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For the last time.
* * *
My head’s throbbing and my right eye’s swollen shut. I’m physically ill even as I lay still on the cement ground. Though I don’t need to move to know I’m fucked up real good. They must’ve beat the shit out of me.
Another second goes by before I realize I’m not alone.
Lucius is in the cell with me. Sans his cigar this time. He lights up noticing I’m awake.
“I thought I’d hang around ’til you came to,” he says. “That was a real show you put on. Reminds me of those meltdowns you’d have when you were a boy. Remember when I’d come for you? You’d always try to hide. Then I’d drag you out from under the bed and you’d cry and scream like a little bitch.”
I spit at him. “Fuck you!”
“The only one fucked is you,scarafaggio. You waved the white flag. You admitted I’m your god. You kissed my fucking shoe. To think I ever called you my son. You disgust me!”
His rage isn’t about me. I learned this a long time ago. As a boy he’d rant and rave at me like I destroyed his life. None of it made any sense since I mostly stayed out of his way—I hoped he’d never notice me, though he always did.
No matter how well I hid or how small I made myself.
It wasn’t until I grew older that I realized his hatred was all about himself. I was merely a reflection he didn’t like.
“I disgust you?” I rasp. “Youdisgustedher. Isn’t that what she told you?”
“Shut the fuck up!”
“She didn’t want you. She never wanted you. Nobody could want you. You’re afreak.”
A feverish sweat breaks out on Lucius's brow. He grabs my face and bares his teeth. “I said shut the fuck up! You’ve lost,scarafaggio. Now your love is going to suffer for it. Do you know what happens to the products we sell? To the girls at the Mill?”
I know Lena Burtka offed herself rather than go back…
The sick feeling returns, if it ever left. I can’t turn away. He won’t let me, gripping my face.
“Allow me to tell you all the fucked up details. They get sold to whatever customer’s interested. Brought to a playroom where that customer gets to do whatever they want. Whatever they paid for. The more popular products—and yours will be popular given her reputation around the city—get fucked fifteen, sometimes twenty times a day. In whatever hole the customer, orcustomers, want it. I’m not going to kill her, Salvatore. I’m going toruinher. She’ll never be the same. And it’s all your fault. You’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to her.”
Lucius lets go of my face and stands up, tugging on the lapels of his suit jacket. He winks at me as he turns to go.
“Sleep tight. I’ll let you know how it goes. Maybe we’ll make you watch the footage. Some of our customers like it to be recorded. You know, to have a play-by-play for memory.”
The cell door clangs shut. Total darkness descends on my cement hell hole. I’m left on the cold, biting ground where I finally give into the sickness in my stomach. Bile spews from me at the same time anguish unfurls from every corner of my being.
So far, I’ve made it through my time in captivity by disappearing into my head. Tuning out my brutal reality and tuning in to fantasy and pleasant memories.
But I’m no longer able to. The brutal reality’s infected my brain now, making it so that every time I close my eyes I’m subjected to depraved images I never wanted to imagine. All things that might be happening to Delphine at this moment as I lay uselessly on the ground.
You’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to her.
salvatore
What the fuck’sgoing on outside?
Irritated, I get up off my bed and pry open the doors to my private balcony. Downstairs, my dumbass classmates have moved on from binge drinking in the parlor and tossing around Stefania’s Fabergé eggs to even more binge drinking on the lawn and stripping down to their underwear.
They jump in and out of the pool and guffaw like hyenas.
The fucking morons think they look cool. Because everybody knows the epitome of cool is shivering in the tighty whiteys your mom bought for you.
“Pathetic,” I mutter under my breath. I turn to go back inside before another loud noise rings out.
