Page 70 of Dolly

“And she fucked that up. Useless bitch.” Romero scoffs. He’s not quite understanding his situation.

“You say that again, and I’m going to cut out your tongue,” I warn him from behind clenched teeth, making his situation crystal clear.

“How long have you been getting girls for him?” Ken keeps questioning Ella.

“I don’t know, just a few months? He said he’d leave me alone if I got him…if I got him someone else.” She sniffles. Self-preseverance has given her a helping of regret she’ll never outrun.

“He did this to you?” Ken asks, his tone softening.

Ella picks up her shirt, exposing the creamy skin beneath. Thick white scars mar her flesh, some too wide to have been caused by the whip he’s holding.

“Ella, take Sarah to the other room. Keep her safe. If anything happens to her, I will play connect the organs with you and leave you to die.”

She blinks and gives me a curt nod. The makeup runs down her face, reminding me she isn’t all villain. She survived the only way she could. It doesn’t change a lot for me, but it gives her a pass at dancing with my knife.

Ella wraps her arm around Sarah’s shoulder and escorts her from the room. Sarah’s reluctant at first, but seeing the alternative, she makes the smart choice and goes along. Ella closes the door behind them, and I take note of the walls for the first time.

“You’ve soundproofed this place,” I remark. “Not all that well, since we heard Sarah from the other room. But enough so the neighbors don’t call the cops, I suppose.”

“Look. I know you’re pissed.” His words aren’t vile, but his arrogance still leaks through. “You’re looking for revenge. I get it.” He waves his hands at us. Ken walks behind him, pacing, waiting for his moment.

“Do you? Do you get it?” I ask, dropping my hand to my side. He wants to have a conversation. Maybe he thinks he’ll get us to sympathize with him. Maybe he’ll tell us a story of how his wife doesn’t suck his dick often enough, or his girlfriend in college laughed at the size of his cock.

“I doubt he does,” Ken mutters behind me. He’s showing his restraint by not going for this asshole’s throat. He’s going to let me play first.

I really do love him.

I freeze for a moment as that thought rattles around my mind. Romero is blabbering again, but I’m turning over the notion this way and that, getting a feel for it. I really, truly do love Ken.

It will make losing him all the worse…if he leaves.

“You know I have connections and money. I can give you whatever you want.” Romero’s plea distracts me from my worry. This isn’t the time to get concerned about what happensafter.

“I know all about your connections,” Ken shouts. “You’ve been—” Ken turns around, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples. “You’ve been doing these fucking messed up things to your own daughter! The shit you were paying for online wasn’t enough?”

“Ken,” I say, touching his shoulder. “I think he used his daughter to do the things he was watching.” I glance back at Romero. Guilt drips from his lowered eyes. “He would watch, make them do those things to me, and the he’d—” I don’t finish the sentence. Having the images in my mind are bad enough; having them sour on my tongue would be too much.

Ken pulls his gun and aims, taking two shots before I can cover my ears. Both of Romero’s knees are taken out, and he crumbles to the floor, screaming and crying.

“Can we string him up?” I ask Ken, standing over the huddled mess of a man.

“Yeah. Hand me the rope.”

Twenty-Eight

KENDOLL

Air comes too harshly for Romero once I put him back on the floor. The rope around his neck has already started chaffing away at the skin. His wrists, bound behind him, are also starting to bleed from the ties.

My mother had been proud of me when I’d made Eagle Scout. I know ropes and knots like I know how to breathe. His discomfort is no accident.

“Please.” He gasps, then sputters into another coughing fit.

“Not yet.” Dolly taps her knife against her chin. She’s sitting on a table by the door, watching him. Her legs dangle off the edge, swinging innocently.

“One more,” I tell her. We wanted more play time, and I’d give Dolly anything she wants, but Sarah’s outside, and she needs us.

Dolly’s in agreement. We don’t need long conversations to know what the other thinks. We just feel each other. Sense the needs, the urgencies, the right path. It’s what brings us together so easily.

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