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Authors: Ker Dukey,K. Webster

Tags: #Book One

Pretty Stolen Dolls (3 page)

BOOK: Pretty Stolen Dolls
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I’m long past tears; they went with my innocence.

Occasionally, Macy cries when he’s being especially brutal, or when he leaves her cell and she pleads with him she can be better. She knows if she doesn’t try to be the best dolly she can be, she won’t be fed for a day or two.

I’d rather starve than be his good dolly.

Because of this monster and his warped mind, I’m desensitized. Instead of begging and pleading for him to let us go—which always falls on deaf ears and gains us the manic pacing Benjamin, who sings his nursery rhyme and then sits there painting the faces on his dolls—I plot our escape. I plan his death. I make sure to go on breathing so my sister and I have a future.

The wooden door slams shut on the cell beside me with a screech. Whatever he was doing with Macy, he’s done now, and her whimpering notches another dent in my heart.

My turn.

I’m always forced to listen to him with her. It’s his special way of torture, forcing me to hear her cries so by the time he comes for me, I’m rabid. He loves it when I fight and tear at his flesh any chance I get. The sicko gets off when I go on the offensive. He always takes dresses and makeup into her cell. I hear him decorating her into the perfect doll, but not me. He leaves me bare and untamed.

One of these days, he’ll slip up and I’ll be ready.

His muscled frame comes into view under the single halogen bulb in front of my cell. He’s only wearing a pair of jeans that hang low on his hips. Sweat rolls down his solid chest and his hair is soaked from exertion. Smelling the coppery scent of my little sister’s blood on this man is something that will forever be burned into my senses. Erasing that will never be possible unless it’s with the scent of his own blood as he gurgles his last breath.

The man who crafts dolls outside our cells on a work station is beyond crazy. He’s more monster than man—one more brutal and deranged than Daddy could have ever imagined lurking out there, waiting.

A full-on mentally deranged sicko, and when he wasn’t out there working, waiting, taunting, Macy would constantly ask when he was coming back,
if
he was coming back. He always came back and I couldn’t save her from it.

When he’s in his sick rage, his normally honey-colored eyes darken to more of a milky chocolate. I’ve watched his every move, listened to his every word, studied his every mannerism.

I know him better than he knows himself.

I know his patterns.

His tells.

His weaknesses.

And one day, I’ll pounce. I’ll end this and save us—save
her—
like I was supposed to.

“There’s my dirty little doll. So wild and scared, but still so fucking pretty.” His eyes narrow as his gaze travels down my body. It’s a hundred degrees easily, but I can’t help but defy him. I’m not naked and cowering. I’ve ripped the sheet from the mattress and tied it around my body like a dress. He will take it with him when he leaves and when night falls and the walls to my cell cool, I’ll be exposed and wishing for the sheet, but defying him is just too appealing—it’s the only ounce of control I possess.

I’m about to smart off to him when I notice the sway. It’s slight and almost imperceptible, but I see it. He’s drunk. He’s
never drunk
. Drunk is good. Drunk means weak.

Fisting my hands at my sides, I wait. An opportunity like this is too big not to act on. When he comes inside, I’ll attack him. Surely I can overtake him. There’s a swagger to his movements and all I need is for him to let down his guard once.

“Your master wants to play. What game are you going to play with me today, dirty little doll?” he questions, a smile on his lips as he fumbles with the keys.

“We could play Eye Spy, but your dick is so small, no one can really spy it,” I snap, goading him.

A low growl rumbles in his throat. “Or I could play with your insides when I gut you for being a bad little dolly.”

I was used to his threats. They were always deadly and vicious, but he never followed through with actually killing me. I think he liked my insolence; it made his games more fun for him.

The click of the lock unengaging causes my sweaty skin to erupt with goosebumps. Soon, he’ll be inside this cell taking what he wants—just like every night.

Not tonight.

The thought—so sudden and fierce—charges me with adrenaline. And when he drops the keys, the sound chinking around my cell like a starting pistol urging me to go, I make my move. Slinging the door hard to the right, I wrench it open with a rage-filled scream. He barely has a chance to register I’ve come out of my cell before I slam my fists into his chest and push him hard. His unstable body hits the floor with a
thud
.

“STOP!” he roars as he clambers to his feet.

But I don’t stop.

I run for my life. I run for both our lives. If I can get the heck out of this hellhole, I can find help. I can save my sister. I take the stairs, which shockingly lead down two at a time.

His home is a blur as I rush toward a door to the right of a kitchen. I was in an attic turned dolly-dungeon. As if my world weren’t screwed up enough, of course it would be straight from a horror movie. I don’t stop to inspect the kitchen along the way, to look for a phone, or even look over my shoulder to see if he’s coming the moment I shove through the front door.

I.

Don’t.

Stop.

Cold air hits me in the face, coating my entire body like a cloak. We’re surrounded by woods. Trees, green and vibrant, whizz past as I run as fast as my legs will carry me. I ignore the bite of sticks and pinecones with each step I take. I ignore the scratching of branches as they whip and hiss at my body. Nothing matters but finding help. Behind me, I hear the crunching of leaves and grunting. He’s hot on my trail, but not close enough.

He’s weak.

Drunk.

An unworthy match.

With each long leap through the thick woods, I distance myself farther from him. Numbing the pain humming throughout my body, I run until my chest aches from my lungs burning for air. I’m dizzy, hungry, and not used to such bursts of exercise, but I don’t stop or slow until I’m pretty sure I haven’t heard him in ages. Death will take me before I allow him to take me again.

I got away.

I freaking got away. My mind screams at me in hysterics, but no sound leaves my lips.

And I’m going to get her back.

Willing myself to keep going, I take off again, faster this time.

A loud sob escapes as realization courses through me. We’re finally free. As soon as I find help, they’ll take that psycho to prison and we’ll go back home to Momma and Daddy. I’m still holding on to darkened, fading images of my parents in my mind when I bolt from the edge of the woods. A hundred yards ahead is a road. Headlights from about a half-mile away are heading right in my direction. Elation echoes through my bones as I stretch them wide to signal the car coming.


Help!
” I screech and power forward.

The vehicle seems to be going slow enough, surely I can wave it down and be rescued.


Help!
” My voice is hoarse, but my legs keep moving.

When the vehicle starts to slow, I start crying so hard, I’m blinded. It doesn’t stop my journey, though. I run, waving my arms wildly, until my bloody, cut-up feet slap the warm pavement.


Help!

The screeching of tires signifies the driver saw me. They’ll stop for me and save me. They’ll help me—

Thud
.

Metal slams into me from the side with the force of a speeding train. Bones crack and pop in my body like a symphony of hollow drums. I don’t know which way is up until my head slams painfully against the pavement with a crack that resonates inside my skull.

Then, I’m staring up.

Bright stars glitter in the sky as something warm pulsates from the side of my head, soaking the pavement beneath me. I haven’t seen the sky in four years. It’s bewitching, beautiful, and sparse.

I try to speak when an older woman with greying hair shouts for me to hold on.

But I can’t hold on.

The stars dim, the sky darkening and filling the void around me.

Her features fade.

And darkness steals me this time.

Hang in there, Macy. I’m coming back for you.

 

Eight years later…

 


J
ADE, IS EVERYTHING OKAY?
Y
OU
don’t look like you’re eating.”

Lifting my eyes to my mother’s worried, searching ones, I smile and spoon in a mouthful of red velvet cake she bought with our coffees. We’ve made ourselves comfortable in a small diner in town. The bright red leather booth seats are peeling at the seams, but the food is good and the coffee is even better.

“I’m fine, Mom, and weigh more than I ever have.”

It was true. I had to use a coat hanger to hook the buttonhole and stretch it to meet the button on my favorite jeans this morning.

“You should come home for a cooked meal. Your father would love to see you.” The smile she offers crinkles her eyes.

Picking up the mug of coffee and letting the heat soak into my palms through the cup, I inhale the steam billowing from the top. “I will soon. I promise. Things are just really busy at work.”

She stirs a spoon around her cup absentmindedly. “You worked so hard to make detective and then they threw you straight into the deep end and haven’t let you up to take a breath.”

It’s weird that she still wants to talk about this. She knows how much I wanted this job and how hard I had to work to get it. I missed four years of education being locked away from the world. I had to do night classes, summer school, and study twice as hard as everyone else. “I like working,” I tell her, my voice rising a few octaves. “If I don’t keep busy, I go back there in my mind and I…”

Her face blanches, just like it does every time I mention what happened. It’s been years now, but it’s still with me, like a ghost haunting me from the shadows. Mom and Dad don’t like to talk about it. They tried to pick up from where we left off when I was a fourteen-year-old girl, naïve and gullible. That girl died in that cell the first time Benny put his hands on her.

The scent of flowers invades me when a woman and child walk past. She’s wearing too much perfume and her blue eyeshadow matches the overstuffed bright blue bag she’s carrying. An item drops from it and hits the floor, rolling to my foot. Bending down, I reach for it and pause. It’s a doll. Just a simple dolly, but it causes all the hairs on my body to rise and my mind to race into overdrive.

Was it a sign?

Is he back?

Did he tell them to drop it?

Is he in here, watching me?

I pick the doll up from the floor and call out to the woman, “Excuse me.” I stand and walk the six or seven feet to the front of the diner. “You dropped this.”

The woman’s eyes grow wide and her mouth pops open. “Oh my God, thank you. She won’t sleep without it.” She sighs, taking the doll and stuffing it deeper into her bag this time. I wiggle my fingers down at the little girl, whose wide blue eyes hypnotize me. She huddles into her mother’s thigh and smiles up at me.

“Jade,” Mom calls when I’m still standing there, my hands tucked in the back pockets of my jeans, staring at the door the woman and child exited through a good twenty seconds ago.

I hate taking time off—too much time to think and dwell and remember. It was rare for me to actually take a day, but I promised Mom I’d meet her for coffee and shopping. I didn’t want to shop at all. Work is where I should be, waiting for that one call to come in, to help me catch Benny. He had been dormant for so long, but I knew deep in my soul he would resurface. Every case I took on was Benny; every victory a middle finger to Benny.

I got away.

I got away and I will get you, you bastard.

“So, what shop first?”

“I actually feel a headache coming on,” I say with a groan, hoping she can’t see through my lies. “Do you mind if we reschedule?” I rub my temple with the pads of two fingers for effect. She’s used to my blow-offs by now and like a good parent, she lets me go.

“That’s fine, honey,” she says, lines of worry marring her forehead. “Go home and get some rest.”

BOOK: Pretty Stolen Dolls
12.4Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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