Twelve of Roses: A Dark Standalone Page 8

  I watched her eat supper, take a shower, and climb under her sheets to fall asleep. The whole time she thought she was safe, just like Rose used to. It was so easy to creep inside their homes and watch them for hours upon hours. I used to sleep in Rose’s closet.

  She had a blue sweater covered in my semen. I hid it in the very back every time I left, making sure she wouldn’t find it.

  Creeping forward and pulling my balaclava down over my face, I moved fast.

  I smothered the woman’s body with my own and pressed a hand over her mouth. Her eyes flew open, darting around, wild and frenzied. She tried to scream, but I’d already expected that. I grabbed her by the throat and began applying pressure.

  “Either you stop struggling, or I cut you open right here,” I whispered in her ear.

  She immediately stilled, looking up at me with confusion and tears in her eyes. To make my threat clear, I pressed the blade of my hunting knife against her neck.

  “We’re going to get up nice and slow now,” I explained, backing away from her but leaving the knife where it was. She swallowed audibly, pushing her comforter down to follow.

  “Please,” she barely whispered through trembling lips. Her brown hair was in complete disarray and she was damn near naked.

  I loved it when they were like this—so afraid that they would piss themselves if you told them to.

  “Come on, sweetheart. We have somewhere to be.” I grabbed her elbow and kept her beside me, leading her down the stairs and towards the back door. She cried the whole way, of course, but it didn’t faze me. After checking to make sure it was all clear, I led her outside, locking the door behind us.

  “Get in,” I instructed her, pulling open the back door of the truck.

  She sniffled, shaking her head back and forth. I didn’t have the patience to deal with her panicky bullshit. Grabbing hold of her hair, I practically lifted her into the backseat, slamming my elbow into the side of her face when she tried to scream.

  “Let’s go.” I tapped the driver’s seat, giving Justin the okay.

  I pinned the woman down by the back of her neck, ignoring her full-blown sobs.

  “She’ll come home,” he assured me, referring to Rose, not taking his eyes off the road.

  “I know,” I replied after a minute. But she didn’t know where our new home was.

  Running a construction company came in handy in more ways than one. I’d built our entire house thinking of her. I was trying to be a decent guy and give her the farm she always talked about. Being a good guy was tiring, so I figured decent could suffice.

  It didn’t take Justin very long to get to the salon. He pulled right up to the side door that had been left unlocked for this very reason. I got out, taking my entertainment for the night with me.

  “I handled the cameras,” he stated.

  “Okay. Be back in forty,” I instructed him before going inside.

  He gave me a captain’s salute and pulled off, getting the truck out of view.

  “What are you going to do to me?” she choked out, wobbling on her feet as I directed her to a specific black leather chair.

  “I’m going to give you a new look; now sit down, and don’t move. We wouldn’t want you getting hurt.”

  I watched her in the mirrors, grabbing a few blow dryers and flat irons so I could tie the bitch up before I got to work. She watched me the entire time, shaking so hard it looked like she was having conniptions.

  See, I never raised my voice at the girls I took. I always talked to them as if I actually cared about their feelings, lulling them into a somewhat relaxed sense of security.

  This woman knew better, and the second I pulled my mask off, it solidified the fact that she wasn’t leaving the chair I had just tied her up in.

  “Remember—don’t scream,” I warned again, reaching behind me for Rose’s pair of clippers.

  It took me less than five minutes to shave the woman bald. Strands of brunette hair covered her, the chair, and the floor.

  She never stopped crying, and snot was running from her nose. I went back over her head a second time, not wanting any stray strands sticking out when I put on her red wig. This was much quicker than trying to turn someone’s hair the same shade Rose’s was.

  “Open up.” I stepped around to the front of the chair and pressed my mask against her mucus covered lips.

  “Why are you–?”

  “Because you didn’t lock your door,” I cut her off, shoving the black fabric all the way into her mouth.

  Reaching in my hoodie pocket, I retrieved the bundled up synthetic hair and carefully placed it on top of her head, smoothing the silky strands down with a sigh.

  “Much better,” I commented, adjusting the chair so she was leaning back.

  “Now, this next part is going to hurt a little,” I explained calmly as I grabbed my hunting knife from the vanity. She thrashed her head back and forth, screaming incoherently and pointlessly at me. More than likely, it was some form of begging.

  Pressing the tip of the knife to her bare stomach, I slowly began making my first incision. Dark, beautiful crimson immediately began to run out, pooling inside her belly button. I retraced the curved line, going a little deeper this time, inhaling deeply when she squealed like my swine used to.

  My dick twitched in my jeans when she screamed a little louder as I made the second incision. There was so much blood starting to run together—it was breathtaking. It ran off the sides of her stomach, dripping onto the white tiled floor, staining the leather.

  I needed to see more.

  My pulse quickened as I went back over my symbol, shoving the knife all the way inside her, willing it to pop out of her back and tear through the chair.

  She made a mangled sound in her throat. I swore her eyes were going to pop out of their sockets, but I kept on going. It happened the second time I shoved the knife in. I treated her like I would a buck, twisting the handle, hearing bone and intestine shift and squish around. Her head hung, the life having left her body in the midst of my sculpting.

  My hands shook as I pulled the blade back out. If this were way back when, Rose would be on her knees right now, sucking me dry and finger fucking herself.

  Plugging another flat iron in, I waited for it to get hot, then used it to cauterize my mark so it stood out better.

  A burnt rubber smell filled the air as her flesh sizzled and blood popped like hot oil.

  Running a hand over my chin, I stepped back and admired my craftsmanship before grabbing a comb so I could fix her hair up.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Past

  I heard his heavy footsteps coming down the hall. Molly huddled closer to me, shivering from the chilled air coupled with fear. I gripped her freezing, pale hands in mine, counting the seconds before he arrived.

  The two new girls sat on the opposite side of the room, far away from us. They thought we were like him. I didn’t blame them. In fact, they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. If I’d seen what they had I might have come to that same conclusion.

  Molly and I were only permitted to wear white, vintage silk gowns, and our hair had to always be presentable. Our room was painted a soft pink, and our golden framed beds were of the best quality.

  It wasn’t usually how people pictured two kidnapped girls living.

  Con did his usual and paused three doors down, continuing to sing his twisted song. This was his thing, one of his methods of torment. He sang us a lullaby where we died at the end. When the doorknob slowly began to turn, the two girls grabbed hold of one another, as if that would protect them from him.

  Poor things.

  At first, I often wondered where he found his new toys, but after being with him for over six months I learned there was a pattern with him. He had methods to his crazy, and it had everything to do with me. I was his madness. I was the disease he fed off.

  Con walked in with his charming smile in place, looking just as beautiful as he always did. Justin was right behind him, pa
using in the doorway.

  “Molly.” Con greeted her with a chin jerk, refusing to acknowledge me. I was still being given the cold shoulder for standing up to him the week prior. The bruise on my face was just starting to fade from his knuckles connecting with it.

  “Hey,” he called gently to the new girls, crouching down to their level.

  “Please let us go,” the older of the two pleaded. Molly and I both dropped our gazes to our laps.

  This was always the worst part—when the girls begged to be let go. They swore they’d do anything for freedom. The things Con came up with never ceased to surprise me.

  “We’re going to play a simple game first. If you participate, I promise I’ll let you go.” He crossed his right hand over his heart, oozing sincerity.

  The girls eyed him warily, but both nodded their heads in agreement. I frowned over at them, biting my tongue.

  Every time this happened, it was like being fed a spoonful of vinegar. They were me once. I was disarmed by the pretty eyes and pretty smile of a perfect liar.

  “All right, we’re going to go to the dining room.” He stood up, holding out his hands to them. They each grabbed a side and allowed him to lead them out of the room, shooting Molly and me uncertain glances.

  “Come on, you two,” Justin ordered, turning to follow his brother.

  “Rose, I can’t,” Molly whispered, tears forming in her eyes. “I can’t watch him—”

  “Shh, you know what will happen if he hears you.” I brushed the wetness from her cheeks, taking her face in my hands.

  “We’re going to be okay,” I assured her.

  It wasn’t a lie.

  He may hurt us, play games that made us question our sanity, and make us prove our devotion to him, but he would never let either of us go. He said we were a family, and nothing was going to break that apart.

  “Come on.” Standing, I reached down and clasped her hand again to help her up. She hung her head, walking slightly behind me with slumped shoulders and her chin tucked to her chest, utterly defeated by the knowledge of what was coming next.

  When we entered the nearly empty dining room, the two girls were already sitting in old wooden chairs with their eyes covered by bandanas, both surprisingly calm.

  Con stood off to the side, leisurely smoking a cigarette. He liked to make people’s minds race, to jump to conclusions about what was going to happen. He got off on the smallest amount of fear.

  Our eyes met as I walked across the room, his exquisite blue colliding harshly with my dark brown, and my stomach dipped. It was pure insanity to feel love for him. That message wasn’t clear to my heart, though. I knew no one would ever understand how I felt—how could they? I didn’t even want Con to know. The affection I harbored for him was just another secret I tucked away inside myself.

  Averting my gaze to the floor, I went and sat in a rickety chair, keeping Molly close to my side. We were used to this routine, too.

  Justin sat on a stool in the corner, serving as centaur. Vicky was off doing god knows what, and Julie had mysteriously vanished four months ago. I was almost certain she was buried with all the others in the woods.

  “Are you two ready?” he asked the girls, snuffing out his cigarette in an ashtray.

  “What do we do?” the one closest to him asked, fidgeting in her chair.

  “Nothing; just sit there,” he responded, picking his large bowie knife up from the buffet side table. He began circling around behind us, gently touching the tops of our heads.

  On his third lap, the words I was expecting to hear began to pour from his mouth. Justin stood up to join him in walking around our chairs.

  “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe," he started to sing softly.

  The girl across from me immediately began to cry. I rested my hands in my lap, balling them into fists and digging my nails into my palms until they punctured the skin. Molly mimicked my stance, shutting her eyes until the rhyme ended.

  “My mother said to pick the very best rose. And you…are…not…her.”

  He stopped behind the girl who had begun to cry and grabbed hold of her hair, pulling her head all the way back to expose her neck.

  “No!” she screamed, failing to dislodge him before he drew the serrated blade across her throat.

  She fell from the chair, choking on her own blood. I reached over and took Molly’s hand, letting her squeeze mine as hard as she needed to. She’d never gotten used to this part, while I could bear it without batting an eye. Maybe witnessing brutal deaths before had given me the ability to cope with them better.

  Justin had his hands on the other girl’s shoulders, keeping her in place as she struggled to get away. Con completely ignored her, walking back to the buffet table.

  I stared down at the lifeless body on the floor. The girl’s green eyes were still wide open.

  Her head was tilted at an odd angle, allowing me to see straight into them. I wondered what her name was and where she came from. My vision was blocked when Con came to stand in front of me, pinching my chin and lifting my head so that I was looking up at him.

  He looked down as if he were studying me, tracing the pad of his thumb over my lips before pushing it between them. His mouth tilted up at the corners when I flicked my tongue across it. I knew he was a sick, twisted asshole, but his smile never failed to make my heart soar. His next words, however, quickly made it crash and burn.

  “I want you to do that one, okay?” He was asking, but it wasn’t really a question.

  The last and only time I refused to take a life, he made me deeply regret it.

  “Here.” He removed his thumb from my mouth and offered me a hammer with the claw part pointed at the ground.

  I kept my eyes locked with his and wrapped my hand around the wooden handle. He stepped to the side, taking hold of my elbow and pulling me to my feet. I didn’t risk glancing over to see Molly’s face. She swore she didn’t hate me for the things I did, but I didn’t want to find out if she was lying or not.

  Inhaling a quick, shaky breath, I approached the girl who was still crying and stuck in Justin’s grasp.

  I’d done this a total of eight times now, and each time made me a little more numb. Killing them was getting easier, because I knew it was their only way out.

  My palms began to sweat, so I adjusted my grip and stopped a few feet away from the girl. Justin nodded at me to let me know he had a tight hold on her. What almost looked like sympathy was always reflected in his hazel eyes.

  This girl looked around my age, which meant she could have been anywhere from fifteen to eighteen years old.

  Given that Con said he saw me when I was fourteen, and he was already twenty-two by that point, I knew he didn’t care about such trivial things.

  I nodded to Justin and then swung the round part of the hammer into her head. An ugly, terrible screech shot from her mouth. My heart jumped into my throat and I swung again, harder than the time before.

  This time, there was a satisfying crack on the frontal lobe. When Justin let her go, she fell from her chair, landing motionless beside her dead friend in a growing puddle of blood.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Past

  He took me back to our room and told me to wait inside. I stood watching from the window as he and Justine dragged the girls through the woods until I couldn’t see them anymore.

  Running my fingers through my hair, I went and sat down on the bed, eventually lying back so I was staring at the ceiling. If my life had taken a normal course, I wondered what I’d be doing right then. While some people were settling down to watch television, eating a late dinner, or preparing for a good night’s sleep, I was waiting on bodies to be buried.

  Out in the middle of nowhere, we were free to commit whatever carnal acts one could imagine.

  No one came onto the land to check on us. We had total privacy. When Con went hunting, he never took girls from the same area or with the same look, but, in the end, they always wore a red wig. There were times he’
d be gone for days, searching for his next victim.

  I had just shut my eyes and began to doze when the soft click of the door had them flying back open. Con was standing over me before I could fully blink, stripping his shirt off and undoing his belt.

  I knew what came next. It was always the same. He needed to fuck me after he played out a fantasy of killing me. It was his affliction.

  “I missed you, Rosie.” He bent down and kissed my cheek, lifting the hem of my nightgown.

  I stretched my arms above my head, assisting him to get the thin piece of silk off.

  Goose pimples spread out on my breasts, and my nipples hardened from the slight draft in the room.

  “I missed you too,” I mumbled, telling him what he wanted to hear. But I didn’t really mean it. I didn’t want to wrap my arms around him and beg him to stop hurting people.

  He pulled my underwear down my legs and then spread them apart. With a careless shrug, he placed his face above my pussy and used his teeth to bite down on the string of my tampon, slowly pulling it out.

  He didn’t care one way or another, telling me it gave him his ‘red wings.’ The bloody ball of cotton was tossed across the room, and then he leaned back down, making a quick swipe up the center of my pussy with his tongue.

  “You know it’s only you, right? It’s always only going to be you.”

  He climbed over me to get settled between my legs, hooking them over his shoulders and bending them down until they were almost touching my chest. He always said I was his number twelve, but the urge to kill never stopped even now after he’d completed his bouquet.

  “I know,” I breathed out as he slid inside me.

  He placed a hand between us and pressed down on my lower stomach, making me feel everything. He brought our bodies together, each thrust harder than the last. I could feel blood leaking down the crack of my ass and drenching his cock.

  A wet sucking sound filled the air as he plunged in and out. I bit my lip, trying to silence the wanton sounds coming from my mouth.

  He smiled wickedly, knowing exactly why I was doing it.