Page 51 of The Spiral
“They’re fucking dogs,” I spit out, annoyed with her comparison to humans. “Dogs that ripped you to pieces and left you to rot.”
My finger presses the buzzer repeatedly, causing all three of them to wail and rush around the cage, bellowing out their pain and annoying me further as they crash into the bars. So I press again, and again, all the time watching the look of horror on her face and wishing she could remember the pain they caused her.
“Stop, Jack. Please stop,” she says, her hands rising to the side of her head as she watches on and drops to the floor in the corner.
No. I won’t fucking stop. I’ll never fucking stop. And her hiding down there, refusing to see this as necessary only furthers my infuriation. I grab at her arm, hauling her up to drag her back into the middle of the room. She’ll damn well watch, hear the noise, see the fucking pain they’re in and will it on them with me.
“Your body was raped, split open and beaten by them,” I snarls out, one hand holding her still against the bars. “Lenon shot in the chest while he slept, blood pouring from his body.” She gasps at that, her own frame trying to wiggle backwards. “These dogs did that to you, to him. They fucking took you both from me and no one’s doing that again.”
She rips herself away from me, eyes wild as she thrashes at my body until she’s free of my hold and snatches the keys from the side wall. It makes me sneer at her, uncaring for the whimpering that comes from the dogs, and back myself towards the cage door. “And now they’ll work for us, Selma. They will. They’ll hunt and kill for you. Make sure you never leave here again. I’ve trained them. Open the door.”
My finger goes up to my mouth, hushing everything. The dogs quieten their rapid pacing behind me to the silent padding they’ve been trained to, dog one leading the pack in his gesture of compliance as he watches her. “Come, talk to them. Let them hear what they’ve learnt to protect.”
“Talk to them?” she whispers with frantic glances at my hand as I hold it out to her.
I nod, waiting for her to see the sense in all this and learn to trust me. They’ll protect her now, chase some rabbits for her if she wants that from them. She takes my hand slowly, rallying herself into the woman she should be behaving like. It’s almost a sight to behold as she lets Selma inside again, relegating this frightened version of herself to the wings and becoming my wife instead.
“They know you,” I say, reaching behind me to pick up the old picture of her on the terrace. Such a lovely day, her hair shining in the sunlight, eyes sparkling like they always did. I hand it over to her, smiling at the intrigue in her eyes as she looks at it. “They’ve done nothing but look at this picture for as long as I’ve had them here, baby.”
She sighs and looks up at me, a half smile on her lips as she hands it back to me and walks towards the bars.
“Do they have names?”
“No.”
“Jack, they must have names.”
“None that fucking matter.”
Dog one moves in closer as she gets to him, loose jowls hanging in a display of submission as he creeps along with slow footfalls until she reaches a hand to the bars and smiles at him.
“You’re okay,” she says, the perfect amount of beauty ringing through her tone to quieten any amount of fear they might be feeling. “You’re going to be fine now.”