by Logan Fox
The Whipping Girls
Blood for Blood: 03
Logan Fox
Contents
Exclusive Content
Prologue
I. Conception
II. Gestation
III. Contraction
IV. Termination
V. Postpartum
Epilogue
Also by Logan Fox
Thank You
About the Author
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Prologue
“Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!”
Shadow Fox Grove’s unending forest swallows the girl’s shrill cry without a care for the terror pulsing through her veins. Close-knit trees scrape her elbows and knees. Branches claw her hair. Leaves slap her face.
But she runs.
Soon she can’t scream anymore; she’s out of breath, out of energy, out of time.
Her legs weaken. The girl stumbles, falls.
What air remained in her lungs whooshes out, leaving her gasping against the damp moss. Dark earth fills her nose, gathers under her nails, coats her bare feet.
Around her, the forest swirls like a carousel. Branches that shouldn’t have been able to move without a breeze reach their skinny, twiggy hands toward her.
The girl lets out a rasping shriek as she drags herself to her feet. She hobbles on, the already insubstantial world now swimming in her tears.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
It’s closer now. Catching up.
Clara’s heart shoots into her throat and strangles another cry as she looks over her shoulder. The movement makes the lash marks on her back rage in pain, but she has to see how close it is.
A tall, dark shape lumbers after her; glowing red eyes, matted fur, curving horns.
So close.
So very, very close.
Clara sobs, staggers, catches herself before she can fall, and plunges forward. New screams set fire to her throat as sharp stones and rough roots rip apart the soles of her feet.
Fear becomes an invisible giant who mercilessly squeezes her heart in a cruel fist. Her lungs can no longer expand. Her stomach has turned to concrete.
She dodges a tree, slips, catches herself against a knotted trunk.
Her hitching breath is hot, slimy. There’s blood in her mouth, and she knows it’s coming from inside her.
There’s a full moon tonight, but it barely sheds more than a weak glow after struggling through the grove’s thick, tangled canopy.
But there’s just enough of that silver light for Clara to see just how treacherous her footing is. And just too little for her to avoid the many pitfalls in her way.
She pushes away from the tree on shaking legs and runs until a flash of white and red catches her eye.
It’s another girl like her. Running, just like she is.
That white is a dress like hers. White cloth, red blood. The blood, just like hers. Blood from the whip—
The whip.
The whip!
Clara screams, because even thinking about it brings back the pain. A pain she’d been trying to ignore as she ran. A memory of the whip licking hot and deep over her skin.
Over, and over, and over again.
That strip of leather also feasted on Samantha, and Tilly, and Gretchen, and Bets, and all the other girls she didn’t know. It tasted their bodies every night in different places, until each girl eventually stopped screaming.
That was when Jesus came to take the girls to heaven.
Him with his warm smile. Eyes — blue and bright — that made her feel whole.
He came for her today, when the pain turned into something she couldn’t feel anymore. When she’d finally stopped screaming.
He’d unhooked her from the ceiling, and bundled her up in a white dress, covering her for the first time in days. He’d combed out her hair and told her how special she was. Then he’d taken her to an arched doorway and opened it to a cobblestone path, brightly lit, that disappeared into the forest.
Strange, but she’d thought there would be clouds if she were going to heaven.
But he told her she would find salvation, if only she followed the path. She’d taken a hesitant step, then another. Something had bit the back of her neck, and the Jesus man had pushed her forward—
She’d thought the forest would be better than the whip. The girl running nearby had obviously made the same mistake.
Clara stops running.
She tries to scream, for now her world has become a broken mirror.
Surely — surely — that’s her own body hanging from the tree?
Sway, sway, swaying on the rope.
Brown hair, white dress, red blood.
But the dress is wrong.
Because the girl is upside down.
And that girl can’t be her…
She touches shaking hands to her own throat. No, it can’t be her. Her throat doesn’t have a gaping slit through the middle. Her neck and chin aren’t painted red with blood.
Drip, drip, dripping into the bucket beneath.
How long Clara stands there, she doesn’t know; she’s mesmerized by the girl in the red-white dress.
She doesn’t know this girl’s name. Perhaps the upside down girl didn’t know her name either.
Hot breath blows against the back of her neck, and Clara knows it’s too late.
Too late to run.
She should have run when she’d seen the white van parked on the road ahead when she was walking to school.
She should have run when the door opened and a man stepped out.
She should have run when he crouched as she came closer.
Should have run when he’d asked if she’d seen his dog.
But by then, like now, it was already too late.
Too late.
Clara’s upside down now.
The world is white, flecked with red. Cool air rakes over her body, skin damp with sweat and sticky with drying blood from that hungry, hungry whip. It hurt her at first, that thick, scratchy white dress. Sticking to her lashes and tearing free like a Band-Aid every time she twisted her way through the forest.
But she thanks the Lord for her dress, because now that dress is all she can see.
The monster — that hideous beast — is out of sight.
If she has to look at it just once more, her heart will surely burst in terror.
Part One
Conception
“There is great difference between trust and belief. Trust is personal. Belief is social.”
Osho
Chapter One
Hunter
Dank smoke plumes from my lips as I exhale, and I tighten my throat to stem a cough.
MJ’s weed is always killer.
I’ve kept her strain alive over the years, kept it pure. But it will always have a punch to it, just like the woman that grew it.
When I smoke a whole joint, the roach always smells like scorched flesh and sage. That’s what I concluded Father used in his sacrificial pyres the day that he burned MJ at the stake like a fucking Salem witch. It took a few years for me to pinpoint the exact concoction — sage and mugwort, among others — but I experienced an instant flashback when I got the mixture just right.
I glance at the joint; it’s almost finished. Best not to let it burn all the way — I don’t need another sleepless night. There are too many things at stake, too many ways I can fuck this all up. I need every ounce of concentration at my disposal.
Thanks, MJ, for growing the
best weed this side of Devil’s Creek.
I crush out the last inch of the joint and lay my hand limply over my computer’s mouse. I open my emails, type ‘DMT’ and click the second email the search pulls up.
It could be a coincidence, of course. But I don’t believe in them any more than I believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus.
Another rather unique ingredient in Father’s brew? Virola bark. Now, simply inhaled as smoke, the DMT this plant contains would never kick in. However, the sage and mugwort gave everyone in the field a good fucking trip that day. I guess Father finally figured out DMT — although present in almost everything — is a dud until it’s prepared and consumed in the correct method.
What are the chances the only other person in Mallhaven who’s importing FDA approved, research grade DMT is Father? I’m not a gambling man, but I would place several of my personal trust funds on that wager.
There’s a noise outside my office door. I turn my head, straining for more. If it was Clover, then she’s already moved on. She knows not to disturb me when I’m in here.
I know she’s tried the combination several times, but never figured it out.
She never will; I change it once a week and never write it down. The numbers are molecular weights of whichever compound I decide on.
This week, rather fittingly, it’s Dimethyltryptamine — or 12162.
I have my legs stretched out, ankles on the edge of the table. Not a position I normally recline in, but I’m attempting to fool my body into thinking I’m relaxed when in truth I’m as tightly wound as a DNA helical.
I suppose it’s anticipation; up to this point, everything has gone, if not perfectly, then at least satisfactorily.
It’s now or never.
MJ’s potent cannabis strain has winnowed down the cognitive lightning storm that is normally my thought processes to a single stream.
I’ve already put this off too long to ensure I had every angle covered. Fuck knows, with someone like Clover, even my best bet can turn out to be a gamble.
I think that’s why I love her so fucking much. And fuck it if that doesn’t make this all that much more difficult.
I slide my phone from my pocket, unlock it, tap on a contact, and put it to my ear.
After a few seconds, someone answers with a raspy, “Yeah?”
“Good morning,” I say, forcing a smile on my mouth.
“Jesus. Sun’s barely up.”
“Good dawn, then?”
Kane lets out a rough laugh. It sounds like he’s hunting around for a packet of cigarettes, things clattering and bumping against each other.
“Those things’ll kill you,” I say.
My heart clenches for a second. I told him that all the time back then, even though we both smoked.
Another laugh, then a cough. “Not if you do first,” he mutters. There’s a metallic click of a lighter, a hissing inhale. “Now you going to tell me what the fuck’s up, or I gotta play twenty questions?”
Chapter Two
Clover
SIX WEEKS LATER
Something glorious this way comes. Its rich aroma drifts through the air like edible fog. I curl my toes against Hunter’s cool tiles as I stand on the threshold of his kitchen and watch him cooking at the range.
For a moment, I’m marooned in the past. How long ago was it that I was standing in this exact spot, naked but for a few damp petals and twigs and shit, so fucking confused I didn’t know up from down?
Not much has changed since then.
Nothing, actually.
“Smells good enough to eat,” I say, closing the distance and sliding my arms around Hunter’s taut stomach. Despite my many requests, he refuses to walk around without his shirt on, even after I agreed to return the favor. Instead, he’s wearing three-quarter shorts and a loose-fitting t-shirt. No brand names, but I know the outfit probably cost more than a seven-course taster menu for ten people at one of those fancy schmancy restaurants in New York.
Fucking rich people.
Hunter glances at me from the corner of his eye, a tiny smile on his lips. “Good to know.”
I squeeze him hard, doing my best to get a sound out of him, but he barely seems to notice. Gah, I have to work on my upper body strength. I slide onto a barstool, rapping my fingertips on the marble as I wait — rather fucking patiently — for him to complete his magic and serve me breakfast.
“You were up early this morning,” I say as I watch him work on the meal.
His movements are ultra-precise, if a little slow.
“Wake and bake? Where’s mine?”
I thought I smelled weed when I walked past his office. I woke up to an empty bed, and that’s never a good sign. The only time that happens is when he disappears into his office for the rest of the day and I barely get a glimpse of him. I thought today was going to be like that, but here he is, stoned as fuck and making breakfast.
I smell a trap. And it’s making my goddamn mouth water.
“Taking the day off,” he says.
I rise from my slouch, my fingertips stilling. “Unheard of. Is it terminal? You have the plague, don’t you? No? Ebola then.”
He laughs at me, and the sound sends a delicious tingle through me. He doesn’t do it often enough, honestly. A man as set up as he should be laughing all the time, especially while counting out his mountains of money.
I mean, that’s the point, right?
Hunter turns, skillet in hand, and uses a spatula to point to the crockery cupboard. “Would you mind?”
“Not at all,” I say, hurrying over and grabbing two plates. “Especially if it means you’ll stop driving me mad with that smell.”
“You’ve had my omelets before.”
“Yeah, but that was like, days ago.” I put the plates down, doing my best not to bang them, and hop back on my seat.
I’m wearing one of Hunter’s shirts in open defiance to the previously purchased clothes hanging in my side of the closet. If he notices — which I know he does — he decides not to comment.
I guess he’s decided to pick his battles.
That’s another thing I’ve insisted on of late; we share everything. Our coffee comes from the same pot, we eat from the same skillet or tray or whatever the fuck he uses to make food. And, sometimes, just to change things up, I’ll switch plates.
This fucker ain’t drugging me again, that’s for sure.
I decide not to do it today — he looks distracted, and I doubt he’d try spiking one half of an omelet if there was a risk he’d forget which half it was.
Would be funny as fuck though.
“Care to share the joke?” he asks, sliding half of a gigantic omelet onto my plate.
“Nope,” I blurt out, already attacking the omelet before he has a chance to sit down.
We eat in partial silence; partial because I keep moaning and making suggestive comments about his cooking prowess. He’s still got that faintly dopey smile on him and for a moment, I could almost imagine we’re a normal couple that met at a park one day, fell in love over a series of dates, and decided to move in together.
But alas.
“That was everything I thought it would be,” I say through my last mouthful of food as I stand to take my plate to the dishwasher.
Hunter grabs my wrist before I make it one step. I sink down again, push away my plate, and turn my head a little.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, my voice weighed with dread.
To call our relationship strained would be erring on the side of a blatant understatement. Things have been a roller coaster ride since his friend Kane and weird-ass girl-who’s-a-friend-but-not-really Zee came around…and I keep getting the feeling I’m not strapped in tight enough.
“We’re having some people over for dinner.”
“We,” I repeat woodenly, pulling my wrist out of his grip. I don’t like the way my skin responds to him, immediately tingling and sending frantic signals to various parts of my body. I mean, Christ, I thought t
his shit is meant to wear off. It’s been weeks, already. Shouldn’t I be over the giddy part of whatever the fuck this is already?
“Kane, Zig—” He cuts off, clears his throat. “Zee. My sister Alexa, her boyfriend.”
“Your sister,” I say in the same tone.
“Yes,” Hunter replies quietly, dipping his chin a little. “And Kane. And Zee. And…I think his name is Joshua.”
“Why?”
Hunter barks out a laugh. “Because we can.”
“You can,” I correct, but absently.
I don’t like this, not one fucking bit. Something’s up, and it’s going to make me crazy trying to figure it out. “What’s so special about—?”
“We’ve been cloistered up here too long, Clover.” Hunter strokes a finger down my inner wrist, sending a pleasant wave of awareness up my arm. I pull my hand away, but he simply puts his hands on my knees, as if intent to keep contact and fuck how I feel about it. “I’m sure you’d love someone other than myself to talk to.”
“Yeah…uh…” I twist my lips. “No offense, but your friends are mentally unstable.”
As are you, Dr. Hill.
Another laugh from Hunter, this one sounding more than a little forced. What the fuck is up with him?
“It would be rude of me to cancel. They’ll be here at seven. I would love it if you could wear—”
“This?” I cut in, plucking at his shirt. It’s tight around my boobs, but baggy everywhere else. And it does come to a very modest mid-thigh because he’s tall as a Redwood.
His eyes crinkle at the sides even though there’s no smile in sight. “The red dress.”
The temperature in the room drops several degrees. I stand, swiping away his hands when he reaches for me.
