Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LYLA

I try not to waggle my ass back and forth too much. While I love to toy with Neo and his dark sensibilities, I know it's not wise to goad him.

"When we got here, I told you I was in charge of this case, right?" Neo asks, and I hear his blade unsheathe from his leather holster. A sound I've heard a hundred times over.

Music to my fucked-up ears.

"Stupid girl, I'm not in the fucking mood for your games."

"Yes, you did," I answer, complying with the demand in his tone.

"Well, then, why do you need to question my authority at every turn?" he asks.

The pinch of his blade's tip causes me to hiss and shift on my hands and knees. When he leans over me to teasingly lick the edges of my ear, he presses the blade in harder. I don't know if he's drawn blood or not.

I don't care .

My body is still sore from how savagely he fucked me in the woods beyond the asylum earlier. Still, a bottomless quiver in my veins causes adrenaline and dopamine to flood my nervous system and liven my core all over again. As his blade threatens to split the flesh open, I grow wetter.

"Tell me, stupid love. Is the reason you push my buttons because you like to be punished? Or is it the need to dominate me?" he whispers, and I bite my bottom lip to fight a whimper.

I can't help the consuming shiver that races down the highway of my spine, and it drives the tip of his blade to pierce the skin where he has it pressing against my hip.

I moan, and he flicks his eyes down toward the drops of blood that bead as he hisses. "Fuck, Lyla. This is the part of you that has always entranced me. You bleed so fucking pretty for me."

"Neo," I breathe, the overwhelming sensation of hormones and delirium making me shaky on my hands and knees.

"Where they scream when I cut them, plead with me for their pitiful lives, you hand yours over to me like you don't care to live. It's fucking intoxicating," he growls, nipping the lobe of my ear.

My eyes close, my mouth dropping open to let an exhale spill out.

"I've watched you die for me more than a few times, stupid girl, and killed you myself. Nothing is more mind-blowing, however, than watching you like this and hearing your cries of pleasure. Watching you toe the line of hell, knowing the Devil is salivating to have you down there with him. Because you, my stupid, stupid girl, are awe-inspiring. You're the stuff of fucking legends. You're the kind of woman they write books about—ones where men fall on their knees to worship you."

His words have my breathing ragged, and I know my pupils are blown wide as I try, and fail, at fixing my gaze on something solid near the covered window across from the bed. Anything solid.

A tether.

An anchor.

"But you're not theirs, are you? You're the Butcher's girl."

"I'm all yours."

He moans, turning my face with his blade and briefly capturing my lips with his. "If you know who you belong to, why do you misbehave?"

I whimper as he disappears behind me, trying to turn to see what he's going to do with the weapon in his hand.

"Eyes front. I didn't permit you to look at me!"

I snap to attention, fear racing my skin like a chilly wind, causing goosebumps to well in its wake.

Something cold drips between my ass cheeks, and my breathing grows erratic.

I want to watch him.

I want to see the madness stretching and growing in his eyes.

"Though I don't think you'll ever behave as I wish. I'll enjoy reprimanding you for your misbehaviors. I find I'm addicted to it, stupid girl."

"Neo, please," I beg, not knowing what I'm praying for.

"Lay on your front and spread your ass cheeks."

His command is curt, and his tone gives me no room to argue .

I lie down, reaching back to spread my ass cheeks apart as I was told to.

When the cold, bulbous end of the nineteen-inch knife Neo loves to carry grazes my asshole, I nearly leap off the bed. He'd told me it was a blade manufactured since the 1800s and told me its name. But all I know is that the rounded end of the hilt is far larger than the tiny puckered hole he is rubbing it against.

"I'm going to fuck this hole with my knife, and then I'm going to fuck it with my cock. And I don't want to hear a peep from you; in fact…" he trails off as I hear the sound of him removing his belt from the pants he'd tossed aside.

My suspicion is confirmed when his belt wraps around my throat, and he takes the tail to hold from behind.

"You look fucking beautiful on a leash, stupid girl. Maybe I'll get you one."

I moan the best I can as he teases the rounded end of the hilt in and out of my ass until it finally pops inside easily.

The stretch burns, but I internalize the pain and keep my lips sealed. It'll only intensify my pleasure if I can keep quiet.

Neo shoves it deeper and deeper, and it's not long until he's fucking me with the hilt, burying it inside my ass as I lift my hips the best I can to get it deeper.

My pussy throbs along with my pulse, empty and greedy.

Neo is true to his word, though.

I know he's going to give me just what he threatened.

While he holds the belt behind me, he doesn't tug it too tight, so I can still breathe. I almost wish he would pull it taut, as I've practically cried out his name a few times .

"Greedy little whore, you're so desperate to come that you're riding my blade?"

I don't know if I'm allowed to answer, so I keep silent in obedience and lift my knees, digging them into the bed so he can fuck me harder. Deeper.

"Fuck, Lyla."

When the hilt of the knife pulls out, Neo wastes no time to shove his cock inside my ass.

The stretch and burn return tenfold because of his size, and I must stop a scream from ripping free.

Now, he loses himself, forgetting about the pressure on the belt and tugging it tight for leverage.

My head snaps back, bopping as he fucks my ass hard and fast.

"You're going to remember this the next time you think about disobeying me, stupid girl."

He's not talking to me, he's inflating his sexual ego, and as I come apart at the seams, I don't fucking mind a bit.

My pussy gushes as I come, muscles in my asshole quivering around his cock as I hear him grunting.

He's trying to last.

The edges of my vision are blurring, and speckles of light fill them as the belt cuts off my air and circulation.

By the time Neo takes the tip of his blade and slashes it across my ass cheek, my vision is tunneling.

It doesn't stop me from coming again, though.

"Fuck, stupid girl. Take all my cum up your ass. Good… girl… fuck," he sputters, as his cum spills into my ass, causing a slight sting as it fills me.

He quickly loosens the belt and flips me over, devouring my mouth with his, his cock still leaking cum as it slides through my swollen pussy lips.

"Fuck," he says, tipping my chin back and looking at the ligature mark around my neck. "If I could keep you looking like this…"

"You can," I whisper, unable to find my voice.

He narrows his eyes at me in question.

"I belong to you, Butcher. You can mark me in any way you want to."

He smirks. "Maybe I'll collar you," he jokes.

But my breathing hitches, and he notices the change.

He notices everything.

It's one facet of him I'm obsessed with.

"Oh, would my stupid girl like to be collared?"

I bite my bottom lip, nodding. For a flash, I'm the nurse who's crawling to him with his pills on my tongue all over again—nervous to admit my fetishes and fantasies.

"You know I love to give you whatever you want, wife."

I silently whimper as he kisses me again. This time, though, it's long and drawn out. Sweet.

"We're going to need to put some stitches in your ass cheek," Neo says, smirking as I realize I've been lying here bleeding through the hotel sheets.

When we leave, they'll wonder what happened here.

But they'll clean the mattress and wipe the evidence right under the rug.

"We'd better get to it, then. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow," I say with a yawn.

"Flip over. I'll get my kit."

I do so and don't fight my heavy lids as they close.

Tomorrow, we have to go back to the reality of the case. Tonight, however, we're just the Butcher and his stupid girl, fucking to the point of pain.

And blood.

The house is massive.

If there was any doubt that the Hatts were well off before, it's gone now that I'm lurking in the dark behind Neo.

No one's home yet, but Neo doesn't want to draw attention to the house by having the light on. It gives our little stalking session an ambiance, I'll admit.

"Let's check the bedroom," Neo calls over his shoulder, and I nod even though he can't see me.

For an hour, we shift through belongings. Even meticulously check Carl's desk.

We're about to give up when my small flashlight beam finds the words ‘Ada's punishments' scrawled on the tab of a folder in the bottom right drawer of the desk.

"Neo," I whisper, looking up at him where he's closing the small closet to my right.

"Got something?"

I open the folder, finding the first words that read: first time using toilet cleaner in food. Ada refused to eat more than a few bites; I will update the results.

Tears well in my eyes as I look back at Neo and nod.

The sounds of people entering the dwelling filter through the open door, and Neo turns to me and inclines his head toward my light. I click it off, soundlessly closing the drawer before following him down the hall and into the nearly empty closet in the first-floor guest room.

Since my time at the asylum with Neo, I haven't felt things like fear and sadness. This, however, has my chest burning with emotion so strong that it's hard to swallow past.

Because the man pressing up against my back as I stare at the back of the door through the dark space of the closet has the same past as these children have—as Ada has.

My heart is breaking to bits as tears race down my face.

My hand grips the folder tight, causing a burn on my forearm as I envision Neo's mother standing over him, scolding him, forcing him to eat food laced with poison.

Anger engulfs me like the walls I've been keeping around my heart and soul, the ones I erected in that fucking asylum when I crawled across the floor to Neo, have broken. The dam's wall perforates, thin streams of water mixed with my rage spilling through as the fractures open up more significantly to let even more through until the entire wall crumbles and my body shakes.

"Stupid girl, it's going to be alright," Neo whispers against my ear, his hands splaying against my stomach as his steadiness calms the quakes.

"This is… we have to save her. I don't care if she's as fucked-up as we are, Neo."

I know he hears the tears in my voice. Neo Wade has a penetrating perception that doesn't miss a detail. Ever.

"The way you saved me?" he asks.

It stops my pulse from pounding so loud as I turn in his arms and try to find his eyes in the dark closet.

"I didn't save you, Neo."

"Didn't you?" His forehead presses against mine, and we both simply breathe as the moment drawls on between us. "You allow me to be myself, even with all she did to me. Even though she turned me into the Butcher, you loved me. You crawled to me. You bled for me. If there's a way to save the damned, Lyla Wade will do it," he finishes, and fresh tears trek down my cheeks at his words.

I hope his words ring true.

Because no one deserves to live how the Hatt children or Neo Wade have.

"Open the folder and turn on the light," Neo whispers, giving me space to do so by backing away from me.

Even though I've read all I needed to, I do as I'm told, because the Butcher's girl is and always will be one thing.

Obedient to her maker.