Cold Blood

❥Chapter Thirty-two❥

Written by ChemicalWonderland

Everett POV

I awake with a pounding headache, feeling as though my skull is going to cave in on itself. Colors swim before my eyes like a drunken kaleidoscope, swirling in my irises. Sweat is slick on my forehead, a few solitary drips dotting my cheekbones. I try to move, but I can't, a sharp, cold pressure building against my spine. A metal chair. And something binds my wrists behind my back, irritating my skin. It feels like rope.

I hang my head from the overwhelming pressure building up inside, staring down at my bloodstained jeans. Wait. . . bloodstained jeans? Its then that my memories seem to come crashing down on me like a wave, bringing dread and anger with it. I remember being shot in the legs, and now I feel the burning, fire-like sensation of the wound as if the bullet is searing itself into my bones.

I cry out, a weak sound that seems amplified a million times more in the heavy, musty silence. I blink away the colors and blurry spots in my vision that burst in sparks like camera flashes. I register a small light dangling from the ceiling, casting nightmarish yellow light onto the dark room. The floor is made of sleek, smooth concrete, a pale gray. Discolored stains occasionally stand out against the ground, resembling blood that's been drying there for years.

I can feel anger and slight fear building in my lungs, hurrying my breaths as I try to slow them. I've got to control myself.

"Well he's finally awake!" a sickeningly familiar voice suddenly calls out into the stuffy air, startling me.

I hide my surprise quickly as the source of the speaking steps into view, a stupid grin plastered across his rapidly aging face. I hope he knows how dumb he looks.

My father wears a light blue checkered dress shirt with a pair of clean beige pants and brown slacks. His pepper and salt hair is combed back, each strand perfectly in place. Take away the fact that he's beginning to look like a shriveled up raisin and he looks just as he did when I was a child. I have a feeling he's dressed like this to scare me. And it does, but I don't let it show.

"Did you have a good rest? Chloroform can do a number on some, huh?" he remarks casually, as if he hasn't just kidnapped me. He gets right in my face, watching me with disturbingly crystalline eyes.

I spit at him, sprays of saliva landing everywhere on his face. He shuts his eyes, shaking his head in annoyance. "Now, now Everett, that is no way to treat someone."

"You're not just anyone," I retort through gritted teeth, glaring up at him sharply. "What the hell do you want with us anyway!? I understand why you want me, but Ash?" I can hear concern bleeding through my voice, which I internally cringe at. I can't show any weakness.

My father looks surprised by the question, furrowing his thick eyebrows so that the wrinkles in his forehead triple. "Isn't it obvious? If he suffers, you suffer. Can't you see Everett? I'm doing this all for you."

His answer causes rage to come upon my body, my arms struggling against their tight restraints. "Why?" is all I can muster. It leaves my lips in a whisper.

"Because I love you."

He speaks with such surety that I'm almost convinced myself that he really does love me, but I know the evil truth. "Are you sure you love me? Because the years of abuse because I wasn't the perfect son say otherwise!"

"Are you questioning me? That's very disobedient of you," he says, making a tsk tsk tsk sound and waving his pointer finger at me.

The words bring a disconnected chill to my bones. That's very disobedient of you is the sentence I've heard throughout majority of my childhood. I've heard him say this more than I love you. This sentence never brought good things. He must sense my sudden shift in behavior, for he breaks into a grin that showcases perfectly even white teeth. The dim lighting deepens the wrinkles and flaws on his face, dragging down his eye bags and hollowing out his stubble covered cheeks. He looks how young me remembers him, as some towering villain that messed with my emotions and ruined my life. I've never felt so much like a child.

He steps back into the swathing darkness for a few brief seconds, reappearing a moment later with something small and gleaming in his left hand. My eyes widen as if involuntarily at the sight of the silver scissors, their razor sharp edge shining.

"I think it's time for one of your old man's famous haircuts," he says coldly, picking up an especially long strand of my dark hair and giving it a distastful glance.

I swallow hard, telling myself that this can't be too terrible, if of course this is all he has in mind. He starts snipping right away, feathery pieces of hair falling to the cement floor. My father may be careful and meticulous in his own appearance, but he really has no regard for mine. He cuts without worrying about my ears or any other skin surrounding my hair, cutting into flesh and nipping at the back of my neck incessantly. I know he's purposely being careless, not even looking at his work at times. I flinch as small trickles of blood, miniscule pinpriks, travel down my throat. The feeling is so familiar that the memories are more painful than being cut.

I don't say a word, even after he finishes, stepping back and admiring his work from afar. After a while he seems to be trying to correct it, evening out my hairline and making everything equal around my ears.

He shakes his head every time he looks at my hair, not satisfied with his work. Always an obsessive perfectionist. After what feels like a half-hour of relentless snipping, he eventually announces that he's finished.

"Now for the fun part," he says, stepping into the darkness, his voice still echoing about the room,"we've got to make up for the years I've missed out on punishing you. I heard you've committed quite a lot of murders in this town."

"You mean you don't condone murder? Kinda ironic, isn't it?" I say harshly.

"But you must understand," he says, reappearing in the light with a belt,"I had a reason to kill." He speaks as though what he's just said is perfectly reasonable and that because he has a reason he's held to a higher standard.

"Your reason being that you're a cheating husband and mom was about to find out. And ohhh boy, you couldn't stand the idea of that kinda news getting out," I retort tauntingly.

He glares, eyes swimming with darkness. "Some secrets have to go to the grave. You wouldn't understand."

"Just like how your lover didn't understand? Apparently she ran away when you confessed to her, or did you kill her too?" I ask, wanting to get a rise out of him so I can grasp onto some sort of weakness. Finding this weakness could be the key to Ash and I's escape.

My father, always smarter than I believe him to be, must catch on to my idea. His face smooths out, and he says evenly, "Children should not speak so brazenly to adults." and with that, he raises the belt.

In the few seconds before I'm hit, I see small, square blades sewn into the fraying brown leather of the belt, glinting dangerously as my heart plummets to the bottom of my ribcage.

The impact is like nothing I've endured before. Despite my complicated life of violence, I haven't had to suffer through things this intense, things like what Ash has been through. I feel like a million tiny daggers are piercing through my chest, stinging needlepoints that claw away at the thin material of my shirt.

The pain begins to feel like a fire slowly creeping its way along my body, slinking over the curve of my hips and up to my adams apple, burning and alive. I scream until my voice is hoarse, thinking of nothing but the pain. My cries hit the ceiling and spiral around the room, the sounds of my torture echoed back into my own ears.

All I can feel is fire.