“You mean the Catholic girl’s school?” Cassie shook her head. “I thought you were in college at least! How did you get into a place like the Velvet Noose if you’re still a minor?”
“I have a friend who knows the bouncer,” Amelia admitted. “She said he would let us in if we at least looked old enough. My mom and dad never let me go anywhere. So when they decided to go on a second honeymoon—”
“You decided to use your newfound freedom to go exploring on the dark side of town,” Cassie finished for her.
“I told you, I was just curious,” Amelia protested.
“And I think you can see where that got you,” Cassie said sternly. “But we’re getting off track. You said today was senior skip day so you what, decided to stay home?”
“Yeah.” Amelia nodded. “I wanted to see exactly what was going on. So I pretended to go to school, then snuck back in and hid in the closet. I thought I was just going to see, you know, regular porn. And it kind of started out that way. Well, except the girl was really nervous about being tied up.”
“I bet,” Cassie muttered. “So what happened next?”
“Oh, The Beast got her calmed down. He’s really good at talking people into things, ya know?”
“Like talking you into letting him film porn at your house,” Cassie said dryly.
Amelia hung her head.
“I guess. But like I said, I didn’t know it was going to be porn—especially not that kind of porn.”
“BDSM,” Cassie supplied.
“BDSM?” Stone asked, frowning.
“Bondage, domination, sadism, and masochism,” Cassie explained to her partner. Apparently the Kindred didn’t do kink.
“Like I said, what little I saw wasn’t bad until today,” Amelia told her. “I mean, just like spanking and moaning and stuff like that.” She shrugged.
“But then today, it was different because the girl didn’t want to be tied up?” Cassie asked. “But you said The Beast talked her into it?”
“He did.” The girl nodded. “But only after he gave her a shot.”
“A shot?” Cassie asked. “A shot of what?”
“Dunno.” Amelia shook her head. “He just said, ‘this is gonna make everything all right.’ And then he stuck her in the neck with a needle. At first, she was mad at him—she said, ‘Hey, that hurt! What did you do that for?’ But after a minute, she seemed to change.”
“Change how?” Cassie asked her.
“She said she felt warm all over—especially between her legs. And then The Beast asked her if she wanted to be tied up and she said, ‘yes!’ like she was really eager. She even went to the cross-thingy and put up her arms for the ropes. And when he was tying her up, she kept saying, ‘tighter! Make it tighter!’ Then she said, ‘hurt me!’”
She shook her head and shivered.
“So what did The Beast do then?” Cassie asked quietly. She could tell the girl was really upset. If she’d really lived such a sheltered existence, it was no wonder seeing such violence had shaken her. Her innocence was gone now and it was never coming back. Not after what she had witnessed.
“He…he slapped her.” Amelia made a motion with one hand, as though to illustrate it. “Really hard. And then he did it again and again. But no matter how hard he slapped her, she kept begging for him to do it harder. It was so weird.” She shook her head. “It was like the shot he gave her changed her whole personality.”
“Because she didn’t even want to be tied up at first and then after she got the shot, she was begging for him to hit her?” Cassie asked.
Amelia nodded.
“She was screaming, ‘hurt me! Hurt me!’ at the top of her lungs. And then…” She bit her lip. “Then he pulled out a knife.”
“Did the girl get upset when she saw the knife?” Cassie asked softly.
Amelia shook her head.
“No, she got excited. She started begging him to cut her.” Her eyes widened. “So he did. He started cutting all up and down her arms and legs and blood was going everywhere but she just kept begging him to cut her more. Like she liked it.”
“Sounds like another effect of whatever it was he shot her up with,” Cassie said, looking up at Stone. Her partner had been mostly silent during this interrogation and she wanted his take on what Amelia was telling them.
“I do not believe it was the blood loss that killed her,” he rumbled. “None of the wounds I saw were very deep.”
“No, she was fine until…” Amelia’s face went pale. “Until he started choking her. But he didn’t start that until after he started, you know, uh, fucking her.” She whispered the word, as though she thought her parents might hear her using bad language.
“So he stopped cutting her long enough to penetrate her?” Cassie said, trying to keep things dry and clinical.
Amelia nodded.
“He was, uh, doing her and she was begging him to do it harder—to hurt her. And then he said, ‘I’ll hurt you, baby,’ and he started to…to choke her.” Amelia’s eyes started to well up, but she somehow kept talking. “And he was choking and choking her and her face was turning blue and then I heard this awful…this awful cracking sound…”
“He broke her neck,” Stone said flatly. His tone was dry, almost detached but Cassie could see the fury in his pale blue eyes. The perp had better watch out if Stone ever got his hands on him. Whether he was human or Kindred, her partner would make him pay for the atrocity in the other room.
“Y-yes. I guess he d-did.” Amelia nodded, and now tears were flowing again. Cassie sighed and put an arm around the girl’s shoulders.
“Okay and then he left?”
“Not before he…he finished.” Amelia’s face had taken on a pale, sickly hue. “He actually kept on after he…he killed her.” She put a hand over her mouth and shook her head. “I still can’t believe he did that.”
“Sick bastard.” Stone’s voice was little more than a growl and Cassie shot him a worried look. He was really angry—furious. She didn’t blame him, actually. Hearing that the perp had actually kept on having sex with his victim after she was dead was enough to make anyone angry and disgusted.
Or sick. Amelia suddenly pushed Cassie’s arm from around her shoulders and ran to the kitchen sink where she was noisily ill.
“Sorry,” she gasped, as she finished. She ran water in the sink and splashed some on her face. “I just…when I told you about it, it was like I saw it all over again.”
“It’s okay,” Cassie assured her. “We understand.” Another thought occurred to her. “Hey, you didn’t happen to catch any of this scene on your phone, did you?” she asked.
Amelia shook her head.
“No, I left it up in my bedroom or I would have called you guys sooner—I swear! I had to wait until The Beast left and I was sure he was really gone before I could go get it.”
Well, it had been worth a shot, Cassie thought.
“Okay,” she said. “So can you tell us when The Beast left, then?”