"How can you do it? Listen to the sounds of them crying all the time. You couldn't hear it back at Waters. But here you can hear it all the time!"
I took a deep breath and felt my body tremble.
"Just because you couldn't hear them before doesn't mean they weren't crying."
I pushed her away and strode through the house. But she wasn't giving up. Her legs were so much longer than mine, so much stronger. She pounced on me from behind before I could lock myself in my room.
"Don't you have a heart?" she cried.
"I did," I replied. "A long time ago."
Her face softened and she began to whimper into her sleeve, wiping away salty tears as new ones took their place.
"I can't stand it," she said. "I don't want to be here. I don't want to hurt children. Can't we take them somewhere safe and-"
I slapped her face to silence her and she dropped her mouth open in shock. Raising her hand to her cheek, she continued to cry in silence as her tears dripped from her face.
"You know fine well we can't rescue them!"
She lifted her hand from her face and I could see the bright red handprint I had left on her porcelain skin. If I didn't feel guilty before...
But hitting and screaming was all I knew how to do. There were times when I fantasized about rescuing the children. About even rescuing the girls and scooping them all up and kissing and hugging them like the mother I always wished I could have been. But the judge wouldn't let me do that.
He'd hardened me. Made me cold and unfeeling. He'd made me do things I'd forever regret and made me think that somewhere deep inside him, he had a certain capacity to love me if I did what I was told.
It was all lies.
He never loved me.
I was just his pawn.
"I'm sorry," I said and held her hand. "I didn't mean to do that."
Kirsty was still stunned. Her mouth still dropped open.
"Please. Come inside. I'll make you some cocoa and we can talk. Would you like that?"
She nodded and meekly wandered into my bedroom.
"There's a good girl."
She sat on the edge of the bed and stared out the window.
"I'll be back in a moment," I said but she didn't respond.
I waited until the door clicked shut behind me before I let my own tears fall.
The house was beginning to drown.
~
The metallic surface of the toaster showed my grotesque reflection. The face that stared back at me wasn't one I recognized. The features were enlarged like a caricature's. The skin was mottled and dark red. I touched my fingertips to my cheek and thought I resembled a gargoyle.
When I pulled my fingers away, the feel of the scar was still on them, ragged and keloid.
The pain from the burn Kennedy gave me had healed but the hurt inside still ran deep. Each time I looked in the mirror it was there, purple and crimson and raised off the surface of my skin like rail road tracks. He'd disfigured me. Made me feel hideous but it wasn't anything I wasn't feeling already.
I wiped my face dry and shook myself back to reality.
Below, the crying was starting to fade as the children fell asleep. I hoped they wouldn't dream or if they did, that they imagined being held in their parents' arms.
Stirring two spoonfuls of cocoa into the boiling milk, I added a generous scoop of sugar before topping it off with some whipped cream.
When I returned to my room, I presented it to Kirsty with a certain amount of pride. Her eyes widened when she saw it and she lifted herself from the bed to take it gratefully in her cold hands.
"It's freezing in here,"I said with a shiver and moved to switch on the electric heater.
It smelled like dust as it warmed up but the heat against my shins was a welcomed sensation.
"Thank you," said Kirsty as she dunked her finger into the cream and sucked on it. "It's been so long since I've had cocoa. My mom used to make it for me when I was a kid."
"That wasn't so long ago," I observed.
"Nah, I suppose it wasn't.”
The bedside lamp cast a glow across her youthful features. She didn't look too dissimilar to me when I was her age. Although I was starting to forget what my life was like all that time ago.
Occasionally, at times like this, memories came to me in rose-tinted visions where life was sweet and the most important thing I had to worry about was what shade of lipstick suited me. It had been years since such trivia occupied my mind.
"It's quiet downstairs now," I said.
To emphasize my point and the isolation of the house, a gust of wind blew through the broken tiles on the roof. Somewhere beyond where the fields met the forest along the skyline, a fox screamed.
"Really quiet," said Kirsty as she sipped on her cocoa with a sigh.
She leaned back against the headboard and looked out through the threadbare curtain.
"Can you sleep when it's this quiet?" she asked. “I like to fall asleep to the sound of the traffic.”
"I don't sleep," I said.
"I'm not surprised."
There was a curious glint in her eye. She gave me a sideways glance and hugged her cup to her chest.
"How did you get caught up in all this?" she asked.
As always, I knew what she meant but feigned ignorance.
"What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean..."
Her eyes were stormy.
"You're a woman like me. We're supposed to be caring and nurturing but here we are with a basement full of kidnapped children. It's not what I wanted when I ran away from home. I wanted a better life. There was a time when I even dreamed of being a mom myself but that can't happen now! Not with all this... With all this..."
She waved her hand around unable to grasp the horror of her thoughts.
"We're not supposed to be doing this," she said. "Is there no way we can..."
"Rescue them? No. We'll all die if we do that. Judge Kennedy won't allow it."
She drained her cup and set it down on the window ledge.
"I'd die for them," she said. "I'd die if it put a stop to all of this."
I would too but the truth was that I was too scared to.
"So how do you propose we save these children. Call the police, eh?"
I snorted with derision but inside I really wanted to know if there was a way we could do it. A way we could all live in peace and the children could return to their parents.
"I know we can't call the police," she said. "I'm not stupid. I know who's involved, who pays us. There just has to be another way."
Bosworth, I thought. He wanted to save the children more than anyone but he wanted us all dead first.
I couldn’t blame him. I'd wanted to be dead myself for so long. But I didn't know what scared me more, staying alive living in this quagmire of filth and depravation for the rest of my life or dying and discovering there really was a God.
God wouldn't let me pass in peace. He'd send me to hell to suffer until time no longer existed. He would make sure I'd endure myself what I'd created up here on Earth. Sooner or later I would have to find out if there was an afterlife. Until then, I was living each day as it came with the belief that somehow it would all turn out to be okay.
"I'm sorry. I need to make a phone call," I blurted out and bolted from the room. "You can stay here tonight," I said over my shoulder as I departed. "If your room is too cold."
"Thanks," came her murmured reply. "I'll make up a bed on the floor."
Back in the kitchen, I pulled my phone from the top drawer and tapped the name that was always top of my call list. It rang and rang as my heart pounded. There was a silent terror inside me that panicked that I'd never hear his voice again. I hated him but he was all I lived for and no matter how much I hated him, I hated myself more.
"Phaedra?" his voice eventually reached my ear.
"What took you so long to answer?"
He made a peculiar noise like a cough mingled wit
h a laugh.
"Why? Did you miss me?"
I touched the scar on my face again.
I hate you, I thought. I hate you so fucking much why won't you just let me go and be done with all of this?
"The file was delivered," I said. "I just wanted to let you know. The girl from the station came to the house just as we were packing."
"Very well," he said.
"You don't sound so thrilled."
"Thrilled?" he laughed. "Oh, I'm thrilled alright because I don't need Bosworth’s file or any more of Berger’s pointless work. I have the real thing right here."
"You have Bosworth?"
He laughed again and hung up.
The only other person who cared about the children... He was with Kennedy now and I didn't know what that meant. I felt the blood rush from my head down into my feet. I collapsed into a chair and clutched at the sides of the table until my knuckles turned white.
When I was a child, this table was where we had countless family dinners. It was where birthdays were celebrated. Where cakes were brought out with sparklers on top and presents were unwrapped as my mother sang in her shrill out of tune voice.
Now it was collapsing under the weight of my misery. It was brittle and broken and so weak I worried that my breath would send it crumpling to the ground. With nothing else to do, I let my thoughts take over my mind and buried my head in my hands.
"Kennedy you piece of shit. I'll take you down eventually. You can't get away with it forever."
With newfound anxious energy, I leaped up from my seat and hurried out into the hall. The door to the basement lay beneath the rug. I ripped it back with my knotted arthritic fingers and felt the brass ring. I pulled on it and the door gave way to reveal a staircase that plummeted down into the darkness.
Hushed voices came from the shadows and the sound of bodies as they trembled in fear.
“Shhhh….” I heard a voice whisper in with its babyish cadences. “The witch is coming.”
The witch? That’s what they call me down there?
I thought about my burned face and the way my bones protruded. The way my voice rasped and how my hair was always pulled up so tight the veins in my forehead pulsed.
“Witch…” I said to myself. “Witches burn.”
I lowered myself into the whole and took a tentative step down into the black space beneath the house. It smelt like sweat and filth.
“I’m not a witch,” I told the children.
I couldn’t see them but I could hear them scuttling in the darkness like insects.
“Don’t be afraid,” I whispered although it was pointless.
These poor mites had never been more afraid in their lives.
“Please,” I begged. “Don’t be scared. I’m going to get you out of here. I’m going to get you home to your parents.”
A gasp came from the corner.
“You mean it? You’ll take me home to mommy?”
“I’ll try,” I said. “I’ll try my very hardest. Now go to sleep. You’ll need to your rest because you’ll be going on a long journey.”
I gulped down my doubt and headed back up the stairs. With no idea how I was going to save them, all I knew was that I would do it even if it killed me.
Puppet Master
Jewels And Panties Series
Book Six
Brooke Kinsley
© 2017 All Rights Reserved
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses per law
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
"Erotica is literature designed to be read with one hand...”-Brooke Kinsley
Description
ETTA
We’ve been captured but there’s no sign of Lincoln anywhere!
I need him to tell me everything will be okay.
I need to know he’s okay!
But something in my gut is telling me that something terrible has happened to him.
Held hostage in a motel, it looks as though things can’t get any worse for me.
Then one of my captors decides he wants to have some fun…
Somehow I’ve got to escape before it’s too late.
Somehow, I’ve got to discover if Lincoln is still alive!
PHAEDRA
It’s all coming to an end.
I can feel it in my bones.
I’ve had enough of all the pain and I’m too old to carry on.
And I’m damn well sure that Judge Kennedy is going to pay for what he’s done.
Tonight will be the last night that bastard lives.
But I’m going to need a little help…
Chapter One
lincoln
"You're fucking crazy if you think you can get away with this. Don't you know who I am!"
"We know exactly who you are. That's why you're here."
Judge Kennedy paced back and forth in front of me with the chief as his sidekick enjoying every moment of watching me bound up like a prisoner of war. My legs were crossed and tied at the ankles which were pressing into the cold concrete.
My arms were twisted behind my back with my wrists bound together at such an unnatural angle, it felt as though my shoulder blades were about to catch fire.
I tried to breathe through the pain but found it was even getting too much for me. It was then that the realization hit me. This wasn't too different to what my victims felt in the moments before their death. The only difference was that I knew people would be looking for me.
"Where's Etta?" I gasped through the agony, a long stream of saliva dripping from my lower lip.
Berger was still unconscious across the other side of the room. I narrowed my eyes in an effort to make out if he was breathing but he appeared to be unmoving.
"Your little dolly girl is doing fine," said the chief as he stepped forward, his polished boots squeaking as he knelt down. "She's somewhere real nice. Somewhere I chose myself."
His voice sent a shiver down the back of my neck.
"If you've touched her..." I said, my eyes rabid with rage.
Both the chief and the judge chuckled at my threat that now seemed so vacant. In this position, there was nothing I could do and they knew it.
"If we've touched her... What?" asked Kennedy. "What will you do? Take us down into that medieval laboratory of yours and slaughter us like the others. Before taking us out for a boat ride and leaving us to rot amongst the fish."
He knew...
As I grasped what he said, I felt my mouth turn dry. I tried to swallow but nothing happened. My throat was blocked up with anger.
"You knew!" I bellowed.
He flung his head back and laughed.
"All of us have been keeping tabs on you for a long while. The panties you bought from the girls... you sick son of a bitch. The volunteering at the house so you could get closer to them. Just so you could murder them in cold blood."
"You have the nerve talking about cold blood," I seethed. "The things you make the women in that house do... to children. And what for, judge? For the money or your own amusement?"
He flinched, angry.
"Besides, you know I killed those girls but what can you so about it? Why not get your chief here to arrest me? Oh, wait... You couldn't do that because I have more money than the entire police force. Not I would incriminate the both of you if it ever went to court."
I shook my head in disbelief.
"So you had to resort to your sly underhanded tactics. Kidnap... You fucking kidnapped me and one of your own men!"
The chief glanced over his shoulder to where Berger lay like a pile of old dark rags in the corner.
"Collateral damage," he said with a shrug. "He was always a livewire anyway."
Beneath my restraints, I began to tremble. I needed out of here. Needed to show these sons of bitches who was boss.
I needed to find Etta!
"You look a little flustered there, Mr. Bosworth."
The judge crouched down in front of my until I could smell his brandy scented breath.
"You look like you need to relax," he said. "I know a mighty good way to relax..."
The look in his eyes told me everything I needed to know. In that very second, with his face only inches away from mine and his acrid breath hot on my skin, I knew just how dirty he was, just how repulsive and dangerous.
Unable to move and still struggling against the rope that was burning my wrists, I snorted up all the mucus in the back of my dried out throat and spat it into his face.
I was disgusted at myself for acting so wild, so feral but I wasn't as revolted as he was. For a second, he lingered in front me with a slight twitch fluttering beneath his eye. Then he reached for a handkerchief and wiped his face clean.
"You'll pay for what you did to my girls," he said. "You can't get away with this. No matter how rich you are."
He stood up and walked toward the door. Stopping mid stride, he stopped as though he'd remembered something.
"Tell me," he said. "The red spiral tattoos. What was the point? What did they mean? Or did they mean nothing at all?"
He'd have to kill me before I told him.
"It's symbolic," was all I said. "You wouldn't understand."
Again, there was that angry flinch of his and the twitch below his eye was becoming more rapid. If it had been anyone else I would have assumed the man was close to having a stroke.
"Symbolic?" he guffawed and forced out an insincere laugh. "So not only are you a doctor, inventor, and billionaire. You're' also some sort of master theologian."
The chief looked down at his shoes, obviously out of his depth with the prospect of thinking beyond dry police statistics and barking orders.
Jewels And Panties: (Book 1-15) Billionaire Romance Series Page 27
