Now, I’m going to be different. I remember everything and I don’t fucking need them. I need to get the fuck off this island though, so I’ll use them like they used me.
I freeze when I reach the top of the cliff, staring at the trees that stare back at me. The thick trunks have dolls strapped to them at varying heights, some missing limbs, writing on their face, even some without eyes. The rain is still clinging to the plastic surface of their skin, like they’re weeping out of their empty sockets.
Tremors work through my limbs as I carefully walk through the trees. They’re not sentient, yet the feeling of being watched ramps up. My eyes move over each doll part I pass, noticing the weathered wooden boards hidden below the large branches stretching above me.
Deep red paint, blood-like, and erratic lettering as though they’ve been painted with the fingertips of the forest’s last victims.
Leave.
Run.
Turn back.
Do not enter The Dollhouse.
One of the dolls is covered in the same red paint, little bits flaking off around its nose, but the excess rain dripping from the leaves makes it look like it’s bleeding out. The humidity of the wet ground, trees breathing after the heavy downpour make it harder to move as I walk deeper into the forest. I become discombobulated, slowly turning in a circle to determine which direction will get me to safety.
One doll hanging from a higher branch with bubbled skin gets my attention. My skin crawls at the thought of all the insectswho have attached themselves to it as I stare at the golden hair attaching it to the branch, the Victorian-style dress with a lace-frilled collar?—
The fucking socks.
Frilly socks that were once white with soft pink lace around the trim.
I was forced to pose with it when I would visit my grandparents, while dressed the same as it. Ruby and Scarlet had their own when they were younger too. The photos were never displayed, yet every single visit to their godforsaken house I would be made to stand in front of the piano in their foyer with my shoulders straight and that doll in my arms.
A doll now hanging from a tree on an island I had no knowledge of.
There’s no confusion though. Not now. I remember everything, including why they needed me to think I was crazy.
EMPIRE
DELILAH - 17 YEARS OLD
Itake down the laptop I stole from Asher’s room when I pretended to give my condolences for his death, which I deserve an award for. The only thing I’m apologetic about is Kane being caught up in it all. If I could go back in time, I’d do it sooner. Maybe the first day my mom told me we were going to meet one of Dad’s business associates. Instead of hugging him, thinking he was the same boy I met in the park, I should’ve wrapped my hands around his neck.
The recordings are full of vile acts. Every conversation about selling children, selling people, cutting out organs, and Asher’s intrigue about what they tasted like is repulsive. Morbid curiosity got the better of me, forcing me to listen to as many of them as I could stomach. Now, it will serve as Kane’s get-out-of-jail-free card since our parents are more powerful than they’ve ever allowed us to know.
If they can run a cannibalistic pedophile organization, they can get an innocent man out of prison.
I’ve heard the phrase “pedo ring” before, but a ring is closed, a tight circle keeping everything contained. This is an empire. Business after business, stretching out, infiltrating everyday life, corrupting everything and everyone in their path until the people who are innocent become the ones who are seen as guilty.
Harkin Leroux is the worst of them all. He didn’t sell his soul for admission—he sold me. Well, they can have me, as long as Kane is safe.
I take one last look at myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror, making sure the awful dress is stuck to my curves and my hair is shiny—like they trained me—before I walk out of the closet with the laptop tucked under my arm. I have to actively work to stop my proud smile when I hear my parents’ hushed arguing as they crowd around the shitty golden telephone. Stupid little Delilah, who was too much of an idiot to know her father was drugging and pimping her out has grown up to ruin all of his little plans. What a fucking shame.
Asher’s death is the best and worst thing to ever happen. It’s opened up my mind to the reality of my family while taking away the only person I’ve ever wanted. His death has made me see it isn’t my fault. From the moment Asher tricked me into thinking he was Kane when he asked me to be his girlfriend to now has been pre-planned. It wasn’t a relationship. It was ownership, because my loving fucking father told him to do it. He helped him, arranged to keep Kane busy, then sat Asher down to tell him how to discipline me when I wanted to leave him while my mother drew him diagrams.
My embarrassment felt like the end of the world at thirteen. Now I know it would have been a small price to pay to get away from Asher. Hindsight is an open wound that never really heals. The fates aren’t set; they’re fickle. Even the flap of a butterfly’s wings can alter a person’s life.
If I saw through Asher’s act, knew he wasn’t Kane, I never would have let him kiss me.
If I wasn’t a chicken shit caught up in how everyone would see me, what my parents would think, or the fact Kane didn’t like attention, then I would have told him I loved him when I realized how I felt at ten years old.
I know better now as I stand at the top of the stairs, making sure the laptop is connected to the speakers in the house before I press play. My father pales at the sound of his own laugh, his head swiveling to search for the source. He sees me as Rowan’s voice comes through the speakers.
“You have a choice to make, Asher. You can choose to be the one who exists in the spotlight, or you can give up this boring world for one in which you will be the king, the new creator.”
I thought they’d run at me, drag me down the stairs—beat me—but my parents are frozen and ghostly.
