“Fuck!” he screams into the air, and kicks the door. I hear Rigs barking upstairs. His paws scratch against a door. I back away slowly and find myself cowering in the corner. Vince’s fists slam into the wall, leaving dents and a trail of blood on the white walls. His knuckles are bloodied but he keeps doing it over and over. Each time his fists pound against the wall my chest jumps and a scream threatens to escape. Rigs barks and growls and Vince yells at him to be quiet.
I’m fucked. I’m so fucked.
He finally stops and takes a deep breath. The only sounds in the room are the dog barking and Vince’s heavy breaths. His large shoulders rise and fall with power. He turns slowly towards me and stares at me for a long time. When he finally opens his mouth I let out a heavy breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “I’m supposed to kill you,” he says.
My body turns weak and I fall to the floor. I want to plead, but I can’t. I can’t do anything. I’m paralyzed. I don’t want to die.
“I’m going to figure something out, sweetheart.” He walks slowly toward me and picks up my trembling body. Half of me wants to push him off of me and try to run, but the other half is too terrified to consider fighting. The terrified side is the side that is winning. He carries me up the stairs and I remain as still as possible in his arms.
He speaks calmly. “You need to be good for me. You need to make this easy.” I can’t respond. But if I could, I’d tell him to go fuck himself. I’m not going to make it easy for him to kill me. I can’t speak the words, but he must sense my disobedience. “Don’t you fuck with me, Elle.”
I shouldn’t make him angry, but I can’t answer. Fear has crippled me.
He kicks a door open, and I recognize the room. It’s where we were this morning. I look at the messy bed, still unmade, and see a pink stain on the sheets.
I hear him shushing me; I feel him trying to comfort me. It just makes me feel even worse.
My chest has never felt so hollow or painful before. I never knew I could feel this much physical pain from emotional damage.
Vince
What the fuck am I going to do? My phone keeps going off in my pocket. I know it’s the guys or Pops. I can’t answer it. I know what they’re going to say. I know their argument. I really believe her, I do. She’s not going to say shit. But I can hear them shooting back the next logical question. What if she remembers more? I still don't have an answer to that question.
Not only that, but she’s been seen with me now. Twice. If someone happened to be watching, which happens every now and then--if they’re watching and saw her, they can take her in. They can put pressure on her. And even the best of people collapse under that pressure. I look down at Elle and try rubbing her back again. She’s curled up on the bed. They’d get to her for sure. She couldn’t tell a lie to save her life.
Rigs barks again and I know my poor pup wants out of the spare bedroom. I left him in there so he wouldn’t chew up all the furniture while I was gone. He wants to make sure everything is alright. But it’s not. He’s gonna have to stay in there until I can calmly let him out. This is so fucked. It’s all just fucked.
I try pulling her back to me, closer to me. My hand is fucking killing me, but I need to comfort her. I shouldn’t have done that. I know I scared her. Now she won’t even look at me. I just want to hold her. But she’s scooting away. I don’t like it. I don’t want to let go of her, but I need to figure this shit out. And realistically, the only thing I can come up with, is that she has to go.
I knew it back at my parents' house. I could see it happening, one of them coming up from behind her with a syringe filled with a lethal injection cocktail trio. It would feel like a pinch, and then it’d be over with. She’d go quickly and painlessly. But the image of her dead and limp in my arms is something I can’t handle. I don’t want that. I want her to live. I want to see her happy.
I need to figure this shit out, but I haven’t got a clue how. We never let witnesses live. I’ve got nothing but our standard protocol to go on.
I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her to me, forcing her into my lap. Her hand whips out and pushes violently against my chest.
“Don’t push me, sweetheart,” I grit through my teeth. You’d think she’d be doing whatever she could not to make me angry. I’m her only fucking hope.
“Fuck you!” she screams out, and I grab her mouth to silence her.
“Watch your mouth, sweetheart.”
“Don’t touch me!” She yells.
“Sweetheart, watch that mouth-”
“Fuck you!” she yells again.
“Oh yeah?” I pin her ass down on the bed. Both of her tiny wrists fit easily in one hand, and I shove them above her head and dig them into the mattress. My hip pins hers down. “You really think you should be talking to me like that, Elle?” I keep the threat in my voice. I have a soft spot for this broad. Everyone’s gonna know it. But not her. She can’t know that, not yet. She needs to be afraid until I can figure this shit out. And right now, fear is not the dominant emotion that I sense.
“Just kill me!” she screams in my face. Her words hit me like a bullet to the chest. Her face is red and her cheeks are stained with tears. Her eyes glassy with more unshed tears. Her voice lowers. “I know you're going to kill me, so just do it already.”
“I don’t want to kill you, Elle.” It’s true. I don’t want to. The fact that she’s telling me to kill her makes me sick to my stomach.
“So you’re going to let me go?” Her voice doesn’t hold any hope; she already knows the answer will be no.
“No.” She closes her eyes at my answer and turns on the bed to face away from me as best she can with me still pinning her down. I loosen my grip and let her go. I run a hand down my face and look around the room. It’s a safe house. So there’s no way she can get out of here. I need to go. I’ve got to get out of here for just a minute and figure out just how badly I’ve fucked up. And let my dog out before he tears the door down.
I open the door and check my key in the lock to make sure she can’t lock me out. She can’t. So that’s a plus, I guess. I look back at her lying limp and in the fetal position on the bed. “I’m not going to hurt you.” I say it just loud enough for her to hear and take a step out into the hallway.
I shut the door and my fucking heart breaks as I barely make out her words. “You already have.”
Elle
I have no fucking clue where I am. Obviously this is Vince's house, but where this is located, I have no idea. I didn’t pay attention this morning either. I just know it was a long drive. But I’m getting out of here. There’s no way I’m staying here. I don’t know how long he’s going to keep me here. I know they want me dead. They can’t risk me remembering whatever the fuck it is that I saw. But I really need to get the fuck away from here as fast as I can.
I finally get my ass off the bed and wipe the tears from my face. I need to do something. I can’t just wait here to die. For all I know he’s going to come in the room with a gun or something and kill me, or however the fuck they do it. I can’t just wait around. I won’t. I don’t want to die.