Filed To Story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell
“Are you okay?” he asks quietly when he pulls me around the back of the van.
“No,” I tell him, whimpering just a little. I don’t want tonot in front of himbut I can’t help it. “I think he broke my fucking eye socket. It hurts.”
“Well, you killed him,” he says. “You’re good and mad now, aren’t you? That’s not a bad thing.” He reaches for the handle on the back door and then freezes. “Teagan, don’t talk to them. You can’t save them, so don’t lie to them.”
“What are you talking about?”
When he pulls open the van doors and escorts me inside, I see two other girls huddled close together in the back corner. They’re barely conscious; they’ve clearly been drugged by the way they lean to the side, their eyes glazed over with their hands cuffed in front of them. Only one of them reacts when Bone Saw steps into the vehicle, and it’s just barely. It’s as if it’s taking all of her energy just to show that small amount of shock and surprise at the masked killer’s presence, and then her body surrendersmaybe because she’s giving up or maybe because she knows there’s no point.
I guess I know what he meant now by looking the part.
I sit across from them, and Bone Saw pulls handcuffs from his pocket, closing them around my right wrist.
I shake my head. “No,” I say quietly.
“It’ll be okay,” he whispers before doing the same on the left side. “They’re loose. You can slip out of them, and you know how sharp it is. You won’t even need to. Remember to flash the lights upstairs when you’re done, and stay put. I’ll take care of the others.”
I nod and look down at my feet.
He runs a gloved hand over my cheek and then beneath my chin, tilting it until I meet his dark eyes through the holes in the mask again.
“I don’t want to play monsters alone,” I say softly. My right eye is already swollen enough to impair my vision.
“You’re not playing alone.”
“I can’t feel my face.”
“It’s not that bad,” he says. “You’re still beautiful. I’ll take care of it when we get home, okay?”
I nod again, averting my gaze, and he slaps a piece of duct tape over my mouth. I shoot daggers at him with my eyes.
“It’ll get you in troubleyou know it will. Keep your mouth shut,” he says before leaving through the back door, sending us back into darkness when he closes it behind him. My two counterparts, either used to it or they stopped caring a long time ago, don’t react. I practice slipping my hand in and out of the cuffs a couple of times before the engine starts and the van begins rolling back down that dirt road.
Hours pass before the van rolls to a stop. Muffled voices move around the side of the vehicle before stopping near the back doors. My heart pounds in my chest; I can hear the blood pumping in my ears. What are they talking about? What if that man told whoever is waiting the truth?
But no. There’s no way. He was scared shitless of Bone Saw and whatever debt he owed The Order. He still has a family he cares about, so there’s a part of him that’s human.
And that’s what makes him easy to control.
The door to the van opens, and the old man meets my icy glare. If I get a chance to kill him, too, I will.
“What are you waiting for?” another man says. “Bring them out.”
Do it, I challenge him with my eyes. Come put your fucking hands on me.
“Actually, I hurt my hip the other day,” the man says. “I need help unloading them.”
“Jesus Christ, Dale, you worthless piece of shit,” the other man says. He sighs heavily before stepping into the van, then stops in front of me first. “What’d you do to this one’s face?”
“Uh, my guy got a little rough with her,” Dale says.
“She looks fucking pissed. She’s older than he likes, too. And too lucid.”
He guides me out of the van and into the garage, where I wait mere feet away from Dale while he retrieves the other two. I keep my eyes trained on that fucker the whole time. Then, they march us through the expansive home to an office upstairs. Sugar Daddy looks up as we walk in; I don’t see the girl with the cake anywhere.
“You said there would be four of them,” he says calmly. “And what’s wrong with this one’s face?”
“One of them didn’t make it. And my guys got a little rough with that one.”
“You really are a worthless piece of shit, Dale,” Sugar Daddy says.
“That’s what I told him!” the other man says. He nudges my shoulder. “Didn’t I tell him that?”
I do my best not to react, glowering at the floor.
“Ugh, god, I thought I smelled something,” a female voice says. The girl with the cake walks up the side of the room in a pair of workout shorts and a crop top. She stops in front of me. “Well, that one looks okay except for the right side of her face. Does she have all of her teeth?”
She removes the duct tape and slides her fingers into my mouth, pulling my lips away to better examine my teeth. It takes every ounce of self-control not to bite her damn fingers off.
The girl next to me doubles over and vomits onto the carpet.
“Ew ” Cake Girl says.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Sugar Daddy grumbles. “Mike, get Dale out of herepay him half.”
“Half?! But”
“Half. And you’re lucky you’ll be getting that much.”
Mike escorts Dale out of the room, and then Sugar Daddy brings the phone on his desk to his ear. “Matilda, come clean this shit up in my office now.”
He slams the phone back down in its cradle. “It smells.”
“I know,” Cake Girl says.
“If we weren’t going to be on a beach in Europe somewhere by this time next week, I’d have Mike kill Dale out of spite.”
“Should I take them downstairs and get them hooked up?”
Shit. Here we go.
“I have a call I have to take. Bring those two downstairs, then take the one with the busted face to my room.” He looks me in my eyes, waiting for a reaction. When he doesn’t get one, he asks. “Do you speak English?”
I don’t answer.
“¿Hablas español? Well?”
I lift my cuffed hands, point to my ears, and shake my head.
“Oh,” Cake Girl says. “I think she’s deaf.”
“Fucking worthless,” he scoffs. “Fuck Dale. I can’t fucking wait to be done with his ass.”
Now? Do I do it now? I could take her out easily, but he’s behind that desk and in decent shape. If he sees me coming, he’ll probably be able to get the best of me, and Bone Saw says that’s my superpower that he won’t see me coming.
I dig my nails into my palms, willing my hands to stop shaking and my pulse to slow.
Cake Girl walks around the side of the desk, opens one of the drawers, and pulls out a gun. “I’m sure we can still get her to follow directions,” she says.
She points the gun toward the three of us and motions toward the door. “Move.”
Shit. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t pick now.
I follow the other girls out the door and then to an elevator that takes us to the basement. Cake Girl stops and knocks on a door near the end of the hall.
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.