Page 81 of Pretty Stolen Dolls

“Shhh. I feel it too. I’m yours,” I assure him.

The pad of his thumb strokes under my eyes and then he drags it down along my nose as he regards me with wonder. I grip his wrist and frown. “Macy…” I murmur.

His dark brows furl together. “What about her?”

“She has a scar there. Along her nose. Benny cut her deep enough to scar her badly. If any bodies…if…” Tears well in my eyes and I blink them away. “I can’t see her body too.”

“Hey,” he coos and cradles my face, pressing kisses all over me. “You won’t have to see. Baby, we’ll find her. She’s his collateral—his only bargaining chip. We just have to find that house. We find his house, we find her. Then we’ll bring her home to us.”

To us.

I want to believe him.

So badly, I do.

I wake to the warm glow of the bathroom casting my bedroom in a dim light. Pushing the sheet from my body, I pad across the chilly floor, the scent from my shampoo washing over me as my hair sways around my shoulders.

Padding barefoot into the living room, I find Dillon still fully dressed and his hair standing up in tufts, like he’s been there pulling at it. My stomach dips and I slowly approach him from behind.

I peek over his shoulder and see the file he’s reading. It’s the one from eight years ago, when I escaped Benny.

“Dillon.”

He doesn’t turn to look at me. His hands scrub down his face and he breathes in deep. “I knew, kinda. I didn’t work the case, but we all heard about the girl who was kidnapped. How she was found alive, and even more remarkably, had escaped her captor. I knew…but I didn’t fuckingknow, know.” He pulls at his hair and I reach down and take his hands, sliding my body onto his lap.

He wraps his arms around my back and burrows his head into the nook between my shoulder and neck. His grip is almost painful, but I don’t stop him. Hot mist blows over me from his heavy pants. “I hadn’t read them. I couldn’t. We have nothing else to go on, so I need to look for clues, but I…it’s—fuck, Jade, what he did to you,” he chokes, and I hold on to him.

I let him break.

For me.

For him.

For us.

“Isn’t she pretty?” Benny questions. “Such a pretty little doll, like you.”

I can hear him, but I’ve been blindfolded. He has me bound by my wrists above my head, but my legs are free. Unfortunately, he’s also gagged me with a cloth so I can’t speak.

I’d gone off on him earlier when he came into my cell. I’m starving and he left us without food or water for what felt like ages. When he returned and came into my cell, it was like the arguments Momma sometimes had with Daddy, accusing and hurtful.

I screamed that he couldn’t do that, that he was a sick pervert and I hated him, and he froze, his whole body rigid. I affected him and I let the power of it explode.

“You’re a disgusting pervert. No one could love an animal like you,Benny. So whoever you’ve been off with for all this time is insane or fucking dead. Let’s face it,Benny, you’re ill. You have a sickness in you,” I screamed, pummeling at his chest.

He just let me. I built and built until he finally backhanded me across the face, and when I hit the floor from the impact, I lost consciousness. When I woke, this is how I was. The memory of the baton last time he cuffed me had terror engulfing me so strongly, my bladder released and I was now sitting in my own piss.

“What’s that?” he bites out. And then a small squeak. “I asked you if she was pretty.”

Macy.

“Y-Yes.”

“Prettier than you, huh?”

A sniffle. “Yes.”

“But she’s so dirty too,” he states, causing me to cringe.

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