Page 81 of Dollhouse

I snort. “I don’t need to hear this shit. Take that gun and shoot me in the head.”

He bites his bottom lip pensively, reaching into his back pocket and pulling his revolver free, holding it loosely so that itpoints at the floor. “Why would I do that? A quick and painless death? I know you don’t really expect that.”

My jaw clenches. “Aren’t you supposed to be the good guys? Shouldn’t chaining me up be beneath you?”

The smirk disappears, and his thumb tugs at the hammer, the click sending a shiver through me. Excitement, maybe? Getting my brains splattered on the walls would be a fucking miracle right now.

“You kept my girl chained up like one though, didn’t you?” Ice splinters through each word, and I flinch at the image he shoves into my mind. Emma, the cage. The collar.

I turn my head to the sight. I am not a monster. They did that, not me.

“Nothing is beneath me.” He says. “Besides, it’s not me you should be begging for death,” he hints, spinning the gun until it’s pointed lazily at my head, his elbow propped on his knee. He cocks his head to the side, a wicked smile lighting up his face. “It’shim.”

A second lighter flicks, a metal, flip-top zippo, and for a moment the patch of light illuminates the face of a taller man, his face focused on the cigarette he lights before setting it—still open— on the concrete floor. I watch the movements, the memory of that day streaming back into my head. This one was easier to place due to the hideous neon hair and the piercings glinting in the firelight. The one who claims Bo.

Oh, fuck.

What does he know? Does he know about the past? About….everything that went down? What about what happened at Bundy’s? God damnit, this psychopath would peel the skin from my goddamn bones, I can see it in that insane look on his face that there are some important fucking pieces missing from his head.

“Yeah,” he says, as if he heard my thoughts. Maybe it’s written on my face. “It is me that you need to fucking worry about now.”

“What the fuck are you here for?” I shout, the tension becoming too much for my impossibly frayed nerves. “Just get it over with, whatever you’re going to do to me. I can’t—” I swallow, my throat clenching against my will. “Just fucking do it.”

“Just do it,” the tall one mocks, his laughter raising goosebumps on my skin. Then, as I watch, the wide smile starts to slowly melt away, until he’s simplyblank. No emotion, no anger, nothing to make him look human. He leans against the wall, and my breathing is the only sound that cuts through the darkness. “You’re lucky Bo isn’t here right now, because if he was I would watch him carve you up with my dick in my hand.”

The crouching figure snorts, laughter breaking free at the sentence, but I don’t see what’s so fucking funny. Neither does the other. “What? I’m serious. Nothing will make me want to come more than seeing Bo dig this fucker’s eyes out.”

A hot shiver runs through me, one that feels like the torture has already started. My body braces itself at the description, despite the fact I’ve spent most of my time picturing all the ways they might try and get their revenge. In my head I take it like a man, but now I’m not so sure.

“Whatever,” the other shrugs. “I guess I get it. If Emma ever decides she wants to take part, I think I’d like to watch that too.”

“I don’t know, she still turns a little green whenever I bring up the fact that she bit that guy's dick almost clean through.”

My stomach rolls, patience lost at the absurdity. At the twilight sensation that being here brings. Maybe I’m dead, and this is some kind of hellish purgatory. “Could you two shut the fuck up?” I spit, trying to keep the bile from making its way upmy already raw throat as they discuss who might kill me the slowest. “Bo would never.” I spit. “We’re family.”

My jaw is rocked almost as soon as the words leave my tongue, like he’d thrown the punch as soon as I’d spoken Bo’s name. The hoarse groan is broken by a bizarre laugh as the pain registers. Hysteric cackles bubble forth, the insanity of the situation just really making me feel unhinged. Bo’s boyfriend. That must be this guy.

I had him first.

“Hit me if you want, but just know whenever he sucks your dick that it was me that taught him that.” I groan again when he digs his hand into my hair and holds it in place for his knee to break my nose, blood spurting across me. His furious words are blurred by the ringing in my ears, more threats of violence but I finally gather that he’s being held back. The other, Noah, is restraining him from killing me.

Death would be a mercy. I’m done. I knew all along it would somehow end this way for me. Well, not exactly like this. Sometimes good people getlost. I’ve been made out to be the bad guy, like I didn’t provide for all of them. Give them somewhere to live and a possibility of a life outside of poverty. Bo would have nothing without me, and Emma? Well, she’d have been married off to someone possibly even worse.

And as far as that fucking girl that killed herself? Fuck, it’s so hard these days to tell who’s legal when they all act so mature. She’d lied tome. Aren’t I the fucking victim?

I’m not a fucking monster, but I am ready to be done here. And this loose cannon in front of me is my ticket to being put out of my misery.

If I can just shake his friend enough to let him go.

“Now that I think about it,” I say around a mouth of blood. “I guess I taughtbothof them everything they know, didn’t I?” I laugh again, the sound hollow and cruel. “I’ll have to give youcredit though, she was a shy little thing when I was with her. I wish I would have taken the time to figure out what a dirty slut she could be if I’d pushed hard enough?—”

The cold muzzle of his gun pushes back my hair, pressing to my temple. It’s right fucking there, so close to ending it. My eyes catch his in the flicker of the small flame, and despite myself, my stomach drops. It’s not anger inside them, hatred, or even satisfaction at seeing me this way. There’s nothing. What is it about these guys that makes them look so fuckingempty.

This is not a man that I can rile or manipulate, is what that fucking face says. My heart sinks as he watches me realize that, tapping the gun gently against my skin like it’s a caress.

His words are a whisper between us, low and sure and damning. “Make no mistake,Eric.” His mouth curls like my name tastes of dirt. “There have been times in my life where my marks have suffered for weeks on end, and I never grew bored, and I never grew tired.” The corner of his mouth quirks as the gun tugs against my skin in a line down to my mouth. “For you? I could make this lastyears,and never think twice about it. While I marry her, give her my fucking children, and make her happier than you ever could, you will be alive, down in this forgotten fucking hole, until I remember once more that I haven't heard you scream in a while.”

The other just laughs, adjusting his pants. “Fuck, that made me hard.”