In the House of Spite

Snow.

Christmas had come and gone.

Another year.

If it weren't for all the locks, the security bars, and the overall sense of dread, Pearl would've called the passing time quite enjoyable. She'd always been safe and cared for, a coddled little darling.

Snow was falling. The ground was still highly visible. Pearl had opened the blinds of one window near her gaming desk in the living room. She wanted to see the snow. It made her think of silly romantic things. Maybe when all this nonsense was over, Darren would like to walk with her in the snow. If it got thick enough, they might make snow angels. Then hot chocolate would be sipped and hot kisses would be given.

Baby Blue went over to a spot under the desk, where Pearl's socked feet were. He laid down there, touching one of those feet with his warm, white fur. Pearl liked it when he did something like this.

After a while, though, Baby Blue suddenly growled, his body shuddering against her foot. Then he jumped out of his spot, running up to a window some distance away. He started barking. Gunner went down from one of the couches and joined his companion.

They both barked, growled, spat, and even hissed. Pearl paused her game and left her seat. She closed the blinds near her. Then she went over to the dogs. They looked up at her just long enough to meet her eyes. After that it was back to barking.

Pearl used her fingers to push the curtains away. Her free hand held one of the blades in the blinds just a bit down so she could look outside.

Her eyes popped. She almost cried out.

Aaron the Beast.

Standing in the backyard, snowflakes dusting his dark fur.

He was looking at the house with the same aesthetic of a curious jumping spider peeking out at something from behind a curled leaf or something. Essentially, while he wasn't doing anything particularly harmful, Pearl knew he could pounce on anything.

His dark eyes rolled in her direction.

Yep. He saw the crease in the blade. He knew she was right there.

Pearl released the blade and closed the curtains.

She scraped her phone off the desk and ran upstairs, where she kept her gun. She called out the dogs' names, hoping they'd listen. "Baby Blue! Gunner! Come! Come!"

Pearl stood at the bedroom door, waiting. Soon, the dogs hushed and ran up. They zoomed into the room. Good. Pearl closed the door and turned the knob's lock.

A phone call to Darren had to be made. The dogs started barking again. Pearl wanted to make them shut up, but she didn't want to scold them for doing exactly what she wanted them to do. Darren would just have to deal with the noise.

He didn't answer. Fair. Everybody got busy sometimes. Pearl called again. Yes! He answered!

"Baby? Is everything okay?"

"Aaron's here! I saw him! Claws and teeth and everything!"

"What?! Stay inside!"

She sat down on the bed and watched the dogs run around and holler. Baby Blue used the bed like a platform for his leaps. "Everything's locked up. I'm in the bedroom with the dogs."

"Do you know what he's doing?"

"No. Last I saw he was just standing outside. I think he knows I'm in here."

She heard his feet stomping on a tiled floor through the phone. Then she heard his keys clang and jingle. "Fuck! Don't leave the house! I'm coming!"

"Okay."

He hung up. Pearl stood up, opened a pack of bullets, and loaded her gun. She kept her fingers away from the trigger and the business end away from the dogs. She wanted to talk to the dogs. "Hey, everything will be okay." That's what she wanted to say, but she didn't say it. She was the complete opposite of the dogs, quiet. The only reason she wasn't staying on the bed was because Baby Blue kept jumping on it, which might cause an accidental shot.

She stayed in the bedroom for less than twenty minutes. During this time, Pearl chose not to look through any windows. The dogs eventually quieted down. They likely got tired of freaking out. Still nervous, however, they huddled together on top of the bed, near the foot.

When Pearl's legs started hurting, she chose to sit on the floor. It was less likely to have an accident on the firm surface. She had no idea what Aaron/Shawn was up to. She couldn't hear anything. Maybe he was prowling around. Maybe he was staying in place, staring at the windows. Whatever he was doing, Pearl wasn't about to investigate.

Eventually, the dogs perked up, their tails cheerfully wagging. Then, Pearl got a text from Darren's phone.

"I'm here. I'm going to look around."

It was possible that Reese would have to look around too.

Pearl was fairly certain that both Reese and Aaron were much better at detecting living things, keen sense of smell and hearing, and all the other nice perks.

The dogs went up to the locked bedroom door and whined. Baby Blue even pawed at the wood. Pearl told them with a gentle tone, "You'll have to wait. Daddy will be here soon."

Gunner turned his head to give her one of his rare, "please, oh please" looks. Baby Blue made an extra sympathetic whimper.

Pearl sighed and said, "Not now."

Some more minutes passed, and she got another text from Darren. "He's not here. Unlock the front door."

Pearl unloaded her gun. Then she unlocked the bedroom door. The dogs ran off. Pearl hurried to keep up with them. When the dogs were at the front door, they looked playful. They knew that whoever was behind that door was certainly not a stranger. It was their Daddy.

She took away the security bar and unlocked the door. Darren was right there. His face was bitter, but he petted the dogs and said hello. While he was inside, locking everything back up, he said, "He went and fucked off somewhere."

Hugging herself and pouting a bit, Pearl said, "I'm sorry to make you come home early over nothing."

"This wasn't nothing," the man said as he crouched down to rub Gunner's cheeks with his fingertips. "It was something. He was here." He looked almost old, really. There were so many lines in his face. His lips even seemed thinner.

"But he's gone now," Pearl said.

"Doesn't matter." Darren turned to affectionately scratch at Baby Blue's chin. "He was here." He got up and pulled off is coat, hung it on a wall hook, and pulled sweaty shirt away. "I'm going to take a shower."

Pearl nodded and took his shirt. It reeked, but she was used to such things. She watched him kick away his shows, undo his belt, and hang said belt over another hook on a wall. Then he pulled his jeans and underwear off and rather angrily tossed them to the floor. Except for the belt, Pearl gathered these things up in her arms and carried them up to the bedroom, the same direction Darren was padding off in.

He was in the bathroom, running water in the shower and taking off his socks, when Pearl put her pile in a laundry basket. She looked over her shoulder and saw Darren trying to reach a spot on his back. Pearl stepped up to him and carefully kneaded her fist into that bit of muscle he couldn't quite get to. With a low growl, Darren rotated his shoulders and said thank you. Then he stepped into the shower.

Pearl stood there for a moment, staring at the shower curtain. It was new one, white with blue horizontal stripes near the bottom. It almost made her think of Mother Teresa. Her fingers weaved together before her belly. Her lower lip stuck out.

Shouldn't he be more upset with her?

Losing productive time just to come home to nothing much?

Pearl had known a few guys that would've been furious.

Soon she had to leave. She knew it. Awkwardly standing in the bathroom for no reason would've risen a flag for the man in the shower, and that would've truly upset him. Pearl turned around and left.

Downstairs, she played a gentle fetch game with Gunner in the kitchen. It was simple but he was happy to be involved. Baby Blue sat nearby and followed the toy's movements, his head turning one way and then the other. Eventually it was his turn to play fetch while Gunner relaxed in the living room.

Darren's bare feet slapped into the kitchen after a while. He was wearing sweatpants and a mop of damp curls. His face seemed blank. Something about Pearl's appearance must've been startling, however, because the blankness gave way to a tight grimace. As Pearl ended the fetching game, giving Baby Blue the toy, Darren stepped over and put a palm on her shoulder.

"You got that look," he said with a weighty tone.

"What look?" she said as she moved out from under the large hand.

He stepped over again just to return that hand. His fingers put some extra pressure there. That lovable, soapy water smell clung to his skin and hair. "That worried look. You're droopy and jittery."

Jittery? Since when?

Pearl put her hands together.

She blinked and looked down.

Oh, she was shaking a little. Fair enough.

"I need to drink more water," she said quite hazily.

"Silly Girl."

Darren hugged her closely. Pearl's body seemed to lose a bit of weight, or that's how she felt. She slid her hands up Darren's waist and to his rib cage. Her cheek was there too.

He said to her, "It's okay now. Don't worry about it anymore."

He really wasn't upset with her at all.

"I really am silly," Pearl mumbled.

"That's okay." He ran his fingers through her ponytail's length. "Let's go to bed."

Pearl didn't need to be dragged away. She followed with a skip in her gait.

***

The snow was gone, but it was still quite cold.

They were grocery shopping.

As they walked down the aisles, even when they stopped to get something, Pearl's index finger was hooked in one of Darren's belt loops. His lack of a belt made it a bit easier.

She could hear the occasional whining in his belly. He said he wasn't hungry. Whenever she looked up at his face, she saw pain.

"I need to use the restroom," he said very urgently at one point.

Pearl had to quicken her pace. The man almost pushed the shopping cart into a wall once they were at the bathrooms. Pearl used her free hand to stabilize the cart.

Darren had once told her that whenever he had to go to a men's restroom in public, she was supposed to go into the women's restroom. It was better than being out in the open, all alone. It didn't matter much to him that they were in a brightly lit, public place. Anything could happen.

She didn't think she needed to pee, but she was able to force herself to do it. Otherwise, she'd have stood around near the exit and played on her phone. After she washed her hands, she went to that spot and took her phone out. Darren's voice was supposed to signal her to peek out and look for him. He was wearing the coat she'd bought her, blue jeans, and badass looking biker boots with metal tips. He wasn't a biker at all, though.

As her finger slid a webpage around, Pearl assumed the poor man was really having an adventure in the men's restroom. She pitied him.

"Pearlie?"

She put her phone away and bounced on out of the bathroom. Darren was there, and although he looked much more comfortable he didn't seem happy either. In fact, he was frowning. He put an arm around her waist, pulling her close, and murmured, "I saw him. We need to go, now."

The groceries needed to be forgotten. No time for them. She clung to him. He held her so tightly that she didn't need to hook into his belt loop. Pearl tried to soothe her nerves by putting her nose in Darren's coat and taking some sniffs.

A few sniffs and a few steps on, and Pearl made a "hm?" sort of noise in her throat.

Then, as her heart struggled and her breath hitched, she tried to get away.

The coat smelled a bit too brand new.

He certainly didn't let her go. In fact, he squished her to him, folding her arms against his body. "What's wrong?"

Her mouth opened to scream. As he stopped in his tracks, the man's free hand slapped onto her lips, and he looked down at her with narrowed eyes. "You think I'm that asshole?" he whispered.

Pearl thought to bite his fingers, but then she thought she didn't want this guy to think he should claw her organs out of her. Darren had always warned her. Don't fucking piss this guy off! Who knows what he'll do?! Keep your temper down!!

But then the man rolled his eyes and shook his hair with a few jerky movements of his head. "Look in my hair," he said.

The daisy tattoo!!

He loosened his grip just enough to let her reach up to search through the thick hair.

It was there! Right where it was meant to be!

Pearl sighed and relaxed, or she did as much as she could under the circumstances.

Her imagination was playing with her anxious mood. That's all.

The couple ignored the tense expression of a lone shopper that had noticed the scene. Pearl put on the best smile she could find. They walked out of the grocery store.

Out of the grocery store ...

There weren't many cars in the parking lot. It was a sleepy day.

She saw the truck.

He didn't steer her there.

She tried to struggle again.

Too late.

He picked her up like an unwilling bride and tossed her into the back of a strange van, where a bunch of men held her down.

***

The strange men didn't need to hold her down for long. They all had guns. Pearl imagined those guns hadn't been legally purchased nor given. The only man she had familiarity with was Shawn the Shithead. He was casually sitting with a single leg bent up. The space was terribly cramped. If Shawn hadn't decided to hold her to him like she was a favorite body pillow then she'd have ended up tangled with those other men. She was nearly grateful for the few inches of free space she got on one side.

Her mind was active but temporarily locked in submission mode. Whatever this creep wanted her to do, she'd probably do it.

Yet she still found the time to silently rebuke herself. It was obvious that Shawn had gotten a hold of the tattoo artist Darren had gone to. Then he got a tattoo that matched Darren's. It was such a tiny thing. It wouldn't have taken long at all. She should've screamed when she'd realized that coat didn't smell right.

The van's interior, oddly enough, smelled clean. Pearl wondered if that was because of Shawn. Maybe he just didn't like that well-known, clinging smoke smell. Darren didn't, after all. She looked around quite a few times. The men looked pretty irritated, reminding her of when Reese needed to come out and Darren got ill. One man was popping hard candies like they were addictive. One man was chewing an unholy amount of minty gum. The rest seemed to be making do with sips from water bottles or e-cigs with no detectable scents.

Conversations in Spanish were had. Shawn was an active participant. It made sense that he'd learn Spanish. Pearl wasn't shocked by that. She didn't understand most of it, but she was pretty sure that everyone was calm and content.

One interesting oddity was how none of those other men wanted to look her in her eyes. Whenever they did so, even if only for a second, they'd quickly look away. They'd talk about her, or they'd seem to talk about her, but they didn't seem to want to address her.

Where exactly the group was headed, Pearl couldn't say. Not even Shawn was talking to her, although he was physically affectionate, stroking her arm with his fingers and sometimes rubbing his nose in her hair. He even held onto her purse, keeping it on both their thighs. It was a sort of protectiveness she both appreciated and feared. The only reason the other monsters didn't eat her alive was because an even scarier monster had her under his claws.

Pearl thought it wouldn't matter what she'd say. They wouldn't let her go. They probably wouldn't even tell her anything useful. She was also worried that if she was viewed as annoying, she might get hurt. Shawn might even decide that whatever he wanted from her wasn't worth the trouble.

At least it wasn't cold. The heating in the vehicle combined with all the body heat made the space almost cozy.

When the van finally stopped, and Shawn gently said to her, "Time to get out," Pearl exited with everyone.

They were out in the woods, as was often the case. The building they stood near was a typical fancy house. Not a mansion, just big and nice. It was a little bit smaller than the big house Shawn had tried to impress Pearl with, but it was still something out of a magazine.

When Shawn escorted Pearl to the front porch and the front door, she noticed that all the extra men lingered outside to light up real cigarettes.

The interior of the house seemed a bit lived in, but otherwise clean and pleasant. A possibly Central American or Mexican woman was inside, vacuuming. She might've been a maid/housekeeper, a more casual one as Pearl had once been. Her clothing was casual.

Shawn curtly told the maid something in Spanish. She turned off the vacuum cleaner and responded with an emotionless expression. Shawn then looked down at Pearl and said, "This is Catalina." He opened her purse up to search inside. It didn't take long for him to pick out her cell phone and stick it in a pocket of his. He did it so smoothly, yet also in the most obvious way. He must've really wanted her to notice him doing it. "Don't worry about her," he went on in an easygoing voice. "She's nice. She'll get you your food when she's around."

He gripped Pearl's arm just hard enough to make her wince. Then he led her off to a set of stairs. He took her to a bedroom that didn't seem to be a master's room, but there was a connected bathroom. It looked like nobody had ever, ever lived in this area, but there was plenty of stuff. There was a desk with a gaming PC, a bookshelf loaded with novels and coloring materials, some puzzles and board games, a little heater, a pair of cozy slippers, and many other nice things.

None of these things interested Pearl very much. She was concerned with the first thing she saw before the door was opened. Something on the door itself.

A sliding lock.

On the outside.

Her stomach soured as she understood she really was going to be locked away.

Shawn planted her behind on the perfectly made bed and put her now phone-less purse next to her. Then he patted the top of her head and asked, "Are you hungry?"

Pearl was feeling like she needed to eat soon. "I guess so." Her voice was gritty.

"Okay, I'll tell Catalina to get you a sandwich and chips. See you later."

He put an arm around her and rubbed in her head like he wanted to give her a lighter version of a noogie. Then he exited the room. Pearl heard the sliding lock being put in place.

She sneezed.

Hm? When did her throat start burning?

Pearl couldn't say, exactly.

She quickly learned she couldn't access any Internet through the PC. There were quite a few games installed, though. There was a small window in the bedroom. She pulled back some curtains and opened a set of blinds to look through it.

There was no safe way to climb out and get to the ground, although she did consider the almost mythical concept of knotting bedsheets together to use as a rope. When she searched everything, including a bare closet, she found that there weren't enough sheets to make a rope. She also worried that such a thing would rip and tear under her weight anyway.

Eventually, the door was knocked on from outside, and she heard a thick, accented voice say, "Want some food?" It seemed to be Catalina. Pearl walked up to the door and said yes. The door was unlocked and opened. It was indeed Catalina. She handed her a plate with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, toasted bread, and a pile of pizza flavored Pringles chips. She also gave her a can of Yoo-Hoo. The door was closed and locked again. Pearl sighed and sat at her desk, keeping the meal a good distance away from the computer.

The drink only soothed her throat for a handful of seconds. She thought she inhaled a bit of the chocolate stuff, which made her cough like mad, but she found herself coughing quite a few minutes after she'd eaten everything. When there was more knocking at the door, she heard Catalina ask, "You okay?"