Authors: Courtney Lane
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It had to be the middle of the night. I seemed to be stuck as a prisoner in the house that never slept. The bone-tingling screams of a man in agony interrupted my dreams.
I stumbled out of bed, brushing my fingers through my hair. Ambling toward the door, I moved toward the hall. The scream resounded again, gurgled this time. The darkness was lit by unsteady amber lighting. Something tickled my feet. I blinked away the fog in my eyes. At my steps were black-stained rose petals lining a trail toward the stairs. Tea lights decorated the hall.
What the fuck?
I followed the trail down the stairs as the sounds became softer and more muffled. The petals and tea lights led toward the back of the house. From the French doors on the south side of the house, the reflections from the lit in-ground pool shimmered across the white walls. The narrow hall opened to a door left propped open with a white gift box. Affixed to the top was my name on a white card in scribbled cursive:
I want your first time to be as special as mine.
Catch
I slid the top off the box finding a black leather butcher apron and a pair of elbow-length vinyl gloves. Shoes, goggles, a ventilation mask, and a bonnet finished off the present. I bundled all of it in my arms, confusion surely pinching my features, and descended down the stairs to where the petals and tea-lights stopped.
Affixed high on the wall closest to the entrance, a flat screen played an episode of Looney Tunes. Across the cellar, Catch stood opposite a metal cot containing a man, motionless, except for the subtle rise and fall of his chest. He was covered in so much blood and guck it was hard to tell where he ended and began. Beyond the bruising and blood, I knew the face. He was a soldier for the Leones. The same man who removed appendages from Sam.
Either Catch had a death wish, or he held all the power he had alluded to earlier.
Catch caught sight of me and moved his goggles to the top of his head. “Are you ready to break your virginity?” He retrieved a hack saw from beside the man and extended it to me.
I dropped the items in my arms and stepped backward. My bare feet fell unsteadily against the cold concrete. “This…this is what you wanted me to work for you and do?” I shook my head vehemently and whispered, “Kill people?”
He turned fully toward me. “Either you kill or you clean. I made concessions for you. You were going to clean up after the men who attempted to infiltrate the house while you were sleeping last night. I was feeling generous and allowed you to rest. You can make yesterday up to me by finishing the object poorly resembling a man on the table.”
Yesterday? I had slept from dinner straight into the next night? Catch must’ve given me something. The lingering exhaustion fooled me into believing I had barely slept at all. “Why?”
“Why this particular man and not the others? Because he’s an asshole who sex traffics little girls who haven’t met puberty. In between his screams, he admitted to more crimes. Namely, he’s the reason your bodyguard departed the world in a very fucked-up way. What better reason is there?”
“He worked for Michael,” I admitted. “As far as I knew, Michael was into trafficking drugs and prostitution with women, not children.”
“I have video proof of Tyler’s crimes, if you’d like to see it. Be forewarned, it’s difficult to watch. In one particular scene he drugs a girl no more than twelve, and watches as a client rapes her.” Catch's anger was quiet, and settled at the surface in a foreboding way. He pointed his chin behind me. “Turn around. I think if you see the bigger picture, you might change your mind.”
My steps fell backward and tipped over an object that shuddered and toppled to the ground. My bare feet were suddenly covered in thick and cool gunky liquid. A shimmer of a flashlight illuminated a wall, once dark. Hanging on metal hooks were three men, dead from—if I had to guess—torture.
I held a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming and glanced over my shoulder at Catch. The spinning liquid inside my gut threatened to come up with an urgent violence.
Catch pointed the flashlight he held down to the ground.
I looked down again, sure what I stepped in belonged inside one of the men hanging on the hooks. The putrid smell filled my nose. Stomach acid assaulted my throat with the chemical burn. The sickness came forth from my mouth and added to the disgusting mess at my feet. I choked as my sinuses went haywire and my throat burned and closed in on itself.
My situation was downgraded to the lowest denominator. I was the daughter of a monster, and the “employee” of a sick man.
With an elongated exhale, Catch picked up the saw and moved it back and forth until it virtually decapitated the man. With a rattling breath, the minor rise and fall of Tyler’s chest ceased. “I have to say I’m surprised by your reaction. Tyler”—he dropped the saw on Tyler’s body and stepped away, removing the apron from his body and slipping the gloves off his hands—“said that you were made to watch while at least two men who were interested in you were tortured to send you a lesson.” He placed his gear on a table beside him, and then walked over to a shelving unit to grab a white towel and a bottle of water sealed in a six pack with shrink wrap.
“I never kept my eyes open,” I snapped at him, my eyes persistently watering.
He extended the towel and bottle of water to me, waiting for me to take them off his hands. “You saw Michael do all these things, and never thought to call the police?”
Deana made it known she worked for Michael. Loyalty was as huge of a deal to her as it was to Michael. Going to the authorities on him would’ve meant betraying the only person I considered family. I never suspected anyone in the Leone family of doing the things Catch had described.
I kept quiet to Catch about the reason. If Tyler had confessed his worst crimes, I was positive there was a lot more he found out about me through Tyler.
I swallowed down almost the entire sixteen ounces of water and wiped my chin with the towel. “I’m not doing this. Ask Jory. There has to be a reason you let her hang around you other than to be a bitch to me.”
“I have plans for Jory.” Catch glanced over at Tyler’s dead body and grinned as though he was proud of his sadistic artwork. “While you might think the nonexistent grip she holds on her sanity would make her unpredictable, her actions and her future are transparent. She will serve one important purpose when the time comes.” He grabbed another towel from the rack behind me and sauntered back to the metal cot containing Tyler’s body. Covering his hand with the towel, he manipulated Tyler’s eyelids, pulling them down. “This isn’t it.”
“And what the hell does that mean, Catch?”
A charming smile lied to me and lured me out of the current scene. The closer he came to me, the more I slid right back into place. “In due time, sweetheart”—the back of his hand stroked down the side of my face in an attentive manner—“you’ll find out her purpose.” His hand skated down my arm. The material of my sweater might as well have never existed. I felt his touch as though it was on my bare skin, evoking sensations I wished disgusted me. “Are you ready to begin?”
“I’m not doing this,” I muttered, placing the towel and half drunk bottle of water on the shelf behind me.
“It’s too bad,” Catch said with finality. “I was looking forward to sharing this special moment with you. Times like this should be treated as big of a deal as they are. You never forget your first, and it should be a memory you want to keep. I guess I’m a romantic at heart.” He walked past me, heading toward the door. “This room will remain locked until I decide to open it. There are instructions on the wall. Don’t skimp on ventilating the room and wearing the mask while dissolving the body. It’s very, very important.”
“Am I supposed to clean up…?” I pointed my thumb over my shoulder to the men hanging on hooks like slabs of meat preparing to be butchered.
“Follow the instructions on the wall,” he replied with a skewed curl of the corner of his mouth.
“Can you turn off the stupid cartoons?”
“It’s a habit of mine, as it’s a habit of mine to fuck to R&B music.”
“Can’t keep up a rhythm?” My question was absent any anticipation of an answer. My head was elsewhere. Speaking to Catch at this point was simply filler. I clutched my queasy stomach as it gurgled.
Chuckling, he brushed his hand over his misbehaving thick head of hair. “No, it keeps me from splitting a woman in half with how hard I fuck her. While leaving her sore might be a badge of honor for some, it’s not practical. I can’t fuck her again the next day without causing her pain. What’s the point other than bragging rights?” He paused to turn to me. “I’ve only been with a woman once without music—and I wouldn’t call what I did to her fucking.”
He headed toward the door. “One more thing, lift with your knees and not your back. If you find something too heavy to lift, don’t.” The door shut behind his exit. The beeping sound of the locking mechanism and the red light above the door knob indicated I was locked in. My gaze scattered around the room as I hugged myself.
In the large cellar, several unoccupied cots were lined up as though it was a teaching space for doctors. At the opposite wall was a high-tech crematory oven, complete with an LCD screen.
Straight above me, I spied a camera. Taking skeptical steps forward, I picked up the gear from the ground and put them on.
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I was coated in things that I didn’t want to name. The plastic bins were sealed, at least ten in all, full of body parts. I did as much as I could with my eyes closed; performing my duty while completely aware resulted in me vomiting a few more times.
I had no idea what I was doing—the instructions read like directions to building a computer. I figured out the correct steps through trial and error.
With the bins sealed, I pressed the button as the last step in the directions to ventilate the room. A cool breeze emanated from the far side of the cellar. I removed my protective gear and placed the items in a basin by the door.
Stepping inside a small basin, I wiped myself down with the strongly scented towels soaked in what I assumed was bleach.
When the small remnants of blood were scrubbed from my skin, staining the towels, and I was left nude, I sealed it and pushed it neatly against the wall with everything else.
A soft beep resounded and the light over the door to the exit went green. I dragged my sore body up the stairs and down the hall, taking a right into the foyer. I cast a passing glance to the panel on the front door above the knob, illuminating a red light.
There was no way out for now.
Upstairs, I found my way back to the room I had left. I thought I tried for the wrong room when I found the door locked. Too tired to figure out if I had the wrong room or not, I wandered down the hall until I found an unlocked room. What I saw stopped me cold.
The room was larger than the rest and looked like it belonged somewhere else. Dark pewter paint covered the walls and the furnishings were more mod than the home’s decor and darker in hue.
On top of the covers, shirtless in lounge pants, lay Catch. Moisture misted his skin, making his tattoo appear fully dimensional. He slid his hand back over his hair to fall back from his face. I couldn’t understand what went so wrong with his upbringing. Looking at him, I would never have guessed the extent of his sickness.
His eyes met mine and he drank me in, staring at me from over the computer on his lap. “Your bathwater is going to get cold.”
I pressed one arm across my breasts and another across my crotch to cover up. “I really fucking regret catching your attention,” I mumbled.
“No you don’t, you only wish you did.” A smile pressed against his lips as he briefly directed his gaze to the bathroom.
Too tired to play the game with him, I shuffled my feet into the bathroom. In a dim room, warm bubbly water topped with scented petals awaited me.
From behind me, Catch behaved as if nothing was out of the ordinary and continued to do whatever he was doing on his laptop.
I closed the door and slid into the soothing water. I remained there until my body was pruned and the nightmares were shaken from my vision, allowing exhaustion to take over.
The clearing of a throat startled me out of the tub. Catch stood on the edge with a terry cloth robe draped over one arm. He leaned forward. His hair was free of the usual styling product and tumbled over his forehead as he leaned down. Dipping his arm into the water, he pulled the stopper from the drain.
I receded, moving quickly. The water splashed him as I tucked my knees and hugged myself.
With a glance in my direction, he fought down the hint of a smile, and pulled the plunger from the drain. The water began to empty at a cyclic rate. “Get out of the tub, sweetheart.” His eyes gleamed with genialness as he gave me room to move and extended the bathrobe out to me.