Page 100

ONE HUNDRED

AMETHYST

Hours later, I wake up with Xero’s arms wrapped around my waist and his chest flush against my back.

“When did return?” I murmur into the dark.

“Just now,” he slurs. “I have so much to tell you.”

I try twisting around in his embrace, but his arms are like an iron vise. “Hey, Xero?”

When he answers with a snore, I wriggle in his grip. “Let go of me. I need to go to the bathroom.”

He squeezes tighter.

“Now I know you’re awake.” I kick backward, but he doesn’t even flinch. “Xero. This isn’t funny.”

It’s probably a test in case I get captured by a maniac who likes to hug. I reach backward between our bodies, trying to find his balls, but he’s so tightly spooned against my back that all I can grab is his hip.

“Just when I’m beginning to fall in love, you turn into an asshole,” I say and elbow him in the ribs.

He doesn’t respond. This isn’t like Xero at all. He usually sleeps with one eye open and would never ignore any talk about love. I glance around the room, my gaze falling on the skeleton standing in the corner, and I grimace at the reminder of getting fucked by its thigh bone .

It takes a little gentle wriggling and a lot of holding my breath, but eventually, I slip free from Xero’s hold. After taking a quick shower in the adjoining bathroom and getting dressed, I walk to the kitchenette and make some toast with bread that isn’t frozen.

Fancy.

My pussy still throbs from last night, and my throat is still a little hoarse from those multiple orgasms. After coming inside me, Xero made me climax over and over, even after I cried. The only reason he stopped was because our time in the screen room was up.

By then, my vision was too clouded by tears to appreciate all the reflections, and I was no longer interested in watching what he did with his fingers and tongue. Now, I regret closing my eyes because that had been really hot.

I return to the bedroom and glance around, looking for the hard drive he extracted. When I can’t find it, I get Xero to mumble that he left it in his study. Gulping at the reminder of the creepy crime board, I leave the bedroom and head toward the cordoned-off section at the end of the crawlspace.

Stepping inside, I avoid looking at the images in the center of the wall and fix my gaze on the hard drive on his desk. Next to it is a manilla envelope with the same psychopathic writing that I received the day of Xero’s execution. All thoughts of watching last night’s festivities evaporate at the prospect of unlocking another clue to my past.

With trembling fingers, I rip the envelope open and extract a letter that simply says:

The only handsome prince you deserve.

Beneath the scrawled note is a carefully written URL. I sit at Xero’s desk, fire up one of his laptops, and type the address into the browser. The short link redirects to a video, and I press play.

I recognize it immediately as the same clip Mom played the day she washed her hands of me and announced she would sell the house. I’m running through the graveyard being chased by a dark figure.

What I don’t understand is how someone shot such clear footage without Xero even noticing. That night, I was hallucinating all kinds of crap, so seeing a man holding a camera or phone would have just been part of the grand delusion. But there’s no way Xero would miss a peeping Tom and his device.

It’s strange how I was eager to watch one video of us having sex, while the other one makes me cringe. But that’s because the graveyard scene was recorded by someone who knows my past and still wants me dead.

I fast forward, not wanting to watch myself through the eyes of a voyeur. When I reach the part where Xero presses something into my face that makes me go limp, I pause the video and open his desk drawer, remembering that’s where he left a bottle of chloroform.

It’s still there. I pull it out, only for another bottle to roll forward. Its label says: SOMNOCHLORATE: HIGHLY FLAMMABLE. I crack open its lid, sniff something sweeter than acetone, and immediately feel dizzy. My muscles weaken, and I pull back.

Replacing the lid, I slump forward in my seat, the edges of my vision going dark. That was… potent.

It takes several minutes of staring into the void to regain my senses and even longer to remember why I’m sitting at Xero’s desk, staring at bottles of chemicals.

I turn my attention back to the laptop screen, where I’m lying naked in the dirt with Xero kneeling over me like a ghoul. This is probably where he carries me off to the old rectory for a long soak. Since I missed that part due to being unconscious, I let the video continue.

Drawing back, Xero pulls my legs apart and inspects my pussy. My clit pulses, and I shift uncomfortably in my seat. Am I about to watch some somnophilia? He sticks a gloved finger into me and then holds it up to the light, only it’s too bright to be the moon.

The camera draws closer to my prone form and the lights get brighter, and Xero rises off me and stands to the side. It’s mostly his legs that are visible in the shot, but I see him sweep his arm as if beckoning someone to come closer.

“What the fuck?” I whisper.

A man scuttles into the shot. I’ve never seen him before, and he’s dressed in layers of worn clothes torn in multiple places. I can barely make out his features through his thick stubble and scraggly black hair, but when he sticks his hand between my legs, I shoot out of my seat.

“What is this?” I cry.

He pulls out and inspects his grimy digits, which protrude from fingerless gloves. Then he turns to the camera and grins, revealing a face covered in dirt and a mouthful of broken teeth.

My chest constricts and my breath turns shallow. What the fuck is Xero doing, inviting this man to touch me?

The man pulls out a cock that looks even dirtier than his face and strokes it to hardness. I clap a hand over my mouth and gag as he kneels between my spread legs and drags my unconscious body closer.

Xero just stands there, looking on. I want the camera to pan up and show his face because nothing about this situation makes sense. This can’t be Xero. Xero who was so possessive that he murdered or maimed any man who got too close. Xero who threatened to kill Reverend Tom just for being friendly. Xero who fulfilled my exhibitionism fantasy while covering up my pussy with his hand.

Xero, who now does nothing while the filthy man fucks my unconscious body so hard that it jerks. I back toward the door, my eyes filling with tears.

This can’t be right. It has to be a hallucination. Yes, that must be it. I just sniffed some chemical that’s triggering a visual delusion to sabotage my relationship. Because that’s what my mind does. Sabotage.

Every time I try to hook up with a man, Mr. Lawson pops up to freak me out. Then I thrash and scream loud enough for the man to consider me a lost cause.

Xero’s presence is too consuming. I would fuck him even if an army of ghosts stood over us and yelled at me to stop, so my brain just conjured something new to keep me single.

The black-haired man comes with a roar, and Xero grabs him by the hood and drags him off my unmoving body. I can’t even exhale a sigh of relief because a second man walks into the frame. His pants are already around his ankles, and his pale legs are marred with dark streaks .

He bends between my legs, his head finally coming into the frame, revealing hawkish features shadowed by messy brown hair. My hands rise to cover my face. I can’t watch.

I observe the rest of the scene through my fingers, wondering if my brain will stop malfunctioning and show what really happened that night. Xero said he carried me out of the graveyard into a bath, but since when was he ever completely truthful?

Xero could have warned me he planned on skipping his execution, but he let me believe he was dead. Then he spent weeks driving me crazy by pretending to be a ghost. He hated me because I tried to publish a book about our relationship. For him, that was the ultimate betrayal.

When Dale and his three friends broke into my house to carry me off into a snuff movie, Xero only intervened because they were spoiling his revenge. He wanted to be the only man to make my life a misery.

As the second man pounds into my body, Xero beckons a third forward. He crawls on his hands and knees, naked from the waist down. He’s blond with a handlebar mustache so thick it almost looks fake.

The third man turns my head to the side and slides his erection into my mouth. As he fucks my throat, a fourth enters the frame to suck on my nipples. Nausea clogs my guts. I double over, spilling the contents of my stomach on the floor.

“Xero,” I croak. “Why?”

The answer is simple: Revenge.

Xero knows my weaknesses. My mental state. My sexual trauma. He knows I was abused by an older man and created this video to inflict the maximum amount of psychological pain.

Step one was public sex followed by an unconscious, non-consensual gang-bang. So, last night was step two, where I had public sex in the Ministry of Mayhem, followed by a romp in front of multiple cameras. Step three will be to have sex with those filthy men while screaming and conscious, then step four will be a trip to the torture table for a round of electric shock.

Just like the child in the picture.

My gaze flicks to the crime board, where the younger version of me lies covered in electrodes and with a pair of hands pressing probes into her temples.

Not again.

Not ever.

I can’t allow that to happen.

The past bleeds into the present, and I see Mr. Lawson’s bony face, feel his damp hands over my skin.

My flesh crawls with his phantom touch, and my vision blurs with red.

I move without thinking, my body on autopilot, picking up the bottles of chloroform and somnochlorate.

Mr. Lawson’s slimy face resounds through my mind, merging with an image of Xero. Powered by mania, I walk to the kitchen, grab the washing-up bowl, and gather everything else that looks flammable.

Butter.

Cooking oil.

Paper towels.

Disinfectant.

Matches.

Each item is a step deeper into the abyss. Each movement is automatic, driven by a primal need to cleanse and destroy.

I return to the study and take another look at the movie. Only Xero’s legs are in the frame. Judging by the yellow stream of fluid hitting my face, it looks like he’s adding degradation to defilement. Non-consent wasn’t on the approved list of kinks. Neither were water sports or gang rape.

My mind fills with memories of Mr. Lawson’s eyes staring up at me as he fell. As blood spreads around his head like a halo, his face morphs back into Xero’s.

Shaking my head, I try to dispel the images, but they only grow stronger, overlapping with the footage on the screen.

Mr. Lawson used a drug to kill our baby.

Xero used a drug to kill my soul.

I watch the tail end of the movie, where I’m lying in the dirt, covered in semen and soil. I’m not even nauseated anymore, just numb. Numbness turns to detachment, and detachment to a cold, calculating rage .

The movie’s closing credits say: PRODUCED BY X-CITE MEDIA. I should gasp, but even that part makes sense. I scroll backward, watching the movie in reverse, proving it’s not a hallucination. My brain isn’t that adept at illusions. Even if it could conjure up this grotesque footage, it can’t replay the shit in reverse.

The only delusion is that I allowed myself to believe Xero Greaves is human.

My stomach cramps, infusing my core with bolts of agony. I double over, my gaze dropping to the floor. Warm blood trickles down my legs.

When I blink, it’s gone.

Rage and betrayal and ruin has me spiraling. I couldn’t stop this descent into madness, even if I tried. My thoughts splinter, each one a shard of fury and pain.

The lines between past and present blur completely. I see the young me, screaming under the torture, and the adult me, covered in blood.

I see Xero, and I see Mr. Lawson. They merge, become one.

The rage builds, consuming every rational thought, leaving only the fire, the need to end it all.

It’s time to give Xero the execution he deserves.