Page 19 of Thorns Laced In Blood

It took a decade and two slip-ups for me to find out his name. Jacob Athill.

“Get some coke for her. She won’t remember a thing after a few snorts,” the man beside me said.

???

The door creaked open. Footsteps. Cigarette smoke and stale cologne slithered in before he did. I don't move. Can't. The mattress beneath me was damp with sweat, blood or worse. My body felt like a shattered vase hastily glued back together.

“Well, well.” His voice is a razor dipped in honey. “Look at you.”

A shoe prodded my hip, rolling me onto my back. The ceiling light stabs my eyes. His shadow looms over me, a grotesque parody of concern as he tsks.

“God, the state of you—” he said, crouching to grip my chin. His thumb smeared something wet across my cheekbone. It wasn't tears. “You look like a used-up crack whore.”

My eyes felt so heavy when I tried to open them again. I hurt everywhere when I tried to move. He stood over me with a smile.

“Just like your mother.”

The words hit like a cleaver to the chest.

“Open your mouth, doll,” Master said.

He placed two pills in my mouth and placed a bottle of water against my lips.

“Painkillers,” he said as I drank the water. “You had a fun night. One of my friends recorded some of the events. I’ve left you some more painkillers and cream. You will need to wait until I return from work for a shower.”

It must have been early morning because he wore a robe. With a shiver, I pulled the blanket over me, but my muscles protested at the movement. He walked away, but not before I saw the mess on the floor and the table—empty bottles, ripped condom wrappers, and glasses strewn everywhere.

The light switched off.

“Daddy loves you,” he said, and I didn't need to wait long because it came.

His mocking laugh.

The sound curled around me, suffocating me. It’s not the laugh of a man who finds something funny. It’s the laugh of a man who’s already won.

I listened to his footsteps going up the stairs, but I slid my hand under the pillow to feel if the silver pen knife I stole was still there. My fingers curled around the cold metal. Jacob Athill’s days were numbered. My body might have grown weaker, and I probably looked like the crack whore my mother was.

However, Maeve O’Neill was still alive and well inside my brain.

???

The drug-induced crash came when I woke up. I cleaned the room up, hid the knife, drank the last of the scotch and took more painkillers. The cream helped me internally. There was blood but that was to be expected.

The dark, depressing thoughts made me want to use the knife on myself rather than the devil I was trapped with. They were the same questions.

What if my dad had lived? Or if I’d had a different mother? What could I have achieved in my life for the last seven years instead of being trapped with the devil?

The hole in the wall was taking too long. I considered the best part of the body to stab and thought of the girl. The neck was softer than the chest. More veins and less bone.

The devil would tire of me, and I would end up like the girl. He had no regrets over killing her and would have none about killing me. The heartless bastard wasn't human.

Chapter 12

Maeve

The basement door creaked open a little after midnight.

I knew the time because the numbers on his wristwatch glowed in the dark like animal eyes when he reached to turn on the light. Tick, tick, tick. The sound of his watch was too loud in the silence.

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