Thea II

Chapter 4

4

He’s awake.

His eyes are wide open, staring into complete darkness. Does he know that Kate and I are standing right in front of him?

“Is someone there?” the man asks, his voice strained, shaky; his face dirty, his lips cracked and sore.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Kate hisses. “This is my house!”

“I’m sorry,” he says, tugging on the rope that Kate tied around his wrists. “We just needed a place to sleep.”

“Keep your mouth shut!” she snaps, slamming her foot down hard in front of him.

The man jolts and then cowers in fright. “Just let us go.”

“I told you to shut the f**k up!” Kate says.

He starts to pull frantically on the rope, but it’s fixed tightly to the radiator behind him. “Where’s my sister?” he asks, his eyes darting blindly around the dark room.

“She’s gone.”

“What do you mean ‘she’s gone’? Where?”

“She ran.”

The man shakes his head. “Rachel would never run out on me! What the f**k have you done to her?”

“I told you—she’s fine.”

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” he sobs. “You killed her, didn’t you?

Kate doesn’t answer.

“You f*****g b***h! That was my sister! She was just a kid!”

“Keep your mouth shut!” Kate snaps. “Or do I have to rip out your f*****g tongue?”

His tongue? For a split second the image disturbs me.

“What do you want from me?” the man asks, his eyes streaming with tears.

“I just need you to stay quiet until morning—and then I’ll let you go.”

“No! Tell me what you want!”

Kate kneels down in front of him, grabbing a handful of his hair.

“Please, just let me go,” the man begs, wincing as she pulls his head towards the floor.

“I f*****g warned you to keep your mouth shut!” she says, pushing his chest down with her knee.

The man covers his mouth with his hands, but Kate yanks them away.

My body starts to tighten, but I don’t know why. Am I hungry again?

Kate mounts him, her legs resting on his arms, locking them in place. She starts to squeeze the man’s cheeks, forcing his mouth to open.

I glance at my hands; they’re shaking.

The man struggles savagely, trying to move his wide-open mouth from her fingers.

My heart starts to race.

She reaches inside his mouth.

I feel sick.

She takes hold of his tongue.

I don’t want to see this.

The man closes his eyes tightly, bracing, crying.

It’s too much.

She starts to pull his tongue past his rotten teeth.

And then—

“Stop!” I scream as loud as I can.

Kate turns to me, eyes wide with shock.

“We can gag him instead,” I say with desperation, as I tear off the sleeve from my pyjama top with a single tug. I rush over to her with it, but she ignores me.

“Please, Kate.”

She glances at me, shakes her head, and then releases the man’s tongue from her fingers. He snaps his jaw shut in relief as Kate snatches the pyjama sleeve out of my hand.

“Fine,” she says, stuffing it into his mouth and then tying it around his head. She climbs off his chest and stands up. “But if he tries anything else, I’ll rip his f*****g c**k off too, and stuff both of them up his ass.”

Kate storms past me in anger, out of the room.

The man is left lying on his back, juddering, eyes streaming.

I stare at him in curiosity, unsure of what I’m meant to do next.

‘Leave him, Thea,’ Kate tells my head.

I should be afraid of her. Terrified. I should be running for the hills, screaming for help. But instead I exit the room in a numb haze, compelled to follow her footsteps again.