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The room is filled with glass cabinets containing all kinds of strange objects and curiosities. In the cabinet closest to me there are human and animal skulls of varying shapes and sizes, displayed with jewellery and trinkets that hang from the skeleton teeth and drip out of hollowed eyes. I notice a pair of earrings that look eerily familiar to the necklace Twelve was wearing and see a spot next to it that’s suspiciously empty. This is where she must’ve stolen it from.
“Twelve’s actions go against everything we’ve built here. She’s lucky she isn’t dead for stealing this,” Jakub says, pulling the necklace from his pocket. I watch as he unlocks the cabinet and rests the necklace next to the matching earrings, before locking it again, pocketing the key.
“What you did—”
“Was necessary. These jewels belonged to my mother. Twelve knew that. They’resacred,” Jakub insists, trying to justify what happened.
“It isn’t right. What you do here, it isn’t right,” I whisper, refusing to hear the emotion in his voice. I don’t care about his reasoning. Twelve’s back is ripped and raw, bloody and split. Nothing justifies that. Nothing.
“You don’t understand,” he says, his frustration clear. I catch myself wondering why he even cares about what I think. I’m no more than an object, after all.
Refusing to engage further, I stare at the pretty jewels sparkling under the soft lighting, so starkly beautiful against the whitewashed bones of the dead. I’m no expert, but I’m guessing they’re the real deal.
On the shelf below there’s an ornate clock, its hands made of tiny bones, thin and delicate but strong enough to carry the weight of time. Next to it is a dagger with a strange-looking leather handle. I peer closer, the incident in the corridor forgotten momentarily as I press my fingers against the cool glass.
“Oh my God,” I mutter, my stomach churning at the fine hair I see covering the handle and a portion of what looks like a butterfly tattoo still visible in the darkening skin. “Is thathumanskin?”
“Yes,” Jakub answers from somewhere behind me.
Swallowing hard, I snatch my gaze away from the disgusting item, turning my head, only for my eyes to fall upon another cabinet containing a gorilla’s foot, the grey-black skin aged and worn. Next to it lies an elephant tusk, ingrained on its surface are crude images of men and women fucking. A stuffed cat with a huge body and tiny head sits next to a dog with two tails and six legs. There’s a whole shelf filled with ivory carvings, the figurines might be fucking but they don’t appear to be enjoying it, every expression is one of torture and pain.
Tripping over my feet, and painfully aware of Jakub watching me, I move towards a third cabinet stacked full of glass containers filled with dead insects and reptiles. There are beetles and butterflies, snakes and lizards but like everything else in this room, they too are distorted in some way. They’re deformed,twisted.
I spin on my feet, feeling Jakub’s eyes on me as I try to absorb everything I’m seeing. I can’t seem to process it all quickly enough as my gaze flits from one item to the next. In the corner of the room there’s a whole cabinet filled to the brim with China dolls. Every single one of them is decapitated, their heads resting by their side, their eyes watching me as I step closer to look, then back away, my pulse jumping as their black, beady eyes follow my every step.
“Jesus,” I mutter, walking deeper into the room.
Another cabinet displays a large glass orb with a real, human eyeball floating inside of it, all of the optic nerves and sinewy tissue still attached. Next to that are several jars containing fetuses in different stages of development, preserved forevermore in formaldehyde. I don’t know a great deal about the natural development of the human fetus but I do know that they shouldn’t have five limbs, three arms or two mouths, like those I’m seeing before me.
I swallow hard, my gaze flitting from one strange object to the next, finally landing on a tiny human head. It’s shrivelled, the skin puckered, the eyes non-existent, dark hair drawn up into a tight bun. My hands fly up to cover my mouth as I try not to throw up.
“What is this place?” I whisper, jerking backwards into a hard chest. I hold in a screech, spinning around to face Jakub.
“These are my things. They’remine,” he answers, stepping closer, crowding me, pushing me back against the cabinet. I suck in a shocked breath from the cool glass touching my skin and the sudden rash of phantom pain that forces its way into my consciousness.
“Why am I here? I thought you were taking me to Thirteen?” I ask, pushing the pain away, locking it up and refusing to acknowledge it. My senses are overloaded, I can’t deal with the pain on top of that right now.
“I was.”
“And you’re not now?” I question, my voice trembling.
“I wanted to show you these.”
“To frighten me?”
“No, to explain. To see if you understand.”
“I don’t. Idon’tunderstand. Why do you keep dead fetuses, a human head, a knife that’s handle is made ofhumanskin?”
“Because I appreciate the unusual. Covet it.”
“It’sperverse.”
“Why? I thought you, of all people, would understand.”
“Understand?” I draw in a shaky breath, anger flooding my bloodstream. “What, because I’m deformed too? Is that what you mean?” He cocks his head, looking at me curiously. He doesn’t have to speak for me to know the answer. “Isthiswhat my future holds? Do you mean to use and abuse me then stuff me like that dead cat and put me in a cabinet, or pickle me in formaldehyde like those fetuses? Is that your plan of revenge? Maybe you’ll use my skin to make a handle for a knife.”
He makes a humming noise in the back of his throat, one that should terrify me but only seems to fuel my anger. The sick, twisted, bastard. “Now that you mention it…” He grins, making sure I see that stark cruelty in his eyes, the edge of mania.
