by Jess C Scott
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[6] OWNED
“You’re a prick.” Lyla ran the barrel of the gun against the bars of the solid steel human cage. “An angry, foul-mouthed prick.”
The faint echo of the sound of the gun against the steel bars was sweet music to Lyla’s ears. No sound went unnoticed to her heightened senses.
“Maybe we should cover his mouth with some tape,” Liana said, tentatively holding the heavy-duty duct tape in one hand.
“Maybe we should,” Lyla replied cheerfully. “It’s about time anyway.”
What time is it anyway? Lyla would have lost track of the hours, if it weren’t for the Adidas digital sports watch she was wearing on her left wrist.
Of course, if she had it her way, she’d want to make it even more torturous for their human captive. She would have wanted to prolong his pain, by watching him writhe and wither away from starvation and a combination of other special treatments. Maybe she’d kick him in the throat with her stiletto heel.
But Liana, Lyla’s twin sister, suggested it would be better if they got the job done quickly and efficiently. “We don’t want pride and hubris to be our downfall,” Liana had cautioned, from the first day the twins started plotting their nefarious scheme.
“Stop struggling, Randy,” Lyla said, in her usual understated way. “You want to look nice in your photos, don’t you?”
Lyla resisted giving a kiss to the simple, dependable revolver in her gloved right hand. A .357 magnum, the first gun she had ever bought off the street through knowing the right person and having some spare cash. She knew it was stupid to leave behind the smallest traces of evidence.
For a moment, she shifted her thoughts to the boat trip where they could dispose of the gun out at sea, during an ordinary sightseeing trip later that day to one of the region’s local fish farms.
“Do you remember that news article about the police?” Lyla said to her twin sister. “Where they mentioned giving the mini-revolver a bleach bath?”
“Sure,” Liana scowled, narrowing her dark eyes. “It was gross. Do not remind me.”
“I just did,” Lyla sniggered, waving her revolver in the air. The Smoking Gun had reported that a nineteen year-old was arrested in Tennessee for driving without a license. A female cop performed a routine search when she noticed an unknown object in the teenager’s groin. The female cops later discovered a 4-inch mini-revolver stashed in the blond perp’s private parts.
The gun-toting twin took a photo on her digicam once her sister managed to tape Randy’s mouth shut.
He was handcuffed, but the twins didn’t trust him. They stayed a certain distance away from the cage. No telling if Randy would suddenly grab either of them by their long hair if they happened to be close enough. He’d then proceed to bite off their noses or chew their fingers to a pulp if he could.
Randy had only stopped struggling when Lyla pointed the loaded gun at his crotch. Liana attached a piece of the duct tape to the end of a metal rod and sealed his mouth that way, which saved her the stress and trouble of getting too up close to the scumbag before them.
“So, Randy Zoosk…” Lyla put a hand on her hip as she stood beside her older sister. “You actually took the bait. That’s what you are, Randy. You think you’re King of the Universe, but you’re actually so predictable.”
“It’s pathetic,” Liana chimed in. She took a moment to breathe in and out deeply, gazing at her sibling with awe, fear and respect all rolled into one combustible mix.
Liana was the older twin, but Lyla was the fiery and bold one. Lyla enjoyed taking the lead, while Liana was the voice of reason that kept Lyla from being too impulsive and scatter-brained. It was a partnership that worked.
“It doesn’t take a genius to hack into your smartphone,” Lyla sneered, gracefully moving an inch closer towards Randy’s corner in the cage. “We know your secrets, that you have an abominable fetish for watching twin siblings getting it on with each other.”
That was how he’d taken the bait—that Lyla and Liana were doe-eyed, dark-haired, long-legged “lesbian twin sisters” with bangin’ bodies who were on vacation like he was in this foreign city—and were looking for no more than a hot and heavy, anonymous threesome hookup.
“We will never forgive you for two things,” Lyla went on without skipping a beat. “One, that you caused the death of our dear friend and former classmate, Ashlynn Whitaker. And two, that you were such an asshole about it who showed no remorse which led us to conclude that the world is better off without you.”
Something like disgust went over Randy’s features. The selfies he posted on his popular blog were often vain or deliberately goofy. There was little range of real emotion in those pictures, even though he nailed the clean yet edgy look with slightly unkempt hair and five o’clock shadow stubble. This time, the twins weren’t sure whether it was fear, surprise, disgust or anger that was written all over Randy Zoosk’s lean face.
“I still remember what you wrote on your blog even after Ashlynn’s parents wrote to you, pleading for you to see things from another perspective.” Lyla was tempted to spit on Randy’s face, but decided she was above such uncouth behavior. “Do you?”
Both of the twins waited for a response. There was only the sound of their breathing. Their ears had stopped ringing from Randy’s earlier shrieks, threats and insults. He’d railed like a madman once the effects of the ketamine they mixed into his drink began to wear off.
But they were in a trusted girlfriend’s spare, underground apartment. It was a tiny, soundproof and private space.
“We do,” Liana said bitterly, after a few seconds of stony silence. “You said you felt no sympathy for people who committed suicide, especially if they made a big song and dance about it.”
“Song and dance,” Lyla retorted. She shook her head. “You said Ash was selfish and that you felt sorry that she didn’t approach her parents about her issues. How can you even look at yourself in the mirror?”
“You are the reason that Ashlynn died.” Hot tears welled up in Liana’s eyes. “I don’t know if you remember what you wrote about her, or what you allowed your minions and fanboys to do to her. But we remember.”
How could the twins forget?
The only crime Ashlynn had committed was to become overweight once she had graduated from high school. She had gone through a bad break-up with her first boyfriend, who’d deflowered and promptly discarded her. The event prompted her to seek some relief in comfort food as Ashlynn tried to mend the pieces of her broken heart without turning to drugs or alcohol. Besides, she had already put on some weight as a side-effect from the birth control pills she started taking that year.
Randy Zoosk pounced on Ashlynn since she was an easy target. She had never done anything to him, but he catapulted both Ashlynn and himself to Internet notoriety when he elected her as “The Face” to lead the Fat-Shaming month-long campaign he had just launched on his website.
Randy’s website was promoted as a pro-male/anti-feminist portal, with tips and advice on how to “own” women and put them in their right place before the men could be shackled by marriage and child support.
“We tried to be nice,” Lyla said, twirling a strand of her long hair. “And we were genuine too. We tried to tell you that it wasn’t about whether men or women were right. We are not feminists and we don’t hate men. What we did not like was the bullying and hate culture people like you promote. No human being deserves to be treated that way.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t listen,” Liana added in a low whisper. “You simply deleted our polite blog comments, or blocked our email addresses so that we couldn’t add to the discussion on your website.”
“That’s because it was never meant to be a discussion!” Lyla snapped her fingers. “I get that now.”
The twins shared a quiet moment together, recalling some of the things Randy and his band of blog followers had aimed in Ashlynn’s direction. She had been called a beached whale, a loser,
ugly, and a slut during the first few minutes of Randy’s fat-shaming campaign to let the whole world know that fat girls weren’t sexy or attractive, and therefore worthless as women.
Ashlynn had continued to hold her head high during the first few days, refusing to respond to online comments while she tried to wonder why on earth Randy would pick on her when there were so many other girls he could have singled out for his vitriol and contempt.
She cursed herself for sending Randy a private message on Twitter earlier in the year, when she hadn’t packed on the pounds just yet.
“It’s what’s on the inside that counts,” she had said in the message. “I wish you’d see that.” It was in response to one of Randy’s rants about fat women being lazy and overweight.
In private, Randy actually relished stalking the social media channels of the women who stumbled onto his blog and decided to give him a piece of their mind. The minute they posted a questionable or not-so-flattering tweet or photo online, Randy would turn it against them and use it to further his own agenda. Served the women right for thinking they could tell him what to do on his own website.
The stress got to Ashlynn when some of Randy’s fans who lived in her area started appearing at her gym. “Go, fat girl!” they’d cheer her on at the gym, while making bets as to how long she would last on the treadmill.
She exited the gym when she couldn’t take it anymore. The group of college jocks wanted her to be within earshot. One of the guys remarked that fat people would have a problem committing suicide, because “their obesity would prevent them” from taking their own lives. “A noose might not be strong enough,” he theorized, “or even an overdose. A bullet might bounce right off all that blubber!”
Amidst the guffaws from his group, the jock chose to type what he just said as a blog comment on Randy’s website, where the comment was approved almost immediately. By the time one of the gym instructors came around to warn the group for being noisy patrons, it was too late as Ashlynn had already vacated the scene.
The last thing Ashlynn posted on Facebook could have been considered her suicide note. It revealed the reason for her choice of giving up.
I’ve been trying to smile on the outside, even though I’ve been dead on the inside for quite some time, she had written. I thought it was the inside that counts—I know now that that is not true, and that people will stop at nothing to tear you down just because they can. All I wanted was to love and be loved. I know I won’t find it, so there’s no point trying. You’ve got to be an idiot, delusional, or a masochist (or all three) if you think there’s any hope for humanity.
She chose to commit suicide by jumping off a tall building. If Randy’s posters made comments about how Ashlynn’s death proved the theory of gravity, those comments were not approved by the team behind his website.
“And it is despicable that you can’t deal with anybody who says you are a bully,” Lyla commented. “People try to talk some sense into you, but you call the women ‘whores’ and the men ‘manginas’ without even listening to what they have to say in the first place.”
Lyla aimed the gun at Randy’s head. “A bullet in the brain…” She turned towards her sister with a thin smile. “Do you think that would stay in place?”
“He doesn’t have enough gray matter for the bullet to bounce off.”
“If his mouth wasn’t covered, we could see if he’d spit the bullet out.”
Lyla gazed at her sister for a moment, wondering if they might actually one day really consider a threesome. Randy on the inside was beyond hope. Randy on the outside wasn’t too hard on the eyes actually, which contribute to his website’s success. Men wanted to attain the gift of his charm and smooth moves when it came to casual sex, while the women who didn’t loathe him secretly wanted to be “the one” to change him and see commitment in a completely different light.
The twins were zeroing in on the ring leader. Without him, his followers were powerless. His website attracted and spawned hundreds and hundreds of angry, angry people. There was only one way to deal with them.
“We want to send a message to people like you that you are playing a very dangerous game,” Lyla said, “where you think your victims will not fight back.” Her eyes gleamed with intensity. “Enough is enough.”
The frown lines on Randy’s face reminded Lyla of a barcode. They were there from all the squinting Randy had done—at the screens of his smart phone and gadgets, at the bodies of thousands of women as he decided where he’d rank them on a scale of 1 to 10, at the frustration with not being able to find a suitable life partner when he himself doubted he could ever invest in a real, emotional commitment.
Their eyes met—Lyla with the gun—Randy looking at her, wondering what she was going to do.
Randy Zoosk felt…nothing. He was aware the twins were both hot, probably around a 7.5 so therefore maybe rounded off to an 8, and he was similarly aware that he wasn’t sorry for supposedly causing the death of Ashlynn Whitaker. He spoke his mind which was exactly why his fans loved him! If it wasn’t him, it would’ve been someone else who had the balls to shine the spotlight on Ashlynn, Raylene, whatever her name was. She was the one who made herself an easy target, by being a fat slob who thought she was a pretty little snowflake.
Lyla knew Randy wouldn’t change his ways.
She took aim and shot him between the eyes, a secret she and her twin sister would take to the grave.
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SNEAK PEEK: PLAYMATES (Wilde Twins, Book #1)
