Benny
THE TIGHTNESS OF THE SKIN on my right shoulder pulls, restricting my movements. The phantom pain humming in awareness of past wounds simmers as I bend to snap a blade of grass from the position I’ve been in for the previous four hours.
Situated yards from my old home—our old home—I linger, waiting, knowing, wanting.
Popping the lid from a bottle of water, I gulp down the liquid and pour the remaining dregs over my head, relishing in the reprieve from the heat.
The sun is unforgiving, summoning memories of the first day I ever saw my dirty little doll. She was so young, fresh-faced, perfect.
Pretty little doll.
When the sun would catch the wet strands laced with sweat just right, her hair looked like it had glimmers of gold throughout it. The summer dress she wore clung to her petite structure like a second skin, outlining her perfect little frame.
And then there was her younger sister…
Broken dolly.
She was stroking her small hands over my works of art, her gasp echoing in the thick air as her arms encircled one of my favorite dolls, clinging to the porcelain perfection.
“Pretty doll for a pretty doll,” I offered in a soft tone.
In unison, their eyes lifted to gaze at me, and my heart thundered in my chest.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The doll was now forgotten as they both studied me grinning down at them.
“She can’t afford the doll,” my perfect little doll barked, narrowing her gaze, but the flush of her cheeks gave her away. She knew right then whom she belonged to, and I knew she was mine.
How easy it was to take what I wanted, and how easily she ruined us years later.
She’s changed so much since then. The years passed too quickly. I didn’t get enough time with her.
The memory fades as a flock of birds take flight from a tree behind the ruins of the house where I wait with the patience I’ve let build over the years. I’ve come so far since the night she killed me.
She didn’t even clean up the aftermath of her treachery. They didn’t even come looking for my remains.
She just left me to die and thought that would be it.
She was so fucking wrong. They both were.
Amateurs.
Three Years Ago
“What are you doing?” I ask, my brow dipping as I study her. She looks defiant, something clear and almost peaceful in her eyes. She locked us inside.
“I’m making us face what we’ve done,” she hisses. “We are locked in here to atone.”
Fucking atone? She doesn’t understand. I had to kill Macy. She was broken—too unstable to risk being around her.
I loved her too in my own way. Why doesn’t she understand?
Squeezing my eyes closed, my fists smash against my face to stop the screaming inside my brain.
“But she was broken. We couldn’t fix her,” I tell her through clenched teeth.
She growls back at me. “You’re the fucking broken one, Benny. You. Are. Broken.”
My bones harden, and the blood coagulates inside my veins like cement. “Don’t you dare say that.”
A sob rips through her as her legs wobble. “We have your dad,” she spits out through a rainstorm of tears. “He’s been raping girls for years, and you just let that pervert live. After everything he did to Bethany,” she cries, pointing an accusing finger at me. My eyes hone in on the judgmental digit. It may as well be a knife the way she wields it with the power of its sharp edge.
Bethany was sacred, and she’s using her to hurt me because she’s hurting, but she will learn she doesn’t need Macy. She has me, and we’re all we need. Together, we will be forever.
My father had his uses, but we didn’t need him either. I’d kill him for her, if that’s what it took for her to come home, but it’s all too late. The tide has changed; its undercurrent is too forceful to manipulate.
“He was useful,” I tell her.
“You disgust me,” she bites back, but it’s just the brief anger. It will pass.
“Well, that will change,” I placate, taking a step toward her.
“No,” she snaps, holding her hand up to stop my advance—the hand free of the cuffs once decorating her wrists.
“It ends tonight, dirty little doll,” I warn her.
“You’re right.” She jerks her head and lets out a harsh laugh. “It does.”
Bending down, I retrieve the syringe from my sock.
“What the hell is that?” she demands, gesturing for it as I right myself.
My eyes narrow on the gun she’s holding, then to the space behind the bars.
The kid is gone.
She’s not alone.
How could she fucking betray me?
“You didn’t come alone?” I ask in disbelief. She’s breaking the rules—she knows what happens when she breaks the rules.
“I’ll never be alone again,” she jeers. “Dillon is part of me. He’s who I belong with. It was never you, Benjamin.”
Argh! How dare she say his name to me.
She belongs to me. She is my doll. My dolly!
My jaw clenches as fury rages through every muscle coiling in my body. “I’ll never let you leave this cell,” I promise on a warning. “Never.”
Her hand moves, wiggling the gun in her hand. “I’m the one holding the gun. You have no power over me anymore.”
A smirk tugs at my lip. “Even if you get a round off, I’ll still advance and stick this in you. We’re going out together. Eternity will be enough time for you to realize it’s me you love.”
Her eyes twitch as she weighs up her options.
You don’t have any! We belong together and you know it!
I move to advance on her, but she blurts out words that send me spinning. “I’m pregnant.”
My arm drops as her confession saturates me in new possibilities. A pop rings out sharp in my ear as burning fire penetrates my shoulder, pulling me backwards.
Fuck.
“Goddammit!” I snarl. “You fucking shot me!” The needle clatters to the floor as I stumble back and fall onto the bed without control.
“Damn right,” she says with pride as she strides toward me, stopping to stamp her boot on the syringe.
She has my baby inside her—our baby.
“You’re pregnant? We made a baby…?”
A cold snap of a cuff closes around my wrist, and I just watch her, mystified by her news.
She cuffs my other hand, the faint humming of pain throbbing in my shoulder as she pushes my body to the floor.
We’re going to have a baby.
The door behind her clicks open, and the stinking pig Dillon moves in behind her. How dare he interrupt this moment for us?
I’m going to kill him slow, make him feel my wrath with every cut of my knife.
He won’t take this moment away from us.
“Our baby,” I murmur, staring up at my beautiful doll.
Dillon steps around her, blocking her from view as he collects the broken dead doll from the bed, then walks out of the room, leaving only the two of us, like it’s supposed to be.
“The baby isn’t yours, Benny,” she spits out. “Death can’t exist within life. And no matter how many different ways you try to snuff out my existence with your monstrosities, you’ll never succeed. You belong in hell. Your time here on earth is over. This baby is life. This baby is no part of you.”
My mouth opens, but pain too strong cripples my insides, robbing me of my voice. She’s lying. She can’t mean that.
She’s moving out of the room, backing away while aiming her gun at me. She doesn’t need the gun; she’s already killing me with her words. Once the door is shut and locked into place, Dillon reappears, placing his disgusting lips to her head.
“It’s okay,” she tells him. “I’ve got this.”
“I know you do,” he murmurs before stalking off to leave her with who she truly belongs to.
She knows who her master is and that our baby grows inside her womb.
“You’re lying,” I inform her. My strength returning, I pull at the stupid cuffs she thinks can hold me.
Silly little doll.
Struggling to get to my feet, the annoying pain radiating out from the hole she put in me, I force my body to move while she glares down at me.
She’s playing games, and I don’t like it.
“Let me fucking go,” I growl out my command. “Now!”
The laugh that escapes her reminds me of her sister. It’s crazed, like she’s losing her hold on reality. He’s broken her. Changed her. But she will come to her senses. I know it.
“You have no power. I’m going to leave you to rot here. Just like you did us. I hope the stench of my baby sister’s blood haunts you until you die of starvation.”
She wouldn’t dare.
I tug again at the cuffs.
“Let me fucking go.” I charge the door, throwing my body against it. It doesn’t move, but I knew it wouldn’t. These doors are impenetrable. I built them to keep my dolls safely inside.
“I said let me go!” I warn once more.
“You never let me go…” her voice cracks. “Goodbye, Benny.”
And then, she abandons me, but she knows I’ll come for her. That’s why she hasn’t killed me. Despite her ramblings—the poison Detective Piece of Shit has fed her into thinking otherwise—she loves me and wants me to come for her.
“Come back, dirty doll! Open the door!” I shout, while snapping my thumb out of place and forcing the cuff from my hand. It tears at the flesh, leaving a blood trail down my hand, the stinging discomfort only fueling my rage.
The thing about this room is it belonged to her sister—not her.
My broken dolly only got punished with confinement when she was a bad dolly. Other than that, she was free to roam. Her key was only taken if she was being punished.
Searching the small space, it takes no time at all to locate the small doll with its eye missing and scissors sticking through the middle.
Around its neck on a small chain is the room key.
Even in death, my broken doll was loyal and serving to her master.
Getting to the door, I unlock the latch and stop moving. Ash and burning wood assaults my nostrils, the scent intense and sticking to the back of my throat. Heat builds under my foot as orange flames ignite, bordering the entire house.
I’m surrounded by fire, destroying everything I built.
How could she do this? This was her home too.
She thinks I’m locked in here.
She wants to kill me.
No. She can’t. She wouldn’t.
The burning wrath engulfs the house, licking at my skin as I battle through the raging inferno to the beckoning protection of the cold air outside.
Glass shatters as the whining of the tortured wood screams and whimpers all around me.
The smoke, thick and deadly, cloaks me as I run toward a window and crash through it.
The shards tear and rip at the damaged flesh of my arms, but I’m almost numb to the pain. To the heartache. Numb to my dirty little doll.
I lay there, on the grass, staring up at the sky as billowing black smoke turns day to night, just a couple meters from the devastation and remnants of the only home I’ve ever known.
She killed me.
My pretty little doll killed me.
Shaking my head to clear the memory, I scan the destroyed area.
This is my gravesite. My haunting ground that she visits. No matter what she tells herself, or what he tells her, she is and will always be mine, and my signature on her soul calls her here.
She will come here. I know it.
She returned last year, and I watched—watched tears bubble and fall, accompanied by an unnatural sob that changed to a laugh. She shook her head and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear while telling the scenery she was free.
I willed myself not to take her back right there—take her where she would never be found again.
She had changed so much, it was almost like watching a stranger. The need, though…the burst of ownership, tore and fought to take back what belonged to me, but she wasn’t alone. A baby cradled in a sling thing attached to her chest and waist kept me solidified to the shadows.
Then that fucker appeared, taking the child from her and putting his lips where mine should have been. His hands lowered onto the olive skin that had been exposed to too much sun, but she wasn’t his to touch. He whispered words into her ear, eliciting a smile that should have only been for me.
Fuck him. He can have her smiles. I’ll take her tears, her moans, her begging, and her pain.
Sweat beads on my shaven head, the branches of the tree offering little escape from the midday heat. My beard had grown in longer than I usually kept it, but the women appear to like the facial hair. It’s a magnet for the sluts looking for a good time. It also attracts the females who like the rougher side of sex. The bitches begging me to inflict pain only angered me into doing so.
Sex is supposed to be an outlet, but it only made the beast inside roar for freedom.
There is no outlet for me without her.
The whores are not worthy. They are not satisfying. They are not my doll.
My pretty little doll.
The black rotting remains of my old house—our home—taunt me as the time passes slow and torturous.
The grounds are untouched.
Covered by wild growth, undisturbed, until now.
Old memories shift and sway within my mind, begging to take root and keep me imprisoned here.
There are ghosts that haunt me when I come back here. Yellow tape still lingers in some of the overgrown weeds from where the police dug up every inch of the grounds, taking what didn’t belong to them.
Disturbing the past.
Thoughts of my father push into the forefront of my mind—his betrayals. I hate that I can’t get to him to end his miserable fucking existence.
I’ve heard prison for a cop is brutal, but based on whose terms?
I can think of worse ways he should suffer.
He deserves to suffer—to live in the hell he created.
Distant reverberations of an engine coax a change in the atmosphere.
The air shifts around me, almost welcoming the emotion that comes with seeing her. My soul cries out, begging her to speak to me. I need to hear her, feel her, be inside her.
I need to find the peace again—the peace she brought me when she didn’t run, didn’t betray me, didn’t fucking kill me.
My life since her has been an awakening. Finding Tanner changed everything for me, but still, her presence, or absence of it, lingers in my daily thoughts.
Three Years Ago
My father always made sure I was prepared when the time came I’d need to make changes—the time to get away. Being who I was came with consequences and risk.
Pulling myself from the grass, my skin protests, shrinking over my bones. I’m a mess, and I need help.
Seeking it out irks me, but my life just disintegrated in front of my eyes—literally.
My father was compromised, so going to this place could lead me into cuffs matching his, but it’s a gamble I’m going to have to take. I have nowhere else. There shouldn’t be any reason why my father would give them an asset, and according to my father, that’s what this person is.
I begin walking a couple miles west from where my home once stood and venture just into the brush where the tree is carved with a letter B. Eventually, I locate the rock marked with a small indentation of the same letter, and I set to removing it from the dirt. The chill in the air nips at the exposed, torched flesh on my arm and shoulder. The gunshot wound is nothing in comparison to smelling your own skin cook. My body shakes without permission, my eyes clouding as I dig, my nails splitting as I scratch at the dry dirt.
Relief coaxes a sigh from my lips when the leather handle from the satchel strokes the tips of my fingers. Yanking it free, I collapse, breathing hard.
I need water.
Gathering the strength to sit up, I pull the zipper and look inside. Bills stacked in bundles of thousands stare back at me.
Thirty thousand won’t suffice for the long term, but it’s a start.
The card sitting on top makes my skin vibrate.
I’m not used to needing people or having to rely on them, but times are changing. This change has been forced upon me by my dirty little doll.
The burner cell has the number already saved inside and the card simply reads: TANNER
One hand hits dial while the other grips the grass, squeezing until my damaged fingernails cut into the palm.
The dial tone ticks, then it’s ringing.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
“What name do you have?” a woman asks.
“Tanner,” I croak back, the damage to my body taking its toll.
“Please hold.”
Fucking music plays down the line.
What the hell?
I stand alone, a voice croons, surrounded by guitar riffs. How ironic the lyric is to me.
The music cuts off and a male voice comes over the line.
“Where are you?” His tone is deep and calm. He speaks with a manner akin to that of friends having a casual catch up call. “I’ll send a car to pick you up, but I need to know where you are.”
“I’m two or three miles from my house…”
The call drops before I can give him the address.
I don’t like it, but my body is weakening and the darkness of night steals my consciousness.
My mind swims in lucid dreams as voices chase away the flames wrapping around my body.
Water drips, pulling me from the hold of sleep.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
My eyes spring open, and I jerk forward. Water laps around me, splashing.
I’m in a tub.
“Calm down,” a voice orders. It’s the same tone from the call.
There’s authority in his manner, and I find myself stilling and taking in my new surroundings. Dark tiles cover the walls to the ceiling. A large mirrored wall dominates the space. I’m sitting naked inside a huge corner bath. The water is murky and cool to touch.
My eyes draw to the man standing over me, studying me.
He’s tall and wears a suit and tie. A fancy fucker.
Is he going to take me on a goddamn date?
What the hell?
Who is this guy?
Pain radiates over my entire back, stealing my breath.
The man, Tanner, continues to simply watch me.
His hair is dark and thick, neither long nor short, pushed backwards out of his face. His eyes look like the color of the flames I just escaped from.
His thick lips curl into a smirk.
“I didn’t think I’d ever meet you,” he announces, as if he knows who and what I am. “Your father has accumulated quite a few favors owed.”
He stares with a subtle nod of his head, not yet knowing my father can’t offer any more of those “favors”—not from where he is now.
Would that prevent him from helping me if he knew?
Fuck it. It’s irrelevant. I’ll be gone soon, finding my own way like I always have.
“The doctor is due back any minute,” he assures me. “She will dress your burns. The bullet from your shoulder has already been removed, and she’s done her best to prevent scarring, but some is inevitable, I’m afraid. I hope you’re not a vain man.”
His eyelashes lower as his head tilts to one side. Curious amber eyes penetrate mine.
“Why are you staring at me?” I growl, feeling more exposed than I ever have before—and it has nothing to do with being naked.
He’s not eyeballing me in a way you would someone you want to fuck. It’s something else…wonder, maybe? Shifting on his feet, he lowers himself to sit on the side of the tub and dips his hand into the water, letting the liquid run through his fingers.
“I’m admiring you. You’re quite extraordinary, and I’m looking forward to helping you harness your full potential. You’re not alone anymore.” His voice holds a surety I’m not used to. “We’re going to be great friends, Benny.”
The rumbling of an engine vibrates through the air and my heart rattles, dragging me back to the present.
Coming to a stop, I recognize the model of Dillon’s shit heap tin can of a car. Forcing myself lower, I push against the bark of the tree concealing me. The old scars scream in protest, and I let the pain anchor me to this moment.
My scars are a constant reminder of my dirty little doll and her betrayal.
They are the birthmark of the new man reborn from the flames she engulfed me in.
My hand twitches with the fleeting need to kill—her, him, me. But I never see it through, and I can’t determine why. It’s been years since she was mine, and her absence leaves me lonely in a way no one else can fill.
She belongs to me.
She will always belong to me.
I don’t see enough of her, following her, watching her. I need to bask in this moment, commit everything to memory for a later time—a reminder to myself she’s not the dirty little doll sculpted by my hand anymore.
She’s been ruined…by him.
The passenger side door opens and jean clad legs belonging to the girl I used to know step out. She bends down and mumbles something through the window, but I can’t make out what she says. It’s just a murmur of a sound, no structure to it. Her hair ripples with her forceful strides as she pushes her legs to move through the thick brush, fighting her way through to get to her destination.
This place is a forgotten graveyard to her, but to me, it’s home. Me. Us.
Rage sizzles under the surface, battling with need, sorrow, and disappointment.
She comes to a stop, her chest heaving. The swollen belly full of another life that’s not mine protrudes and ridicules me.
I could move quick and end it all here and now. Take her life, then my own. What a perfect fuck you that would be to that dickhead who thinks I’m long gone.
But with the new her, comes new changes for me also.
I’m not the same man I used to be.
I don’t act irrationally. I think every step through.
The sun dances over the new red in her hair.
I hate it.
She doesn’t need to dye her hair. It looks unnatural and cheap. She’s heavier around her hips, her frame thicker. Motherhood has changed her body—he changed my perfect doll so much. I fucking hate that cunt pig. I should peel his skin from his body and wear him while I fuck the me back into her.
Her sigh is loud and carries to me, sending chills up my spine. Her eyes are on the charred remains of what was once our life, but mine are on her from a small gathering of brush next to a tree far enough back; she wouldn’t notice it among the others unless she were seeking it out.
My focus moves to the car out of her sight.
Dillon, the fuck face, has gotten out, his cell phone attached to his ear. It would be so simple to take him by surprise, creep up behind him, slit his throat, and paint the asphalt crimson.
I could coat my doll’s hair in real red—blood red.
My cock jerks and stiffens at the thought.
The rolling down of the back window gains my attention, chasing a shiver up my spine. Little fingers appear, and my heart races.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
They have the child with them. Grabbing the little dolly from the gift I plan to leave here for my dirty doll, my head swims with the need to see the child.
My body dips behind the long, overgrown grass, moving through it like a deadly snake. The stupid so-called detective has moved a good twenty feet, pacing and shaking his head as he rants to someone about not doing their job right. He’s the king of not doing his job right.
My stomach tightens as I approach her window while remaining aware of Dillon’s distance and view of the car.
A smile bright and innocent beams at me through the gap in the window.
Brown eyes with a hint of green stare into my own, thick lashes batting like dragonfly wings.
“Dwink?” she coos, holding out a cup with a nipple looking thing on the end.
“You look just like your mommy,” I murmur in awe.
She giggles, holding her arms out to me.
I could just take her. I wonder how far I would get.
What punishment that would be for my dirty doll.
Instead, I bestow my gift, and fade away while she’s distracted, back to my shadow, letting the racing of my heart pump the adrenaline through my veins. A smile graces my dirty doll’s lips, but drops as she studies the scene around her. Her body visibly shivers, then a horn pierces the air, drawing her eyes. She moves away, and I hear her car door close.
I tighten my grip on the knife I’ve taken from my bag.
Waiting.
Anticipating.
The melody flows through the air, and I hum the words as the dolly sings.
Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick,
So she phoned for the doctor to be quick, quick, quick.
The doctor came with his bag and his hat,
And he knocked at the door with a rat-a-tat-tat.
He looked at the dolly and he shook his head,
And he said, “Miss Polly, put her straight to bed!”
He wrote on a paper for a pill, pill, pill,
“I’ll be back in the morning yes I will, will, will.”
My palm sweats around the handle of the knife clutched so tight, it becomes a part of me. The engine coughs, then rumbles as it departs. They didn’t come looking. They didn’t think it was me.
How could it be a gift from me?
I don’t exist anymore.
A soft moan comes from below me, hair flaying over the top of my boot.
Eyes, wide and panicked, stare up at me, her head moving back and forth—no, no, no.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Reaching down, I grasp her cheap hair in my other hand, lifting her weight effortlessly from her broken position. She’d been out longer than I’d thought she would be. She was all wrong to be my doll—crude with her tongue and loose with her cunt.
Breathing in through my nose, I let the high have its moment, then plunge the knife down into her chest. It slides in like penetrating a tough steak, one that’s more rare than cooked. Squealing around the gag in her mouth, she shakes her body back and forth, her arms pulled and tied tight around her back. The second blow, followed by the third, brings her body to more of a tremble, her fight waning.
Straddling her small frame, I dip my head to hers, my nose almost touching her lips. Fear has a unique scent, and when death is so close, you see its company in their eyes. It’s beautiful being on the cusp of life and death with them, feeling their body jerk and strain as it drags in its final breath and expels it with their soul.
When she stills, I swipe my hand through the blood adorning her chest and paint her lips.
Images of the little girl and the gift I gave her just moments before play out in my thoughts.
I hold up the doll and poke my hand through the window. The child grabs the doll, her slobbery little finger brushing against my own.
“Dolly,” she gurgles, dribble coating her fat bottom lip.
“Yes. It’s a dolly.” I grin down at her, much like I did her mother many years ago. “A pretty doll for a pretty little doll.”