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She thought she’d gotten to the emails before Marco could see them, but what if Marco had gotten access to them, after all? Maybe he’d printed them out and had been saving them for leverage. Or hadRafebeen the one to print them out and save them?
Donni turned the hose off and got out a bottle of wine. Screw-top, so she could drink right from the bottle.
Someone had enough to destroy her and they wanted her to know it. They were toying with her, with these emails and photographs and threats. Getting close enough to let her feel the air of the knife without actually holding it up to her throat.
What were they waiting for?
She stared at the bottle in her hand, suddenly nauseated. The heavy tannins suddenly made her think of blood with how thickly they coated her tongue. Powderpuff whined at her, following her up the stairs as she headed for her room, changing out of her clothes.
Beneath the sheets, she curled up into a tight, unhappy ball.
As soon as her eyes closed, she was tormented by dreams. There was one where she was an actress in a slasher movie, but everything that was happening in the movie was actually real. Whenever she tried to talk to someone, pleading for them tojust listen to her, she was told to shut up, that she needed to “stay in character.” When the killer stabbed her in the gut with the knife, she heard the producer scream, “Cut!”
Everyone was wearing devil masks, twisted and wrong in the light. And she realized that she had been staked out on a stone platform, with her blood running in rivulets down the sides.
“You’re not right for this part,” Johnathan said. “First you have to be dead.”
She shot up with a scream when he plunged the knife down again, sweat dotting her skin. She could still feel the phantom pain of the blade in her ribs, sending prickles up and down her skin.
I’m alive, she thought, as her husband rolled over beside her.I’m alive.
“Is something wrong, baby?”
Donni looked over at him and heard another scream fill the air. It was Marco—but a Marco reduced to bones and rotting flesh, with maggots dripping from between the gaps in his teeth and spilling from the putrefied jelly of his eyes.
“M-Marco,” she choked out. “Y-you’re dead.”
“No thanks to you.” He leaned towards her menacingly. “I’ve missed that body of yours, Donni. You might not be twenty anymore, but it’s slim pickings in hell.”
“No,” she said. “Don’t touch me.”
“What’s the matter, baby? You’ll fuck my son, but you won’t fuck me?” His rotting hand closed around her throat and she felt blood soak the lace. “But I forgot—you already did.”
(Girls like you are born wanting it)
“It’ll only hurt a little,” he was saying, but now it was Johnathan’s voice coming from those bloated lips, Johnathan’s eyes leering out from that ruin of a face. “It always hurts the first time.”
When she felt the bite of a man’s hand on her wrist, she screamed again.
“LET—ME—GO!”
“Donni—”
“I’ll kill you,” she sobbed. “I’ll—”
“Donni, it’s me.” The darkness melted around her, becoming thick and hot. She was tangled in the heavy comforter, sweat pouring from her skin. “Wake up.Wake up.”
She knew that voice. She could barely hear it over her pounding heart, but she knew it. And she was so sick with relief that it wasn’t one of her demons that she was almost glad to.
“Rafe,” she gasped. “What the fuck are you doing in here?”
“You left the door open. I saw the note on the counter. And then I heard you cry out.” He turned her face towards the hall light. “You’re crying.”
“It would have taken you less than five seconds to see that I was all right.” Her voice sounded too loud in the dark. Angry. He hadn’t let go of her hand and now he was rubbing her arms. She shuddered, but didn’t move. “Did you read the note?”
For several beats he was silent. “I didn’t need to.”
“Is it you?” The words were ripped from her, exposing wounds that had never healed. “Are you doing this to me? Are you punishing me?”
