Rose and Poppy walked toward the bags, grinning with excitement. Act like them. I took a small step closer, making sure I could see where he was and pretended to look in the bags too. The room was too small to be as far enough away from him as I wanted. Wherever I was, he was too close. “Now, I want you all to change into the clothes in this bag and hand me the ones you have on now.”
Now? I didn’t want to look in the bag and see what he wanted us to wear. At least it wouldn’t be anything revealing or degrading—not degrading in the sexual sense anyway. Anything we had to wear to suit him was degrading.
Rose nodded. She was so obedient, although I’d seen what he did if you weren’t. “Okay,” she said and took the bag from his hand. “Come on, girls.” I walked into the bedroom in shock. Were we really doing this? Rose tipped the bag upside down and four outfits fell out. They were all exactly the same. Smart gray trousers, a dusty pink high-neckline camisole, and matching pink cardigan. It looked like something you would wear to work.
“All the same,” Poppy said, stating the bloody obvious. Was that what he wanted now, us to match too?
“Let’s just change quickly,” Rose replied. “They’re all the same size, just grab one.”
I picked one set up and checked the label—size ten. Why didn’t he just get the size we wore? Oh God, were we all supposed to be this size?
“You look beautiful, girls,” he said, smiling at us as we walked back into the main room. Psycho, psycho, psycho!
Rose beamed. “Thank you, Clover, and thank you for the clothes.” I wanted to grab her and shake her. She either needed some serious medical help or an Oscar.
Clover stepped forward, took Rose’s hand, and kissed her knuckles. “You’re very welcome.” My stomach turned for her, but she didn’t flinch.
“Lily,” he said, turning to me. “Don’t worry. We’ll soon have your weight to where it should be.”
To where it should be. I clenched my jaw and forced a smile. There was no way I wanted to put on weight, especially not for him. If he wanted me bigger, I wanted to be smaller.
“And, Poppy, you look incredible too.”
She bowed her head. “Thank you.”
He clapped his hands together, looking incredibly pleased with himself. “Well, shall we eat?”
***
I shoved the stupid needle through the stupid hole, or whatever the hell Rose called it, and the whole thing came undone—again! I wanted a distraction, not something that was going to make me want to hang myself. “I’m done with this,” I growled and threw it to the floor.
“Lily, you’ll get there,” Rose said and laughed.
“I don’t want to get there. I. Want. To. Go. Home!”
Rose looked at Poppy. “I think we should give it to her.”
“Give me what?” I snapped.
“Clover bought a paper. It was in one of the bags. We didn’t want to give it to you yet because you were so upset earlier, and we didn’t want to make it worse,” Poppy explained.
I sat forward, my eyes widening. “Where is it?”
“I’ll get it.” Poppy walked into the bedroom and came back with a national newspaper. “Here.”
I grabbed it from her and turned it over to the front page. My heart stopped. Lewis. It was a picture of us both, taken in the spring when we went to Alton Towers theme park. The headline and article faded into nothing and all that I could see was his face. He looked so happy with a big smile that lit up his eyes. His arm was around me and his head tilted toward mine. Suddenly wearing clothes for a psychopath didn’t bother me as much. I could do that if it meant I had a chance of seeing Lewis again.
I was so absorbed in the paper that I didn’t notice he had come back until I heard a deafening scream. I jumped in shock and looked up to see him shove a girl down the stairs. She fell halfway down and landed in a heap at the bottom. I clutched the newspaper to my chest.
He stood above her, hovering over her skinny frame. “Filth,” he spat. “Filthy whore!” Like when he said bastard, whore didn’t sound like his word; it was like when you hear a ten-year-old call someone hot. Grabbing the girl’s hair, he yanked her up. She screamed in protest, gripping her long dark hair.
“Let me go. Please, let me go,” she begged and sobbed violently.
“Shut up,” he screamed and slammed her back against the wall. “Filthy whore,” he repeated.
My heart beat so loud I could barely hear what he was saying. “Poppy,” I whimpered, pressing my body into hers. I almost felt safe; it reminded me of when I was little and I hid against my mum’s body at the firework display.
“Shh,” she whispered.
He pinned her against the wall and she cried out in pain. “No, please.”
“Shut up, just shut up.” She cried and turned her head to the side as Clover leaned in and spoke. “People like you make me sick.”
“Please let me go. I won’t say anything.” Tears streamed down her face, making her makeup run.
“You’re disgusting. You’re all disgusting.”
“I-I’m sorry. Please, let me go.” He shook his head and pulled a knife out of his pocket. I gasped.
I watched the scene in horror, unable to look away. She sobbed loudly, desperately, and shook violently. “Please, no, please.”