Bone: A Dark Billionaire Romance (With bonus book Exhibit!)
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Authors: Stella Noir,Aria Frost
Bone
Copyright
©
2016 by Stella Noir & Aria Frost
––––––––
All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author's imagination.
Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.
M
aude has a healthy obsession with the dark and macabre. While giving a guided tour of the city's most gruesome serial killer hot-spots, she is approached by mysterious billionaire Christopher Alexander and offered a job.
Christopher has been buying up all of the houses in which victims of a prolific serial killer called Bone have met their end, in order to put on a fully interactive tour, and impressed by Maude's in depth knowledge, he wants to employ her to lead it.
Fantasy turns into reality for the enthusiastic death obsessive, when Maude is given a sneak peek of exactly what that tour involves.
Christopher isn't all that he seems, however, and Maude is about to find out how dangerous his secrets can be.
Christopher
H
e has the rabbit by the scruff of its neck. I watch the front legs twitch and the back legs kick out wildly and land tiny red scratches across the back of his hand, adding to the criss cross pattern of deep scar tissue already there.
The others are laughing. Pointing at the frightened animal with dirty fingers and goading him on. I have the lighter in my hand, clutched tightly in a closed fist, ready to pass over to him when he asks me for it.
The firework is fat like a cigar and a deep burgundy red like blood. Kal ties it on while he holds the bunny in place, wrapping the parcel tape around the animal's fur five times just to make sure it stays on.
He kneels down with the frightened beast and we all gather round. It's making a sound now I've never heard before, and Kal is complaining because it's pissed down his arm. He squashes his neck towards the ground, flattening his legs out to hold him in place. The fuse is jutting out of the cracker near his tail like a snake’s tongue. Kal looks at me. Bone looks at me too, his eyes stormy and determined.
"Light the fucking thing then."
I shake my head.
"What are you, a pussy? Light the fucking thing."
I try and back away, but someone pushes me forwards.
"I don't want to", I say, the words cracking as they come out.
"I didn't fucking ask you", Bone says. "I fucking told you."
All eyes go to me. Mine drop to the lighter I'm clutching so tightly it’s making my hand hot.
"It's your fucking lighter", Kal says. "You should do it."
I step forwards tentatively to kneel alongside them. There isn't any way out of this, either for me or the bunny rabbit.
"It's a fucking rabbit. It doesn't matter."
Bone's so close to me I can feel the heat of his breath on my cheek.
"Did you hear me? A fucking rabbit."
His fur is warm. I stroke it a bit and then press the flat of my palm against his spine. Like this, I can feel him trembling. With my other hand, I draw the lighter closer to the fuse.
A fucking rabbit.
"Do it", Kal says, his eyes wide with excitement. "Watch the fucker explode."
I click the lighter, the flame spits out and the fuse roars into life.
Immediately, Bone lets him go and we all back away. The rabbit stays still, rooted to the spot by fear. When we all realize it isn't going to move before the firework explodes, we run to a safe distance, keen to get there before the thing goes off, so we don't miss it happening.
My heart is beating wildly, and I can't get the grin off my face. A safe distance away, we crouch down in the grass, the excitement palpable.
There is a fizz, followed by a silence long enough for us all to think the firework is a dud, before the thing explodes in an abrupt slap of noise that echoes out across the forest beyond.
"Fuck."
"Did you see that?"
Bone is the first to his feet, and Kal and I aren't far behind him. I'm not sure what to expect when I get there, but it isn't anywhere close to what we see. The rabbit is still alive, its back hanging open, one leg missing and blood sinking out of it and into the dark green grass. Kal turns away in disgust, but Bone and I can't take my eyes off it. I've never seen anything quite as beautiful.
"That's fucking sick", Bone says eventually, pushing at what remains of the animal with the toe of his boot.
"It's still alive", Kal says, his hand over his mouth like he's going to vomit. "I can't believe it's still alive."
I find a stick, kneel down next to it and start pushing the end of it into the wound, just to see if the thing reacts. Each time I push it against the twisted cord that's all that remains of the rabbit's spine, the head twitches more violently. It makes Bone laugh.
"We should kill it", I say, tossing the stick to the side. "Put it out of its misery."
"That was the only firecracker we had", Kal says.
I stand up. The splattered carcass of the animal looks like a work of art. Kal has taken two steps away. MD and Jas look like they want to wipe their memories clean and never talk about this again. Even Bone has deferred to me, the youngest of the group. The lighter holder. The rabbit killer.
"Go on, do it", he says, loving every minute of it.
I lift my boot into the air, and before Kal can tell me to stop, I slam it down into the rabbit's face. I do it three times until the squashiness is hanging off by a thin cord of skin, and I'm satisfied the thing is good and dead.
There is blood and bits of flattened rabbit skin and fur clinging to my heel so I try my best to wipe it away in the grass. Even though I manage to get rid of most of it, I can't wipe away the blood that has melted into my sock. The rabbit itself looks like it's been run over by a car, it's head and body no longer together in one piece. Soon the birds will come and reduce it to nothing. Take it back to where it started off from.
"Fucking hell", Bone says, genuinely surprised at what he's just seen me do. "That was sick."
The rabbit is a bloody mess of guts and spilled blood. About a half meter away I find the blown off paw, the thing still warm and the blood beginning to coagulate at the end. I pick it up, put it in my pocket and lead the walk back home, my heart still beating at a thousand miles an hour.
––––––––
F
ifteen Years Later...
Christopher
T
he rabbit feels like warm cotton candy. This particular one is as white as snow with red eyes like sewn on rubies. I can feel it's heart beating so quickly in its chest, I wonder if it already knows where I'm taking it.
"I wish you wouldn't do that."
Ignoring my secretary, I take the bunny to the long tank that takes up most of one wall of my open plan office, place it carefully at the dummy trap in the top corner and open the chute so it has nowhere else to go but descend the ramp into the swell of the darkness beyond.
"It has to eat."
"It doesn't have to eat that", she says.
I watch the bunny tread carefully in its new environment, hesitant steps crushing fallen leaves under foot.
"It's inhumane", Dana continues to say. Without turning around, I know she isn't even bothering to look at me.
"It's natural", I say, almost to myself. With my face up to the glass, I feel like a boy again. "And nature is never humane."
A moment later, I see him unfurl from a branch, more than aware of what has just entered his environment. The rabbit sniffs, its nose twitching cautiously from side to side, none the wiser.
"You should watch", I say provocatively.
"Nobody should watch that."
The bunny rabbit freezes when he sees what's coming for him, fear striking him motionless. The snake slides over, its forked tongue high to taste the air, no need to rush.
The moment before death is the most exciting. I can almost see the fear in the rabbit's eyes, but it isn't just fear, it's crystal clear perfection. It's a moment of silence before the storm. It always is. He's one of the lucky ones too.
BAM! I strike the glass as the snake curls up, corkscrewing into a killing twist, the head of the bunny inside its mouth. I watch for a little longer, until the snake has sloped off into the shadows at the back of the tank, pulling its charge along with it.
When I turn back to Dana, she's shaking her head.
"It's got to eat", I say again, hands out passively.
Dana gives me a disapproving look. "
You
don't have to enjoy it", she says. "Even if that thing does."
It amuses me that she can’t even refer to it by its name.
"I don't have to, but I do", I say. "You would too if you let yourself watch."
"I very much doubt that."
"You'd be surprised what you find yourself liking when you give it a go."
Dana makes a noise of disgust. She does it often to segue into a subject transition. I know she hates my affection for the destructive aspects of the natural world, and tolerates it only because we’ve known each other for a very long time. That, and because I pay her extremely well for what she does.
I think she thinks I like it because I see myself as the python, and the rabbits I feed the snake, my competition in business and in life.
It's a good analogy, but it isn't the reason I like it. I like it because death interests me. The struggle for life interests me. The power one animal has over another interests me. Death is beautiful, whatever anyone else says about it. It is a moment of rebalance. A moment of absolute, crystalline perfection, unlike any other, and there is nothing else in this world like it. Not even sex. Not even love. Nothing comes even remotely close. On and off goes the switch. Light and dark, God and the Devil. Bone and the beasts before him.
Dana passes me a schedule. She does it every morning, and this morning is no different.
It's a day full of meetings, bullshit conferences, and a charity dinner I've been asked to give a speech at. I'm an important member of the community and I have to maintain that image. Sometimes it bores the fuck out of me though, I have to be honest.
"When are we going to do something interesting?" I ask.
Dana gives me the same disapproving look again. "You make it sound like the life of a multibillionaire is always dull."
"You don't know the half of it, Dana", I say, my feet going up onto the cherry wood desk I had hand-carved from specialist wood, and cost me more than a sports car.
"That's because you never invite me", Dana complains.
"You wouldn't enjoy it", I say. "You'd hate it in fact. I'm doing you a favor."
"Right", Dana says, spreading her fingers to count them. "Amazing food, as much champagne as you can drink, the most important people from the city."
"The richest people have the least interesting things to say."
"Well that one I can agree with at least."
"Besides which, they'd think we were fucking. Your husband would be horrified."
"You know I'm not married", Dana says.
"Well he would be if you were."
I begin to go through the mail that she's left on my desk, cutting each envelope open with the bone handled blade I was given by my father. I like the weight of it in my palm, and the sound it makes as it slashes the toughened paper into two perfect pieces. I could get Dana to do this for me, but it satisfies me far too much to delegate. The paper reminds me of skin sometimes, the way it frays and ages, and hangs apart when torn. Both are just as fragile.
