Ourselves : A BL Horror Novel

Chapter 17 - Charlie Should Have Killed Me

Small, thin pale feet walked along with trash-strewn along concrete in the betweens of the buildings of Downtown Avalon. Estelle's nylon stockings with runs in them running along with the calves from where rolling along with the concrete away from a man who wanted her dead caught the overhead lights as she moved.  Her small cuts and bruises looked brighter against her pearl white skin beneath the lights.  The frills of the black skirt seemed to shimmer beneath the night sky.  Large blue eyes stared listlessly ahead of her as she strolled on.

Estelle Warren walked on, unsure of her actions. She had been raised to be a weapon, a wife to Zhao Huang, she knew no other way of life. But after her skirmish with the benefactor of her family, she was lost. Charlie Young had been a shadow in her life from her first breath outside her mother's womb. Her father had told her the story of the tall Chinese man seeing her and telling him,

"She is my property."

For the rest of her short life, he would appear as if a relative to check on her progress. He watched her with his shrewd eyes and never once smiled at her.  He rarely spoke to her, would appear in rooms, and draw her attention. His tall, lean form in suits men wished they could afford with a presence that dwarfed any man in the room beside him.  His hair, straight lines of black parted on the right side, never out of place. His skin pale champagne color, his thin lips a flatline above a square jaw. She could never understand what his expression meant.

When he had appeared in that warehouse, she had been so happy as if he would finally acknowledge her achievements. But instead, he looked at her with absolute disappointment. It had torn the hope from her as if he had reached inside her. He was breaking her rib bones, tearing through her lungs to pull at her heart, tearing it from ventricles with no tenderness. She felt discarded, debased and like a beloved dog cast aside for biting the hand of its master because the master had abused it.

What would her mother say, with her cold blue eyes and face that always seemed pinched due to an endless series of surgeries to create the lie of youth on her skin. Her mother had groomed her to be the image of perfection, starving her, so her body was as taut as a snare drum. Dressed in pastel Chanel dresses and wine-colored blouses with a simple small string of pearls, Estelle had been her mother's doll. Now that the doll had moved without her parents' direction, Estelle wondered if they would shelter her. The moment she had thought of it, she had smiled a small bitter smile. She knew better.

As she walked out into the open area where strangers walked along sidewalks, she let out a shuddering breath. Zhao would help her, but she knew better than to call him. He had another love now, someone she had vowed to herself to kill. His acts of kindness would have been out of pity.  She didn't want or need anyone's pity.  She had only her smartphone nestled behind the strap of her bra out of sight of anyone who looked at her, thanks to the corset she wore over a white blouse keeping the slim phone in place. She couldn't use the debit and credit cards aligned to her parent's millions, but she did have a small amount of personal money in a separate account all saved to the iPhone.

Walking along with Marks St., she ignored the eyes on her, imagined no one saw her.  She, a girl of five foot six inches as thin as a reed with the face of a runway model, was sure to draw the attention of many.  She hated it, wished no one could see her at all.  So she walked on towards the metro line that ran beneath the streets of Avalon in the form of the subway.  At least where fewer people would be able to stare at her, and she could think.  As she descended the golden archway and it's cold cement stairs, she felt a little better until a brutish voice called after her.

"Hey, Pretty Birdie," the thick voice called, and she didn't stop walking.  Her senses were aware of the slow shuffle of thick soles on the cement behind her, knew whoever owned the voice was following her down the stairs.  At the bottom, she saw the ticket stands with their turnstiles but knew she couldn't access the phone without showing her back to whoever was behind her as she would have to pull her shirt out of the black corset to access it.  So she walked to the left side of the more open area and waited for the stranger to follow her along with it as she moved into the shadows of the corner.  At this time of night, the metro was almost empty; she wondered absent-mindedly where the metro police officer was but thought it was good he wasn't around.