“Part of my conditions here, wife, is that you do not ask questions. You do not do anything unless I tell you, you do not speak unless I tell you to, and if you ever speak a word of what you're about to see,” he leaned in close. His scotch ladened breath hit me like a fist. “I'll kill you both.”
The dress I was wearing had started to make me feel sick, it's tight fabric around my waist, under my breasts, and at my hips pushing all my nerves into my throat; I could hardly breathe.
Vladimir pulled a set of keys from his pocket, located a gold key on a chunky round chain, and inserted it into the lock. With a heavy push and thick fists, Vlad opened the doors. My eyes were greeted by the sight of a black body bag on top of a silver table.
Several drawers were lining all around the room, drawers where only the worthy deceased would wait before their funeral. Who was in this bag? And what could I possibly do to help?
I hadn't noticed Vladimir locking the door until the room ceased to echo with my footsteps.
“Vladimir, who is this?” I asked.
From nowhere, as it so often was, they was a harsh blow to the side of my face, sending me flying to the floor. My hip landed first, sending a sharp pain throughout my body, my hand raised to feel the warm blood flow from my lip as I looked up into the eyes of my captor.
“No questions, Ella. Do you listen to a word I say?”
Tears threatened to fall, but I blinked them away. “I'm s-sorry.”
He rubbed the back of his hand and left me on the floor before I heard the telltale sound of a zipper.
With blood trickle down my jaw, I got on my feet and nearly fell straight back down as Vladimir revealed the body. The leather bag flopped opened either side of the woman's lifeless body, exposing her nakedness, the brutality in which she was killed. And what made the vomit spew from my mouth was when I looked up, expecting to find a beautiful sleeping face, I found nothing but a face pulled back to the bare reality of muscle.
Burning acid poured from my lips, and I tried to ignore Vladimir's tuts of annoyance, but he was in no mood for my dramatics.
Grabbing my upper arm, he yanked me closer to the dead female and held my chin in place, so all I could look at nothing but the icky red sight of her tortured flesh.
“Fucking, look!” He bellowed. “Look at this, Ella, look at what your future could hold if you continue to upset me. If you continue to lie..”
“I haven't lied...”
“Don't. Fucking. Interrupt me.” He screamed now, directly into my ringing ears.
Letting go of my arm, Vladimir walked over to a large silver cabinet, yanking open the doors he began to rifle through an array of tools. Tools I imagined only qualified doctors could use, even if they were on a dead body.
Walking back to me with a blade of some kind now equipped, I felt my legs give way once more. The smells, the sights, the blinding strip lights overpowering my senses.
“Here, take this,” he demanded, hand outstretched with the blade resting on his palm.
I shook my head but reached out. “Vladimir, please. Please, this is too much.” I whispered, hoping to God that a whisper wouldn't cause him to hit me again.
“Too much? Well, if it's too much for you knowing you'd get to see the little one, knowing I'd give you something you could keep close to your whore heart, then I'll just take it away...” His big hand went to snatch the metal weapon, but I was quicker this time.
Shaking my head, I tried to locate my bravery. “No... I'll... I'll do it. Just tell me what you want done.”
Vladimir grinned, his deep-set eyes hanging heavy, his yellow teeth and stale breath swarmed my nostrils, and I stole a deep breath.
“Good, sweet wife.” With lips I despised, he kissed my cheek, a soppy kiss that would cause me to scrub my face raw later, and I watched as he gestured to the female once more.
“She needs a little...work, you see? A few chops of flesh here and there.”
My belly churned, and then my heart fell as Vladimir's hands rested on the tiny swell of her stomach. Oh, my God. No. It couldn't be.
“Start here, with her face, I want deeper wounds, especially around her eyes.”
Vladimir took hold of my hand and guided me, he pressed the tip of the blade at the corner of the woman's eye, the spongy muscle just moving back into place without the force needed to cut it.
Tears I could no longer hold fell down my cheeks and splashed my bare arm as Vladimir made me make the first incision. The muscle tore easily, and he soon let go and jerked his head for me to continue. I did so. Hoping and praying to God that he'd forgive me, have mercy on me. My whole soul was crying and screaming.
“Good, Ella,” Vladimir beamed. “Now, the other side.”
I did as instructed, hating myself more than ever before. I cut and sliced, mauled, and defiled this poor woman, and before long, she had fresh new wounds, and if it wasn't for the feminine curve of her body, there was no way of telling who she was.
But I knew.
I knew what I'd just done and to who.
The question was: Why?
I wanted to scream at him. If this was her, then it seemed he hadn’t cared for her at all.
Chapter Nineteen
Then.
Carter loosened his tie, yanking on the red stripy material before sitting on the wall behind the school, a tiny area we used to hide out for a smoke during break. I was pretty sure the teachers knew what we were up to, but in a school of hundreds of badly behaved kids, they probably thought we were the best of a bad bunch, leaving us in peace for the majority of the time.
I rolled up my sleeves and smiled at my friend. “You're still coming tonight, right?”
He sparked up a cigarette. “Of course, man, as long as there's beer, I'm there.”
I lit my smoke and sat next to Carter on the wall, both of us squinting against the high summer sun. “There'll be better shit than that, Archibald Murdoch..”
In unison, we finished the sentence, word for word. “Spares no expense!”
“Who's Archibald Murdoch?” Came a voice from the left of us.
Our heads snapped to the intruder, a girl we'd never seen before. Our mouths hung open at the sight of her, tiny white shirt, black bra poking out at the top, a skirt that stopped just under her ass. But what got me were her damn green eyes. They were electric.
Carter pushed himself on the wall and offered the new girl his cigarette. She took it and inhaled a long drag, her eyes roaming over me.
“Who the fuck are you, then?” Carter asked, swirling her like prey. If she was intimidated, she didn't show it. She simply rolled her eyes and passed the smoke back.
“I'm Amy. Just transferred here.”
“I'm Carter, and this is Jax. And you've found our hideout.” He said.
I couldn't take my eyes off her. With hormones raging, the sight of so much flesh on show had my body temperature rising. I'd been with plenty of girls, but none of them looked like her.
“It's not the best, is it? I could see you from my English class,” her arm pointed back to the imposing building behind us, where we noticed the classroom busy with activity. It was a few floors up, but she was right. How had we missed this?
“The teachers don't fuck with us, they've got real delinquents to deal with.” I snapped, the heat grinding on my nerves.