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“Disgusting,” Carolyn told me, with a wrinkled nose. “He’s fucking disgusting, the things he does to people.”
“Who is he?” I asked. “Tell me something… something about him… I need to know… to be ready…”
“You’ll never be ready,” Rebecca said. “Not even close. Not in a million years.”
“I can try to be…”
She took another sip of her drink. “It’s like… electric. Like a permanent current buzzing you high. You’ll be out of your mind, lost to the world and every one of your senses, swimming in a sea of utter depravity and carnage and thinking you’re long past making it through. And then he’ll be there, demanding more. Telling you more. Always more, more, more. And you’ll give it to him. Whatever he wants.”
I was feeling out of my mind already, cocktail long forgotten as I soaked up her words.
“And what does he really want?”
Her answer was instant. “He wants you to hurt. To break. To give him the pieces of your broken fucking soul along with your broken fucking body.”
“And there’s no option but to comply?”
She nodded. “Every. Single. Time. No matter what.”
“And then?” I pushed. “What happens when he’s taken everything from you? He uses your body in every way it can be taken, right? Hurts you so bad you’re screaming for mercy and then does it all over again?”
“Oh yeah, he does that alright.” Her smile was hazy.
“And then what? He lets you go with the money, job done?”
She spun her glass in her fingers. A nervous fidget. “And then he gives you to a whole host of filthy fucking strangers to do the same. However they want it. Whenever they want it. As many times as they fucking want it until the sixty days are done.”
I took a breath at the thought.
I’d known this.
I’d heard this.
But it felt so different hearing it straight from Rebecca Lane’s mouth.
“They fuck you up so bad,” she whispered. “But that isn’t it. That isn’t the thing that really messes with you. That isn’t the thing that leaves you so fucked up in your mind that you aren’t sure you even want the money at the end of it. Because the only thing you really want by then… the only thing you really need by then…”
Her voice tapered off to nothing, eyes trying to say what her mouth couldn’t seem to.
I didn’t get it. Not what she was pointing at.
My eyes ate at hers but found no clue.
But there was a feeling.
A desperation.
“Don’t fucking talk about this bit,” Carolyn said, and slapped her hand on the table top. “You said you wouldn’t. Tonight is donuts, and general fucked-up stories, and lots of discouragement. Paige doesn’t need to hear this shit.”
But I did need to hear this shit.
I’d never needed to hear something so bad in my life.
“Please do,” I said, right at Rebecca. “Please talk about this bit. What is the thing you really want by then?”
“I shouldn’t,” she answered, nervous fidget still going strong. “Carolyn’s right. I shouldn’t talk about it. It’s me… just me…”
Somehow I doubted that.
“She’s still messed up by the whole thing,” Carolyn tried to reason. “Crazy feelings that make no sense whatsoever. Walk away from the thing and thank your lucky stars for the lucky escape.”
I wished I was feeling the lucky escape option.
“You wouldn’t get it if I did tell you,” Rebecca said. “There’s no way in a million years you’d get it unless you were there. It’s probably me… just a fucked-up girl wanting fucked-up things…”
And that’s when I saw the movement behind her. The tall, broad figure walking down the pier towards us.
My eyes widened, jaw dropping slack as I registered the strength in his walk. The suit was perfect, tailored like a dream. His gaze was every bit as dark as I remembered.
But this time it wasn’t on me.
“It’s him,” I breathed as he stepped under the bar sign and headed on in.
Rebecca’s eyes widened like mine, but my meaning was lost on her.
“Yes!” she said, and her voice was louder. So much louder. “It is him that you want! He’s exactly what you want by then! Enough to drive you fucking crazy. Drive you out of your fucking mind! Because he’s a god in this world. A fucked-up fucking god who steals your fucking soul and leaves you begging for more. But you can’t. You can’t let yourself go there. You’d never fucking survive if you saw him again!”
But she’d have to fucking survive if she saw him again.
Time slowed until it stopped. His shadow creeping over her until she felt him there, looming larger than life with a stare like death as he glared down at her.
His mouth flicked into a terrible smile as she dared to look in his direction, and her confidence vanished. Dead. Shrivelled and gone in a heartbeat, leaving just a little girl quaking.
