PROLOGUE
THEN....
The Dormer house in Rockland was now where Yuri preferred to do business. Fifty acres of land that housed an estate on one end and miles upon miles of Timber on the other. It was as secluded as the increasingly paranoid Yuri could get. It was newly purchased land and so privacy was not a factor. No one knew of its location except a trusted few. Alexander Bishop was one of those trusted few.
Pulling up to the circular driveway with its patterned flagstones and centered fountain Alexander noted that the handful of men who Yuri trusted most had already arrived. He was the last. Without much thought he cast a cursory glance at the all black Mercedes sprinter van parked much closer to the entrance and fleetingly wondered who it belonged to.
The five men in attendance all preferred their imported sports cars and so he couldn't see it belonging to any one of them and by the looks of the full driveway they'd all ridden in their own vehicles.
With things of more importance weighing on his conscious he quickly put the subject of the van out of mind while unfolding his 6'3 frame from the interior of his nondescript car. He closed the driver door and leaned against it, taking a moment not only to finish his cigarette but to shake off the substantial
guilt he carried on his shoulders.
He brought the cigarette to his lips and pulled in a long drag of smoke into his lungs. Upon the exhale his mind flitted back to the conversation he'd had with agent Morrow of the FBI just before he'd made the two hour trip to Rockland.
They were building a very nice case against Yuri Khitrova and it was all thanks to Alexander. Eight months since this all began and the end was slowly, finally drawing nearer. With every discreet meet up Alexander gave them more and more information on the force that was the Khitrova group.
He provided them with ways in which to ultimately bring down the man he'd once considered his family and the businesses they'd spent years building together.
It was roughly nine years ago that they’d met. At Harbor Point in Southie, Yuri had been working for his uncle Boris Sokolov when Alexander came looking for work. He’d gotten a tip from a cellmate while doing time for grand theft, five years to the day. With job opportunities scarce for ex-cons, Alexander had jumped on the chance to make a little honest income, determined to make it straight this time he’d gone to the harbor ready to do whatever it took to get a job. Which was probably where he made his first mistake. He hadn’t counted on nearly killing a man just to get a shit for pay job cleaning off boats.
But that’s exactly what Boris offered. There’d been another man who’d come for the job and being the absolute piece of shit that he was, Boris pitied Alexander against this man in a bare-knuckle, drag-out fight. Whoever was conscious at the end of the fight had the job.
“He fights Southpaw. Watch out for his left hook,” Was the tip Yuri offered that ultimately helped Alexander win the fight. Although the win hadn’t been an easy feat.
When Alexander asked later on why he’d helped him out, Yuri had simply shrugged and said, “I don’t believe in fighting fair. You do what you can to always tip the odds in your favor.”
In the years since that motto has been one that Yuri has never strayed from. In fact it only seemed to have gotten worse.
“Well I can’t argue with that since you just saved my ass in there. I’m Alex, by the way.” Battered, with busted lip and one eye swollen shut, Alexander remembered extending a hand to Yuri. “Alexander Bishop.”
Yuri took it with calloused hand and strong grip, “Yuri Khitrova.”
That had been the beginning.
~*~
The sharp sound of a whistle pulled him from his brief walk down memory lane. Taking another drag of smoke, he exhaled as his eyes shifted to the man standing at the entrance. “You coming in?” Lucas Hastings was a man who looked every part what you would imagine an attorney to look like. His dark hair was parted on the left side, slicked back so that it formed a v at his nape. He was about average height, Alexander clocked him somewhere between 5’10 and 5’11 although it depended on the type of shoes he was wearing. The dress shoes he preferred tended to bring him up to that 5’11. He was built thin, wiry for a man with overly long limbs. Behind horned-rimmed glasses were green eyes that appeared deceptively naïve but were painstakingly perceptive. His analytical skills made him a brilliant attorney which was perhaps why he was a valuable member of Yuri’s entourage.
“Be right in.” he replied with a slight uptick of his mouth.
“Well hurry your ass, man, we can’t start without you.” In saying that he disappeared back into the house leaving Alexander alone once again with his thoughts.
Taking another drag of fumes into his lungs, he exhaled noisily, the smoke billowing out in front of him was carried off by the cool late summer breeze. His mind raced from one end to another, constantly in motion, attempting to, even at the eleventh hour still consider all outcomes. A very large part of him hated what he had become. Hated the betrayal he was perpetuating. He was a rat. A traitor. Providing Intel to an enemy that both he and Yuri loathed to no end. But what choice did he have? Yuri's recent actions, his rapidly deteriorating mindset, his insatiable greed and increasing appetite for brutal violence was what forced Alexander to take this path. To join forces with the enemy of his enemy. He needed to keep the course. With a flick of his fingers what remained of the cigarette ended up somewhere on the ground. He took in a deep breath before finally heading inside the mansion.
CHAPTER 1
Lacey
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Breathe.
This isn't a nightmare. Nightmares you can wake up from. You can endure the worse scenarios in your nightmare, you can die a thousand deaths and know that you'll eventually wake up to discover that none of it is real. It’s just your mind screwing with you.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Breathe.
This...this isn't a nightmare. This is hell. No fire. No brimstone. Just a place where your soul goes to die.
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
Fifteen.
Breathe.
The back light from the watch he gave me has died a long time ago. Bathing me in blackness. The darkness around me seems eternal, stretching forever in all directions, pitch-black nothingness. I'm lying on my side, my legs curled to my chest, my arms encircling them to keep them in place. Every breath I take in is short and shallow, timed and controlled. Not too much. Not too deep. It's not to enjoy. It's not sweet. It's to conserve what little bit of oxygen I have left.
It goes in hot through my nose and comes out even hotter from my parted lips permeating the wooden walls of my coffin. It's sweltering. Sweat spears through my pores to drench every inch of my skin and yet I'm shivering as the slow, pervasive hands of panic and fear take turns coating my insides with a biting frost that chills every fiber in me.
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Breathe.
I'm aching. The restriction of blood flow to my limbs provokes an explosion of needle like pain in the grooves of my flesh. My muscles are tight, painful. They scream at me to unfurl them, to give them reprieve from the position I’ve been in for heaven knows how long. But I can’t. That’s a luxury I don’t have. It’s too small in here. Not enough space to breathe, let alone move. God, what I wouldn’t do to just extend my legs for a second. Panic. That’s panic. I know its languid touch by now, a thick creeping fog rising from the dark matter of my mind, slowly, ever so slowly luring me into madness.
Should I follow…?
Translucent rays of muted sunshine trickles through the canopy of green leaves gently touching me with warm beams of dancing sunlight. I’m resting on a roadmap of roots at the base of one of the towering trees that form a protective barrier over the habitat below. I have my eyes closed but all my other senses are attuned to everything that’s happening around me. Like the occasional chirping of birds high up in the trees, or the continuous sound of water rushing over rocks off a short distance from where I’m resting. The wind whispers along my skin, working with the warmth of sunrays to set me further at peace. Tranquility is soaked in this moment. In this magical place. I take in a deep breath, filling my lungs with the musty smell of rich dark earth. Its wet leaves, moss and the soil made damp by scattered rainstorms. I love the smells. I love the sounds. I love everything about this place. In here no one and nothing can touch me. I’m safe. I’m free.
“Silly little mouse,”
My heart jumps and my eyes snap open. But it really doesn’t matter because I can recognize the gravelly cadence of his voice anywhere. He’s standing a short distance away, his stance wide, frame solid. Towering, always towering over me. I rise from my reclined position but keep my back against the tree. Curling my legs up to my chest, I rest my chin on my knees and stare at him.
“You came.” I say taking inventory of him. Dressed in his typical black, of fitted jeans and black dress shirt, he appears every bit the monster in my nightmares made even more frightening by the dried blood caking his right hand. With a slight shift of my gaze I take in the carcass he holds in his left hand. The matted blood is shockingly red against the white of the rabbit’s fur. It should alarm me but I’m relatively calm. After all, this isn’t the first time he’s appeared in front of me with a dead animal in this limbo I’ve created for myself.
“I came,” He echoes, “Come, it’s going to get dark soon.” The order is soft, laconic drawing me to my feet without coercion. There’s no need for duress here. I follow behind him but I know where he’s leading me. In my forest there’s a cave just along the stream. It’s dark and cold inside. It isn’t that big of a cave so he always struggles to fit inside, while I slip in easily.
“Couldn’t you have made the entrance bigger?” he grouses.
I shrug. “I like it just fine.”
He says nothing else except to make a noise that sounds like a scoff before walking away. There isn't much room to move around so he drops down to his haunches in front of a pile of kindling. He lights a fire, while I sit watching him from my huddled position on the floor a few feet away.
“Are you watching?” piercing eyes so focused and precise zero on me, the target of his perverse curiosity.
My brow knits, “I don’t want to watch this part.” I tell him quietly.
Features carved in granite, unequivocally beautiful remain expressionless. A living, breathing sculpture. “Survival isn’t about wants,” He chides, retrieving the bloodied rabbit from where he’d set it down to start the fire. He plops the carcass in front of him, in the space that separates us so that I miss nothing of this particular lesson. “it’s about necessity.” Pinching a small portion of the rabbit’s side, he uses a stick to jab into the hide, crudely puncturing a hole. When sets the stick aside to insert the middle and index fingers of both his hands inside the hole my stomach heaves. He hooks his fingers beneath the skin and pulls one hand towards the head and the other towards the rear. I turn away feeling sick at the sight.
“Look,” he snaps and I’m incapable of denying him. Even here. My eyes lock on the gruesome scene in front of me. The tearing and separation of skin from sinew slowly exposes the rabbit’s coatless flesh. “and learn.”
“What is this supposed to teach me?” frustration and helplessness choke me even as tears blur my vision.
“You will do what is necessary to survive.” Startled I peer up, unaware that he’d moved at all, he stands over me, cupping the side of my face with one, large bloody hand and I lean into it, nuzzle it. I close my eyes and the tears fall, hot and wet down my cheeks. It feels real. He feels real. My mind makes it feel so real and I want to stay in here. Locked in this haven with him.
He hears my thoughts. Knows them as intimately as if we share one mind. But then we do. Don’t we? He’s just a figment of my imagination. He’s not really Knox.
“I’ll never see you again, will I?”
“Only if you allow yourself to give up.”
There’s a soft echo inside the cave. It’s growing louder. A song. A soft gentle hum of a song that’s too familiar.
“I don’t want to leave here…”
“Be strong, Lacey.” He frames my face and all I see is him. My image gleams from the clear artic glacier of his eyes. It’s me and it’s him. “Fight.”
The song is getting louder. I’m waking up. I grasp his arms, desperate to stay, dreading that I have to return to hell. “Knox…”
“Fight and survive…”
CHAPTER 2
Lacey
Breathe
I come awake with a rasping gasp. My eyes are wide in the endless darkness as hot air fills my lungs. The dream dissipates, but the impression lingers. As badly as I want to return there my mind is incapable of dissociating so quickly after the last one. I’m forced to acknowledge my surroundings once again.
It feels like I’ve been buried alive. The silence that surrounds me is so oppressive that I have to keep thinking just so it won’t push me over the edge. Counting is a distraction. It keeps me tethered to reality. This black, suffocating reality. I’m going to die like this. They’re going to leave me in this coffin to suffocate to death. Hot tears of frustration and desperation trickle down the side of my face, soaking the wood beneath my cheek. I sniffle, and sniffle again, taking sharp gasping breath that eats away at my dwindling oxygen.
Eyes clenched shut I repress the sobs punching at my throat and wrestle with the surge of panic, I tamp it so far down that it plummets and detonates on my stomach floor with all the force of an atomic bomb. I want to scream until I have no voice left. I want to cry until I’m shriveled up, but I know that will accomplish nothing. I can’t panic. I need to remain calm. If I can maintain control of my emotions than I can fight to see another day. I can survive this. This is a far worse situation than I’ve ever faced, but I’m a fighter. I’m a survivor and I intend to survive this. Grasping onto the frayed threads of my sanity, I force myself to think.
My mind races back to events that led me here. It’s like watching a movie in rewind, behind my lids each horrible scene plays out with sickening clarity. Dante’s debts led me to the Devil’s doorstep. My decision to barter myself cracked open a door to a dark kingdom I entered naively. Violence welcomed me. Depravity shackled me and wrenched me to the floor in obeisance to the brutal king who reigned there.
Knox.
The instant thought of his name conjures his image in my mind. Brutal, beautiful and so utterly depraved. Between the sluggish intake of breath thoughts of him have become second nature.
Knox sold you to me. You are my property now.
Her voice rings clear, her words a condemnation that even now my mind refuses to believe. I don’t know him. What little time I spent in his company was consumed by his sadism. I wasn’t allowed to see more than he what he showed me and what I experienced in his hands. So it’s very possible that he could’ve sold me to this woman. His sister. That’s who she said she was. And yet a part of me stupidly clings to the hope that its not true. He wouldn’t. I can’t understand why I’m so convinced of this when I don’t even know if my next breath will be my last. But I know that he didn’t sell me to her. I need to cling to that.
Suddenly there’s a loud crash outside my tomb that rattles me to the bone but my entire body perks up at the prospect of what it can mean. It’s new. It means people. It means possibly answers. It’s the sound of freedom. Of an escape. It’s the first sliver of hope I’ve felt in how many hours? Days?
Another crash pulls me to a sitting position. My body wails as I try to sit on my side but I need to know what’s happening. Pressing my ear to the rough grain of the wood, I grit my teeth and clench my fist through the pain while straining to hear more.
“Be careful with that will you?”
Voices! It doesn’t matter who they belong to at this point. Left for so long in the silence hearing those voices now nearly brings tears to my eyes.
“They may not look like much now, but these rancid bitches are worth more than their weight in gold. You break one you better pray you have enough money to cover the loss.” They’re close enough for me to make out their conversation. “now help me with this one.” I freeze and my heart freezes along with me. Are they talking about me? My answer comes with the shuddering creak of the lid cracking open. My eyes slam shut from the sudden flood of light. Nausea and dizziness battle for dominance inside my weakened body as the world crashes around me.
~~
Darkness again. My eyes pop open fully, my mind doesn’t take time to register anything only that I’m waking up in darkness again. Reflexively I jolt upright and realize with astonishing relief that I can move freely. With my movements no longer restricted to the small confines of the wooden box I unfurl my legs out in front me. Without any source of light to give me hint of my surroundings I quickly learn to rely on my other senses. My nose picks up the sharp scent of bleach and antiseptic. It burns through my nasal cavity with every shuddering intake of breath that I can taste it in the back of my throat. But this is better than the hot, recycled air of box. It burns but at least I’ve got plenty of it now. They’ve stripped me of my clothes. Naked on the floor that feels like a wet layer of ice, I blink into the darkness that has become so familiar, my eyes have adjusted to seeing nothing. I haven’t decided yet whether that’s a good thing or not.
I quiet my breath and strain to listen, the silence now is just as pervasive as when I was in the box. Panic sprouts like a weed but I uproot it before it spreads. Pressed up against what feels like a brick wall beneath my palm and fingers, I lean against it as I slowly rise to my feet. My dark world spins as blood whooshes between my ears. Nausea billows from my stomach and creeps up my throat like fire smoke. Choking it down takes about three to four hard swallows from my desert dry mouth. What little saliva I produce feels like a brush of kindling tickling my throat, it travels down my esophagus and eventually hits my stomach floor like an anvil. This is nothing. I quietly tell myself. I’ll take this over that coffin any day.
There’s an insistent pounding in the back of my skull that only intensifies when I stupidly shake my head but that too like the wave upon wave of discomfort my body is experiencing goes to the wayside.
Escape.
The seduction of the word draws me from the wall and I stand for a beat of eternity on quivering legs. The only thing keeping me from falling is my arm leaning heavily against the brick wall as it supports the entirety of my weight. Determination is the hot blood rushing through my veins and it won’t let me crumble. I begin to walk, shuffling slowly in parallel progression with the wall, my palm and fingers trace the frozen bricks as I move along.
With every sluggish step forward I feel like the room is getting colder or maybe it’s my mind playing tricks. Again I shake my head to clear the shadow of doubt hiding in the corners of my mind and cloak myself in perseverance. Refusing to stop just yet even as my limbs grow stiff from the frostiness in the air and my teeth start chattering in my mouth I keep my hand firmly planted on the wall and continue walking. In search of a door…a window…something that’ll give me hint as to where they’ve taken me to. It takes what feels like eternity before the wall stops and I stop along with it. I feel around, allow my hand to follow the outline of the dip that seems to separate the wall from this wide gap of space. A thought suddenly comes to me and just as tamp it down, my heart jumps with short burst of hope. But nothing, I have to remind myself is ever that easy for me. The sudden change of textures from the brick wall to what feels like cool, heavy steel beneath my hand is alarming. This might actually be a door! I didn’t want to fully process the thought, but this could be the way to freedom.
I don’t allow myself the excitement. I don’t allow myself any sort of emotion. There’s only the here and now and what I have to do to escape. With both my hands working, I blindingly search for a handle. I find it and without thought I give it a hard twist. It happens too fast. Faster than my brain can even process. One moment there’s nothing but darkness and the frostiness of the room and the next there’s a high voltage of electricity that arcs through me with so much speed and so much force that it throws me back, propelling my body through the air before I crash to the ground. Every bone in my body contracts, cells, muscles and organs feel like liquid fire. There’s an army of men with heavy, steeled toed boots stomping on my sternum as the electric current crackles inside my chest. I can’t scream, can’t think, breath or even move in that instant, all that I know right then and there is the excruciating pain shredding through me.
I don’t know how long it lasts but even a second is much too long to endure. Through it all I’m aware of what’s happening and I’m forced to slam my eyes shut as the meat locker they’ve put me in is suddenly washed with blinding florescent lights. In the slow wake of subsiding pain my ears pick up an echo of crackling noise. Like radio interference. There’s a piercing screech from up above in the ceiling somewhere and then, “Get up and stand against the wall.”
“What—“ Blinking rapidly I try to get my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room after having been in the dark for so long. Squinting is the best I can do especially with them being so watery. With my ears ringing and my brain momentarily turned to liquid matter it takes me a moment to process things properly.
“Wh—where am I? Who the fuck are you? What the fuck do you want from me?” the clearer minded I become the easier it is to jump into my anger and frustration. “Let me go fuckers! Tell that bitch--” a sudden torrent of freezing water hits me from all possible sides of the walls surrounding me. It’s the unbelievable force of a thousand fire hydrants blasting me with water so cold that it feels like shards of ice slashing at my raw skin. They put something in the water, the strong, caustic odor of bleach enters my nose blazing a path through my nasal cavity. It lights a chemical flame in my throat that I can taste it in my mouth.
The uncontrollable burn has my eyes firmly shut as I’m immediately brought to the flooded floor. I huddle down, lower my upper body to my curled knees and bring my hands up to cover my face. Like every bit of torture I’ve experienced so far it seems to go on forever only to stop abruptly. The deluge of water stops just as suddenly.
My wheezing breaths and the intermittent drip, drip, drip of water droplets hitting the flooded tiled floor are the only sounds in the room until--- “Stand up,” the voice-- a man’s voice, the same even, almost bored monotone voice from before slices through the silence. I’m in so much pain. Both physically and mentally drained. I can feel the hard roots of exhaustion tying me down.
The smart thing, the sane thing would be to do what the voice says. To fall in line and follow orders like a good little captive. I’m sure if I was complacent and did everything that was asked of me without a fight, it would ensure less pain in the end. And the way my body was trembling right now, agony pulsing beneath every little pore, there wasn’t much more I could withstand. But my mind was wrapped in Teflon. Steel resolve, sheer stubborn will wouldn’t allow me to bend to my captors so easily.
I was a fighter. I was a survivor. That's all I've ever done. Fight and survive. That's all I know how to do. I've spent my entire life surviving for others, my mother, my brother persevering for them because they needed me to. Now I needed to fight for myself.
“You have five seconds to get on your feet and stand with your back against the wall.” I heard him. Heard the promise of more pain if I failed to comply. I did nothing. I stayed in my turtle-like position, readying myself mentally for what whatever was about to occur. Five seconds came and went. Ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, I counted silently while I let out shallow breaths. With my head pounding, my heart suspended in time, I shivered uncontrollably as my taut body shifted from anxiety to fear as I waited for something to happen.
Just about the minute mark is when my heart dropped, beginning an erratic beat that only got worse as I heard booted feet pound hard at the ground. Unable to help myself I lift my head from the floor and squint in the direction of the door.
The sound of a metal bolt scraping like a knife to bone gives my fear life. Tall, burly and tattooed with a face made up of nightmares the scar running jaggedly down his right cheek makes him instantly recognizable. Scar face. Vigo---I vaguely remember that’s what that bitch called him before he hit me in the car. At his Cheshire grin I’m suddenly struck with unbelievable regret. I see the look in his small, black beady eyes glistening with promise. Promise of retribution for some nameless crime he believed I committed and is now here to punish me for it.
“We meet again, little girl,” there’s almost a nonexistent part of me that wants to laugh at how fucking cliché his words ring. But the advancing footsteps of his measured gait quickly kills what little bit of mirth there is inside me. There’s no where to run. Nowhere to hide. Naked, cold and wet I have no possible way to protect myself as he reaches down to thread a large hand through my drenched hair. One hard tug upwards had me crying out as he forcefully yanked. “When you’re told to fucking do something. You better fucking do it.” Hand still twisted through my hair he shoves me to the nearest wall, white hot pain floods my skull as he slams the side of my face against the bleeding stone. “or else you’re going to get punished like the dirty little slut you are. Is that clear?”
It’s perfectly clear. Do what you’re told or get tortured. This is nothing new to me. I don’t have to think too hard to recall the purple haze, ultraviolet lights in an underground room where a strange and frightening man seared this very concept deep inside the marrow of my bones. I’ve been made to gorge on agony from the hands of the devil himself. So this man who they’ve sent to set me in place gives me only crumbs from a feast I’ve already consumed. My tongue, too heavy in my mouth fails to produce the words he wants to hear.
“Do you fucking understand, you dumb little bitch?” He’s close enough that I can feel the spray of spittle wash against my face. It’s a rank combination of garlic, shit and alcohol. There’s the dull ebb of pain ribboning throughout my body that’s quickly becoming second nature and I shouldn’t be in the mindset to provoke for more but the foulness if his spit coating the side of my face drags words from my mouth that a saner person would not say.
“the only thing I understand,” my voice is quiet, raspy, not enough saliva of my own to coat my parched throat, but still I manage to finish.
“is that you’ve been eating too much ass.”
With all the force of a cannonball he rears his fist back and smashes it against my face. I crumble. I’m on the floor, at his feet. The roar of pain from the blow makes me feel like my entire face has concaved. There are tears in my eyes while blood most likely from my teeth chomping into my tongue from the punch floods my mouth like a broken dam. All I smell is copper. All I taste is copper. I only have the tiniest window to spit out my blood and vaguely I’m surprised that there are no loose teeth in the viscous pool of crimson that drips from my mouth.
“Stupid cunt,”
The next dose of torment comes in the form a booted foot colliding with the side of my abdomen. It’s followed by another kick and then another, each one aimed in the same area as the last until I’m sure that he’s broken my ribcage. I’m not given a moment to recuperate or even nurse the pain when he straddles my neck. His hand grips my face, fingers dig into my cheeks and the second he has my mouth open, he shoves his dick so deep inside my mouth that not even the barrier of my throat can’t stop him. The grip of his fingers knotted through my hair keeps my head still as he fills my mouth with it, chocks me with it, steals my ability to breathe and scream as I flail helplessly beneath him. My stomach roils every time he retreats and presses back, each thrust provokes a gush of burning bile up my esophagus. Tears of anger and frustration escape my tightly shut eyes and stream down the side of my face as I try to take in breath between his thrusts. I can’t.
Fight.
The quiet utterance of Knox’s voice rings clearer than everything that’s happening. It’s like he’s right next to me. I can’t see his face no matter how hard I’m trying right now, but I can hear him.
Survive.
It echoes above the din in my mind. His voice silences everything. Strength that I don’t have comes from the command of his voice. Fight. Survive. That’s what he wants me to do. That’s what I need to do. What would he want me to do in this case? How would he have me fight? Driven solely by instinct I chomp down hard on the hot, thick flesh invading my mouth.
The ensuing roar that fills the room doesn’t stop me from doing it again. In fact it inspires me to do more. Undeterred by the blood that fills my mouth, my teeth work down on sinew, chomping and tearing through raw tissue. The only thing that finally makes me let go is Vigo taking my head and cracking it on the concrete floor, hard enough to make me lose consciousness.
Chapter 3
Knox
I move quietly. I move quickly. Down the dimly lit concrete corridor of the nightclub I'm inconspicuous. There's a red door just in front of me at the very end of the hallway, the man there is supposed to stand guard but he's distracted momentarily with whatever is happening behind the door and so has his back facing me. But then it wouldn't have made a significant difference if he was facing the other way. The end result will be the same. I pull the shotgun from the black leather bag I immediately drop to my side. It's a powerful weapon but light enough for me to raise it with one hand. The thunk of the bag hitting the floor prompts the guard to abruptly spin around.
"What the fuc..." he doesn't get a chance to finish as I ram the nozzle of the shotgun inside his mouth. His eyes are wide, face ghostly white as he raises his hand in that universal sign of surrender. He scuttles backwards and I follow. Just as we clear the entryway, I pull the trigger and blanket the entrance with shattered bones, blood and brain matter. He's not bulletproof but his body makes an effective shield as the bullets fly. Screams echo over the cracks of gunfire as naked women rush past me. I have no business with them so they’re escape is of no interest to me. Purpose gives me clarity. The reason why I am here is unquestionable.
A quick assessment of the room gives a count of its occupants. Three naked girls huddled together in far left corner of the room. I don't need to look too long to know that she's not among them. It would be far too easy for Katia to place Lacey with her brother. Far too easy and far too stupid. Katia was many things but stupid wasn’t one of them. Despite that she hated Dmitry, Katia was shrewd enough to recognize how perfect it would be to hide Lacey here. She knew this would be the last place I would look for her. And she would’ve been right.
Twenty eight hours ago Dmitry’s downtown night club hadn’t once crossed my mind. Twenty eight hours ago corrosive rage thrashed in my veins and it clouded my judgement. Made me rash. Made me impulsive. It was an emotion I'd never felt before. So I allowed myself to be consumed by it, sinking into its fiery depths I was baptized human for a terrible, terrible time where I only felt this one emotion.
In those crucial first ten hours of searching for Lacey the mistake had been allowing my rage to lead me. And rightfully so it led me nowhere. It did not produce results. The search of the warehouse had yielded nothing. Breaking into and ransacking Katia’s home had been a waste of time. Lacey was still missing. Katia had her and all I was left with was this unnecessary base human emotion that blinded me to all rationality. It served no purpose. I did not understand it. Could not rationalize it. I had no use for it.
I was not a man who acted on emotion. I was not a man who allowed impulses to rule him. I planned. I calculated. I assessed and I attacked. There has always been a method to my mania. And it was that tried and true method that yielded the results I needed.
Dmitry’s phone call roughly twenty minutes ago brought with it the idea to search the nightclub. So here I was. And there he was. The five men, scattered around the room shooting at me stood between us. Three behind the bar. One on my left and another on my right. None of them will leave this room alive. Speed, agility and skill prevents me from getting shot.
I shove my human shield away and do what I've been trained to do since I was child. There's no thrill in this. No intimacy in the kills. No hum preceding the electric buzz in my head. No lullaby. The one thing I needed above all else...those extended, precious moments of euphoria where I alone created horror with my instruments and slowly, so very slowly siphoned life from my victims. The shotgun brought none of those things. It lacked everything that made death special. But it was a necessity. Quick and effective. I don't hesitate. I aim and I fire. Every blast cracks the air. It tears a hole through the guy on my left hand side splattering blood and guts everywhere. I reload, aim and fire again. The guy on the far right gets the bullet in his face. The third comes barreling toward me, one, two, three leaping steps before the round drops him to the floor. He's roaring, clutching at his shattered kneecap but I'm indifferent to his pain. I stand over him, raise the shotgun to fire off another shot when I'm instantly alerted to the presence of the fifth man.
Lightning fast reflexes has me emptying a shell insides the fourth man's chest and drawing my 9mm from the back of my pants to shoot at the fifth. Flesh wound, not fatal. He'll survive only because I want him to.
Chaos is replaced with a thick blanket of silence, interrupted by the moans and groans of the fifth man bleeding on the floor. For now he holds no importance to me. I have my gaze locked on the Khitrov heir but I speak to the three frightened girls who just bore witness to my massacre.
“Get out.”
They’d been stupid to stay but were wise enough to heed my command as they hastily scrambled, dodging pools of blood and bodies, they dashed for the exit. Realizing he had no one else to hide behind, Dmitry also sprinted to the door. It was a move I anticipated and I reacted accordingly. I aimed the 9mm at his head and squeezed the trigger. The bullet exploded from the barrel, sliced through the air and nicked his right ear before lodging itself in the wall in front of him. He bellowed, raised his hand to his ear and turned to face me with bulging eyes.
“You…you shot me?” he asked incredulously.
“Run again and I’ll do far worse.” Lowering the 9mm at my side I raise the shotgun in my left hand and point it at the chair next to the bar. “Have a seat.” It looks for a second as though he’ll run again, but his eyes flit to the shotgun and back to my face before slowly ambling to the chair. Still holding a hand to his ear he shakily settles on the edge of the chair. “Where is she?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” He turns paper white as he pull his hand from his ear and stares down at blood he finds clotting in his palm, “Jesus, man…fuck this shit hurts!”
“You will live,” I say calmly. “if however you do not tell me what I want to know, I will show you why I am called the butcher.” Approaching him only heightens the pallor of his face. “Where is your sister?”
“Man I don’t know…I haven’t seen her in weeks.” I stare at him through narrowed eyes for an indefinite amount of time.
It is not a gift to know when someone is lying but a constant practice in human studies. Watch, wait and analyze. There is always something that eventually gives them away. A facial tick. A minute movement of fingers. Eyes shifting left. Small things. Not discernable unless closely monitored. Dmitry is lying. His tell is in the way he refuses to meet my stare, his gaze purposely fixed on everything else but me. I pull out the 9mm aim and fire at his left foot. The bullet rips through the expensive leather of his shoe and Dmitry’s immediate howl tells me it’s hit its marks. Flesh and bone. He slides from the chair, falling to the floor his blubbering reaches me deep inside my fissure of detachment. The need to do more, to stick my finger inside the open wound of his foot and draw the superficial layer of his skin until the connective tissue of his flesh is exposed to me is a temptation that’s incredibly hard to fight.
I can almost hear the lullaby. Can almost feel the vibrations of the hum filling my head. That cotton-like sensation that blocks out everything and allows me to peacefully play in gore. I want to kill Dmitry. I want to dissect him like a specimen in a high school biology class, scalpel, scissors and pick. Hold the formaldehyde.
Falling to my haunches across from him his eyes flash up to my face, they widen and instantly he tries to scramble away. I don’t blame him. I would try to run from me too. I’m incapable of concealing my intentions, especially not when I haven’t worked in days. I bet he can see the evil in my eyes. I bet he can smell death in the air, circling over his head like a vulture, ready to peck at the butchered meat I’ll leave behind. Coiled tight I spring out to strike, I tackle him down to the ground. My hands a vise around his neck, squeezes and squeezes, holding firm, strong and steady as he squirms and attempts to fight back.
But he doesn’t understand. Dmitry has never understood. He doesn’t understand that the struggle, the challenge, the fight is what makes the inevitable death that much beautiful. The fight is the dessert to a delectable meal.
“Do you know you would’ve been my first victim, Dmitry?” I ask quietly, “If I’d done as Katia asked that night when we were younger, you would’ve been my first human kill. It would’ve been horribly messy but at least you would’ve died by my hands. It would’ve been a great death. If I believed in fate, I would say you were spared for a reason that night and that reason’s name is Lacey. Your sister has her. When I loosen my grip, your first gasp of breath will be to tell me where Katia is or I promise I will kill you.” Staring emotionlessly down at his puffy, rapidly turning blue face I say, “I don’t need you alive to cut you open.”
I tell myself to let go. Slacken my grip and let him breathe. But the buzz tunnels my vision. The lullaby--- sweet, dreaded lullaby echoing inside my head, the haunting tune whirling around and around like a carousel inside an abandoned carnival. Everything in my peripheral bleeds away. Dmitry becomes a melted blur—
And suddenly I’m in the body of my five year old self. It’s a reality I should know. Surreal but oddly familiar. It settles around me like muscles over bones.
A memory.
The carousel…a carousel…fragments of something I can’t remember. Long, graceful fingers with short manicured nails are firmly wrapped around mine. A woman’s hand. Tight grip. Not hurtful. Secure. Safe. There is someone else here with us. A child like me. I look down at my right hand to find it gripped by a smaller hand. A little girl’s hand. Glancing to my right I see big blue eyes stare back at me from a face that reminds me of a porcelain doll.
Katia.
She smiles and squeezes my hand but remains silent. We’re facing the carousel. It’s empty but still it continues to rotate. I crane my head back to look at the woman tenderly, lovingly, securely gripping my hand. I see only a smile. She says something I can’t understand and then releases my hand. I don’t move. Katia retains her hold of my hand and remains at my side.
I hear the woman’s soft laughter as she reclaims my hand and together we all walk to the carousel. We stop next to the carousel and I watch as it too slowly comes to a stop. I hear her voice again as she lets go of my hand and then I’m off the ground. She sits me on one of the wooden horses. The smile on her face is the only thing that lessens the nauseating panic I feel. When she steps back I see Katia standing at the woman’s side but they’re not holding hands. I catch the expression on Katia’s face; a mixture of anger and…panic? On a face as angelic as hers, it looks wrong, twisted. But before I can ask her what’s wrong the carousel begins to move.
My hands wrap around the post in front of me in a death grip. A tune begins to play as the carousel slowly makes its way around while the painted horses alternate going up and down. On the third turn back around to where Katia and the woman are standing, I see the woman outstretch her arm, her index finger pointing at something behind me. Unable to fight curiosity I turn to look in the direction she’s pointing.
It’s Lacey.
My five year old self does not know her. She is not part of this memory. And yet she’s here, sitting on one of the rowed horses. She’s just as I remember her that very first time I laid eyes on her in front of her apartment building. This slight, seemingly fearless teenage girl with a blaze of a fighter burning in her big green brown eyes and tenacity fueling her every action. Here and now, enmeshed in this memory I forget the woman and Katia and focus solely on this woman-child.
I can’t pull my eyes off of her. One hand releases the post with outstretched fingers I reach out to her. Reach out to touch her. She reaches out too. Suddenly there is nothing more I want than to grasp her hand and interlock our fingers to draw her to me.
I want to get off. I want the carousel to stop. But de willing it with my entire being nothing happens. The carousel continues its protracted roundabout. And then she’s gone. Frantically I look for her, head swiveling eyes searching. I find her on the ground, on her knees at Katia’s feet. Katia is no longer a child, but fully grown. The Katia of now. She has a fistful of Lacey’s hair clenched in her right hand. One forceful tug on her scalp snaps Lacey’s head back.
There’s a glint, a glare of the light bouncing off a sharp silver blade that instantly draws my gaze to the scalpel Katia wields in her left hand. A dizzying sensation takes hold of me, making me feel like I might throw up. My heart slowly, painfully twists in my chest as she holds the scalpel to Lacey’s exposed neck.
“Would you kill for me, Knox?” she asks softly a wide smile pulling at her blood red lips.
“Katia…” hesitantly I call her name keeping my voice just as quiet as hers. It’s all purposeful. I think if I speak any louder I might set off a catalyst. Push her to do what I know so well.
“I’d do it,” she says, her large blue eyes fixedly boring into mine.
“Don’t.”
Panic. Dread. Fear. An incredibly astonishing force of fear knocks me from the carousel.
She releases a soft, breathy laugh while slowly scraping the blade’s edge across Lacey’s neck. “I’d kill for you.” I can’t get to her. Can’t move fast enough. Can’t stop the inevitable.
One swipe. One simple gesture of the wrist. One precise, decisive draw of the blade across a flawless caramel throat. Blood gushes out, like a waterfall it rushes down the lower half of her neck, crawling fast down her chest to stain the front of her shirt.
“I knew you’d do it.” I hear Katia’s voice. She sounds happy. Satisfied. “I knew you’d kill her for me.”
Wet, sticky warmth pulls my gaze to my hands. Blood. Fresh, hot blood stains my hands. So much of it that it drips from my fingers. Drips from the scalpel I grip between those fingers. The lullaby comes in louder and clearer than I’ve ever heard it before, obscuring everything. The buzz is no longer just in my head. I feel it in my body, my limbs, fingers and toes. Everywhere. It’s electrifying. Exhilarating. Glancing down I take in her prone, lifeless body as I anticipate the moment of satiety, that moment of perfect peace that washes over me after every kill. What I don’t expect is the brutal tug and twist in my chest that only intensifies the longer I continue to look down at her.
I return to the present with a thud. Disoriented, it takes a second or so for everything to make sense again. The basement of the night club. Dmitry barely struggling now beneath me, but his slowing pulse beneath my hands tells me he’s still alive. Loosening my grip from around his neck, I let go completely and climb to my feet. The hard kick to his side has the desired effect as he draws in breath, his body arching and rolling away from me. “Where. Is. She?”
"Dor...dormer...hou...house..."
