Pretty Stolen Dolls (8 page)

He brought her outside her cell.

My mind reels in disbelief.

I haven’t glimpsed my sister since the day he stole us.

“Look what you did,” he growls. “She’s broken. She was a pretty little doll just like you and now she’s ugly.”

Reaching down, he picks up a shard of porcelain with his free hand, then straightens to his full height, which almost reaches the light bulb dangling from the ceiling, bringing Macy up with him. She reaches up onto her tiptoes and the frilly dress she’s wearing ruffles and sways with her movements.

When her hair falls away from her face, I truly see her for the first time in so long. Hot tears burn in my eyes, brimming my lashes. She’s different, but the same. My heart is happy to see her, yet my soul is sad.

I didn’t keep her safe.

“Tell her you’re sorry,” he rages, his entire body quaking with anger. “Cry for the broken dolly.” When she doesn’t speak, he raises his hand. At first, I fear he’ll hit her and the blood in my body stops pumping altogether as I wait for his impending blow.

But then, softly, almost gently, he does something worse.

Clutching one of the porcelain shards in his grip, he pokes it into her flesh just below Macy’s tear duct with steady movements.

Bile rises in my throat as blood blooms around the creamy porcelain. A scream threatens to suffocate me as he drags the sharp edge down along the side of her nose, the shard creating a crimson river in its wake. Her lips part, but she doesn’t cry out. Instead, her eyes meet his, and they flicker with sorrow. Her bottom lip quivers and in a meek, regretful tone, she tells him, “I’m sorry.”

I find my voice—louder than the thunder crashing outside—and yank at the metal on my cage. “Let her go, you maniac!”

He remains frozen in the sick, twisted position of holding my sister by the throat as her face bleeds. Just staring. Always staring. I ball my hands into fists and hammer them against the door, hoping to drag his attention away from her, all to no effect. Her hazel eyes flicker to mine and I sob so hard, my chest hurts.

“Forgive me, Macy. I’m so sorry…forgive me. I’m going to save us, I promise.”

My will loses fight as my knees buckle and I nearly fall to the floor, screaming alongside the storm, hoping it will carry me away when it eventually passes, leaving behind the merciless heat. He disappears with my sister into her cage and I feel powerless in my world. I bury my face in my sweaty, dirty palms.

“Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick.

So she phoned for the doctor to be quick, quick, quick.”

He reemerges from her cell singing his creepy song while picking up the pieces of his broken doll outside our cells. She will never go back to being his pretty doll again. Just like Macy will now forever bear his jagged mark on her face. Just like I will never be able to hide the cracks he has created within me.

I know from hearing his song he won’t visit my cell tonight, or my sister’s. Thank God. He will leave us and tomorrow we won’t get fed. But at least we’ll get a reprieve from the monster who holds our destiny in the palm of his wicked hand.

“Jade, what the hell are you humming? Are you sure you want to be in here?”

My eyes snap to Dillon’s, but the memory hangs thick in the air. I can almost taste the dust from my cell. Almost smell Benny’s familiar scent lingering like a cloying fog. “Humming?”

He shakes his head and eyes me like I’ve lost my mind. “Yeah, some creepy-ass tune.”

Too afraid to touch on the fact that Benny is still with me, I ignore him and glare at the uniform. “Anything else you want to do to disturb the crime scene? Maybe sit and play in her blood?” I snap, gesturing to the door with a stern finger. “Show me where the witness is.”

I follow the stuttering officer out, ignoring the burning gaze at my back.

This has Benny written all over it.

He’s here.

He took that girl. He wants a new doll.

Why this shop? Killing a woman of this age for no reason isn’t his MO. He was premeditated when it came to taking a girl. Murdered when enraged. Has he evolved? Did he need supplies? Was he really back?

“
A
RE YOU
M
ADISON
K
LINE
?”

The twenty-something woman nods, her eyes wide with fright. “Is it true? Is Mrs. Hawthorne…” her voice croaks, “d-dead?”

I look to the store window a few feet away from where I brought her outside the tape to get some privacy from the thickening crowd. One of the medical examiners is standing with his back to us, staring down at the body. His hand motions to the wound on her neck as he says something to his partner. Dragging my eyes back to the woman, I let out a sigh.

“I’m afraid so. I’m going to need to ask you some questions.”

She nods, a small, wobbly frown at her lips, but her now teary eyes stay trained on the window. “Who would do such an awful thing? Mrs. Hawthorne was the nicest person. She made dolls for crying out loud. It’s not like we even sold enough for anyone to rob us. I just don’t understand.”

I reach for her and grip her shoulder. “Some people are evil, Miss Kline. We may not understand their reasoning.” Releasing her, I give her a grim smile. “The best we can do now is catch the man who did this.”

Her brows furrow together. “Man?”

Heat floods my cheeks and I swallow. “Person,” I rush out, correcting myself.

Although homicides are committed by men over eighty percent of the time, it was still a slip that shouldn’t have happened.

Benny.

“We’re going to catch the perpetrator. Now, can you tell me where you were between the hours of eight and midnight last night?”

Miss Kline nods. “At home. I took a shower around eight. Watched television until about ten before going to bed. Why?”

“Can anyone corroborate your statement?” She’s not a suspect, I’m simply doing due diligence.

“My ma. I still live at home.”

I cast my gaze down to my notebook while I scribble information for my report later when she steps past me, her fingertip touching the glass of the shop window.

Turning my head, I watch her as she stares inside. I half expect her to burst into tears at seeing the body from the window, but she jerks her tearstained face to mine instead, pointing to the row of dolls up front.

“This wasn’t here yesterday. It’s not one of ours.”

My body tenses as I follow her finger. At the end sits a boy porcelain doll. Messy brown hair. Overalls. A sad frown on his face.

I know this doll.

Benny.

She continues to speak, but I’m frozen in place, in the sweltering heat of the flea market once again. I’m with Benny and Macy. I’m packing the boy doll I want carefully into the box, promising him my dad will buy him, that everything will be okay and he’ll be mine soon.

I even broke my promise to a stupid doll.

“Stop crying,” he warns, regarding me through the bars, his tone hard, nothing like the man from the market.

“The papers say you’re fourteen.”

“I am. You know this, I told you.”

He studies me through the bars separating us. “I assumed you were older,” he muses to himself.

I assumed he was sane. I guess we were both wrong.

“Let me go! What have you done to Macy?” I demand, swiping at my tears.

“Nothing. She’s playing with her doll.” He unlocks the latch in the door and the bars usually blocking the space between us pull open in his hands. With a grunt, he pushes a doll through the gap.

My breath hitches on a hiccup. It’s the one from his booth—the boy doll I wanted.

“Here, have your dolly,” he tells me, gently shaking it at me.

Anger coils in my gut and I run toward the door, snatching the doll from his hand.

“I don’t want your stupid doll,” I scream, tearing at the doll’s hair and clothes before throwing it on the bed. When I run back to the latch, he’s glaring down at the mess I’ve made of his precious doll.

Good.

I already told him before I was too old for his stupid dolls.

“Let me out. I want to go home,” I bellow, tiptoeing to see into his face through the open latch.

Cold abyss stares back at me, choking me in its darkness, like it’s penetrating my body, obscuring me from the inside out.

A hand too quick for me to stop reaches in and grabs me around the throat, squeezing.

My eyes expand in shock, the blood vessels screaming for mercy.

A shriek attempts to escape me, but it’s without sound. He’s so strong. I claw at the hand stealing my life, but it’s having no effect. He remains stoic, staring in at me, his grip gaining strength.

I’m fading…dying…stop.

Air rushes into my lungs, scorching my raw gullet as I’m released. I drop to the floor and pain slices into my kneecaps, shooting up my body.

Clank.

“No,” I choke past the rawness scratching my throat, crawling away from the door that’s now opening. His shadow creeps over me like a dark tide—infecting me, overwhelming me, drowning me.

A hand grips my hair, dragging me to my feet while my legs flail beneath me. My follicles are set ablaze, the pain spanning my entire scalp.

“Stop, please,” I beg, my voice broken and hoarse. “I want to go home.”

“This
is
home now,” he tells me, not one inflection of emotion in his voice. So matter of fact.

He yanks me back and I fall onto the bed, his clenched fist gripping strands of my hair. When he draws his gaze to the boy doll, my eyes follow and a whimper leaves me.

I pulled tufts of the hair out and ripped the clothes from the little doll.

Slow and menacing, he drags his eyes back to me. My head shakes no as my body trembles and cowers. Heavy hands grab at me, tearing my clothes. I fight, lashing at him with a frenzied bout of energy and fury. Humiliation, pain, and fear saturate my soul as he subdues me without any effort, leaving me in my bra and panties when he’s finished, embarrassed and terrified.