Held & Pushed (2 book bundle) (20 page)

Chapter
32

As I
lowered my head and wept silently, Crystal began to scream. Assuming Ron had
replaced the batteries and was shocking her again, or maybe brutally removing
some of her other tattoos, I looked up. But he was still at the cabinet,
fumbling around in his search for batteries.

I watched
as she screamed and wondered what sort of agony she was going through,
simultaneously hoping I would never find out.

“Damn it.
Well,” Ron said, returning to Crystal sans cattle prod. “Since I don’t have any
spare batteries, we’ll just have to do things the hard way.”

I saw the
knife as he brought it up and ran his finger slowly along the blade. He glanced
at me to make sure I was looking. I was. I’d stopped crying, but the tears on
my cheeks were still wet.

“Aw. Don’t
cry yet, Nicole. Cry later, when I’ve finished with her.”

“Please
stop,” I begged. “I won’t make any more messes, and if I ever do, I’ll clean it
up. I swear. You don’t have to do this to her.”

“Actually
I do have to do this.”

“No, you
don’t.” Before I could tell him that I’d learned my lesson, he spoke.

“Yes, I
do. It’s not all about you, you know. The whole world doesn’t revolve around
you, Nicole. Don’t be self-centered. It isn’t fitting to you. I’ve reached a
slow spot in the novel. I need a little spice. This will serve two purposes.
It’ll teach you a valuable lesson, and it will help me liven up the story.”

“Novels
are fiction. Fiction means fake. You can make it up, Ron. Please leave her
alone.”

“Made-up stories
don’t sell.”

“Uh, yeah
they do.
Every single day.”

“Well not
mine. My book was
fake
, and it didn’t sell. This time,
though, it’ll be a bestseller. Why?
Because it’s going to be
real.
It’ll be believable. And I owe that to you, and the other women.”

He
squatted down beside Crystal’s torso and watched her face as she screamed.

He waited
until her screams became sobs before he set to work, carving away the tattoo
above her other breast. Her sobs quickly returned to screams.

Unable to
watch him slicing through her flesh, I looked away. That’s when I saw the
rapidly growing pool of blood gushing out from between her legs. Dark red blood
ran out of her and across the floor toward the drain.

I gasped,
but over her screams, no one heard me.

“Ron,” I
said, but he didn’t hear me. I couldn’t look away from her blood. I knew what
was happening. It was inevitable, but it still shocked me to actually see it.
“Ron,” I yelled over the screams.

He looked
at me, frustrated at being interrupted.

“She’s
having a miscarriage,” I said, nodding toward the blood.

He looked
at the steady stream of blood coming from her and smiled. The son of a bitch
smiled. I couldn’t believe it. Well, I guess I could. What I couldn’t do was
imagine how anyone could smile at such a horrible thing.

I watched
as he went back to removing her tattoo, paying no more attention to her
miscarriage.

He carved.

She
screamed.

I cried.

The baby
died.

Chapter
33

As if I
needed another reason to hate Ron, I now had one. It was bad enough that he
tortured and killed women, but to kill an unborn baby and smile about it was an
unspeakable act of evil. Had Crystal not came into contact with Ron, she
would’ve had the baby, and the baby could’ve grown up and lived a full life.
Now it was dead, having never fully developed.

The fact
that Ron smiled when he saw what he’d done was just a further testament to his
capabilities. I don’t know what I’d expected of him when I’d pointed out that
she was losing the baby. Maybe I expected him to be shocked, or at least to
look sympathetic and sorry. A man who could smile at causing a woman to
miscarry a baby was capable of anything.

And he was
about to show me some more of what he was capable of doing.

When Ron
had finished slicing away her tattoo, he held it up. A piece of skin slightly
bigger than a half dollar dangled between his thumb and forefinger, dripping
droplets of blood onto Crystal’s neck. He turned to me to see if I was
watching. Unfortunately, I was. Satisfied that his audience was captivated, he
turned back to Crystal. He dangled the piece of tattooed flesh inches above her
face, which was twisted in agony.

“You
shouldn’t mar your body in such a way, Crystal,” he said, slapping the piece of
meat against her cheeks. “Tattoos make you look trashy. They’re vile and
disgusting. And worse, they’re permanent. Well, they’re usually permanent.
You’re lucky I came along and removed them, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

Crystal
continued to scream, though her voice was weakening.

“Answer
me,” he screamed at her.

Angered
that she wouldn’t answer his ridiculous question, he grabbed her jaw roughly
with one hand. Ron shoved the flesh that was formally connected to her chest into
her open mouth, mid-scream.

Crystal’s
scream cut off and became a muffled moan as Ron held her mouth closed. She
struggled as much as she could, but it was no use. Ron wasn’t letting go. He
held her mouth shut tightly with one hand and held her head steady with the
other. With his face only inches from hers, he stared into her eyes as he spoke
to her.

“Eat it.
You wanted it on your body; you wanted it to be a part of you forever, so eat
it. Make it a part of you forever. Swallow it down. It’s part of you, Crystal.
Just eat it! Swallow it.” Screaming at her wasn’t going to make her swallow it.

My stomach
rolled and twisted in my belly as I watched her wrestle with him, a piece of
her own flesh in her mouth.

Several
minutes went by with Ron holding her in this position. Finally, he let go of
her jaw and slowly pulled away his hands from her face.

I watched
her carefully, so when she spat out the tattooed meat, I saw it shoot up out of
her mouth and fall to the floor next to her. Quickly, I looked to Ron. His face
turned red, his eyes narrowed, and I saw his jaw clench.

“You
filthy whore,” he said as he slapped her across the face.

I watched
as he picked up the meat and once again shoved it into her mouth. She resisted,
keeping her mouth shut tightly as long as possible. It wasn’t until Ron stuck
his finger into the hole in her chest where the meat had been just minutes
earlier that she opened her mouth. It was to scream, but it was open
nonetheless and Ron used the opportunity to shove in the flesh.

This time,
he held her mouth closed for at least ten minutes. I started out counting, but
after counting to sixty three times, I started thinking maybe it had been four
times, and while trying to sort it out in my head, I lost track. But my best
guess was at least ten minutes.

Finally,
he sat up. She didn’t spit it out this time, and Ron smiled.

“That
wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked.

She
answered his question by once again spitting the grotesque wad of meat out and
onto the floor, this time, above her head.

I was
afraid he was going to punch her, kick her, slap her, or choke her. In fact,
judging by the look on his face, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him beat
her to death.

But he
didn’t. When he got done with her, she’d wish he had beaten her to death, but
that’s not what he did.

With his
left hand, he grabbed the nipple of her left breast. He pulled it, stretching
it upward until her breast became elongated.

As I tried
to determine what sort of punishment this was, I found out.

Quick as a
flash, Ron brought up the knife and slashed it through the air. It took a
second for me to realize that he had not only sliced the air, he’d sliced
through her breast, taking off the nipple and a good portion of the rest of it.
When I noticed a third of her breast dangling by the nipple from between his
fingertips, I looked down at what was left of her breast. It looked like an
erupted volcano, blood oozing out of the opening and running down the sides
like lava.

Her
screams burst forth, filling the room and bouncing off the concrete walls.

Ron
smiled.

He tossed
her ruined breast to the floor and grabbed the nipple of the remaining breast.
He stretched it upward, just as he had the other one. He again slashed the
knife through her skin. This time, however, he didn’t make a clean slice. He
only made it halfway through.

I watched
as he began to slowly saw back and forth with the knife through the rest of her
breast, making jagged cut marks.

When I
noticed the silence, I looked at Crystal and saw that she’d passed out. I was
surprised she’d made it as long as she had without succumbing to the darkness.

When Ron
finished cutting off her breast, he brought it to his face. I was sure he was
going to take a bite out of it, or maybe drink some of the blood from it. My
mouth began to fill with saliva in preparation of the vomit that was sure to
come.

He brought
it to his nose, inhaled deeply, and smiled. What a sick bastard.

He looked
at Crystal, prepared to speak, but saw she was unconscious. Slamming the ruined
tip of her breast down, he stood abruptly and stormed across the room to the
cabinet.

I looked
back at Crystal. Her breast had landed on her abdomen, making for a spectacle
that seemed to have originated in a science fiction horror movie. Her breasts
were chopped and bleeding, and on top of her swollen abdomen rose what looked to
be a third breast, nipple reaching for the ceiling.

I felt
horrible for her.
All this because of me.
No. It
wasn’t because of me. It was because of Ron, but he wanted me to think it was
because of me. Even though it wasn’t because of me, I was crying. I felt
responsible. I should’ve done something to protect her.

When Ron
came back from the cabinet, I begged, I pleaded, I cried openly, but it was no
use.

Suddenly, things
got a whole lot worse.

Chapter
34

Ron
dropped to his knees beside Crystal and set the tools of torture beside him.

“Wake up,
Crystal.” There was a threatening tone to his voice. It was as if he were
saying ‘wake up now and prevent what’s about to happen’.

When she
didn’t stir, he nodded and began what can only be described as the most
horrific thing I’ve ever seen.

As he
removed the lid from a bottle with a label I recognized to be rubbing alcohol, I
looked at the steady stream of blood that still made its way from Crystal to
the drain. Only now, it wasn’t just a stream. It was more like a small river.
It was getting worse, and fast.

I looked
back at Ron just as he poured a hearty amount of alcohol into the crater that
was formerly Crystal’s left breast. This brought her around in a hurry, which
was obviously what he wanted. He wanted to torture her and inflict as much pain
as possible on the poor girl, but he wanted her to be awake while he did it.

Her
screams and wails were loud, but her voice was failing her. She’d done more
screaming than any actress in a bad horror movie had ever thought of doing. It
was wearing on her.

I couldn’t
watch. I closed my eyes and hoped Ron didn’t notice. If he realized I wasn’t
watching, it would get worse for her.

I listened
to her screams as her voice cracked and broke, and then fell silent. Hoping for
her sake that she’d passed out again, I opened my eyes and checked on her. She
was wide awake, still thrashing against her restraints, and screaming though no
sound escaped her. Her voice had finally gone.

Tired of
pouring alcohol into her open wound, Ron set down the bottle and picked up an
ice pick.

“What’s
that, Crystal? I can’t hear you?” he said.

He used
his left hand to grab her right breast at the base. He squeezed it, making the
bleeding mound of flesh rise farther away from her chest and jabbed in the ice
pick. He jabbed it quickly up and down, as if he really was chipping away ice.
Blood spattered across her chest and belly, along with pieces of breast meat.

My stomach
rolled and a mouthful of sour spit overwhelmed me. Unable to take it any
longer, I leaned forward, spread my legs, and vomited on the floor between my
feet. I was aware that my mess-making was the cause of her agony, but there was
nothing I could do about this one. I’d held it back as long as I could.

Ron
must’ve realized that I wasn’t looking.

“Nicole,
are you watching? Are you making another mess?”

“I’ll clean
it,” I said between retches.

“You need
to watch this, Nicole. These are valuable lessons I’m teaching you.”

“I can’t.
I can’t watch anymore. Please stop. You’re killing her.”