SIX (33 page)

Disappointment mars his features and his brows knit together as if I’ve personally wounded him. I instantly feel horrible and fear he will take back his deal, leaving Macy angry and upset.

“I mean, uh…Daddy doesn’t want us taking rides from anyone.”

His eyes widen with understanding. “I’m not anyone. I’m Benny.”

“Little girl wants a doll?” a deep voice sings behind me. A chill, despite the August heat, creeps up my spine. The scent of alcohol and chewing tobacco suffocates me. “Maybe I should buy one for them both. But what would I get in return?” The man from before has returned, and this time, there’s no shame on his face or in his suggestion.

Benny snaps his attention to the man behind me and glares. I’m momentarily stunned by his sudden fierceness and step closer to Macy. “Back the hell away, prick, before I call the police on your pedophile ass.”

“Yeah, fuck off, faggot,” the man grunts before stomping off.

Moments earlier, I worried Benny was a threat. Now, I realize he’s simply a nice guy, wanting a girl to have her doll and warning off predators. Daddy would want to meet the man who scared away a monster.

“Actually,” I tell him, my voice brave, “we’ll help you. Maybe Daddy will buy me that one.” I point to a boy porcelain doll with honey-colored eyes like Benny and messy brown hair.

Benny grins. “You’ve got yourself a deal, little doll.”

* * *

“Last box,” Benny says with a grunt as he heaves it into the back of his tan aging van. This must be where all those muscles tensing in his arms came from. These boxes are heavy. Macy and I couldn’t even lift one together, but we were good help packing them up.

“Now we can meet your pops and I can try to talk him into two dolls. Does your momma like dolls?”

Macy giggles as he closes the back doors of the van. “She plays Barbies with me sometimes.”

Benny flashes her a smile before opening the side door. It rattles on its hinges. “I like your momma already.” His hand motions inside the vehicle.

“I can sit up front,” I tell him.

A flicker of emotion passes over his features before he hardens his gaze. “Actually, the hinges on the passenger side door are rusted shut. Damn door might fall off if we open it. You said you live close by. I’ll crank up the AC. You’ll be fine in the back and we wouldn’t want this little doll to be back here on her own.” He ruffles Macy’s hair and she beams up at him.

I glance nervously at my sister, but she’s already climbing into the back of the van.

“I don’t know. Maybe we should just call our parents from the pay phone. I really don’t think Daddy would like us riding with you.”

When he starts laughing at me, I turn beet red. “Y-You think I would do something? Like that man earlier? What are you? Eleven?” At this, he snorts. “I’m not into little kids. Trust me.”

Anger wells inside me. “I’m fourteen, and I’m not a little kid!” I exclaim, folding my arms in defiance.

He tampers down his laughter, but holds his palms up in defense. “Okay, okay. I get it. You’re not a little kid. Little kid or not, I’m not interested in you, short stuff. I typically go for girls with boobs.”

Now I’m just annoyed and humiliated. I’ve been ogling him this entire time and he just sees me as a child. Not that I wanted anything else, but it still pains me a little. With a huff, I climb in to the backseat and cross my arms over my flat chest. “Just take us home.”

By the time he climbs in and gets out onto the main road, his humor is gone. He messes with an ice chest in the front seat beside him and retrieves a bottle of water.

“Thirsty?”

God yes.

Macy snatches it out of his hand and greedily gulps down over half the bottle before I steal it from her. The cold moisture seeping down the bottle feels incredible in my hot palm. I polish the rest off within seconds and rub the cold plastic over my neck to steal the remaining frost from the bottle.

“Aren’t you going to ask us where we live?” I question after several minutes of driving. He hasn’t spoken much at all and that easy smile that once graced his lips is now stoic. His eyes keep tracking me in the overhead mirror. It’s hot and stuffy in the back of the van, despite his promise of AC, and I feel lightheaded. My eyes swimming and mind woozy, I reach toward the door handle for stability and grab air…where’s the handle? When I glance over at Macy, her head lolls to the side and she curls into the upholstery to get comfortable.

“You already told me,” he says, his voice distant.

My eyelids feel heavy and I struggle to keep them open. This heat is really starting to affect me. “I didn’t tell you…” Every muscle in my body seems to weaken. My heart thunders in my chest, but I feel powerless to do anything about it. “Take us home,” I demand with a slur.

His tone is dark. Not friendly like the Benny who sweet-talked me into forgetting all our Daddy’s lessons. “You will be home.”

The world spins around me and a wave of nausea passes over me. “What’s wrong with me?” My voice is a mere whisper.

“Nothing. You’re perfect. You’re both perfect. Exactly what I was looking for. Two precious little dolls.”

I barely have the strength to lift the water bottle up. It’s then I notice the chalky residue in the bottom of the plastic.

He drugged us. He’s a monster—the monster lurking in plain view, just like Daddy warned.

“Help.” The soft murmur of my plea can’t be heard over Benny’s humming. I soon recognize it when he starts singing a nursery rhyme Momma used to sing to us when we were ill.

Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick.

So she phoned for the doctor to be quick, quick, quick.

The doctor came with his bag and his hat,

And he knocked at the door with a rat-a-tat-tat.

He looked at the dolly and he shook his head,

And he said, “Miss Polly, put her straight to bed!”

He wrote on a paper for a pill, pill, pill,

“I’ll be back in the morning, yes I will, will, will.”

“Stop,” I choke out, but he ignores that I’ve said anything at all. After he finishes the final verse, he does stop singing, though, and turns on his stereo. Heavy rock music works its way into my head as everything goes blissfully black.

Help.

* * *

A soft moan from the cell beside me jerks me back to the present. Bloody dents in my skin from my grip sting as I release the hold I have on my arms. For four years, we’ve been imprisoned by Benny.
His Dolls
. Except I now know his name isn’t Benny—or at least, that’s not what we’re allowed to call him.

Benjamin.

He makes us call him Benjamin.

Benny with the golden brown eyes and easy smile never climbed into the van that day.
There never was a Benny.

Instead, we willingly got into the vehicle with a monster. A monster who has spent four agonizing years making us his personal dolls, which he likes to play with often—and he’s not gentle with his toys.

I’m long past tears; they went with my innocence.

Occasionally, Macy cries when he’s being especially brutal, or when he leaves her cell and she pleads with him she can be better. She knows if she doesn’t try to be the best dolly she can be, she won’t be fed for a day or two.

I’d rather starve than be his good dolly.

Because of this monster and his warped mind, I’m desensitized. Instead of begging and pleading for him to let us go—which always falls on deaf ears and gains us the manic pacing Benjamin, who sings his nursery rhyme and then sits there painting the faces on his dolls—I plot our escape. I plan his death. I make sure to go on breathing so my sister and I have a future.

The metal door slams shut on the cell beside me with a screech. Whatever he was doing with Macy, he’s done now, and her whimpering notches another dent in my heart.

My turn.

I’m always forced to listen to him with her. It’s his special way of torture. Forces me to hear her cries so by the time he comes for me, I’m rabid. He loves it when I fight and tear at his flesh any chance I get. The sicko gets off when I go on the offensive. He always takes dresses and makeup into her cell. I hear him decorating her into the perfect doll, but not me. He leaves me bare and untamed.

One of these days, he’ll slip up and I’ll be ready.

His muscled frame comes into view under the single halogen bulb in front of my cell. He’s only wearing a pair of jeans that hang low on his hips. Sweat rolls down his solid chest and his hair is soaked from exertion. Smelling the coppery scent of my little sister’s blood on this man is something that will forever be burned into my senses. Erasing that will never be possible unless it’s with the scent of his own blood as he gurgles his last breath.

The man who crafts dolls outside our cells on a work station during the hours that could be night or day is a man beyond crazy. He’s more monster than man—one more brutal and deranged than Daddy could have ever imagined lurking out there, waiting.

A full-on mentally deranged sicko, and when he wasn’t out there working, waiting, taunting, Macy would constantly ask when he was coming back,
if
he was coming back. He always came back and I couldn’t save her from it.

When he’s in his sick rage, his normally honey-colored eyes darken to more of a milky chocolate. I’ve watched his every move, listened to his every word, studied his every mannerism.

I know him better than he knows himself.

I know his patterns.

His tells.

His weakness.

And one day, I’ll pounce. I’ll end this and save us—save
her—
like I was supposed to.

“There’s my dirty little dolly. So wild and scared, but still so fucking pretty.” His eyes narrow as his gaze travels down my body. It’s a hundred degrees easily, but I can’t help but defy him. I’m not naked and cowering. I’ve instead ripped the sheet from the mattress and tied it around my body like a dress. He will take the sheet with him when he leaves and when night falls and the walls to my cell cool, I’ll be exposed and wishing for the sheet. But defying him is just too appealing—it’s the only ounce of control I possess.

I’m about to smart off to him when I notice the sway. It’s slight and almost unnoticeable, but I see it. He’s drunk. He
’s never drunk
. Drunk is good. Drunk means weak.

Fisting my hands at my sides, I wait. An opportunity like this is too big not to act on. When he comes inside, I’ll attack him. Surely I can overtake him. There’s a swagger to his movements and all I need is for him to let down his guard once.

“Your master wants to play. What game are you going to play with me today, dirty little dolly?” he questions, a smile on his lips as he fumbles with the keys.

“We could play Eye Spy, but your dick is so small, no one can really spy it,” I snap, goading him.

A low growl rumbles in his throat. “Or I could play with your insides when I gut you for being a bad little dolly.”

I was used to his threats. They were always deadly and vicious, but he never followed through with actually killing me. I think he liked my insolence; it made his games more fun for him.

The click of the lock unengaging causes my sweaty skin to erupt with goose bumps. Soon, he’ll be inside this cell taking what he wants—just like every night.

Not tonight.

The thought—so sudden and fierce—charges me with adrenaline. And when he drops the keys, the sound chinking around my cell like a starting pistol urging me to go, I make my move. Slinging the door hard to the right, I wrench it open with a rage-filled scream. He barely has a chance to register I’ve come out of my cell before I slam my fists into his chest and push him hard. His unstable body hits the floor with a
thud
.

“STOP!” he roars as he clambers to his feet.

But I don’t stop.

I run for my life. I run for both our lives. If I can get the heck out of this hellhole, I can find us help. I can save my sister. I take the stairs, which shockingly lead down two at a time.

His home is a blur as I rush toward a door to the right of a kitchen. I was in an attic turned dolly-dungeon. As if my world weren’t screwed up enough, of course it would be straight from a horror movie. I don’t stop to inspect the kitchen along the way, to look for a phone, or even look over my shoulder to see if he’s coming the moment I shove through the front door.

I.

Don’t.

Stop.

Cold air hits me in the face, coating my entire body like a cloak. We’re surrounded by woods. Trees, green and vibrant, whizz past my face as I run as fast as my legs will carry me. I ignore the bite of sticks and pinecones with each step I take. I ignore the scratching of branches as they whip and hiss at my body. Nothing matters but finding help. Behind me, I hear the crunching of leaves and grunting. He’s hot on my tail, but not close enough.

He’s weak.

Drunk.

An unworthy match.

With each long leap through the thick woods, I distance myself farther from him. Numbing the pain humming throughout my body, I run until my chest aches from my lungs burning for air. I’m dizzy, hungry, and not used to such bursts of exercise, but I don’t stop or slow until I’m pretty sure I haven’t heard him in ages. Death will take me before I allow him to take me again.

I got away.

I freaking got away. My mind screams at me in hysterics, but no sound leaves my lips.

And I’m going to get her back.

Willing myself to keep going, I take off again, faster this time.

A loud sob escapes me as realization courses through me. We’re finally free. As soon as I find help, they’ll take that psycho to prison and we’ll go back home to Momma and Daddy. I’m still holding on to darkened, fading images of my parents in my mind when I bolt from the edge of the woods. A hundred yards ahead is a road. Headlights from about a half-mile away are heading right in my direction. Elation echoes through my bones as I stretch them wide to signal the car coming.