The Dark Star - Aftermath Pt. 09

Not stopping at the top of the staircase that leads to the basement, the basement that's harboured so much over the years, the basement she where she had first truly encountered the real Logan Hughes.

She's breathless as she approaches the locked double steel doors. Without hesitation the side of her balled fist hammers against the doors.

Over and over again not relenting she hammers her fist against the doors.

**********

The hammering on the door breaks my attention away from her.

Her head rises slightly turning back to the door and her possible salvation.

Shackled at the wrist and ankles dressed in the boots and the patterned black sheer crotchless body stocking that I'd discovered under the dress. She cries out. Her scream stifled by the black ball gag that dissects her mouth and is secured tightly around the back of her neck.

I lower the cane to my side, glancing at the four diagonal welts that streak the pale skin of her exposed back.

The boom boom boom echoes through the door continuously.

"Back up?" I offer sarcastically in her direction.

Stepping close up behind her, she pulls at the shackles locked tightly around her wrists pleading once again into the gag.

"Keep quiet for me Blondie."

Crossing the Dungeon, I place the cane down upon the seat of 'the breeder' the straps of which dangle toward the floor, the black seat still damps with sweat from where she'd been strapped to it earlier, a small puddle of spilt cum, leaked from her has run from.

the seat onto the dusty floor.

Three more dull thuds on the door.

"Who is it?" I bark.

"Jamie." the instant response heavily muffled by the thickness of the doors, "Open the door Logan."

"Why?"

"Open the fucking door Logan."

I look back over to the blonde suspended from the St. George's Cross, still testing frantically her restraint.

"You know I can't do that," I respond.

"Logan," her tone stern, a tone I've never heard.

I extend a finger to the security code pad and type in the first three of four digits. Pausing, hesitating. I stab my finger against the number seven and hear the door mechanism unlock. Pressing my hand against the handle less door I press it open.

"Jesus Christ..." Jamie sneers at me "...Remove the fucking mask."

Reaching up I drag the Lycra sweat soaked mask daubed with the skull from my head. Running my fingers through my hair sweeping it back from being matted to my forehead.

"If you've come to join in ... you've missed most the fun."

**********

Jamie pushes past him the knot in her stomach twisting further at the sight before her.

She wasn't ignorant, she knew what went on here, what had always gone on down here. She'd experience it herself on her own terms.

The young blonde seemed defeated literally beaten held up by what little strength she could muster. Her eye line flashes back to Logan stripped to the waist as he stepped up behind the young girl.

"You know who she is don't you," Jamie hissed.

"Awww... Spoiler Alert." he darkly chuckled "I hadn't broken the news that I know to her yet."

Jamie reaches her hands around the back of the girl's neck and started to unfasten the gag that dissected her jaw. "It's OK..."

She assured "It's OK ...it's over."

Freeing the gag Jamie let it drop to the floor, dust clinging to the ball of the gag that was heavily coated in saliva.

"We were just getting to know one another" Logan interjected.

"How Logan?" Jamie sneered at him "In that fucking chair... in the Pillory ...strapped to this cross... or were you going to stretch her on that Rack like you tried to stretch me?"

"I'm getting predictable ... but it's such a tried and tested routine."

Jamie stepped around and away from the cross, stepping back towards him. "You Cunt."

She could tell her words stung, she never had cause or reason to reprimand him despite everything she knew he'd done.

"Jealousy is such a nasty trait," he stated attempting to cover the verbal wound she'd inflicted.

"You're a Cunt Logan." she brought her hands to her hips as she further insulted him standing now between him and Beth, "You're a sadistic vile cunt."

"Don't pull yourself punches there Jamie," he said shaking his head, looking up at her briefly then biting his tongue on whatever he'd intended to say.

"So, we've worked out you know who she is ...what we're you going to do ... bring her up on the rails ...humiliate, control and belittle her until you'd moulded your next little sociopathic whore like you did her sister?"

Logan shook his head at her, "I wasn't going to be that subtle."

"You tracked her down ...chased after her then invited her along here ... I mean fuck I presume she knows about her sister and her fate because of you?" Jamie watched his face held somewhere between sneering and genuinely almost breaking with tears.

"Oh fuck" Jamie wildly speculated "Oh fuck you didn't lure her here pretending to be..."

She never finished her words as he barked "NO!!"

His loud angry growl filled the dark brick lined room, seemingly echoing off every surface.

"Enough Jamie...Enough" he instantly lowered his tone to a more measured calmer tone, scarily quickly. "She came looking for me ... she came here looking for me ... turned up here last night."

Once again, he shakes his head slipping his belt from his waist. "She..." Jamie stammered taking in what he suggested "Why?"

"A little too obviously to be honest..." he hurls the words at her. "Otherwise, I might never have known ...might have just taken the opportunity served up to me."

"Black dress... Black Boots... Blonde" Jamie shakes her head on a scowl. "She wouldn't have had to have tried hard from what I've come to know."

"Exactly... but there was something about her nature... the way she held herself the way she made a bee line straight for me... and then there's the resemblance... it didn't take much to figure out."

Jamie put a hand to his chest to stop he, but he pushed callously past her.

"The question isn't who she is ...question is what's Chloe Macready's little Sister doing here?"

Jamie grabbed his arm as he looped the belt over the blonde's neck.

"No Jesus Christ Logan No!!"

He pulled harshly on the belt the loose end of which he wrapped around his right wrist, snapping her neck ferociously backwards.

"Logan don't Logan fucking please don't" Jamie pleaded for the young girl hearing the instantly strangled pleads she made, her protest instantly prevented by the leather strap pulling tightly around her neck. Her fists clenched she pulled hard at her wrist and ankle restraints.

"You don't want to do this Logan you don't want to do this... please Logan... please."

Jamie panicked she'd never seen the look of hatred in his eyes, the callous cold evil concentration, he looked through his victim, as Beth Macready lay there strapped to the cross, he didn't even notice the pain and suffering he caused her.

"Logan" she begged trying to physically pull his arm away.

Scrambling around the Cross on which she was strapped Jamie stood before the young girl, her jaw set in a grimace her face flushed, fresh tears welled in Beth's eyes as desperately she fought to draw breath into her lungs.

"Logan no... Logan" tears welling in Jamie's eyes now. Tears of anxiety at what she witnessed. She attempted to prise her fingers under the belt that cut tightly around the blonde's slender neck, she could gain no purchase. Jamie's eyes fell to Beth's.

"Tell him..." she begged her, "...Tell him."

Frantically she nodded, nodded as best she could against the belt literally choking the life from her body.

"Let her speak Logan ... Let her speak."

Her eyes met Logans again, feeling a tear fall down her left cheek she begged and pleaded silently with him. Scared at what she witnessed, fearful of what she was yet to witness.

The gasp of air, the painful inhale, indicating he'd released his grip before Jamie had even realised.

"The ... the ..." she couldn't speak for frantically trying to. Jamie wipes her eyes with the back of her hand then the fingers of her right hand. Logan stepped back letting the belt fall from his grip across her back.

"The Diary..." Beth finally uttered.

"The Diary?" Logan snarled.

"Chloe ... Chloe left ... Chloe sent me two Diary's ... yours and hers."

*******

Slipping the key card into the hotel room door Jamie instinctively looked up and down the deserted corridor, the corridor unsurprisingly empty given it was a little after three thirty in the morning.

Emotionally drained driven forward purely by adrenaline and the fear of having left Beth and Logan alone. She never seen him like that, never glimpsed any indication of the darkness within him. He had scared her, he still scared her.

Entering the room, she slipped the key card into the slot by the light switches and dimly illuminated the room.

Grabbing the small suitcase that sat at the bottom of the open fronted wardrobe she unzipped it wide at flung it on to the pristinely made double bed. The room was in good order. Grabbing the clothes hung in the wardrobe Jamie folded them crudely and stuffed them into the suitcase. Clearing the vanity table come dresser she scooped up makeup and various other toiletries dumping them atop of the crudely folded clothes. A pair of heels and a pair of Nike trainers sat under the vanity table which she dumped also into the suitcase.

Jamie worked quickly, ensuring she removed chargers from walls, further toiletries from the shower room, and clearing the bed side table of a trash romantic novel. Efficiently she stripped the room of the contents that belonged to Beth Macready, removing any evidence of her ever being here it felt like.

Stopping in the doorway clutching the suitcase that contained all of the girl's possessions. Having made sure that the most important contents, the laptop, and the memory sticks were inside of the case exactly as Beth had indicated.

The memory sticks that contained contents she wasn't sure she'd ever want to know the details of. She'd never understood why Logan himself had chronicled his life, understood less why she'd at his request supplied his own son with the details of his sordid unhinged life and exploits. That Chloe had equally kept from what detail Beth had offered, an unhinged journal outlining everything she and Logan had instigated seemed to concern him. She never seen him so angry and equally she'd never seen him so panicked.

In the last hour, he brokered a deal, a deal for her life as he'd made out. Jamie hadn't been able to guess at how genuine his threat had been. Beth Macready hadn't paused to second guess his intent. Held shackled to the cross in the basement everything she'd endured at his hand already had obviously been threat enough. It chilled Jamie to consider exactly what had played out before she'd taken it upon herself to intervene.

Five minutes later she ascended in the brightly lit Lift to the lobby, her ankle boots click clacking on tiled floors as she crossed the reception. The night porter barely looked up from his mobile phone screen as she dropped the key card into the slot in the desk clearly indicated for the purpose of checking out.

"Thank you." he almost remembered to offer.

Jamie didn't respond kept her head down and crossed back across the reception to the main doors.

She looked up as she crossed the street. The Dark Star locked for the night now with outside lights switched off. The building stood ominously before shrouded in darkness, literally and metaphorically.

**********

Walking back into the office Jamie let out a deep breath that she hadn't realised she nervously held on to, it felt now as though she'd held it in her lungs since she'd left the Club.

Beth Macready sat, albeit with her hands cuffed behind her back, on the edge of the black leather sofa. Her head hung low her; the dress that now covered her broken body looked dishevelled, almost ill fitting.

Logan sat in the leather swivel chair behind the desk; he paid Jamie little to no attention as she entered carrying the suitcase.

"It's all there," she stated breaking the silence that filled the room swinging the relatively light suitcase up onto the desk. "Checked her out on the way out."

Beth looked up at her, heavy tear-stained eyes still sunk into her petite face. Beth looked at her in disbelief, with an astonishment even as though she could barely comprehend what was happening around her.

"The Laptop the Memory Cards where are they?" Logan growled his stare firmly fixed on the blonde who'd attempted to cross him.

"The Laptop is in the front pocket of the case...as she said there's two memory sticks loose in there with it."

"We only have her word for it..." he rose from the leather chair unzipping the front pocket of the case and plunging his hand inside. "...We don't know if she made other copies."

As he withdrew his hand, he clutched tightly in his grip a black and a purple memory stick. He slipped both into his suit trousers pockets.

"I... I... promise you," Beth croakily responded, and Jamie believed her from the scared look in her eyes alone. She'd been amateur she'd been stupid to take on this situation herself, alone, whatever the young girl had hoped to achieve. She should have gone straight to the Police with the evidence she presumed she held, had she done so Logan would have been facing irrefutable questions.

"Beth..." Jamie stated crouching before her hating herself for the role she now had to assume in front of the petrified young girl "Beth ...you know what will happen if you cross him ... you know what will happen don't you?"

"Prob...probably the same fate as my sister" she mustered a resolve as silent tears streamed down her face as she met Jamie's eye.

"One hundred and fifty thousand pounds." Jamie held her hand out behind her to Logan. "I know ...I know that doesn't ...that doesn't bring her back but..."

Beth's face contorted with anguish at the further mention of her Sister.

Nevertheless, Jamie continued, "You have to believe me ...you have to believe me when I say that whatever she told you ...whatever she told you that was a version of the truth she wanted you to believe."

"And the... and the... and the truth dies with her does it?" Beth blurted out as she snivelled.

"The truth that I know would only tarnish your memory of her..." Jamie honestly stated, "...a truth that trust me even you may not want to know."

"I wouldn't read the papers when the Court Case starts if I were you," Logan stated over Jamie's shoulder as he pressed the envelope stuffed with cash into Jamie's outstretched hand. Jamie ignored his unhelpful and crass advice as she clutched hold of the envelope.

Moving her arm around in front of her Jamie immediately held the envelope out to Beth, forgetting her wrists were held in the grip of the handcuffs. "For god's sake Logan ...unlock the cuffs."

"Not until were clear of here."

"It's two hours until the first train" Jamie reasoned with him.

"What's two hours going to matter to her."

Jamie stood, as she rose, she turned and faced him, stared into those callous eyes. He couldn't see this as any sort of reprieve or escape, he could only see this as the wedge of cash being squandered. It was profit, profit from mostly ill-gotten gains. Jamie was slowly reasoning and questioning everything she thought she knew about him. Something she'd never done before, by that alone was she as culpable as anyone else who shared Logan Hughes life?

He was vile, not even a caricature of the man she'd first met, the man who'd captivated her. The man she'd near idolised had even at one point longed for. Jamie knew, even as she contemplated him now, she knew in her heart what he was capable of what he'd always been capable of. She'd simply chosen to ignore it; she'd even play along with it. For years she'd distanced herself from such darkness but now more than ever she could see it, sense it almost feels it. She hated herself instantly.

The string of casual relationships that had become darker and more intense over that time. From the young puppet Arabella to the poisonous Chloe, more recently the red-haired tattooed skank he'd kept at his side but who'd seemingly now disappeared, she shuddered to think too where.

Jamie slid the envelope full of notes into the now empty front pocket of the suitcase and zipped fastened the pocket.

She looked back at Logan; the moment he'd lost control lost the Dark Star the first time he'd become a changed man. Until then his demons had been little more than drink, cocaine, and the incessant sexual debauchery he involved himself with. Losing track of him during those months on end. Those months when she could possibly have saved him, at least offered him salvation from himself. Somehow in that time his mind had become poisoned and broken. Jamie couldn't bring herself to even contemplate the horrors associated with him Chloe and those Mills. She read reports recently but hadn't wanted to believe. Couldn't believe he was involved in what was being alleged. It was beyond comprehension sickeningly so. She'd made excuses for him in hindsight especially when he'd returned. She knew now how wrong she had been.

His return at what price to Laura Mancini, his return at what price to his own flesh and blood. His own Son lured into the trappings of his lifestyle unknowingly framed and now charged for shocking crimes she knew full well bore the hallmarks of the man stood before her, not his Son.

How implicated was she, how far could Jamie trust him? How long before she became a victim, one way or another.

What she'd always perceived as ambition she could now see as greed.

What she'd always seen as dark fantasies she could now see as perversion.

He couldn't, he wouldn't see that the bitterness and deceit that shrouded him wouldn't allow him such clarity.

"Go home Logan I'll take her to the Station," Jamie stated assuredly.

"No Jamie... I'll take young Beth to the Station" his cold glowering stare seemed to warn her not to cross him. "I wanna see her disappear with my own eyes."

"Can I trust you?" Jamie said taking a deep breath, compromised but sensing immediately this was a discussion she'd not win him over on.

"Trust me" he smirked darkly.

She didn't.

Chapter Four; Loose Ends

The cracks in the dark clouded sky gave way to slithers of a what would have been a bright sunrise in a clear sky.

Beneath my feet the sad slushy remnants of the recent snow fall have frozen hard given the overnight drop in temperatures.

I pull up the collar of my overcoat around the back of my neck. Extending a gloved hand, I firmly shake the hand of the Middle Eastern gentleman in front of me as a bitterly cold gust of wind whips up across the open basin of the Docks causing us both to flinch.

"Your country is a cold shit hole," he states on a thick Arabic accent, the origin of which I can't place.

"I can't speak Spanish, or I'd move..." I flash him a grin "...as I hear it's warm there all year around."

"Pleasure doing business with you." he grinned cutting short our charming little conversation, he spoke with his own devious grin that suggested he'd done much better from the transaction than I had.

In truth I cared very little, although the twenty-five-grand deposit to my account would only boost the already exceptionally healthy balance. Especially so as at incredibly short notice his had been the only party I could contact let alone who'd be willing to make such a rushed purchase.

"A pleasure as ever," I state releasing my hand from his grip.

Screaming, struggling I look over at the boot of the BMW as using a remote key fob the hinge automatically lowers the boot closed. Her red raw eyes filled with tears yet again. Still in the black dress and boots over which cuffs hold her ankles tightly while her wrists are held cuffed behind her back. Her screams are lost into the ball of the gag held mercilessly between her jaw once more. I turn away, turning my back on Beth Macready. Knowing her fate will unlikely favour her.