Not a Love Story

Lightning flashed in her eyes, bringing with it intense pain, then showers of blackness, darkness, shadows...blindness...

She could see nothing. The doors remained open behind her. She knew she had made it past them, but she could only sense a dark emptiness, like a primordial chaos that no human soul could withstand. It bore down on her until she was sure it would push her back behind those doors and lock them forever, leaving her eternally trapped. Then gradually, the non-existent blindfold began to loosen, the imaginary hands over her ears moved away, and she could begin to hear a trembling voice.

"Please...I didn't know...I didn't know...please..." came the frightened voice.

She couldn't speak yet, but she could hear it clearly, and see clearly its source. She was standing in a kitchen, and across the kitchen stood a woman. The woman had long black hair, much like her own, but probably much cleaner. Her own hair felt full of dust. The woman stood with her back to a sink full of dishes in filthy rust-colored water. Her hands appeared to be stained the same rust color as she clutched a glass in her hand. Her face was barely visible behind her hair, but the look of terror could still be seen through the cascade of darkness, like chaos glimpsed through the tattered curtains of a window to a home haunted by tortured souls.

"I didn't know..." the woman of rust-colored hands repeats again.

She gave her no response. She could hear Dr. Ben's soft laughter behind her. She knew he would unsuccessfully try to murder Dollar, but she didn't expect this, or know what this was.

"My dear," he said, "you asked, and I delivered." He gestured towards the trembling figure before us. "Allow me to introduce you to Lamia Dollar, other wise known as Mrs. William Dollar."

At that, the woman bore her teeth and made an animalistic sound at Dr. Ben, like a coyote strangling on its own howl. He stepped forward, and she cowered backwards a bit, while continuing to sneer at him.

"You knew. You more than knew, didn't you..." he said to the woman.

The sounds in the room dampened, and she couldn't hear him or the woman anymore. There was a familiarity to the woman's face, to her smell, and the taste she left in the air. A wicked metallic smell, razorsharp, filled the air. She looked towards the rusty water in the sink full of dishes, and she remembered. She remembered lying in a pool of blood, not all her own. She remembered feeling the life leave her body. Her body convulsed at the memory.

"You knew," she repeated Dr. Ben's words to the woman, Lamia Dollar. "Oh sister, you knew."

Lamia held out the glass in her hand, brandishing it as either a weapon or a shield.

"We women have to choose, don't we?" she said, while shaking the glass in her direction. She shook the glass with such violence that it flew from her hand and shattered to the floor. Both women lunged towards the broken shards, as Dr. Ben quietly observed, a smile lingering on his face.

"Angel...angel...angel" she heard Dollar's gurgling voice in her head as she sliced through Lamia's throat, and felt her own throat being sliced. Dr. Ben laughed and clapped enthusiastically. Each woman crouched on the floor, throats bleeding superficially.

"Angel..." Dollar spoke clearly, his voice no longer a gurgle. He now stood beside her, not as the raw bleeding meat laid out on a table in her oubliette, but as a whole man. Three growling beasts stood between them, each holding a length of rope. One end of the rope exited from a wound in his navel. The other end was tied tightly to her ankle. If Lamia could see or hear what she was seeing, she showed no sign of it. Both women matched the growls of the beasts.

"You gave me all of this," she growled at Lamia. She grasped the rope and yanked it harshly. The beasts whimpered slightly between their growls, and Dollar stumbled towards her. "You gave me to him, sister..." she continued, "And you gave them to me." She again yanked hard on the rope, prompting the beasts to yelp. Lamia yelped too, although she never looked towards the beasts or towards Dollar at all. The wounds on Lamia's throat might have been superficial, but they were forming a puddle between her breasts.

"Ladies, I think I'll go visit our mutual friend" she heard Dr. Ben say. She yanked the rope one last time, this time while turning her body towards Dr. Ben. The beasts lunged at him as soon as she let the rope go slack again. Dollar was pulled with them, but they paid him no heed. Dr. Ben was knocked backwards and the smirk on his disgustingly smooth face was bloodied and turned to gore. The rest of him soon followed. Within minutes, nothing was left but the wet sounds of tongues lapping against the floor. Dollar stood over the beasts and watched them finish their work, then turned his eyes back towards her.

"And what do we do now, my angel" he said. She pointed at Lamia, who was now sitting on the floor, holding her throat.

"Tell me, Dollar. Who do you love?" she said, looking up at him while still pointing at Lamia.

"You, my angel," he replied.

"Oh, my darling" she said back to him. "You love no one. But I've saved you. I've saved you and given you purpose. I've cleansed you and saved you and one day you may have peace."

"The children," Lamia murmured. With that, Angel took out her phone and pushed the buttons she had once vowed to push. The girls that Dr. Ben kept hidden away would be found.

"The children," she repeated to Lamia, knowing that she had not been referring to Dr. Ben's victims. Lamia was now curled into a fetal position, breathing hard and rasping. The wounds in her throat had been deeper than she realized.

"You were the only one to live. That was my gift to you." Lamia rasped out the words as her breathing became more and more labored.

"Was I?" Angel laughed as she asked, but her laughter exhausted her. Being tethered to Dollar exhausted her. The beasts were panting in her ear. Dollar just whispered her name over and over. Lamia strangled out a few more breaths and made a few inhuman noises in her throat before she quieted completely.

"I'm sorry," Dollar said, his image and his voice even more clear now that Lamia was gone. She still held a shard of glass in her hand. She looked down at the rope bound to her ankle. She grazed it lightly with the glass, and saw that strands of it gave away to the light cut. Dollar's image wavered for a moment, then returned clearly.

"Someday, Dollar" she whispered as she squeezed the shard of glass tightly, her eyes settling on a set of stairs in the corner of the room, not going back down towards her prison, but up towards something unknown and full of light. She looked back towards the rope and squeezed the glass even more tightly, until drops of blood fell onto the rope and floor around it. "Someday soon."