Filed To Story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell
“Stop talking.”
We head east at the same high speeds for about forty-five minutes before turning onto dirt roads. Eventually, we pull up to a homeor something like it. It’s a dark grey concrete structure built almost entirely into the side of a cliff. He pulls into a garage underneath the house, and I follow him up a staircase to the main living space. It’s large and open, everything inside is dark grey or black. Floor-to-ceiling windows cover the side of the house overlooking the cliff.
“This is nice,” I say. “I didn’t realize things like you had homes and cars.”
“We don’t,” he says. “This is not a home. It’s a place for things like me to stay when they need to. There’s a bathroomsecond door on the right. Go shower.”
He disappears around the corner, and I step through the door.
The bathroom is like the rest of the housethe decor is plain but immaculate, modern, and slate grey. There are no shampoo or soap bottles in the shower, just unlabeled dispensers built into the tile.
I take my time under the rainfall showerhead, only about seventy percent sure I guessed which was soap and which was shampoo correctly.
And when I step out onto the slate tile, it’s warmheated, just like the bathroom floors at Declan and Luca’s home in Coeur d’Alene. A pang of longing hits me right in the chest. I pull a towel from the rack, plush and soft enough to sleep on, and wrap it around my body.
Then, I step back into the expansive main living space. It’s empty now; soft classical music plays quietly from speakers hidden somewhere in the room, and Bone Saw is nowhere to be seen. I walk through the space, peeking into doors until I open one with a bedroom behind it.
I step inside and go directly to the closet, pulling open the doors. In front of me hangs the same sets of clothing, over and over again. All black, all long pants and long sleeves. All hooded.
They look like they come in all different sizes, but when I look into the collars and waistbands, there are no labels on any of them, just like in the bathroom. No brands, no sizes.
Perfect for people with no facespeople who don’t really exist.
I pull on one of those long-sleeved black shirts, the one that looks the smallest, and then go to the dresser, pull out a pair of men’s boxer briefs, and step inside them.
Then, I return to the kitchen in search of food and find the same situation. There are no boxes, no labelsjust dry foods with no packaging, starches and grains in clear storage containers. Almost everything is shelf-stable and questionable, aside from a fruit bowl on the counter with a few red apples inside. I grab one and eat it over the table.
Bone Saw sits beside me a few minutes later. If he’s showered and changed, you can’t tellhe’s wearing the mask and fully covered in the exact same clothes again, the ones I saw copied and pasted on every hanger in the bedroom closet.
He sets a small plastic black box on the table. “Let me see your hand,” he says.
I unfurl the injured hand on top of the table with my palm facing upward. “It’s not that bad,” I say.
“A few of these need stitches,” he says.
“There aren’t any hairbrushes in the bathroom.”
“This isn’t a home, Teagan. I told you that.”
“But I have curly hair.”
Ignoring me, he opens that small plastic box and threads a needle.
“You’re going to do it?”
“Not like it’s my first time.”
“Well aren’t you going to like numb the area or something?”
“No,” he says. “You’re going to suck it up and sit therestill and quietlike a good little monster.”
He starts with the larger cut just under my thumb joint.
“Sweet mother of god, that’s uncomfortable! Fuck!”
“Be quiet, Teagan,” he says.
I put my head down on the table and breathe through it. Minutes go by before I finally feel him tying it off.
“Finally,” I say.
“There’s one on your finger, too,” he says. “It’s going to be worse.”
I almost hear the smile in his muffled voice. I wouldn’t think things like himwithout homes or faces or labels in their clotheswould smile, but I know they laugh when they mock me. They must smile, too.
“Holy fuck!” The needle digs in right where my finger bends and he’s rightit’s worse. With my other hand, I reach for anything, and it ends up being his thigh. Except it’s not his thigh it’s his hard dick. I almost move my hand away, but I stop myself, instead running my thumb over the thick tip in slow circles while he works.
“You like hurting me?” I ask, stroking it slowly now from tip to base.
“Yes,” he says calmly. “Did you like killing those men earlier?”
“I liked the blood; I liked the sound it makes.” I grit my teeth as he threads the needle through the skin again, instinctively tightening my grip on his dick. “Sinking a blade into someone over and over again. I don’t think it’d be the same using a gun. It reminds me of fucking; it scratches a similar itch.”
His cock jumps in my fist, and when he speaks again, his voice is a little huskier than before. “I didn’t expect such an honest answer.”
“Normally, I wouldn’t benot even with myself. But Declan said it was poetrytaking what I wanted, just because I can. He said it made me better than everyone else, and I believed him. And you’re the kind of monster who slides his dick into girls’ pussies while they’re sleeping, so who are you to judge?”
“I take what I want just because I can, too,” he says. “And that’s not all I did to you while you were unconscious on that bed. I stood over you, jerking my cock until I came on your face, and you didn’t move, so I slipped my hand into your pants and sunk my fingers inside your pussy. It was so wet and tight, and you started squirming and moaning in your sleep, and it made me hard as a fucking rock again. Killing is like fucking if you had a big thick cock to sink into someone’s guts over and over, listening to them scream and beg for more, for god, for it to stop. They’re different sides of the same coin.” He ties off the end of the thread and sets the needle aside. “We’re all just animals, Teagan. The only difference is some of us are content in a cage, and others need to know what it feels like to tear flesh with our teeth and howl at the moon.”
“Well, I just spent three months in a cage. I think I’m owed some flesh.”
I climb into his lap and grab the hemline of his hoodie, lifting it with my fists. He quickly rips them away and pins them behind my back, bending them in a way that’s painful.
“Ah!” I shout. “I just want to feel your skin. I haven’t touched anyone in so long.”
“No,” he says, pushing me off his lap and onto the ground. I fall on my ass on the sealed concrete floors, knocking the air from my lungs. “Don’t ever fucking do that again.”
“Okay,” I say, catching my breath. “I won’t.”
“Say you’re sorry.”
“I’m so”
“No,” he snaps, cutting me off. He pulls a knife from his pocket and drops it at his feet. “That’s not how I want you to apologize. Take off your clothes, then get on your knees and pick up the knife.”
I slip off the shirt and boxers and then pick up the knife from the floor, flipping it open.
“Write it in blood,” he says.
“Where?” I ask.
“Wherever you want. Just make me believe it.”
I drag the blade across my left wrist, applying only enough pressure for blood to pool in the wound. And when it does, I set the knife aside and use my right index finger to paint the words I’m sorry on my lower abdomen, right above my pussy.
Then, I draw a heart around it.
“That’s cute,” he says.
I rest my head on his knee and look up at him with my best ‘fuck me’ eyes. “Do you believe me?” I ask.
“I’m going to fuck you up, Teagan.”
“Promise?”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.