Page 60 of Vengeance of Childhood Proportions (Till Death Do Us Part #7)

Chapter Fifty

Holly

Master Mal’s car was barely out of his driveway before I was scrambling for my phone and running out the backdoor into the yard.

What the fuck? I hadn’t overheard a lot of Master Mal’s conversation, but I’d heard enough to know that another body had been found.

Unless there was another serial killer in Atelihai Valley, he was talking about Jerald.

But Jason wasn’t supposed to get rid of Jerald until after my weekend with Master Mal.

The phone rang long enough where I thought Jason wasn’t going to answer before the call connected. Which was a good thing because Jason didn’t have a voicemail I could curse him out in. And even if he did, I doubted he would have listened to it or been affected by it.

“What?” he grunted out. I could hear the sharp slapping of flesh in the background. “That’s right, bitch, I want to hear your little whimpers. Cry for me like a good girl.”

I knew he wasn’t talking to me and shook off my initial the fuck reaction.

“Jason,” I snapped. This was why I’d come outside, because Master Mal had inside cameras.

He’d told me of the ones in his dungeon that he used to record our sessions together.

Home-porn, I think he called it. “Why did you drop Jerald’s body last night? You weren’t going to until Sunday.”

The grunting didn’t stop, nor did the pounding of flesh.

What did Jason care if I overheard what he was doing?

I knew him well enough to know that nothing stopped him from a good fucking once he got started.

Hell, pretty sure the zombie apocalypse could start and he’d still keep going, just with a shotgun in his hand.

“Figured you were spending the weekend breaking in your new master, why couldn’t I spend it breaking in my new toy? One less thing for me to worry about.”

Of course it was. I rolled my neck in frustration. “Jason, my Master just left to deal with whatever it is you did with the body.”

He chuckled. “That was a fun one. Put Baby Penis at the Chronicle . You know, the newspaper who wrote about your suicide without mentioning the fact that you survived ?”

Subconsciously, I touched my throat. I could still feel the rough pull of the rope some days.

On the year anniversary of my attack, my depression had reached an all-time high—or low, I suppose would be a better description.

I’d been raped and no one had cared. I’d miscarried my baby and no one had cared.

The entire town was praising my rapists as heroes for winning the State Championship while I was dubbed a slut, a whore.

I remember so clearly the face of the man who’d sold me the rope at the hardware store. There was no doubt in my head that he knew what the rope was for, and he’d still said nothing. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I would swear he was thinking good riddance as he made that sale.

Problem was, even though I’d calculated my weight to determine the rope length, I hadn’t considered the fact that the fan may not hold my weight.

Due to the short drop from my chair to the floor, I’d only been suspended for a second or two before the fan and ceiling collapsed down on top of me. I’d never really hung .

My mom had heard the ‘ruckus’, as she called it, and came into my room to find me unconscious from the fan hitting me on the head, rubble all around me, and the noose still around my neck.

I believe her words were, “Need you be so melodramatic? ” when I finally regained consciousness in the ambulance.

I never planned on faking my death. Back then, a dream of vengeance wasn’t even a possibility to consider. Jason hadn’t found me yet, and I was utterly alone in the world. No friends, no family—because true family would have fought for me.

My parents had taken advantage of the rumor, though, and admitted me to an asylum in Anchorage.

Essentially, they wiped their hands of me.

They forgot they had a daughter. While me?

Well, I’d found a new family when Jason had come to visit me.

When I’d left the asylum on my eighteenth birthday, Jason had informed me about his bunker, his plans to train me, and had handed me a copy of my death certificate.

Holly Marteen was dead.

I was… no one .

It wasn’t until recently when I met Master Mal that it mattered to me that I wasn’t Holly anymore. Now he knew me as ‘Phoebe Snetsinger’ and all I could wonder was what it would be like to have him call me ‘Holly’.

I just didn’t know who Holly was anymore—or if she was someone Master Mal would even have a desire to meet.

“Stapled that fucking article to his forehead, right over the exit wound. Priceless. Personally, I think Baby Dick went out with a bang .” Then he laughed at his own joke.

It wasn’t a real laugh, not like the sound people made at a comedy show.

No, Jason’s laugh was more maniacal than that, like he found the cruelty of life amusing.

I wasn’t going to get anything more from him. He’d already made the decision to dump Jerald’s body now instead of on Sunday. As far as he was concerned, it was done and over with. Move on, next problem.

I turned around to face Master Mal’s empty house. “I just wish you’d waited,” I commented softly.

“And ruin my weekend?” he shot back at me. “Never.” I heard something that sounded like a hard slap , which was followed by a muffled cry. “There’s a club in Yukon I plan on taking my pretty new toy to tomorrow. It’s a train station, if you catch my drift.”

I rolled my eyes, because I did. Maybe it was selfish of me to want my weekend away with Master Mal. Jason had done so much for me. I would probably still be in the asylum if not for him. Either that, or dead.

“You’re right,” I murmured. “Sorry to bother you. Have fun with your toy. When will you be back?”

“Tuesday, maybe. I need to take my pretty little girl to the vet’s.

She needs to be neutered, definitely needs a trimming, maybe some piercings, and a chip.

” Jason let out a long groan, a sound I knew very well from years of living with a man with no boundaries.

Whatever it was he was doing, he was about to come.

I did not need to be on the phone with him for this. “I’ll see you when you get back.”

“Have a body ready for me. We need at least one more cell empty,” he moaned, “for when we get the last four out of police protection.”

With Jerald dead and Homophobic Roman no longer needing a cell, I already knew that math. Alicia wasn’t long for this world, anyway. Her homework really wasn’t agreeing with her. Though Hannah was really getting on my nerves, too. Maybe I’d do a two-for-one deal and get rid of both.

Clean slate for the Grand Finale.

Maybe when it was all over, I’d finally be able to breathe. Maybe then, I’d know what it felt like to be Holly again.