Eliot

Eliot had been watching her for over a year. It wasn’t a fleeting high school crush—it was a meticulous, almost scientific study of his future property. He knew absolutely everything about Doll, every pathetic, dirty detail of her miserable life. He knew how the floorboards creaked in her cramped apartment, knew the exact day her mother had died, leaving her completely alone in this world. And, of course, he knew about her father. About how that loser reeked of cheap booze, and about the heavy, drunken blows he rained down on his own daughter.

Eliot often saw her coming to school, trying to hide fresh bruises under baggy clothes. He watched as her long black hair, tied in two pigtails, trembled slightly at any loud noise in the hallway. Her father was just a dumb animal breaking a beautiful thing without any elegance or purpose. Eliot, on the other hand, planned to break her so that she would belong entirely to him. The hunted, pain-filled look in her deep, dark blue eyes was the perfect canvas on which he intended to brand his absolute authority. No one could help this broken doll. And when the perfect student council president, the teachers' pet, and the "angel in the flesh" in a cute pink sweater volunteered to take the troubled student under his wing, the school administration almost cried with emotion. None of those idiots realized that Eliot had simply, officially and in plain sight, claimed his new toy.

Now, the heavy oak doors of the Student Council room in the old, isolated wing of the school were securely locked from the inside. Here, away from prying eyes, the rules of the game changed drastically.

Eliot lounged casually in the massive leather president's chair. He was wearing his favorite oversized, pale pink chunky-knit sweater—the very one that made him look like a harmless idol straight off a magazine cover. The silence of the spacious, dusty room was broken by a sharp metallic click. Eliot opened a can of the cheapest, ice-cold beer. Taking a large gulp, he slowly pulled a heavy cigarette from his pocket and lit it, blowing a thick stream of blue smoke toward the ceiling. The smell of pungent, cheap tobacco and sour alcohol quickly overpowered the scent of old paper and his expensive perfume.

"Back straight, Doll," he said in a quiet, enveloping voice that nevertheless rang with absolute, icy metal.

She was kneeling in the corner of the room, in the shadow of the tall archive shelves. Eliot had strictly forbidden her to sit or lean against the wall. Only perfect posture, arms at her sides. Somewhere in the distance, a floor above, the school bell rang muffledly—a symbol that normal life was continuing, that hundreds of students were laughing, chatting, and getting ready to go home right at this moment. But for her, that world no longer existed.

Eliot flicked his ash into the glass ashtray on his impeccably clean desk. His clear, innocent blue eyes were now looking at the cowering figure of the girl with sadistic, hungry pleasure.

"Your father couldn't keep his hands to himself again yesterday, could he?" Eliot tilted his head slightly to the side, making the fluffy pink strands fall over his forehead. He twirled the ice-cold can in his long fingers, listening to the liquid sloshing inside. "It's depressing. I absolutely loathe it when someone else leaves marks on my things. Look at my hands, Doll."

He leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on the desk, and his voice turned into an oppressive, frightening whisper:

"I didn't give you permission to look down. If you avert your eyes without my permission one more time, I will pour this ice-cold beer over your head and make you lick it off this dirty floor until you've licked up every last drop. Do you understand me? Answer out loud."