Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 248926 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1245(@200wpm)___ 996(@250wpm)___ 830(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 248926 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1245(@200wpm)___ 996(@250wpm)___ 830(@300wpm)
I couldn’t close my mouth and was utterly unable to comprehend the sight before me.
This really isn’t Emily. She would. . .never. . .
Grinning, Lunita faced Salvatore’s dead body and raised the knife in the air. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “When Jesus is my portion. . .”
I froze in shock.
“A constant friend is He.” She placed the knife’s point under his neck, drove the knife deep into him. “His eyes. . .are on. . .the sparrow.”
I took two steps forward.
Lunita dragged the knife down vertically, making a long bloodied line. “And I know. . .”
She took the knife out, raised it to the center of the vertical line, and then carved a horizontal line. “He watches. . .me.”
The holy cross.
Blood dripped from her hands.
The red wounds on Salvatore’s chest were shaped in the form of a cross.
Lunita slid her gaze down Salvatore’s body, then stopped it at his penis. Where the other dealings with her knife were somewhat calm, this time she stabbed with pure hate and violence, slamming the knife into the limp length and hacking away at his balls. Bits of flesh mingled with the blood spilling to the floor.
I edged back and covered my groin.
His dick dropped along with his testicles. I had never seen the inside of a penis before and I vowed to never witness that again.
For the first time in a long time, my stomach twisted in disgust.
Lunita formed her lips into a huge smile, showing all her teeth. Blood streamed down her face and soaked her hair. She spoke in Spanish, “Who’s next?”
The bound men mumbled and screamed.
One sobbed through the gag.
Lunita giggled and looked at me. “You pick.”
It took me a minute to realize that she was actually talking to me. Perhaps, the horror had shaken me down to my core.
What have I. . .unleashed?
I cleared my throat. “When did you. . .first start doing this?”
“Pick one.”
Sighing, I pointed to Ciro. “Him.”
“Why?”
“I heard he liked to beat his wife badly in front of their kids. When Valentina approached him on this, the wife stood up for him and said he had not. Meanwhile, the wife was missing teeth. Her thumb was bent in the wrong direction and it looked to be permanent.”
“Good pick.” Lunita headed over there. “Very good one.”
When Lunita stopped in front of Ciro, her face twisted in annoyance. She jerked her shoulders to the right and then left.
What is she doing now?
Letting out a long breath, she dropped the knife and yanked at the dress. “Always wearing tight things. So uncomfortable. Too much.”
Lunita proceeded to take off the dress, yanking the red fabric down her arms and wiggling out of it. The garment dropped to the floor.
I might have told her to stop, but I didn’t think any of the men would be looking at her in a sexual way this evening, especially with how she hacked at Salvatore’s dick.
I headed over to her and picked up the bloody knife.
Lunita took in the red lace bra and panties. Then, she reached her hands behind her and tried to unsnap the bra.
“No.” I handed the knife to her. “That stays on.”
“I want to be naked.”
“Once they are dead, you can be as naked as you want.”
“Is that another rule?”
“It is.”
Groaning, she snatched the knife from me and turned to Ciro. “Do you want some candy?”
Screeching, Ciro shook his head over and over.
“The candy is really yummy.”
Tears left Ciro’s eyes as he mumbled.
Lunita placed her finger over her lips. “Shh.”
And then she entered into the same ritual—slicing the throat, laughing in the bloody downpour, the religious whispered chant, cutting the holy cross into the chest, and then hacking off the dick and balls.
Stunned, I studied each movement. More terror should have come, but it no longer moved through me. Now I was just trying to piece everything together.
I can’t. . .believe this. Is this. . .really happening?
By the time, she went to Edmundo and begun the ritual again. Every time she talked about candy, my heart broke into shattered parts that would never be able to be glued back together again.
That man did this to her. He hurt her so badly as a child that. . .she turned into this.
The offering of candy must have been one of his tactics.
Lunita kept promising it to each man. Of course the stabbing of the men’s dick symbolized the hatred she now had for it. That was the tool that violated her body and stained her innocence.
I wish he were alive so I could kill him for her.
Meanwhile, I wasn’t sure about the holy cross.
When she went to the last man, I stepped closer and analyzed that moment more. So many questions came to me.
Why did Lunita pick those words about Jesus? Did he say them to her when he hurt her? Or were those words a form of comfort for her as a little kid when she dealt with so much pain?