CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR: NIGHT IN A CELL II
\-BELLA-
The room, which had been a mixture of groans and moans, was now nothing but a field of melancholy. The world that we had all known had abruptly stopped spinning, years welling up in our eyes.
Bartholomew was on his knees, his body smeared with blood. Kim had left the room a minute back, his chest a smothering fountain of water.
"C..u..r..r..y!" Bartholomew stammered as he gazed at his wife.
She had been loosed from the chains, her body a bloody mess. She had been ruffled, blood oozing between her legs. Kim had done it, pleasured her whole body, and made her flood the room as she orgasmed more than ten times in fifteen minutes. Had a wonderful foreplay with her, BDSM style, with Bartholomew screaming till he couldn't no more.
"Bartholomew." Her voice a faint tune of melancholy.
I couldn't look anymore. My heart a thumping mess. This was starting to look like a TV series, which I never for once thought could happen.
The playback of Kim thrusting his full length ruthlessly into her left me terrified. She had screamed, her gateway muscles contracting severely as he widened the entrance more with each thrust. She had screamed more when he kept on thrusting up on the waves of blood that had escaped.
"Curry," he wailed as she laid her head on his lap.
I could see his eyes, a bloody mimic of the bloodshot gunner I had watched days back. Was this how it felt to lose your lover?
"Do you know what I love about you?" She said, blood spilling from her mouth.
"Curry."
"I love how ruthless you are. No matter what happens to me, it will never change who you are. The kids are still there, hoping for a brighter future with you and me. Tears rolled down her cheeks. "This is the key. Save them, Bartholomew, save my babies.”
I felt my heart sink as her eyes shut close. He couldn't take it, tears rolling out of his eyes.
"I'll forever love you, curry."
I couldn't speak, words stuffed in my throat. I had just witnessed a rape case with no one to save the victims. This was way more than sin.
"How do you like that, Bella?" Delilah's voice aired in the darkness.
"What do you mean by that? Do you enjoy watching lives being wasted like they never existed?" I yelled.
"Coming from a murderer like you? I'm impressed." She grabbed me by the neck, smashing my head against the wall. I arched as my back hit the wall; my nerves bent with pain.
"I was in a desperate situation. I wouldn't have killed him if he minded his business."
"Artemis is his business, and he was facing it with his mind and soul all linked to her. You ended him, and I will take my revenge with the one person you love."
"Jarvis was the last person I loved; anyone else would just come through as a nobody."
"Jamie?" She tilted her head, her eyebrows up.
"Jamie loves Artemis, dumped me because of her. Any more options?" A smirk crawled onto my lips.
"Just as I expected. You're a loner; no one loves you because of how undedicated you are." She grinned. "A meager payment would do you nothing but more suffering." You're a humiliation to your family and friend. Oh wait! You have no friends."
I tossed myself forward, planning to land a hit at a close distance. She staggered back, the chains hurling me back to the wall.
"I didn't think you'd be as stupid as this. What did Jarvis even see in you that made him believe you were enough for him?" She slammed his fist onto the wall. She didn't flinch despite the rough texture of the wall.
"This is where we say goodbye, isn't it?" I uttered.
"Goodbye?" She burst into laughter. "I haven't even begun with your plumped-up ass."
"Make sure I don't leave; if not, I'm coming for your ass." I grinned.
"I never said anything about letting you go. You'd likely end up like dead curry over there." She chuckled a bit before turning a stern gaze. "Dead from intense pleasure."
"I'm not afraid of you. I've done much more than to die from intense pleasure. You're just bluffing about the punishment." I heard myself say.
"Really? Then I'd have no choice but to move on with plan B."
"Plan B?"
This was turning out real bad if she had a plan B. The only reason why she hadn't been able to lure me into the first trap was because I had dubiously cut off all ties with the people I loved. Setting them apart meant keeping them safe.
I had learned that after my online seduction training in junior high. I had been so obsessed with manipulation that I had learned more than needed at my tender age. I began to see people as mere toys to be played with, their feelings a string to be bent to any shape I want.
At first it was fun, but when I began to see the world for what it was, it felt ugly, and I had begun to see myself as the devil's mistress. I was an orphan, with nobody to tell me what I needed to live a happy life. The nuns had left me when I was sixteen to tend to the younger ones. I became unknown, always seen lonely in dark corners of the Orphans.
I had roamed around the streets of New York several times after school, hoping someone would pick me up. "Bimbo the streetwalker," the little kids had tagged me every night when I returned.
The nuns had scolded me often, telling me I was cursed to not have found someone who would raise me as theirs at the age of fourteen. I began to reason like them, believing I was nothing but a cursed child. Maybe that's why my biological parents left me.
I became one with the orphanage library, teaching myself how to read and write more. The nuns had taught us the basics, and I had planned to improvise and make myself better.
After reading all the books in the library, I felt the need to get a glimpse of life. I snuck into the head's office for more books when she was out signing other kids to parents who wanted them. I grabbed myself a copy of a Queen-sized magazine and ran away.
It was about modeling and manipulation. As weird as it was, I loved every bit of it. I became a master at the game, making several high school jockeys bend to my every word.
At fifteen, I got a caller who wanted to adopt me. According to the nun, they were financially stable and would be able to cater to my needs. They covered up my past as a manipulator just to get rid of me.
The family happened to be the prestigious Mercedes family, Artemis Uncle Mart and Aunt Cindy, to be precise. They cared for me like I was their kid, clothed me, and let me run wild in the halls of Saint Leister.
I thought my life would change for the better, but it only came crashing before my eyes. Mart and Cindy Mercedes died in a plane crash on their way back from the states. The whole of Hyperion Heights in grief as reporters spoke on the TV. I remembered crying my eyes out, my whole world shattering before my eyes.
But then, they had written down a will. A will that I continued living as one of the Mercedes under Artemis's parents.
"Bring her in, boys." Delilah's words stumbled out.
Two hefty men walked in, a lady with a bag over her head walking right beside them. The lady walked before me, taking to her knees in minutes.
"Who's this?" I said. The muffled scream of the lady intercepting my ears.
"Don't tell me you don't know her." She walked towards the lady, placing her palm on the lady's head.
"If you think I have a sister, then you must be joking." I spat.
"She's more than a sister." A smirk appeared on her face. "Take off the bag."
They walked up to the lady, releasing the bag's grip on her head. I could hear her large and heavy breathing as she tried to inhale as much oxygen as her lungs could take.
"Catherine?"
"Oh, you already know her." Delilah whistled an arch melody of doom, which I could recall due to the Harry Potter movies I'd watched when I was a kid.
"Why wouldn't I know her? She's the freaking maid who's been trying to help Artemis get rid of me all this while. She's a traitor if that's what you're asking."
"This right here is my vengeance." She tapped Catherine's shoulder, her gaze on the stream of tears flowing down Catherine's cheeks.
"I'd wish her dead anyways."
"If she hadn't been your blood sister."
"Blood sister?".