Dawn of Forever (Jack & Jill 3)

It didn’t take long to figure out her game. Psycho Bitch had no intention of physically torturing Jillian. It was all about the mind games. The ache in her heart from the mention of both Luke and AJ had to be ignored. Jillian knew her captor waited for her to break. She would wait a long time. The memories of Luke and AJ only made her stronger.

“Who was your husband?”

She sighed. “We’ll get to that before too much longer. He’ll be joining us. Then we can really get all the details.” Fake-nailed fingers combed through her red, wet hair.

She showered while Jillian slept in her own piss. That alone set her apart from Four. He didn’t shower. Drugs. Alcohol. Cutting. That was it.

“I haven’t decided on all the party guests quite yet. You, of course, are the guest of honor. Jackson should join us too. Don’t you think? Maybe I can have a piano hauled down here and he can play the Doomsday music. After I fuck him, of course. He is unquestionably the best sex I’ve ever had. Your brother knows what he’s doing.” Another cackle escaped her lips that were too big for her face. “The crazy part is he didn’t even know who I was when he fucked me against the locked bathroom door of the club.”

An inward grimace tugged at Jillian’s stomach that was already eating itself alive. She hated the reminder of Jude and his past. A past she never fully understood. Jessica had an explanation for her behavior. Jude never did, or so she always assumed.

“This has really turned into a family affair, hasn’t it? You, Sunny, and my husband. Jackson and I. Maybe I should have gone after your father too. He would have been a harder sell because he actually loved your mom. I think. It’s hard to say. I mean … the man married a woman who was in love with another man. He had to know she didn’t love him. Then again, she was pregnant with his babies. I guess he thought she’d eventually love him the way he loved her.”

The tape cut into Jillian’s skin as she tugged against it. Psycho Bitch would die for saying that to her. A lie. It had to be a lie. The foundation for which she had worked so hard to build her sanity, her life with Luke, was the desire to find a love like her parents’. The devil before her kept crashing into that foundation, leaving Jillian on the edge of collapsing.

“I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ll finish that later. Now where was I?” She tapped her fake nail on her lip. “Oh, yes, Luke. I think he should definitely join us. I heard he and Agent McGraw had quite the run-in after your brief reunion in Houston.”

“You’re going to die. I will sacrifice my own life to make it happen. But I swear to God if you lay a finger on Luke, I will kill you so fucking slowly you’ll regret the first breath you ever took.”

“Ha! That’s … wow. Please don’t swear to God. Not until you’ve repented your sins.”

She wasn’t without a few cracks of her own. Jillian could almost feel the race of her captor’s pulse. As much as she tried to wield her intelligence as the ultimate weapon, Jillian made her nervous. No amount of intelligence could overcome fear.

“I’m going to cut off your lying tongue and make you swallow it. Then I’m going to carve every Bible quote you sent me into your skin. If you repent, I’ll show mercy and cut your heart out first. If you don’t, I’ll dissect your body, leaving your heart for last.”

Psycho Bitch cleared her throat, breaking eye contact first. “I think I gave you too much sedative. It’s messing with your perception of reality. One of us is restrained with duct tape the other is not.”

“Then you’d better kill me before I show you my Houdini trick.”

“I think we’re done talking.” Psycho Bitch stood, fists clenched a moment before snatching a syringe off the table and charging towards Jillian. Her hands fumbled the cap, each breath shallow and labored.

“You can’t even look me in the eye. I don’t think you have what it takes to kill someone.”

The jittery, wheezing woman paused. The syringe tip just millimeters away from the IV line.

The mouse inched closer to the trap. “I can and will kill—FUCK!” Blood flowed like striking oil as her captor covered her broken nose, tumbling backward on to her butt.

Jillian dismissed the instant headache she gave herself and the blood trickling down to her own nose and into the corner of her eye. The satisfaction of seeing the bitch curled up on her side, moaning like a woman in labor, was worth it.

“I’ve dealt with broken noses before. Why don’t you let me take a look, sweetie?”