“Where are we going?” I asked. “Where are you taking me? Tell me now, or I’ll run back!” I demanded, but he kept climbing the steps.
I ran back to where we’d come from, but the door was locked. In trying to break the handle, I’d wasted all my energy and had to sit for a second to gain it back. I heard his steps approaching, and then he stopped right next to me before I looked up at him.
“Ready to accept your fate?” From that angle, he looked much taller, much more intimidating, his eyes deep into the dark circles around the sockets. This time, I didn’t fight him when he grabbed the top of my backpack and pulled me with him.
It was a long way deep and up into the big bad wolf’s den, past the second floor all the way to the third. My legs became heavy, as if someone had poured concrete into them. Each step was so difficult and laborious to take because I knew where we were going—to my bedroom—and deep inside, I knew what would happen to me.
I don’t want this. I don’t want this.
Push him down the stairs and run. No one can find him here. Kill him. Kill him.
We were four steps away from the second floor and all I could hear was my heart and loud breathing. The stairs were dark, with only very dim lighting. When we stepped onto the landing,the world spun. I wanted to beg him to not do this, but I knew him; he had no empathy in him, no conscience. It would do no good to beg or cry, but I couldn’t help grieving for myself.
As soon as he stepped on the landing for the second floor, he continued up. It was the first time that night I’d taken a deep breath.
The image of the elk-headed men coming in flashed in my mind. One of these doors opened to that creepy rug. Behind him, as I passed the two doors, I wondered which of them opened into my bedroom.
There were two doors, and he unlocked the farthest one. Once we entered, I realized we were in his office. Inside the door was a bookshelf. There was no way to distinguish it as anything else. All the relief I’d gained from not ending up in my bedroom left me when I recognized the man sitting on one of two leather chairs facing my uncle’s desk. It was the same bloke I’d met four years prior at Mum’s wedding. I’d never forget his face.
“Killian,” he called with glee, a smile on his face, and wide opened arms, as if I would run into them. He appeared genuinely happy to see me. I looked at him, then to my uncle and back. My breathing rushed, not only because of all the stairs I’d just climbed but because I didn’t like this. The only thing that calmed me was when I took a look at the main door to the office. Hopefully, that wasn’t locked like everything else in this mansion of horrors and I could run away through there.
Standing behind his desk and a tall chair, I was met by a glass with my uncle’s long fingers wrapped around it, barely filled with an amber-colored drink. The smell of the whiskey entered my nostrils. “Drink this,” my uncle commanded.
Without looking at him, I took the glass and chugged it, then slammed the glass on his desk. The alcohol burned my esophagus all the way down to my stomach, making me grit my teeth. I relished the taste and raked my lower lip with my teeth,wincing, then welcomed its effects. It had been too long since I’d drank. The relaxation quickly settled inside me.
The man laughed at my advanced ability to drink it. “Good job, little man. It’s been quite a while. Hasn’t it?” While he wore a smile, his eyes were those of crocodiles, predatory. He wasn’t justlookingat me. He licked his lips.
I narrowed my eyes into slits, glaring at him. His too wide of a smile evaporated, and with his gaze, he silently protested to my uncle about my lack of manners or cordiality.
“Sit, Killian.” My uncle’s tone had a warning in it. He gestured to the only empty leather chair facing him and his desk. There were a few meters between me and the scary man.
As they conversed, my uncle kept coming around with the bottle, pouring some of the whiskey in the bloke’s glass but also into mine. With the constant exchanging of their voices, it finally dawned on me. I’d heard that voice not too long ago. I’d heard it the night I saw the elk heads. It washisvoice. Slowly, I turned to him, staring at him, taking in every detail of him, and as if he’d been watching me from the corner of his eyes, he met my gaze with a smile. I didn’t want his expression to have any power over me, but it scared me. It told me he knew what I had just realized. It was as if he could read my mind. My uncle continued speaking and eventually broke the staring connection between my rapist and me.
For a while I sat there, resisting stabbing him to death because if I did, God only knew what my uncle would do to me. I wondered if all this was a test. Did they expect me to realize it? Were they testing to see if I would take revenge or panic and run away? I didn’t understand what this was, but suddenly, I couldn’t look at him or my uncle. Uncle poured more whiskey, and again, I chugged it, needing the numbness so badly to not show how terrified I was. The image of the naked elk men in my room brought up a nausea that only the alcohol could tame.
They talked about business, the economy, world politics, and people I’d never heard of as I remembered more and more of their conversations in my room, not just the last one, but others before me. Words I had never heard before floated between them. After the third drink, I thought I was numb to what was about to happen to me. I was very drunk, my limbs were too heavy for me to manage, so I stopped consuming the alcohol. When my uncle came around again, he didn’t care that I had not drank what he’d given me before, he added more.
“Drink,” he ordered.
As they talked even more, I pretended to sip, only wetting my lips and tongue. With the boring conversation and my exhaustion, my eyelids grew heavy and my eyes fluttered closed. Despite the tiring stupor, I was too untrusting, so their voices woke me.
“What do you want to do?” my uncle asked.
“You know I want him. Why don’t you just let me buy him from you?”
He sighed. “Having him here helps me keep his mum in line. My life is complicated as it is. I don’t need a hysterical bitch notifying the authorities about my nephew.”
“I understand, but at some point, he’s going to get old for me. You’re wasting an opportunity here. She doesn’t have to know you had something to do with it. Maybe he ran away? Speaking of running away, did you visit the doctor’s daughter? What’s the dynamic there?”
“Yes, we went a couple of weeks ago. He seems like a lone wolf. Just some doctor. I looked him up, asked about him. Nothing special but his scholastic medical accolades.”
“So, if we were to take the little bitch of a daughter… he doesn’t have connections besides my boring cousin or anything?” His words spiked my adrenaline, further waking me, but I stayed pretending I was knocked out by keeping my eyes closed. Iwanted to kill them, stab them with the knife I’d stolen from the kitchen just for talking about my angel and her family this way, but I wouldn’t be able to take them both. Regret deafened me. I should have killed him when we were in his secret passageway on the stairs. I’d wasted my best opportunity.
“I didn’t think you were into little girls, Francoise.”
“I’m not.” He paused. “She’s going to be a gift for my son, Mael. He’s been obsessed with her since the second grade.”
“Mmm. Of course. Well… it seems that my nephew here is finally more submissive and ready for your indulgences.”
