She swallows hard and lowers her voice.
“Ross, I-I’m so sorry”—more tears stream from the corners of her eyes—“I’m so sorry!”
Dorian forces Emerson to walk the rest of the way with only the gun as incentive, while Dorian makes sure to stop next to me and not put himself in view of the hidden camera I have on them.
Ross is a short man with curly dark hair and broad shoulders and a look of terror and cowardice. Early thirties. Work boot construction-type who smells of cigarettes and cheap aftershave that he finds easier to pull off than showering. He wants to look at her, but he’s scared. He keeps his dark eyes on the floor, his hands tied behind his back.
“Ross—”
“Please, Kelly, just be quiet,” Emerson says in a low, defeated voice. “Don’t make this any worse.”
“Are you…pissed at me?” Bennings asks with intense worry.
Emerson shakes his head. “No, baby, no. I love you, you know that.”
I roll my eyes and glance at Dorian. “Help Mr. Emerson have a seat, why don’t you?”
Dorian grins. “I’d be delighted,” he says properly and with a broad smile.
Two shots ring out. Emerson’s cries fill the space as his kneecaps are taken out by the bullets. He falls to the cold floor onto his side, the side of his face hitting the concrete.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Bennings screams. “He didn’t do anything!”
I shoot up from my chair and wrench Benning’s lower jaw in my hand, forcing her mouth open—always keeping my back to the camera. She tries to cry out but begins to choke on the saliva and tears draining into the back of her throat as I force her neck back. I grab her fleshy tongue amid her screams and her struggles and her gnashing teeth, forcing two fingers into the warm, flabby muscle underneath it, and my thumb on the top to maintain my grip; her eyes pried open by terror, all the bones and muscles in her body solidifying at once.
I put the blade to center of her tongue.
“Please! Don’t hurt her! I’m begging you!” Emerson cries out from the floor, unable to lift himself into a sitting position, much less to his feet.
I pause indifferently with the blade still on her tongue.
“I know what we did was wrong,” Emerson speaks out through troubled breaths and painfully twisted features. “Paul threatened her,” he goes on. “Said if she ever left him and their daughter, that he’d make her life a living hell. That he’d take custody of Abigail and force her to pay child support.” He stops only long enough to catch his breath and let more pain shoot through his legs. “The plan was my idea. To accuse him of molesting my daughter. We just wanted him in jail. Out of the way. It was better than killing him.”
I shake my head with disbelief.
“Better to live a life banished by society and by his own daughter because he wears the label of a child molester?” I laugh lightly and press the blade a little harder against Bennings’ tongue, drawing blood. She cries some more, her eyes opening and closing from exhaustion and fear, but she doesn’t dare struggle knowing that one wrong move could take her tongue off.
Emerson has no rebuttal.
“Do you see me, Mr. Emerson?” He looks up at me from the floor, pushing through his pain. “Tell me, what do you see when you look at me? Be completely honest. I won’t hurt you for telling the truth.”
Bennings’ eyes move back and forth, at me and in the direction of Emerson, but he’s too low against the floor for her to see.
Emerson appears baffled by the question, and leery of it just the same. It takes him a moment, but finally he begins to stammer. “Y-You’re a man of justice.”
I look upward in an annoyed and disappointing manner.
Dorian laughs from behind.
“That’s fucking hilarious,” he says. “He’s being kind—I’ll give you an honest answer.”
“I didn’t ask you,” I say without looking at him.
“Well, I’m just sayin’, you want the truth, I’m your guy.” He laughs again and says below his breath, “A man of justice. Fucking hilarious.”
I look only at Emerson.
“I said I wanted the truth.”
“But…that is the truth.”
With deep aggravation, I release Bennings’ tongue and she gasps sharply, sucking back the saliva that had accumulated in her mouth that she could not swallow.
“You tell me the truth, Miz’ Bennings.” I know she’s the only one of them that will. “What do you see when you look at me? This is your chance to get it off your chest without any repercussions.”
Bennings sneers hatefully. “You’re a sick fuck—that’s what you are. Deranged. Demented.” She spits on the floor again. “I bet you cut people into little fucking pieces for enjoyment, don’t you? When I look at you I see a man who’s not right in the head. A sick fuck.”
I smile gently and take a step away from her.
“What you’re really seeing,” I say, “is a man created by people like you. Evil incarnate who dance their way through society dropping poison on the tongues of the innocent. You deface, despoil and destroy the light in those who are still too young to control their own paths, by stripping them of their light and leaving only darkness.” Me. Izabel. Cassia. “You’re an infection. A malignancy. And you’re right, Miz’ Bennings, I am a sick fuck. I revel in what I do. I covet it. And I’ll never stop because being a sick fuck who takes pleasure in torturing people like you who made me this way, is the only thing I can ever imagine being.” I stab my knife into Bennings’ uninjured hand, straight through the bone and the tendons and into the wood of the chair arm beneath it.
“FUUUUUCKKK!” she cries out.
Emerson cries out too, reaching a hand out to her, but still unable to move.
Casually, I step backward and out of view of the hidden camera and turn to Dorian.
“You might want to go wait in the car,” I tell him.
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” he says, shoves his gun into the back of his pants and heads toward the exit.
“Jesus!” I hear him say to himself as he gets farther away. “I’ve got to get a reassignment.”
The tall metal door closes behind him and I look back at Bennings and Emerson who know that this night has just taken an unfortunate turn.
I waste no time and get right to work.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Fredrik
“How is she?” I ask Greta over the phone, sitting in my car at the airport after just arriving back in Baltimore.
“Well, from the video feed,” Greta says, “she’s doing just fine. But I don’t feel right about this, Mr. Gustavsson. Cassia knows I’m here and it must be confusing to her why I haven’t been down to see her yet.”
“She’ll understand.”
Greta hesitates, likely rearranging the words she had been about to say, and says instead, “Will you be returning soon?”
“Yes. I’m already back in town. I have a few things I need to take care of and then I’ll head that way. Expect me no later than midnight.”
“Yes, sir.”
This is it.
This is the moment in which I have to make a decision. I can’t go back to that house until I figure it out. I can’t because one look at her and my mind and emotions and decisions will be dictated by her and all my reason will leave me.
My hands tighten around the steering wheel as I stare out the windshield at the cold evening where exhaust swirls chaotically from the tailpipes of running cars. I watch people come and go from the airport parking lot, dragging their wheeled suitcases behind them through a lightly dusted snow-covered sidewalk. Businessmen. Couples returning from vacation or arriving here to spend the holidays with family. All normal rituals catered to by normal people. I’ve never dreamed of being like they are. You have to know a normal life before you can miss it and dream about having it again.