by Aubrey Dark
“No,” I said quickly. “Not anything.”
His eyes closed to slits. His pupils relaxed, going out of focus, as though deep in thought about something. I considered trying to attack him right then. He was distracted; I might be able to use the bowl as a weapon. Hit him with it and knock him unconscious. But before I could decide, he stood up from the couch. He bent over and took the tray, then set it on the bedside. Then he went behind the couch. I couldn’t see him, but I heard the bookcase open up. Light streamed in from the operating room.
“Come here,” he said.
“I can’t,” I said. “I’m paralyzed.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying.”
Rien leaned over the back of the couch and reached down to my stomach. For a split second I thought that he would touch me down there again, and despite everything, my body responded by clenching inside, aching for it. Revulsion filled my mind, both at the memory of his touch and at my own body’s betrayal.
But he did not touch me there.
Instead, his fingers moved to my waist, tickling me and knocking me off guard. I yelped; my legs jerked up involuntarily and my arms clutched my waist. His eyes met mine, and I saw a twinkle in his irises. I got you, the twinkle said. You can’t fool me. You’re not a survivor yet.
“You think I don’t know when my own injections wear off?” he said, grinning. “Come on.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Rien
“You’re a horrible liar,” I said. I waited patiently by the bookcase as she stood up. “Is that why you’ve never made it as an actress?”
“I’m a method actor,” she said. “I’m not supposed to lie.”
She smoothed her dress down over her thighs. I wanted to throw her back down onto the couch, to plunge my fingers into her again and make her scream. It was so fun, this new kind of torture. But no, not now.
“What’s method acting?” I asked, trying to tear my thoughts away from her creamy skin, her shaped calves.
“You’ve never heard of it? That’s how Marilyn Monroe acted. It’s all about becoming the character, instead of pretending to be the character.”
“What’s the difference?”
She opened her mouth to answer, her full pink lips pursing. Then she saw the open door and what was beyond it, and horror flashed across her face.
“I don’t know if I want to go in there,” she said. “What are you going to do?”
“You’ll see,” I said. “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.”
“I don’t want to see him.”
Her voice was weak. I wanted to either comfort her or slap her across the face, I wasn’t sure. She had lied, sure, but I didn’t mind that so much. Not with how easy it was to pick out her lies. There was something that she was holding back, and I knew she was stronger than she appeared. So instead I waited, silently, until she stepped forward. Then I hit the switch on the side of the medical cabinet and the bookcase swung shut.
“What’s the difference?” I asked again. She stared ahead at the operating room table in the middle of the room.
“Regular acting is all about pretending. You wear masks.” Her voice was soft, the words coming out almost automatically.
“And the way you do it?”
“With method acting, you’re not pretending. You’re living. If your character is angry, you feel that anger.” Her jaw clenched, and I could see something inside her rearrange itself into a definite hardness.
“Meisner called it living truthfully under imaginary circumstances," she said. She stood very still.
“Then let’s pretend this is a stage,” I said. I put one hand on her elbow and she twitched, then took a step forward. “It’s a surgeon’s stage, is what they call it. The operating room.”
“You don’t operate,” she whispered. “You kill.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re both here now, living truthfully. Aren’t we?”
Another flash in her eyes. Something bothering her.
“Come on, then,” I said, cajoling. My hand cupped her elbow, and she let me lead her.
She shuffled over slowly, awkwardly. I could tell that the injection was still muting her movements. I had nothing to worry about with her. She’d be back to normal within the night, if a bit sore tomorrow. I led her through the operating room to the waiting room, and let her go to the bathroom while I waited by the open door. Then I took her arm and led her to the side of Mr. Steadhill. The silver nitrate had scabbed over his face properly, and when she saw him she blinked hard. She didn’t turn away, though.
That was a good sign.
“Wait here,” I said.
I went back over to my medical cabinets. I took out a scalpel and a black permanent marker from the first drawer. When I turned around, her eyes fixed onto the blade. She took a step back, and her eyes widened. I walked to the other side of the operating table. Mr. Steadhill began to moan behind the gag.
Pulling the cap off of the permanent marker, I motioned for her to come closer. She did. Her breathing was shallow.
“There are a lot of ways to kill someone,” I said. I slid the drape down on Mr. Steadhill’s chest. Thin tufts of dark hair spotted his skin. I drew a circle on the middle of his chest with the thick marker.
“This is the heart,” I said. “The breastbone covers most of it, and even if you got past that, you’d have to slice through the pericardium. Too hard.” I made an X over the heart.
“But this,” I said, drawing a line on his neck, “is where you would have to cut if you wanted to slice the jugular. It’s a quick death. Thirty seconds, on the high end. You bleed out quickly, very quickly. Like being guillotined. Much easier. Less satisfying, for some.” I thought of Gav. “But easier to accomplish.”
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
I stood up straight and turned the scalpel around. Holding it by the blade, I offered it to her.
“You wanted to get out of here,” I said. “I’m showing you how.”
Her lips parted when she realized what I was saying. The scalpel hung between us, the blade silver in the light of the operating room. Underneath, Mr. Steadhill squirmed, but I did not want her to pay attention to him. I wanted to be able to trust her, I really did. But there was only one way to do that.
“Kill him.”
Sara
“Kill him?”
I stood in shock, staring down at the silver blade in Rien’s hand.
“Yes,” Rien said.
His word was soft, calming. I breathed in and reached out for the scalpel. He handed it to me, our fingers touching, and the touch sent a shiver through my body.
The scalpel looked so small now that I was holding it. The blade was delicate. It didn’t seem like a weapon that could kill people. And yet… I looked down at Gary struggling to talk behind the cotton gag. His one good eye stared at me, straining to communicate as he made noises that sounded completely unintelligible.
“Why do you want me to kill him?” I didn’t know what else to say.
“If you kill him, then I know I can trust you.”
I looked up at Rien. His eyes burned golden under his dark hair. He was wild, and I saw something in his eyes that made me doubt the truth of what he said.
“Will you trust me? Really? Once I kill him?”
“It would make it easier. It would show me that you would never tell. You wouldn’t have ever seen me kill. You would be the killer.”
I looked down at Gary, who was screaming a muffled scream. He thought I would do it. His eye looked terrified up at me.
Would I do it? Could I be that character? Would a survivor do it? I looked down at where Rien had marked the skin on Gary’s neck. One cut. One cut and I would be free.
Maybe.
Of course, there was no guarantee that Rien would keep his word. I swallowed and leaned forward, resting the scalpel against Gary’s neck. My hand was trembling. I imagined pushing down, slicing through the skin—
&n
bsp; My body was shaking, ready to spin away and run. This was a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. Even my movements were dreamlike. I couldn’t. Not now. I felt Rien’s eyes on me and I realized what I was doing. I pulled the blade back.
“I can’t do it,” I said. “I can’t kill him.”
“Why not?” Rien said.
“Why not? I don’t know. I…”
Because I can’t.
Because a survivor would save herself without killing anybody.
Because I’m weak.
“He’s a terrible person. He’s killed hundreds.”
Gary’s voice struggled to be heard.
“He wants to talk,” I said.
“You want to give him his last words?” Rien said. “Fine.”
He hooked his finger into the gag and pulled it out. The tape holding it to Gary’s skin ripped off one of his scabs. Blood began to flow down that side of his face again. Gary shouted at me, his voice hoarse.
“Kill him! Kill him!” He was frantic, spittle bubbling at the corners of his mouth. “Kill the motherfucking bastard now!”
I looked up at Rien, who only shrugged.
“Stab him with the knife!” Gary screamed.
“It’s a scalpel,” Rien said.
I looked down at the scalpel in my hand. It didn’t seem big enough to kill anyone. I sure as hell wasn’t about to attack Rien with it. It was a precision weapon, not something I could lash out with.
“Stab him! Stab him with the knife!”
“It’s not a knife,” Rien said patiently. “Knives are for butchers. What she’s holding is a scalpel.”
“Kill him!” Gary cried out. “For the love of God, kill him!”
“No.”
I put the scalpel down on the table. My hands were shaking and I clasped them together in front of me. I wasn’t going to take orders from anyone here. I wasn’t going to become a killer. As soon as I let go of the scalpel, I felt a rush of relief. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t the right thing to do. Not for me, not for a survivor.
“I don’t want to kill anyone,” I said.
“He’ll keep you locked up forever. He’ll torture you. He’ll—”
“Put the gag back in,” I said to Rien. Rien raised his eyebrows, but stuffed the ball of cotton into Gary’s mouth. Gary thrashed around angrily.
“I don’t want to kill anyone. Not you,” I said, looking down at Gary, then back to Rien. “And not you. Not even if it means staying here forever. Okay?”
“Okay,” Rien said. His eyes had dimmed, the gold shimmer turning dull as he focused his attention elsewhere. “I won’t kill him yet, Sara. In case you change your mind.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, stepping away from the operating room table. Behind me, Gary moaned. He was a victim. He wasn’t a survivor. I didn’t have to save him. I only had to save myself. I repeated that in my mind. I would save myself. I would. But I would have to be patient. Do things my own way. I was a survivor.
Rien opened the door back into the library and I stepped through. My hands were still shaking. Rien came in after me, carrying some things wrapped in what looked like a shirt.
I watched as the bookcase swung back after us, and a latch inside clicked shut. I still didn’t see the way to open the bookcase. It must be a secret switch somewhere.
“Here’s a shirt to sleep in,” Rien said, tossing a white button-down shirt at me from the medical cabinet. “I have plenty of them for myself, but I’ll have to see about getting you some other clothes. If you are staying here forever, that is.”
He smiled a predator’s smile. He thought he had me trapped. And maybe he did. I didn’t see a way to get out. I couldn’t kill Gary. I didn’t know what to do.
“And here is some sterile fluid,” he said. “For your contacts.”
“My contacts?”
Right. I had forgotten about them. I took the fluid and stared at it dumbly.
“Oh, was that for the part? For acting like Mrs. Steadhill?”
“Yes,” I said. God, was that earlier today? I had thought putting in the contact lenses would be the hardest part of the role. I hated touching my eyes. And now I was here, stuck in a library with a psychopath.
I glanced over at the bookcase. I hadn’t seen how he opened it earlier. This could be my chance.
“Can I go back to the bathroom to take them out?” I asked. “I don’t have a mirror here.”
Rien stepped in front of me.
“Don’t move,” he said. Before I could step back, he had pinched my eyelid up with his thumb, holding the back of my head with his other hand so that I wouldn’t move. I gasped as he plucked out one contact lens, then the other. I rubbed my eyes.
“There. Not that hard, once you’re used to it.” He looked from one of my eyes to the other. “So this is how you really look?”
I blinked. He didn’t step away from me. His hand was still cupping the back of my head, his palm on my neck. The pure desire in his eyes made the muscles in my throat seize up. He wanted me and didn’t care if I saw it.
“Green eyes. Beautiful.”
Swallowing hard, I cast my eyes downwards. He looked at me like I was a victim. Like I was an easy mark. I didn’t want him to see the survivor that I was trying to be. There was something in his gaze that tore away all of my pretenses.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” I said, not looking up at him. He went to the oak door, and I sat down on the couch, the shirt balled up in my lap. Even when he opened the door, it was dark behind him, and I couldn’t see the other rooms.
“Good night,” he said. “Sweet dreams.” He closed the door behind him, and I heard a bolt slide shut. Then footsteps, leading away from the door. Then I was alone.
I wasn’t staying here forever. But I wanted Rien to think that I’d given up. Soon, I would find a way to escape.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Rien
I tossed and turned in bed. Normally I slept in total comfort. You might think being a killer would make it hard to sleep at night, but really it was the exact opposite. Killing a guilty person soothed me. It was what I was good at. It was what I loved to do. In their suffering I found meaning.
Tonight, though, I couldn’t rest.
Maybe it was the two other people in the house. Two people alive, breathing. Two people I was supposed to have killed. Bodies, I could handle. People? Not so much.
I rolled over to the side and picked up my phone to check the security cameras and alarm system. If the girl tried to escape, the alarm on the back entryway would go off as soon as she tried to open the door to the outside. And the door from the library to my half of the house was locked tightly. Still, maybe I should pick up another alarm, wire it all around the library…
What was I thinking? She was an innocent girl. She wasn’t dangerous at all to me. She was only a toy.
My toy.
I thought of her lying down on the couch, and the image conjured up a flood of hormones. I touched myself idly, stroking myself through the sheets. What was it about her?
It was the layers, possibly. There was more to her under her skin than just a body. There was a mind that I had not yet come to understand. Villains were easy. Their motivations were simple: money, power, luxury.
But Sara… I didn’t know what was inside that drove her to do anything. I had peeled off her fake eyes, dug deep into her body with my fingers but that still wasn’t enough. Her soul wasn’t visible to me, not yet.
The people on my operating table were always bare to me. They had a single, solitary purpose: to escape. They came to me because they were done with their previous lives. They wanted to escape. They wanted to disappear. And I made them disappear.
Just not in the way they wanted.
Sara was different. She had come into my house for a different reason. To pretend.
Looking over at the clock, I frowned. Midnight, and I still wasn’t asleep.
Was she?
Just the thought of her made my co
ck jump to attention. I imagined her dark brown hair spread out over the couch. Her body, clothed only in my shirt, those full breasts straining against the buttons.
I thought of her breaths catching in her throat when I touched her. Was that pretending? There was more underneath, more than I could see.
Go to her.
Throwing back the sheets, I stood up and left the bedroom. I wanted to see what more there was to this girl. I wanted to tease it out, to find it for myself.
I wanted to take apart my toy and see what made it tick.
Sara
I’d spent an hour looking through the library. I ran my fingers underneath the shelves of books along the walls, trying to find the hidden switch. I thought that it must be on the wall that led to the operating room. That was how he’d opened it before without my seeing. But I couldn’t find anything.
Maybe it was one of the books. I skimmed my eyes over the shelves, trying to find something that would stand out. But of course it wouldn’t stand out. It would be hidden. Secret.
I tried pulling out one book at a time at random, then handfuls, replacing them on the shelf when nothing happened. But there were thousands of books on the shelf. I couldn’t check them all. Not tonight. The two injections he’d given me had messed with my system. My brain was fuzzy, even now. Or maybe that was just the exhaustion catching up to me.
It was almost midnight when I gave up on my search and turned off the light. Tomorrow I could search again. And the day after. I had time. As long as Rien continued to believe that I was resigned to my fate, I would have time to find a way to escape. He wouldn’t kill the man, either, as long as he thought I might do it. If I was a survivor, I would have to pretend that I was unsure. I would have to pretend that I’d given up trying to escape.
But he saw through me!
That time. Yes. But not again. I would be the best actress I could.
I felt my way to the couch and lay down, drawing my knees up to my chest. In the dark, I couldn’t see anything, not even a light from under the doorway. The library was sealed off from both sides of the house. The waiting room and operating room were on one side and Rien lived on the other side.
