Agony (12 page)

“Or else what?” I asked, wringing my hands.

“Or else neither of you walk out of here,” he replied in a serious tone.

I started to sob again and Arsen pulled me close to him, holding me tightly.

“Can you both fuck off for a second and let me talk to her?” he asked irritably.

“Sure. You’ve got ten minutes before we start rolling, though,” he agreed as he left the room with Jareth.

“Neve, listen to me. I’m going to get us both out of this in one piece, okay? I’m not sure yet who’s supposed to be the fucking aggressor but if it’s me, I won’t hurt you, okay? Just go with it and we can both walk out of here; I promise.”

If I hear
I promise
one more fucking time today, I’m going to kill everyone.

“Wait. If you don’t know who’s supposed to do what, is it possible that this is fake?” I asked, a small glimmer of hope rising within me.

“The last one wasn’t,” he replied quietly.

The last one? Fuck.

“How do you know?” I asked, looking up at him.

“Because I was in it.”

M
y hands were folded in front of me as Jareth and Max took their places in the chairs. It had been decided that Arsen would be the survivor again which provided a modicum of comfort to me. I just had to follow his lead as he said and everything would be okay. But how far into his “lead” would I have to follow before it became too much for me to bare?

“Here’s how this is gonna work, sweetheart. You act as naturally as you can. Obviously the two of you have a thing going, so it shouldn’t be hard, right? Right. Anyway, he’s got a few choices on how to ‘end’ your scene.  Do us a favor and put up a fight; it works better with our clientele. Ready guys? Of course you are; now let’s roll,” Max said from behind the camera.

I glanced up quickly and saw that Jareth was the one watching the screen for any potential fuckups that might happen.

I took a shaky breath as I walked over to the curtain that looked out into the “neighborhood” below. It was supposed to be a violent breaking and entering where I would end up the victim of Arsen’s “rage” and “lust.” I guess it was what was hot on the black market these days and I fit the picture of what they needed to sell.

Desperate for cash. Alone. Broken. Confused. That was me and because of that I was going to die.

From behind me I heard the door to my “bedroom” creak open slowly. I closed my eyes tightly and hoped he would give me the easy way out. Even though he promised me that he wouldn’t hurt me, he didn’t promise he wouldn’t kill me and that was sticking out in my head; screaming at me to run out of the room or jump out of the window. A broken leg would be the worst of it, but at least I would have a head start.

I heard his footsteps as he approached and opened my eyes to look out the window up at the night sky.
Please don’t let this take too long.

I felt his breath hot on my neck, as he stood behind me. Then winced when his hand went around my throat.

In an instant it was gone again.

I turned around to face him curiously. Arsen looked almost hopeless. He understood now what was expected of him more than ever before. He knew there would be no way out of this. As he looked into my eyes, it became clear that he knew I had to die at his hands, but his face told me a different story.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he said quietly.

“Cut!” Max yelled.

“What’s the fucking problem?” Jareth barked at us.

“I don’t think I can do this. Not to her,” he repeated.

“I told you that using Neve wasn’t a good idea,” Max grumbled to Jareth.

“Everybody take a fifteen. Arsen, come with me. Neve stay where Max can see you,” Jareth commanded as Arsen sighed heavily and disappeared with him from the room.

W
hen Arsen and Jareth returned, I noticed that the demeanor had changed on both of them. Jareth was more confident and Arsen seemed to look more tortured.

“What’s going on?” I asked him when he approached me.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” he said quietly.

“No he doesn’t,” Jareth interrupted loudly. “Now enough horseshit. Let’s get this done before I decide to star in this fucking film myself.”

“Neve, go back to the window. Arsen put your hand around her neck, we’ll pick it up from there,” Max said, settling into his chair again.

“Turn around,” Arsen said. I did as I was told and felt his hand grip my neck from behind again. “I’ll make it quick,” he whispered.

My body began to shake. It was obvious that he had changed his mind or had his mind changed drastically for him. I think it was safe to say that I was happy I had stopped him the few times he tried to fuck me. Giving myself to someone who’s sole purpose now was to end my life for the viewing pleasure of some sick fucks, wasn’t a memory I’d want to replay in the last moments of my existence.

I took a deep breath and Arsen tightened his grip, cutting off my air supply. Instinctively, I started clawing at his hand with my fingers, trying to pry them off, but it was no use. He was a hell of a lot stronger than I gave him credit for. With a sudden jerk, he threw me onto the bed and stood at the end, an odd look settling on his face.

I felt a bitter shame wash over me as Arsen climbed onto the bed and pressed his body down against me. It was the money that made me become part of this freak show against my better judgment. I knew it was going to happen now and even though I had watched enough people do this to each other, knowing that I wouldn't survive only made it that much worse.

M
y lungs felt like they were on fire. Arsen hadn’t eased his grip around my throat and now he was using a serrated knife to cut my clothes from my body. But with each slice of clothing being torn away, he also cut into my body.

I closed my eyes tightly and tried to wriggle out of his grip but the more I struggled, the worse the stinging pain of my newly opened wounds and the sudden flame in my lungs.

When he had sufficiently inflicted enough pain with the knife, I felt his lips start to graze over the exposed parts of my body. The bloody, raw parts that were begging to be left to heal.

He used his knees to push my legs open and I used what was left in my will to fight to keep them closed. Arsen moved the knife down my body almost as if warning me against stopping him and I jerked myself to the right.

It was the worst decision of my life, second only to coming with him to this place. I immediately saw explosions of lights before my eyes, followed by the world starting to go black.

My body was going limp and I felt myself losing consciousness. I decided to stop fighting, to let the darkness take me when I heard Max say something that brought me back to life.

“You know, that Addie girl lasted longer than she did.”

I
had managed to fight Arsen off. I don’t know where the strength had come from, but I chalked it up to adrenalin. I threw him onto his back and subdued him by holding the knife I had wrestled out of his hand to his throat.

“What are you doing, sweet heart?” Max asked curiously.

“What happened to Adesynne?” I asked Arsen, ignoring Max.

He looked up into my eyes, a tear slowly slipping down the side of his face.

“What did you do to my cousin?” I screamed at him, pressing the blade down.

“What he was paid to do,” Jareth said, coming over to the bed. “Now let him up. It wasn’t his fault and we shouldn’t have talked about her right now. We need to finish this movie before shit keeps going downhill.”

I felt his hands on my arm as he attempted to pull me off of Arsen, and before I knew what I was doing, my arm swung around.

“Ugh!”

His eyes traveled down his body. I looked curiously at my hand wondering what I had just done when I saw the knife had been deeply embedded into his stomach.

“Fuck, Neve! Fuck!” Arsen yelled, trying to push me off of him. I quickly pulled the knife out as Jareth sank to the floor holding the gaping wound in his stomach and put it shakily back to Arsen’s throat.

“What did you do to my cousin?” I asked again. “Tell me!”

“Okay, okay,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender. “I killed her, but I didn’t mean to! I swear!”

“How?” I asked, through grit teeth.

“I snapped her neck,” he admitted.

I pulled the knife away from his throat and turned my attention to Max.

“Are you still rolling?” I asked.

I saw him nod before I turned my attention back to Arsen. I took a deep breath and looked into the beautiful eyes that for a brief time meant something to me. The eyes that kindly greeted me when I saw alone in New York on the Devil’s Den lot and the eyes that jealously watched me having my business lunch with Jareth.

Then I thought of Addie. My cousin, my best fucking friend, dead all because of these jackals looking to make a quick buck.

In an instant I turned the knife around and held it by the blade. I brought it over my head and brought it down as hard as I could onto his Adam’s apple. Blow after blow, each strike I foolishly hoped would bring Addie back to life, until there was almost nothing left of his neck.

The gurgling sounds would haunt me for the rest of my life as would the desperation in his eyes as I started to crush his throat, but if it was good enough for Addie, then it would be good enough for him.

I pushed myself off of his body, leaving him struggling for air and went over to Jareth who was still gripping his stomach trying to stop the bleeding.

I crouched down and raised his face to mine with the hilt of the knife. My fingers were aching from the pain of being cut over and over, but I was going to make a fucking point.

When our eyes connected, I drove the knife back into the open wound in his stomach and twisted it around, his screams louder than anything I had ever heard in my life.

I finally decided that he had lived long enough and pulled the knife out of his stomach and drove it into his neck. Once, twice, three times, until he fell over as robbed of life as Addie was.

M
ax told me that the money he would make on the ‘film’ we had just shot would rival anything other. He picked up the bodies and told me to wait where I was while he took them to an incinerator that was off the property.

I sat on the dirty floor of the makeshift bedroom, covered in blood and sweat, wondering what I had just done. Foolish actions had just condemned me in ways I wasn’t prepared to handle or deal with.

I’d never see New York again, but worse still, I would never see Adesynne either. Max returned thirty minutes later and began to break down his camera equipment, while I sat on the ground watching him, the knife still firmly gripped in my hand.

“Max?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah, babe?”

“Whose idea was this? These murder films?”

“Jareth. He said there was good money for them on the black market and he was right.”

“And how do you pick who’s going to be in the films?” I asked, getting to my feet.

“Usually it’s actors that have aged out in my company. We don’t do it very often,” he replied with a shrug. “Why do you ask?”

“I was wondering who chose Addie.”

“Jareth again. He said he didn’t like the way she could potentially take your mind off of your work so he sent her an invite for a job. Got her phone number off of your reference list,” he explained, leaning on his camera.

“Are you going to make any more now?” I inquired, moving closer to him.

“Probably. Why?”

“I have someone I think we can use,” I said.

“You wanna work for me?” he asked with a grin.

I thought of Jessica, the busty big-titted blonde, who had the pleasure of screwing Arsen for a living. I thought of how she got to have something that I didn’t and the fact that he must have cared more for her if he decided it was okay to kill my cousin.

Even though he was dead now, I wanted to hurt him further. To send her screaming into death after him and I wanted her to know that Arsen was the one that made it possible.

“One more film,” I said, holding out my hand.

“Deal,” he replied shaking it. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and held it out to me.

I had never smoked before, but I had never killed before either. I took one, inhaled as he lit it, coughed a few times, and nodded in thanks.

I was different now. I was going to become an entirely new Neve Grace Dutton and Addie would be proud of me. Wherever she was now.