Page 63 of Dollhouse

My phone beeps and another video comes through from Ryan. A man in a shitty guard costume hangs upside down, a chain binding his feet to the metal beams on the ceiling. There’s a bullet wound in both knees, and another to his lower stomach. Blood carves its way from his mouth and nose to run down into his eyes. He tries to blink it away but Ryan won’t let that happen. His revolver whips across the man’s mouth, and he swings for a moment, wiggling in his binds as he cries out.

Ryan always had a gift for making peopleopen up.

“Again, all you need to do is tell me where he took the two new marks. I know you remember them. Emma and Bo. Where did he move them? Then I'll let you go.”

The man thrashes angrily. “You’re already killing me!”

He clicks his tongue. “No, I wouldn't do that. I’ll even patch you up myself.” Turning the phone video for a moment and his face fills the screen, winking with a wry smirk on his face.

It turns back to the dangling and dying man. He sobs, saying nothing. Ryan’s gun enters the frame again, pointed at his stomach. “I’ll punch another hole right through your stomach.”

“No, wait!Wait.” He grits his teeth, an anguished yell forced through his clenched jaw. “They’re going to Eric’s house. Both ofthem. Please, just let me go, man. I never touched them, I swear togod.”

“Hear that, Noah?” Ryan’s voice asks as he puts a bullet in the man’s forehead.

“Car, now.” I’m already on my feet, Jesse at my heels as we rush for the door. I slide into the driver’s seat and tear us down the dirt path. Thrill mixes into my bloodstream as I swerve onto the empty road and head for the home Emma had once shared with Eric.

She’s still there, we have a location. She’ll be safe again.

She’ll be back with me.

Glancing over at Jesse, the deadly look in his eyes glows bright. Whoever is in the room with Bo when we arrive will not survive to see tomorrow.

“Jesse, I gotta tell you that Ryan said he might be hurt. Okay? You need to keep your cool if he is until we can get them out. He’s gonna need you to be in control.”

What I’m saying is we can not spend any time creatively torturing these men now. We can, however, take them to the lockup that Aiden maintains and come back for themlater.

Emma needs the same. She’s had to kill, to fight. I mean, she actually chewed up that dead man’s dick. The fact she was forced to do that is killing me and while I’m so goddamn proud of her for surviving, I’m also pissed I can't bring him back to life so I can execute him again.

I have so many men I want to add to the pine cemetery I’ve started. In due time.

The car is pushed to its limits as we head straight for the house I first laid eyes on her. Where everything started. It’s all come full circle now.

The field to the left of their property finally comes into sight, and I pull off into it like I have dozens of times before. Back then, it was me who pictured desecrating her. Who wanted to trap hersmall, timid life in my hands and keep her stuck there to satisfy my own curiosity.

I park at the edge of the band of pines that surround her house. We exit the car, adjust our vests, and grab our guns. I’m fuckingbuzzing. Somehow, it feels like all the training I’ve had since being a small boy in a family of assassins has led right to this exact moment. Everything balances on the edge of a knife.

Jesse stalks into the trees and I follow. It’s bare, most animals burrowed away for the winter. Dried pine needles soften our steps as the lights from the house reach us through the branches.

There’s her clothesline and the spot that Molly had started visiting me as I watched. Poor Emma. She had no idea that monsters surrounded her on every fucking side.

Here we are. So close.

“Keep calm,” I remind him, studying the yard. The windows. The vehicles lined up in the driveway. The rest of the vans would be here shortly for backup. If it looks peaceful inside, our best bet would be to wait for them to arrive.

A scream erupts through the night and Jesse shoots from the tree line straight for the porch door of the house.

THIRTY-TWO

“Make it quick, Eric,”Bundy orders from the foot of the bed, his soulless eyes eating up the violent struggle between me and the man I married.

My knife is gone, the only leverage I had to hold my own against Eric as he pulls me by my throat away from the nightstand and slams me to the bed. Coughing, my body twists as I crawl as fast as I can for the other side, desperate to keep space between them and myself.

Eric’s hand circles my ankle, tugging me back toward him with a rough jerk. He blocks my legs easily with his forearm as I kick out at his face, trying to mar the cruel expression I’ve never seen on it until today. This man is hellbent on hurting me, like we hadn’t spent years in this house together. In thisbed. And every second of it, this brutal person has been hiding in plain sight. Disguised by a patient facade as he watched me wallow inside these walls.

I cry out in panic as he crawls over me and wraps his large hand around my throat once more.

Leaning down, he has no trouble pinning me to the bed even though I fight him. I give it my all to escape the cage he’s madewith himself but I’m past my physical limit after the abuse I’ve suffered. There’s just nothingleftand I sob as my arms struggle to resist him.