Page 47 of Cougar

No one says anything else. We’re all watching one another, waiting for someone to make the first move. Color me surprised when Bonnie is the first one to speak.

“Let me guess, Seamus squealed?”

“Who the fuck is that?” Turd whispers to me.

“Bigfoot didn’t have to say shit. We were able to piece it all together on our own.” Cowboy tells her.

“Oh, that’s who it is. Fucking terrible name.” Turd says and leans away.

“Hmm, I doubt that,” Bonnie snides.

Cowboy takes a step toward her, and when he’s close enough, his arm comes up, almost as if he’s going to wrap it around her. What she doesn’t see is the blade that Butcher puts in his hand behind her back. He tilts the blade toward her body and pushes in. When she lets out a soft puff of air, he pushes harder and brings his arm forward quickly. Slicing through her side. It’s not small, but it isn’t big enough to kill her, either.

“I didn’t think this would be up your alley,” he tells her.

“Yeah?” she lets out a breath, “What’s that?”

“Being a pedophile. Supplying pedophiles. Being pure fucking trash.”

Bonnie scoffs, fucking scoffs, and looks him dead in the eye, “Money is money. Do you know how fucking rich I am?”

“You steal and sell children!”

“I’m trying to see your point.”

This bitch really doesn’t care. She has no remorse for anything she’s done. She doesn’t see herself as vile—just a money maker.

“So what? You and your husband tag team ‘em?”

“Please. That man was a fucking idiot.”

“Why don’t you tell me the story of why?” he asks her. When she tells him that she doesn’t much feel like it, Cowboy slices her again on the other side. This time, it’s bigger. It’s longer and must be deeper, as it’s bleeding a lot more than the previous cut.

Bonnie sucks her teeth and throws her head back. She starts talking as her face is pointed toward the roof. “Getting them for my husband got easier once I figured out the flaws in CPS and the foster system. It became a game for him. One he loved to brag about. It’s not hard to find like-minded people who want to procure the same goods as Jack.

“I figured out how to get them what they needed. Once word got out, I was put in contact with a group of individuals known only as The Company. They were nothing compared to me. They didn’t give the goods; they only wanted them. Once they learned who I was, they were interested not only in my way of dealing the goods to respective clients, but wanted to see if I would teach them so they could spread through the network of people.

“It’s easy to make a deal to be the boss when you’re the one with the successful business in hand. While I didn’t give them all the secrets, they still learned from me. It’s simple. Problem teens, or kids who had a history of running away, are the ones you want. It’s so easy to make them disappear.

“But we had to keep moving to make it work,” she takes a pause and looks around the room. If she thinks she can intimidate us, she’s got another thing coming. She may think she’ll get away, but she’s hanging in a room outnumbered by people who want to kill her.

“Unfortunately, Jack wouldn’t stop fucking the merchandise. He sure loved them young and cute,” she fucking chuckles, “but it’s bad for business. That’s how to get caught 101. Naturally, it started to cause problems. So we moved so we could lay low. I figured the best way to do so was to build ourselves up within a community. It’s easy to take suspicions off yourself when everyone around you sees the illusion you’ve put in place.

“That’s where Wyman came in. I spent years laying low learning this town and how it worked. Getting involved in everything I could. Making people see me for what I wanted them to see. A suburban housewife who took in troubled kids.”

“Did you really have no problem with your husband raping kids?” I ask. I’m sure that Cowboy wanted to do all the talking, but the shaking knife in his hand tells me he’s close to stabbing her in the heart. We still need more.

“Were you not listening? Who the fuck do you think supplied him? It’s so easy to get away with when you look like me,” she says smugly.

The next thing I know, Cowboy throws a left hook at her face. When her head snaps to the right, he swings the hand with the knife against her other cheek. I think it’s too late, and we won’t get anything out of her before she manages to turn back toward him. She’s trying to be menacing, and it isn’t working. That’s when I see that Cowboy must have shifted the knife in his hand because all she has is a gnarly cut.

“Was Manda the last one?”

“Yes,” she says through clenched teeth. “She was his biggest weakness. He was obsessed with her. Wanted her as his constant plaything. He didn’t take the necessary precautions to make sure it wouldn’t come back and bite him in the ass.”

“You almost sound jealous,” Zombie chuckles.

“He was mine!” she shouts. What the actual fuck is wrong with this woman? She supplied kids to her husband for him to do unspeakable things to, but because he latched onto Manda, she’s losing her shit? Fucking disgusting ass.

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