Page 8 of Twisted

He leaned in, pressing his forehead to hers. When she blinked her big blue eyes open, a little devilish smile lit her features. He mirrored it, tilting his chin up and pressing his lips roughly to hers. It all exploded; his heart burst, as though there was such a thing as fate and they were meant to be one another’s since the dawn of time. His lips tingled from the pressure, and as she opened her mouth to greedily take more of him, the taste of menthol cigarette, beer, and a hint of mint toothpaste mingled together in a symphony of flavor that was uniquely hers. He would never forget it.

Palming her breast, he let a growl tear through his throat in heady desire, and she whined into his mouth at his roughness. But knowing how wasted she was, he couldn’t continue further, and that was fine by him; he was more a masochist than not. He reveled in the torture, for it made the reward that much sweeter in the end.

He pulled away, and she wavered, dazed by their monumental kiss.

But before he could say another witty remark about making her his, she lurched forward with puffed cheeks and vomited all over the greenhouse floor, just missing his boots. He clucked his tongue, holding back her hair as the acrid scent of regurgitated booze hit his nostrils.

“When you’re mine, Maisie girl, you won’t need to drink like this to get by in life, ya hear?”

She only groaned in response. Figuring she was done for now, he swept her up into his strong arms, carefully avoiding the pile of puke to take her to the bathroom. He took his time cleaning her up, letting her vomit some more into the toilet, before he knew his time there had run out. He hefted her up, her cheek falling to his chest. He could swear she snuggled further into him and sighed in dreamy contentment.

“I’ll be back for ya, baby doll. Don’t know when, don’t know how. So you’ll just have to sit tight an’ forgive me for fuckin’ my way around the world, fillin’ the void you’ll leave in my heart until we meet again. And I promise ya here and now, my Maisie girl, you’ll be mine, whether you like it or not.”

3

Maisie

Present Day

Hope Mills, NC

The bar was crowded, overwhelmingly so, and it was loud enough to leave Maisie’s ears ringing. To keep up with her innocent charade, she still wore her wedding band—the weight of which felt insurmountable on her left hand. She couldn’t wait to one day take it off, only to never put it back on again.

The police had eaten up her story with ease; all evidence pointed to one woman in particular, the one who had been her best friend. Maisie brought the rim of her glass to her plush lips, the whiskey neat burning down her throat. God, she loved dark alcohol. How she had ever lived those seven years without it was now a mystery to her. She was dark all around; black jeans, black top, black boots, black soul. Never before, though, had she felt more alive and free and unapologetically herself.

“How are you doin’ with everything, sweets?” Her childhood friend, Beth, asked. Maisie pursed her lips and shrugged. Her answering expression actually wasn’t that far from the truth. She really wasn’t sure how to feel, other than a slight euphoria at being free from those monsters, and also a slight fear that she would one day be caught by the authorities. She’d been careful in her planning, though, as precise as a heart surgeon.

“Been hard, but now they’ve got that bitch in custody, I can rest a little easier at night,” Maisie said, swirling her finger around the cool glass rim. Beth frowned, reaching across the table to place her hand over one of Maisie’s. She felt herself bristling at the physical contact. After years of plain, boring sex once a month from her husband, after being slashed across her face with the jagged end of a broken bottle by that bitch, and after a whole slew of other abhorrent deeds done to her innocent body, Maisie hated affection, shunned any sort of physical contact.

“Can’t believe that’s how ya got your scar,” Beth whispered above the din. Maisie removed her hand and cleared her throat. Remembering that night was something she’d not have brought up, a memory so potent and focused it curled in her gut like a viper. Lashing out was the only way she knew how to protect herself, now.

“And losin’ a baby too, my Lord above.”

Maisie downed the rest of her whiskey in answer, Jack Daniels Tennessee honey—her favorite. Sure, she’d fabricated the pregnancy as part of her cover story, and she’d also faked her miscarriage, but that was simply close to the real truth, anyways. Maisie knew the sting of losing a child, knew it like she knew her favorite jean jacket, but she wore it in secret, deep in her heart, never to be looked at or examined in any close capacity.

Like everything in her marriage, losing that child hadn’t been her choice.

Carter should be burning in hell right about now, Maisie thought as she allowed a small, sadistic smile to curl onto her plush lips. CarterandRandy, while Lindsay rotted away in the confines of prison. Sure, there was still the trial, the witness stand, and a whole host of other hurdles, but she knew the charges Lindsay faced, and she was satisfied with the job she’d done and the evidence she’d fabricated.

Everyone her whole life had underestimated her; barely graduating high school because she had undiagnosed dyslexia, barely holding down a job because the men were flirts and the women hated her for her southern belle charm and good looks. So when Carter had been passing through Hope Mills on his way to a business trip eight years ago when she was working at the local gas station, she’d fallen head over heels for the older man who had it all together.

Carter had taken one look at her and seen a diamond in the rough, a child he could mould and shape like clay into the housewife and trophy he’d always wanted. They’d married when she was nineteen, and it had been a roller coaster, him dousing her fiery spirit while simultaneously ignoring her, unable to please her in any capacity that mattered to a young woman. She needed time and affection, to enjoy a honeymoon phase, and all she’d received was backlash for each minute mistake she ever made.

It had twisted her up inside, not being good enough even for him. She’d suffered her whole life at the bottom, with nothing to help her get by besides her beauty, and even that had helped ruin her in the end. A shiver tore through her spine as she remembered the wordshespoke to her that night as he thrust painfully into her: “You’re fucking stunning, Maisie. God, so beautiful.”

She hated it, now, hearing any man call her anything close to beautiful. All it did was remind her of the cost of said beauty. She still didn’t understand how looks equated to the right to abuse a woman in such a way, why men used that to say they ‘just couldn’t control themselves.’ A real man could reign in his impulses, but Maisie had yet to meet a real man, and therefore figured they just didn’t exist.

The hour grew late, but thankfully Beth just talked and talked about herself as she always had growing up. It was easy for Maisie to gasp at the right moments, to nod her head in faux sympathy for the trivial shit Beth allowed to eat her up. But as the bar filtered out onto the street, Maisie finally said her goodbyes and promised to see Beth again when things had calmed more. She had no real intentions of keeping a friendship—of keeping any sort of friendships—but it was all part of the game, now. She needed to cover her ass from every angle and not raise one suspicion.

Keys in hand, she stomped to her car, drained from the amount of social interaction. She had always been a loner, but she wanted to lean into that side of herself with abandon now. She had plans, grand plans, the perfect way to spend her devil husband’s life insurance money; buy herself a cabin deep, deep in the woods, and give the rest of the money to her parents. She needed nothing more, nothing other than solitude. She would die happy, alone, with no one else to hurt her, to take a bright eyed, cheerful, loving girl and bash them and beat them into something she didn’t recognize anymore.

But true to the trajectory Maisie’s life had seemed to be on since she was born, there was no avoiding the demons that played in the dark.

Fumbling with her keys and purse, her mind clouded with the potency of her two drinks, she dropped them with a metallic thud and let out a curse, bending to retrieve them, safe under the pool of light from the buzzing lamp. She didn’t fear the darkness, not anymore—not now that she was unequivocally part of it. But her skin still prickled in the coolness of night, in the chill of the shadows that blurred the edges of her vision. There were still things out there worse than her.

Quick, she hopped into her car, the thunk of her four locking doors a blanket of security around her shoulders. As jaded and cold as she’d turned, she wasn’t so far gone yet to not fear the normal things; a thief, a drunk man looking for an easy target, the sketchy dealers on the corner. Her fears were normal, even considering the lives she’d taken with her own hands.

The drive to her childhood home was winding, far enough from the main hub of town that the familiar gnawing of anxiety gripped her stomach, her hands slippery on the steering wheel. No one ever says how potent the nightmares are after taking someone’s life, however necessary the act itself. And with her parents out of town visiting an ailing family member, the solitude she so potently craved was now about to consume her.

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