Page 2 of Z For Butterfly Man
He chuckles as he moves away.
“Who was paying me those visits, you or Blake, or did you and your old partner take turns,Jacob?”
“I’ve always loved your brain, my queen, and your way with words. You always craft the right questions to find the truth.” He sets a small wooden case on a bench close to the table where I’m displayed. “But it’s not time for my truth, darling.” The lid opens with a soft click, revealing neat rows of long, polished silver pins. They gleam like slivers of ice when they catch the light. “It’s time for yours.”
My heart lurches hard enough to hurt. I try to drag in air, to will blood back into my arms, but my body stays stubborn and heavy. “What do you mean… What are you going to do with those pins?”
“I need you very still for this.”
“For what?”
He selects one pin and holds it up. The light slides along its sharp length. The distorted voice softens into something reverent. “For the moment you finally understand all that running was never going to work. It just made the hunt sweeter.” His gloved hand glides along my jaw and my collarbone, feather-light yet obscene. “You were always meant for this, Reagan. You were always meant for me.”
He rearranges my hair, aligning it in a certain way with my right arm. I jerk every part of me that can move and yell as loud as I can.
“Really? I’m sure you’ve gathered by now that no one can hear you here, Reagan. You’re just wasting your energy…and ruining my mood.” He pinches the flesh of my shoulder. “If you stay still, it won’t hurt that much.”
“Get away from me.”
Shaking his head, he tsks. Then he stares at me for what seems like an eternity before driving the pin into my shoulder, nailing me to the table.
I scream my heart out.
The back of his glove brushes my forehead. “One down.”
CHAPTER 2
Reagan
My mother scrunches her nose at the bloodstain on my bed sheet and then at me. Then she brings out a needle from her pocket. “You see that? I’ll sew you up with it if you ever let someone near you. Do you hear me, you little shit?”
I pee myself a little as she jabs the needle my way. I’m getting myself into more trouble, soiling my pajamas. She’s going to be more furious now that it isn’t only pee staining my clothes. But I can’t help it, just like I couldn’t help having my first period in the middle of my sleep.
“Just what I fucking needed.” She spits in my face. “Another whore in my house, one who can get fucking pregnant.”
My father, the first whore in her house, who cheated on her after she gave birth to me—one of my many faults—is a man, but I, a whore by extension, have ovaries and a uterus. Another one of my many faults. According to Mrs. Nashville, my biology teacher, once their cycle starts, human females will have a fully functional reproductive system and can get pregnant right after their first period.
“You and your disgusting daddy belong in hell.” She advances, the needle an inch away from my waist. “Maybe I’ll just sew that stinky hole between your legs shut right now and save myself whatever filth you’re bound to bring in.”
I run for the door, but she grabs me from behind. “Where do you think you’re going, you dirty whore?”
She yanks my hair so hard I fall to her feet. I crawl toward the door, but she practically sits on me, her two hundred pounds of drunken malice and vendetta splitting my back. She pulls at my pants until they come off my bottom, the needle poking me in my side, my back and my butt cheeks.
Squirming, biting down on the pain so that I won’t upset her more with the sound of my crying, I beg her to let me go. I’m not a whore, and I have no intention of becoming one. I’m only thirteen and have never had a boyfriend. No boy wants to have anything to do with me anyway.
My words fall on deaf ears. She never listens. Why do I bother? I should have learned by now that this woman would never have an ounce of motherly love or even simple human mercy for me. I’m the enemy who lost without ever being given a chance at a fair fight. A prisoner of a war I’ve never chosen. A captive to be tortured for every breath I take.
When she rips my panties off my butt and flips me over, the needle glints in her hand, stabbing the little space left between it and my vagina. That’s when I dare scream out the terror flooding me.
“Shut up, you whore!” Her backhand smacks me. I taste blood.
“Please, Mom, I’m sorry.” My fingers dig into the waist of my pants in an attempt to pull them up before she pierces me with the needle, but it’s too late. The pointy edge pinches my flesh. “I’m sorry! Please, I didn’t do anything. I’ll wash the sheets and my pajamas myself. I won’t make any more messes. Please don’t hurt me.”
“Shut the fuck up, you stinky shit.” Her nose wrinkles in disgust. “Did you pee yourself?”
Tears roll down to my temples against my will. That will earn me another punishment. I’m too scared to care. My mother is spearing my vulva with a needle, mutilating me forever, andthere’s nothing I can do to stop her. I could scream again, but no one is coming to help, not even my father downstairs, who’s pretending not to hear me. I could try to fight back, kick her, slap her, but I’m only a scrawny child against a monster her size.
Her weight crushes me, a confirmation. I can barely breathe. Every plea I make vanishes into the stale air of the room, squashed by her rage. My arms tremble. I feel smaller than ever, a shadow pressed into the floor.
