But he couldn’t help me.
Hecouldhelp Woodrow.
“Please do,” I begged, my voice as broken as my soul. “Please.”
“Leave him. He didn’t shoot to kill.” Ville shrugged, like the bullet in the boy he raised was nothing more than a small graze.
“Please, we don’t know that. Please, check on him.” I rose on my pained knees, begging on those knees with my hands clasped. “Please.”
But he dipped his head. He wasn’t high up enough to make his own rules; he had orders to follow. Unfortunately, they weren’t mine.
“What do you think?” Ville asked, his hand still wrapped in a small kitchen towel as he motioned to Sylvia.
“I’m happy. I’ll take both. How much?”
I turned my head, and my body melted to the ground. My knees gave out. My heart rushed to my mouth with the vomit that carried it there. I heaved and the snacks I’d ingested this morning splashed on the concrete.
“Oh, God.”
“Yes, this is your fate, darlin’.” Sylvia’s smile made me sick again. And I was grateful to be looking down when he started groping at the girls to my right as they lay there cold, naked, and lifeless.
They’d died down here.
The rotting smell seeping into the kitchen was them.
“What are you going to do with them?” I wiped at my mouth with the back of my hand.
The girls were both of different ages, different backgrounds, different stages of death and decay.
The younger of the two, had her auburn hair wrapped around her like a blanket. Her pale skin, made whiter by death. Her pretty eyes, sad and blue and still open, stared at me from across the room.
I wished to have been able to save her from the body of the monster—the scum—touching it.
The other girl was older. A woman somewhere between thirty and forty. She wasn’t as pale as her companion, her heritage ensured that, but her short black hair had lost its shine.
I crawled backwards, hitting something behind me in the otherwise empty room.
I spun around to the sound of metal clunking. My fingers rubbed at my back, surprised that something jagged had ripped throughmy dress and punctured my skin.
And there it was. . .
A nightmare for me to live in.
A dog cage, rusted with old age around the edges.
“No. . .” The word was silent.
I twisted back, forcing myself to my feet. I hadn’t paid attention to Ville’s heavy feet padding towards me. I hadn’t heard him over the sound of my own pulse, echoing in my ears.
He was in my face, his dirty breath burning my eyes as he looked down on me like I was nothing.
“Lose the dress, Jolie.”
I shook my head vehemently.
“Don’t test my patience. I don’t have time. I have business deals to make, and unless you want to be one of them, and go home with Sylvia and the girls, I suggest you do as I say.”
I didn’t speak, still. My eyes drifted around the room, taking in my surroundings and the lack of options to get me out of them.
