Pretty Stolen Dolls (29 page)

So badly, I do.

I wake to the warm glow of the bathroom casting my bedroom in a dim light. Pushing the sheet from my body, I pad across the chilly floor, the scent from my shampoo washing over me as my hair sways around my shoulders.

Padding barefoot into the living room, I find Dillon still fully dressed and his hair standing up in tufts, like he’s been there pulling at it. My stomach dips and I slowly approach him from behind.

I peek over his shoulder and see the file he’s reading. It’s the one from eight years ago, when I escaped Benny.

“Dillon.”

He doesn’t turn to look at me. His hands scrub down his face and he breathes in deep. “I knew, kinda. I didn’t work the case, but we all heard about the girl who was kidnapped. How she was found alive, and even more remarkably, had escaped her captor. I knew…but I didn’t fucking
know
, know.” He pulls at his hair and I reach down and take his hands, sliding my body onto his lap.

He wraps his arms around my back and burrows his head into the nook between my shoulder and neck. His grip is almost painful, but I don’t stop him. Hot mist blows over me from his heavy pants. “I hadn’t read them. I couldn’t. We have nothing else to go on, so I need to look for clues, but I…it’s—fuck, Jade, what he did to you,” he chokes, and I hold on to him.

I let him break.

For me.

For him.

For us.

“Isn’t she pretty?” Benny questions. “Such a pretty little doll, like you.”

I can hear him, but I’ve been blindfolded. He has me bound by my wrists above my head, but my legs are free. Unfortunately, he’s also gagged me with a cloth so I can’t speak.

I’d gone off on him earlier when he came into my cell. I’m starving and he left us without food or water for what felt like ages. When he returned and came into my cell, it was like the arguments Momma sometimes had with Daddy, accusing and hurtful.

I screamed that he couldn’t do that, that he was a sick pervert and I hated him, and he froze, his whole body rigid. I affected him and I let the power of it explode.

“You’re a disgusting pervert. No one could love an animal like you,
Benny
. So whoever you’ve been off with for all this time is insane or fucking dead. Let’s face it,
Benny
, you’re ill. You have a sickness in you,” I screamed, pummeling at his chest.

He just let me. I built and built until he finally backhanded me across the face, and when I hit the floor from the impact, I lost consciousness. When I woke, this is how I was. The memory of the baton last time he cuffed me had terror engulfing me so strongly, my bladder released and I was now sitting in my own piss.

“What’s that?” he bites out. And then a small squeak. “I asked you if she was pretty.”

Macy.

“Y-Yes.”

“Prettier than you, huh?”

A sniffle. “Yes.”

“But she’s so dirty too,” he states, causing me to cringe.

“Very dirty,” Macy agrees, her voice but a whisper.

“Shall I clean her up?”

Macy whimpers. “I want to go back to my bedroom.”

Bedroom?

“Why, Dolly?” he asks, humor in his dark voice.

“Her room is dirty and scary.”

“Do you hear that, dirty little doll?” he questions, his warm palm snaking up my naked thigh. “She doesn’t like your room.”

These are not rooms!

“Please, Benjamin,” Macy pleads.

He chuckles. “Not just yet, Dolly. Tell your sister why your room is better.”

Macy, with a hint of pride in her voice, explains, “The walls are pink, my favorite color. And there are so many beautiful dolls. I have a nice bedspread too.”

Benny’s thumb caresses the inside of my thigh. “That bedspread belonged to my sister, Bethany, but our mother never let her use it. Bethany was very pretty. Like Jade.”

I freeze at his words.

“Am I pretty like them?” Macy questions, her voice sounding sad.

“No, Dolly. That scar is ugly. I’m sorry, but you’re not like them. And that’s your own fault, but you learned by your mistake. Your sister sadly refuses to, so she has to have many lessons and punishments.” His reply is cold and empty.

She sniffles. “I think she’s ugly right now. And dirty. She stinks.” The contempt in her voice hurts my heart. Macy.

“Take it back,” he chides, much like a father would his child.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, Jade,” she whimpers, and my heart cracks open.

“That’s not her name!” he roars. “Sit over there in the corner, Dolly. You’ve both been naughty and should be punished.”

I can hear her footsteps and then shuffling as she sits. She’s whimpering, but he ignores her.

“Don’t,” I beg around the material filling my mouth, but he ignores my pleas.

“Dirty little doll,” he says, his fingers creeping higher up my thigh. “That’s her name. She’s dirty. Aren’t you?”

“No!” I scream into the gag and shake my head.

“Really? So, if I touch you here, where you are covered in your own fucking piss, will you not enjoy it?” His thumb presses against my clit and I jolt in shock. So often he’s cruel, so the moments he’s gentle, I don’t know how to deal with him.

“Listen, Dolly,” he clips as he massages me in a way that has me squirming. My body can’t defend against his attacks when it’s a reaction to an action. It’s not lovers feeling pleasure; it’s someone knowing how to make your own body—your own soul—betray you until you can’t even stand to be you any longer. You’d rather be anyone else, and slowly, the you who lived in the carcass he abuses fades and becomes hollow.

“Listen to your sister, Dolly. She claims to hate me, but she lies. Her body shows me how much she loves me.”

I hate you…I hate you…I hate you.

“Look how pretty she is right now.” He pushes my legs to part and when I try to close them, he pries them wider and digs his elbows into the soft flesh of my thighs. “She loves me. Look at her cunt twitching, begging me to love it.”

Bile creeps up my throat and I almost force the sick to come up so I can choke to death on it behind the gag.

“Do you love me?” I hear Macy ask. My heart crumbles. This is how he reunites her with me? I can’t see her, but she has to witness this?

“You want me to, don’t you?” he says simply.

No!

My scream through the rag is muffled. Fat wet tears soak the blindfold.

“I do,” Macy says softly.

No! No! No!

“One day, perhaps, if my dirty doll pushes me enough,” Benny says, digging his fingers into my hips and causing a burning sting there. “But I’m not a pervert, pretty little doll, despite the lies your sister spilled earlier.”

He digs harder and I wince, breathing deep to handle the pain.

“I like cleaning her up with my mouth. I get the best reactions from her.”

And then his tongue replaces his thumb. His finger pushes inside me and I block it out for as long as possible until the nerve endings spark and my body deceives me. I’m so lost, drifting in confusion and trying to navigate away from the bliss my body seeks—teetering over the edge of sanity, overlooking the depths of the abyss of dark lunacy that’s always lurking.

He sucks on my clit and I jolt. I can’t hold off the sensations flooding my body and without permission, I fly over the edge. My cries become moans without consent. Benny becomes my pleasurer and not my torturer…even if only for a moment. And I hate him more than I ever had.

I’m getting out of here or I’ll die trying.

“
W
AKE UP.”
D
ILLON’S HOT
breath tickles my ear. “I have your dress ready.”

I’ve been awake for a while, but haven’t left the bed. Dillon carried me back here last night and we both just lay there and held each other in a firm, unbreakable embrace.

Going through the motions, I push back the sheet and make my way to the shower, ignoring the reflection screaming at me to get more sleep.

The hot spray rains over me and I wash my body and then step out into a towel Dillon is holding up for me. He pats over my skin, drying me, and then throws the towel to the bed. Picking up my clean panties he laid out, he taps one leg and then the other, dressing me like I’m a child. And I feel too numb to stop him. I lift my legs so he can roll the black pantyhose up my calves and then thighs. Lifting my arms, he slips my dress over and it falls around me, stopping just below the knee.

I force my feet into a pair of black ballet pumps and pull my hair back into a neat bun.

“You ready?”

I nod.

But I’ll never be ready to bury my parents.

They died because of me.

Watching their matching caskets get lowered into the ground knowing the headstones they had chosen for Macy and I when they assumed we were dead will be put there for them when the ground has settled is a surreal moment.

Will I have to bury Macy next to them?

No.

Recognizing people surrounding their now gravesite but not actually knowing anyone anymore hurts deep inside my bones. I refused to go to the wake last night because of these people who are all now staring, wondering, accusing. I’m barely keeping it together around them.