well enough to keep my mouth shut, especially because the cleaver was still clutched in his bloodstained fingers.
I dropped chunk after chunk of Bonny into the hot water boiling on the stove. I let a silent tear fall into the already salty water.
Woodrow’s hand rubbed along the small of my back, his other hand tried to brush away the migraine forming at his temple. “It’s not your fault.”
He held me close as tears rushed from both of our eyes.
“I don’t think I’ll be here in a few minutes,” he whispered, only loud enough for me to hear.
My head turned, quick enough that he had to swiftly pull back to avoid me hitting him.
“You’ll be okay.” His voice was still a whisper.
“Not if you switch.” My tone matched his.
“I promise, I won’t hurt you.”
I struggled tobelieve him. “But it’s not you. Hold on. Please, hold on.”
It felt like a lifetime had passed by the time I layered the table with bowls of vegetables. My hands shook as I placed down bowl after bowl. Glazed carrots, potatoes, peas, and some other green thing that I couldn’t name, all sat in the center, surrounding the meat.
Ville was the first to fill his plate, using forceful orders and my hands to ensure he had the biggest pieces of food.
“Take a seat,” he instructed, once all plates were decorated in dinner. “Sit!” he shouted, his spit flying everywhere, when I failed to follow his orders as quickly as he wanted.
I sat down, waiting for Woodrow to trail the short distance from where he stood near the oven. My eyes pleaded with his, and he hated that I felt I had to beg him. The guilt in his expression became easier to see as he got close enough to slide into his chair, his arm wrapped around his broken ribs to ease the pain.
We both sat somewhere in a state between disgust and gratefulness. The table devoured the meal, and we hadn’t been offered any. The relief washed over me, dwelling close to my soul until the meal was over.
Ville pushed away his plate, the other’s following suit. “Dessert!”
“I haven’t prepared a dessert. Wynter never said—”nothing about a dessert, or ever made one.I shook my head confused.
“I always get dessert, darlin’.”
The plates were cleared from the table, but it wasn’t by me. The man in black—who I’d learned throughout the meal was named Sylvia—clearly, not his real name, had collected everything and disposed of it in the kitchen sink before my feet could move.
I didn’t dare ask where that name came from. I should have forced myself to believe his mother was either on drugs or hated him from birth. I’d pressed my lips together as they ate, keeping the question inside, and I did, until he was addressed by another man before he stood from the table. . . Tufts, who’d been groping me—also known as Teena. My eyes asked the question, wondering why they both had women’s names. And even as I tried to pretend I wasn’t curious, they answered.
“They were the name of our first girls. The first ones we pulled from their happy lives and into our world,” Teena said, a look of pride on his greasy face.
‘That’s disgusting. You’re disgusting,’I said without words, my eyes speaking again as they glared across the table.
Woodrow’s eyes were speaking, too, telling me to shut the fuck up, after he’d gripped my attention by brushing the dog chain with his foot.
“Ah, so, you really have a dog chain? I thought these guys were bullshitting me,” the third man said, finally giving up the mystery of whether or not he could speak. “I didn’t think your wife would approve of watching. . .” he spoke, but his words grew distant as his head dipped below the tablecloth to examine the heavy chain.
“That’s not true. I’m sure these guys told you the stories.” Ville stretched back in his chair, the legs groaning as usual. “She likes involvement, but doesn’t want them to. . . be around Nessie. It was allowed prior. The girls were kept in the house until she was born, and then, our fun stopped. But that will be changing soon. The little brat has had a good start, and she’s starting to play on my nerves.”
A memory flashed across Woodrow’s face, seeping from the hoarding space of a million and one bad memories inside his brain. A memory of girls pleading for help. Begging him—a tiny child—to find the key that would open the lock of that chain and many others. To free them. To end their lives if he couldn’t. . . because their lives, to them, were no longer worth living.
“Most chains have been removed. Wynter finally got what she wanted, a child to love.”
More pain showed on Woodrow’s face, but he hid it well. So well, no one but me noticed it as he put a hand to his throat and covered, swallowing those feelings as his father continued. “But the novelty is starting to wear off.”
My mouth dropped, and vomit rushed up my throat ready to fall from the opening. Wynter really was in on it. And Nessie was in danger. My head shot to Ville, silent questions firing at him from my eyes.
Hatred paraded through me. Not for Ville, because it was already there, lurking around all fibers of my being, but for his wife. She had told me I was purchased to be saved. To be loved. To be a friend. . . but they haddone this before. . . done it with chains and hatred.
