Page 100 of Their Cruel Love

Marcus

Two men carry her up here, to the plateau at the top of the hill. They attach the block-and-tackle rope to her ankles and haul her into the air. This scene is too raw, too violently offensive, and I look away. More men emerge at the top of the hill path. They cross then pool into a crowd, a ragged semicircle of watchers to my right, partly within the foundations of the ruins.

The trapdoor we tried to enter is now open, a gaping hole to hell.

I swallow slowly, swallow my rage, and look back to her.Phoebe…my Phoebe.Her hair has fallen, and she’s spun until facing away from me. I cannot tell if she is even conscious.

This istearing me apart.

“Go,” Bastion urges, shoves at my back. “This is what you wanted, yes? The katana is there. Cut her. Make herbleed.”

Artfully arranged, thesoshukatana looks innocuous. Someone has put it below where she hangs and sways, her hands tied at her back. She’s gagged with cloth. They left her in the pretty white bra and panties, and she looks so innocent. She is deathly quiet.

Is she even alive?

I can’t take this. I arranged it to play for time, but now…what can I do?

With my hands cuffed at my front, with my heart hurting, I negotiate the uneven ground between the ruins and the block and tackle from which she swings, upside-down, unmoving. Apart from the play of gravity, she is still scarily silent.

To the west beyond her and the cliff’s edge, the sky is clouded and dark, as if a thunderstorm is on the way, as if it is waiting for a killing or something similarly formidable to happen.

Death casts a shadow.

I would welcome the death of all these vile men.

A woman arrives, late, and she hurries to join the watchers. It’s the Domme who played with Aimee, the girl at the pool. Figures. Next, Razor is dragged into view, also gagged, with his hands cuffed at his back. He’s pushed into a kneeling position before the watchers, front and center. He seems stiff and angry, but in a self-contained way. The man has shown more emotion when eating a bad meal.

I want to grow up to be more like him, I decide, on a macabre whim.

I pace onward, deliberately unhurried.

“Do not kill her, yet!” Bastion shouts after me, the mockeryclear in his voice. I note that comment, for reference afterward, if there is an afterward.

When I arrive at the block and tackle, they’ve lowered her enough to be reachable with the blade. “Lie there,” says a man wearing sunglasses and a holstered gun. He points at the ground. “Do not try to attack anyone, or you will be shot.”

I want to do it like inHostel, I told them, though she was in a bath and had a scythe. I suppose they think this near enough. The blood is what they want. I had not thought it would truly come to this.

I had not thought.

Delay, delay, delay.This was for that.

I wish I had thought some more. I should have quoted a movie with a big gun.

The five men in sunglasses, dressed in dark pants and white shirts, scream security in their demeanor. They stand in an angled line between me and the crowd. They all wear holstered guns.

These snuff film addicts don’t trust me, that’s obvious from the cuffs I wear.

“Wait a moment!” Bastion holds up his hand. “We are gathered here, Killer Crew, to witness the demise of Emma Bartholemew’s daughter, Phoebe Bartholemew. And though it has delighted us to watch the dawning of knowledge in the three of you.” He sweeps an arm to indicate myself, Phoebe and Razor. “The realization of the knowledge that Phoebe was brought here to be killed, tortured, maybe skinned alive? Who knows? But painfully is a guaranteed outcome. Even though it was amusing us, today is the day. Today you die, below. We will be filming it. We will send some tasty snippets to Emma, our much-detested Bitch Queen. We will also be planning her death in the near future, yes?”

The crowd cheers and laughs. A few fists are raised. They hate Emma. Not surprising, though this goes further than seems sensible. I imagine they also have making a profit in mind. Whatever their financial wizardry, I do not give one solitary fuck.

“As an entrée, I now hand her over to her companion, Marcus, who promised he would make her bleed, so he could taste it. Begin, sir!” Bastion takes a bow as if introducing someone onto a stage.

For as long as I can without it seeming a true delay, I glower in his direction.

I sit then lie down, wriggle until I’m beneath her. The wind has risen and propels a few leaves our way. Dust leaps into the air. Her hair stirs and flails. The block and tackle has grease on it. The small details are highlighted and slowed in this moment. I wish I could hit rewind.

The hilt of the katana is within reach if I half-roll in that direction. I pick it up and let it lie with the blade resting over my shoulder while I look up at her.

---