The Deep Dark Web | lrh

11

"Missth Thophie, this is our Mummy. Daddy loved her very much."

"Mhm," Ellie beamed up at me.

"She liked swimming, and shopping, and baking cakesth. She wasth really good at that," Corey giggled, swinging his small legs under the chair, "Wasn't she, Dad?"

"The best," Luke nodded, taking a sip out of his wine glass.

Breathe.

"She used to read us bedtime stories all the time. She was the best Mummy," Ellie noted, sounding wise for her age, "The very best!"

I swallowed.

"She only comesth to dinner once a week because Daddy saysth too much movement will hurt her. She'sth fragile. He triesth very hard to keep her... together,"

"Corey," Luke sighed. He sounded as if he'd heard the exact same thing a million times before.

Corey ducked his head down, seemingly guilty, "Sorry. Daddy triesth very hard to keep Mummy... alive,"

"That's better." Luke nodded approvingly.

I'll never be able to get it out of my head.

Her beady eyes, her open mouth.

The way her cheeks had been scraped clean, how her teeth had been replaced by porcelain, how her mouth and lips had been stuffed with sawdust.

The way her pupils had been injected with black ink, the same one Luke undoubtedly used to sign the plaques above the 'animals' in Ellie's room.

The resin that coated her blonde hair.

The stab wound that had been lazily stitched up on the left side of her chest; hollow on the inside, absolutely empty. Void of a heart.

Her fingers- the rotting, decaying fingers of a corpse, drizzled in resin to prevent the smell from seeping through- clutching the butterknife. An action put in place by Ellie, the little girl sitting right next to me. As if her mother was a toy, as if she was a Barbie doll she could control.

Fear. It was all I could feel.

"Sweetheart," I heard Luke say, through the ringing in my ears as he placed his knife and fork down and leaned towards Ellie, "I think Mummy wants to talk to you. Why don't you tell her a bit about your new Mum? I bet she'd love to hear that,"

"Okay!" Ellie giggled, standing up abruptly and crouching down in front of the body.

I watched with a sick terror as she clasped Chloe's frozen hands, her small mouth forming words that caused nothing but a straight buzz to enter my ear.

"She likes you already," Luke smiled at me- a twisted, murderous smile that I had always been stupidly convinced was nothing but genuine.

What initially made me feel loved, protected and safe, was now something capable of causing my heart to flip and fall to the pit of my stomach.

I said nothing.

I kept my head down, my fingers trembling as they fumbled for my mobile underneath the table.

I thought I was being sneaky. I thought I could escape the night unharmed.

But, like always, I was wrong. And Luke could see it all; how my breathing had become uneven at the situation, how there were tears in my eyes. How I was nervously typing a text message to someone none other than Ashley, because I was in a position where I had absolutely no clue what to do and she was my safest bet.

And obviously, Luke didn't like it— not. One. Bit.