Page 85 of Toy No More

My heart leaps. “Where are you going?”

“If you’re allowed to fuck someone else whenever and wherever you want, so am I. You don’t wanna touch me, so I’ll get somebody who does, and who hasn’t been passed around all night like a blow-up doll.”

I jerk at the sound of the door slamming behind him. Drawing slow, ragged breaths, I stare ahead, feeling his words echo through me. There have been only a few times he’s used this against me. And he knows…he knows saying that—him saying that of all people—hurts me deeply. He knows it makes me feel worthless. And yet, instead of falling into that pit of despair and disgust like I usually would, just like his attack intended, I close my eyes and remember Kobe calling my name.

“Do you ever think about leaving this life?”

His question resonates through me. Backing slowly until I reach the couch, I lean against it and blankly stare at the floor. For the first time since we got together, I genuinely, honestly, try to imagine what my life would be if I left Jasper. What it could be.

An inconceivable idea to me from a few months ago. Now…I can’t stop wondering if a reality like that is possible.

?

Jasper doesn’t come home that night. Later the next day, he sends some fresh face that I barely know to pick me up for work.

I send a few messages apologizing throughout the evening. After all, since I woke up, the adventurous, brave spirit of considering my options is nowhere to be found. Maybe it was nothing but my brain running on fumes, delirious and exhausted, that made me believe I could leave.

Because I trulycan’t.

Even if I wanted to, Jasper would never allow it. I’ve known that since the moment he looked at me when we first made love like lovers and said I was his omega. I knew then that he claimed me and was never gonna let go. Back then, I found it romantic…not yet fully realizing how deep that sense of possessiveness actually went.

When I return to my station after a client, I check my phone and notice a new text from Jasper, simply saying to meet him at the back of the warehouse. There is a small office there he never uses. No one does, really, besides some of the dolls when they secretly hook up with Jasper’s men.

Still feeling the hurt and anger his remarks caused me, I go there, hoping for an apology.

Why else would he want me here? It always goes like this—we fight, Jasper lashes out with his words, then he apologizes and tries to make it up to me. Once it was an expensive weekend stay at a spa where I got pampered the entire time. Usually, it’s gifts, or Jasper being unusually lovey-dovey for a few days.

Is that normal?The thought comes to my mind as I make my way to the warehouse. I never had an example of a healthy relationship. But I figure that everyone struggles. Everyone has their fights and quarrels, right?

I should just be grateful for what I have. After all, it could be much,muchworse.

The warehouse is a weird, cold place. I don’t even like going through it to get to the loading dock. It’s as if the memories of horrible things that have happened here linger. Like the creepy shipping containers that usually stand in the middle of it. I never saw what is in them, but—

One is open.

I pause, listening to the strange sounds coming from within. Grunting. Slicing and cracking. Like a spooked animal, I quiet my breath and tread carefully.

Nothing can really happen to me here, so why do I feel so…

My idiotic curiosity pulls me closer. Even as the smell of iron drifts in my nostrils. Even if, with every cautious step, I’m more and more aware that what I’ll witness won’t be pretty. The scent grows stronger, the noises louder. The hairs at the back of my neck stand on end as I turn the corner, cautiously peeking around the open metal door of the container.

What I see once I do is like a scene from a horror movie. One I never would’ve wanted to experience in real life. Plastic sheets cover every inch of the inside. In the back stands a bright light, and in the middle is a metal table with a person next to it…and on it.

Or at least what used to be a person.

Now it is the bloodied, pale torso laying on the table. An arm falls into the large orange bucket by the butcher’s feet. The person notices me. Whoever is doing it, cutting a human being into pieces, turn to me, and it’s Kobe.

I stare, all the air having completely evaporated out of my lungs.

A headless, armless torso with one half a leg and…Kobe, covered in blood. Streaks of it glisten on his forehead, as if he wiped sweat off it and got some on. The black gloves on his hands aren’t enough to prevent blood from staining his gray shirt.

“Apollo,” I hear him say, somewhere in the distance. His eyes widen at me and his mouth opens, but I shake my head and start backing away, hearing nothing but an insane, maddening buzzing inside my skull and the pounding of my heart urging me to run, so I do.

I run. I’m hot and shaky and…Fuck!

The images won’t leave me. I can’t stop them from popping back in front of me with every blink.

I stumble in the direction of the loading dock and get outside, somehow. Barely standing on my trembling knees, I bend over, one hand grasping the wall next to me and the other shooting toward my mouth as my stomach threatens to empty itself. By some miracle, I withstand the urge to hurl.

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