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Goosebumps had broken across Ella’s skin like a silent alarm from the electric charge of knowing, she was here.
After all this time, the vanishing, the emptiness, Jayne was finally within reach.
Ella’s whole body had turned in the direction of the ringing phone as she moved soundlessly, each step drawing her closer.
Her heartbeat had pulsed in her ears, syncing with the faint ringtone.
The walls closed in as she followed the sound, her breath shallow, skin prickling.
She could almost feel Jayne’s presence, like a shadow waiting to be stepped into.
As the ringing stops. Silence falls like a guillotine.
Ella stood in the hallway, motionless in the silence as the ringtone cut out.
Her breath held.
Then…
“Hello?”
Jayne’s voice floated through the air, casual and unguarded.
Ella’s grip on the phone tightened, her knuckles pale.
She hadn’t heard that voice in years, and it struck like a punch to the chest, familiar and venomous all at once.
There was a pause.
“Hello?” Jayne said again, this time with a touch of irritation, stepping into view from the lounge.
She crossed the hallway threshold, barefoot, holding her phone to her ear with one hand, the other clutching a half empty glass of wine.
She didn’t see Ella. Not yet.
But Ella saw her.
And everything inside her shuddered.
Ella didn’t wait.
With cold resolve, Ella launched forward in three quick strides, the years of rage narrowing into a single, controlled act.
Ella surged in close, driving her forearm hard around Jayne’s neck in a sweeping arc, the momentum slamming Jayne’s face brutally into the wall.
The wine glass shattered on the floor.
Jayne’s phone slipped from her hand with a dull thud.
Her eyes went wide, shock, confusion, but no scream came.
Ella tightened her grip, applying pressure at just the right angle, cutting air and blood at once, not enough to kill, just enough to bring the world crashing down.
Jayne clawed weakly at Ella’s arm, legs scrambling for balance but Ella was anchored, her stance solid, movements practised.
Then…
Jayne’s eyes fluttered.
Her body sagged.
Unconscious…
Ella threw her down to the floor, into the broken glass, her heart hammering like a war drum. Her skin buzzed with adrenaline, her hands shaking only after it was done.
Jayne lay still.
Ella stood over her, chest heaving, looking down at the woman but seeing the girl from all those years ago.
Now, finally, Ella had control.
And the questions were about to begin.
Jayne began to wake to the shock of freezing cold water in a shower.
A low gasp slipped from her lips, raw and ragged.
Her body jerked slightly, like it was rebooting.
The first thing she felt was the cold, violent and absolute.
It slammed into her skin like glass shattering against bare flesh. Her body convulsed instinctively, air sucked in too fast as her lungs panicked awake.
Her eyes fluttered open, rolling back, unfocused, clouded by the running water before finally locking onto a blurry Ella standing over her, Watching, Silent.
Jayne attempted to scream but water flowed into her mouth and down her throat as she started to cough and choke.
Her breath shallow at first, then deeper, harsher, her throat trying to claw for air but flooding with water.
Confusion bled into fear. Her brows twitched. She tried to move but winced as the dull ache in her throat and face lit up, a reminder of what had just happened.
Her breaths were short and uneven, panic beginning to take shape behind her eyes.
She shook her head, desperately coughing and frantically lurching to clear her lungs and throat.
She instinctively thrashed to escape, discovering she was chained with a collar to her own trendy exposed pipes.
Her body went still, except for her eyes, wide now, locked on Ella’s face.
Ella leaned down and held Jayne’s phone out to unlock it, then filmed her as she grabbed her by the hair, pulling her head back to flood her eyes and mouth again.
As she let go, allowing her to clear her lungs, she moved the phone in for a close up showing her bloody eyes and leaking mascara.
Ella panned down following the stream of mascara and blood as it flowed down her face and bruised neck, now adorned in a thick metal collar.
At the front, a heavy, oversized O-ring dangled, attached to a cold and weighty chain, pulling the collar forward, amplifying pressure on her throat.
Ella panned down further over her breasts, focusing on her nipples, exposed through a saturated white shirt, erect from the freezing cold.
Ella started softly chanting
“Lesbo...Lesbo...Lesbo” as she simultaneously squeezed Jayne’s nipple, pulling back the camera to capture the ensuing moments.
Jayne froze, letting out a muffled scream as she flinched.
A sudden, stark realisation came crashing over her.
Then...
“Estrella...?” Jayne quizzed, dumbfounded.
“Time for some revenge, Jayne.”
Ella panned downward, soaked panties clung tightly, transparently revealing her pussy beneath.
“Won’t the world love this?” Ella smiled.
Ella grabbed her nipple again, more forcefully this time, not letting go.
Jayne squirmed and screamed, grabbing at Ella’s hand, finally reacting to the assault.
In a sudden explosive outburst of unbridled rage, Ella grabbed her by the hair and with full force, smashed her with the phone repeatedly, relentlessly landing blow after blow to her face, arms, and breasts.
Ella continued to film as the glass screen guard shattered from the repeated blows, the jagged pieces lifting, cutting Jayne with every glance.
“Where the fuck is Dana?” She screamed , suddenly letting go of her hair and stopping the rampage.
Ella stood and stepped back, leaving Jayne whimpering and crying in a huddle, much like Estrella was left all those years ago.
Her teeth began to chatter as her body curled in on itself, instinctively trying to preserve warmth.
Ella crouched just enough to meet Jayne’s eye, her expression unreadable, empty of comfort, stripped of anything resembling empathy.
Then she raised a finger to her lips.
“Shhh,” Ella murmured, barely above a whisper, Icy, measured. The kind of sound meant not to soothe but to warn.
Jayne froze, breath catching, the whimper dying mid exhale.
Ella didn’t blink as she continued to film, the vision now cracked and tinged with blood, like an eerie filter.
“Now tell me nice and slow, where the fuck is Dana?”
Jayne curled up tightly, water still cascading down her back, soaking the floor beneath her. Her chest hitched violently as she shook her head over and over, sobs flowing out of her like something broken deep inside.
“I... I d-don’t know,” she cried, the words twisting into a wail, long and cracked, like she was choking on the weight of them. “I swear… I don’t know!”
Her voice rose, pitch scraping against the walls of the shower, pleading, unraveling.
“I don’t…. I don’t knowooowww!”
Ella reached for a set of scissors sitting on the vanity.
With brute force, she grabbed Jayne by a fistful of hair, crudely cutting and tearing off Jayne’s remaining clothes, cutting Jayne’s hand and nicking her breast in the process.
With one last smash to the face with the phone, Ella turned off the water and stormed out of the room, slamming the door and turning off the lights, leaving Jayne in complete darkness.
Time stood still, Jayne could feel her heartbeat slowing.
All she could hear was the last of the water draining away and her own breathing.
She felt like a voodoo doll with pain coming from multiple areas of her face and body, the shivering making everything worse.
It felt like hours had passed.
Had she gone?
Where was Gerald?
Question after question flooded her mind in the silence.
For an eternity, Jayne coiled up in the coldness. Nothing happening, no sound, no movement, nothing. Was it over?
With a sudden thud, the door slammed open, banging violently against the wall, eliminating the silence in nuclear fashion.
Blinding light filled the room as Ella burst in, lunging at Jayne wielding a butcher’s knife in one hand and grasping Gerald’s head by his hair in the other.
Jayne, horrified at the sight, scampered back into the corner.
“Where the fuck is Dana?” Ella roared in a deep voice, shaking Gerald’s head in a mocking gesture as if it was him talking.
Dropping the head to the floor, she quickly grabbed Jayne by the hair, pulling her upward.
In a single motion, she slashed at her with the knife, removing a large chunk of hair and scalp, leaving Ella with a fistful of hair and flesh.
Jayne dropped to the floor as Ella’s grip was severed with the slash.
Blood streamed down her face, into her eyes and mouth, cascading over her body to the tiled floor.
Utter terror engulfed her, piss mixed with blood running down her legs, losing her bodily functions from the shock.
“Where is she?” Ella screamed,
Jayne’s hands instinctively raised in an attempt to protect herself from the onslaught.
Ella, not deterred, stabbed right through the palm, wrenching it upward through the webbing between her fingers.
Jayne’s split hand convulsed unnaturally as the two separated parts stopped working in unison as she trembled hysterically at the sight of her horrid cleft hand.
Ella stood back to soak up her handiwork as Jayne sat in a pool of piss and blood, completely broken, accompanied by the head of her husband, looking on with his last stunned look frozen in time.
Ella knew that now was not the time for any more questions.
Time, silence, and calm were the best tools to reset things for what was to come.
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