Chapter 17 - Daisy

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Fear. 

The look of fear when someone is helpless. 

It’s what does it for psychopaths like Chelsie Dennis. And now here she is, the helpless one. 

She was so easy to drug, drank it in her coffee and then trusted Lynn Sandusky (Me.) who was just coming to drop off some thank you flowers, to help her into her car to rest. 

It’s just after nine, and here she is in the back of my work van, unable to move and unable to speak. Every move I make rattles the entire van bouncing and jostling. I hate having guests here, in my space. But I need to meet Cole in a few minutes now. And I couldn’t not kill Chelsie. Not today. 

“How are you feeling, Chelsie?” I ask as she opens her eyes. She won’t be able to talk for a long time thanks to the drugs I gave her, but it’s no loss she’d only swear at me. 

Her head lolls to one side, which makes me chuckle. “Tut tut, Chels.” And I stand around behind the chair and pick up the duct tape I used to bind her hands, feet and shoulders. “Don’t you hate finding the ends of these things? Especially with long nails.” I giggle, like we’re good friends. 

She gives a moan as I pull the duct tape with the satisfying trrr. “Urgh, I love that sound.” I tell her as I roughly force her head up by her stupid purple hair and wrap the duct tape around her forehead and fix her to the headrest. 

When she can see me, I crouch down in front of her, relishing the look in her eyes as she realises what’s happened. 

“Hi Chels.” I say sweetly and give her a pat on the cheek. “I’ve been watching you, did you know that?” 

The footage I gained from the patients' rooms are disgusting. Repulsive. I’d forced myself to watch them all, knowing that these sweet people with a long history of love, success and troubles just like mine were being forced into these humiliating and degrading situations by a pathetic sadist barely in adulthood. 

“You made Mrs. Sandusky lie on the bathroom floor for two days, didn’t you, Chelsie?” The least of her crimes. “And you told her it was because she didn’t deserve the carpet.” My lip curls as I look into her wide bloodshot eyes. The sound of Mrs. Sandusky crying on the bathroom floor, confused and afraid, will never leave my ears. “You didn’t even stay to hear her cry.” 

I tear off a small strip of duct tape with my teeth and pin her eyelashes to her brow bone with a thumb before taping it there, then secure the bottom lashes as well. Considering her for a moment as I lean back, I wonder if I should bother with the other eye- go full Clockwork Orange or not. But decide not to, she only needs one eye. 

“That’s not the worst thing. Mr. Devons, you just loved to see him bruise, didn’t you? All those little pinches and squeezes. No-one ever came to ask why a bedbound man had bruises all over his body, did they?” 

Standing, I get the test tube clamp I’d stolen from the vets I get my drugs from, dragging the metal stand slowly, grating it loudly over the metal floor. 

“Then Mrs. Donally…” I pause, my face like poison. “I have footage, Chelsie. But then… I suppose Mrs Argentine’s family also had footage, didn’t she?” I bend over her, my hair dripping onto her lap in a sheet. “How did you blag your way out of that one, Chels? I’m dying to know.” 

Snorting at my own joke, I can’t resist saying, “Actually, you’re dying. So I guess I’ll never know.” I giggle and continue to set up Chelsie’s last few hours, taking the metal skewer from my handbag and securing it into the clamp. 

The stand grates as I tighten the arms along it, fixing the clamp carefully in front of her gaunt, haunted face. “You humiliated them. You hurt them. They depended on you, and you used every inch of your power to degrade and use them.” 

“You’ve never been helpless until now, have you, Chels?” Skewer clamped, I spin it in my fingers, the grating noise filling the van as the metal rod edges closer and closer to her eye, her lids peeled apart. “Does it feel good?” 

I look deep into her panicked face, the smell of urine filling the van as she stares at the pinpoint of the needle millimetres from her pupil. 

“You’re disgusting,” I say, mirroring her words from the footage. “You deserve to sit in your own filth.” I can’t tear my eyes from her face; the terror edged onto every line, every freckle. I absorb it like it's a balm to my own helplessness. Lowering my voice to a whisper, “Mrs. Donally didn’t deserve what you did with that diaper, Chelsie. None of them deserved you. But you… you deserve this.”

Having had my fill of the look on her face, I straighten, stretch and check the time. 9:50. “I have a date in ten minutes, but here’s what’s going to happen when I get back.” I perch on the stool I keep in the back of my van for when I wash down mucky dogs.

 It’s so nice to relish a fear this intense. 

“When I get back, I am going to use a hammer to shove that ice pick into your brain.” Chelsie’s breathing picks up. She had to have known that was coming. She’s not that much of an idiot. “I’m going to wiggle it around inside your brain, and when it’s had a chance to stir up your pre-frontal cortex into a custard, I’m going to pull it out.” Leaning forward and with a voice like a kindergarten teacher, “It’s called a lobotomy. I’ve never done one before, but I am excited to try it.”

I brush myself down and spritz some perfume to stop Cole from being able to smell the stench of Chelsie. 

“When I’m done, you’re going to be left with no way to control your body, your muscles. You’re going to be incontinent, just like them. You’re going to lose patches of memory, just like them. You’re going to be helpless.” 

Leaning my hands on my knees, I absorb her fear one more time. “Aww…” I coo softly, stroking her hair. “Don’t worry, Chelsie. I’ll take as good care of you as you would.” 

Before I leave, I look upon my masterpiece, who is Chelsie Dennis. Duct taped to a chair, her left eye peeled open and staring at the needle only millimetres away from her pupil. Just a few hours of this while I spend much-needed time with Cole. It’ll do her good. 

“I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t move too much, Chelsie. That needle’s really close.” 

With that, I heave the van door closed with an unceremonious slam. 

I take a deep, therapeutic breath of the clean, fresh park air. Things are looking up. It’s a beautiful evening. I have a guest taking care of herself. I’m going to spend that time with my man and my dogs. 

What could be better than this? 

I let the pack out of the front of the van, hopping down one after the other and bolting into the park, ignoring Chelsie’s muffled groans from the back. Following them into the park, I smile softly at the child-like joy they approach everything with. 

They’re dogs and they still need a brief stretch, so I give them their walk around the park, unable to stop the little skip in my step as we creep closer to the meeting point with Cole. At just after ten, I turn and see him striding towards me in that no-nonsense gait of his. 

He’s just to die for. 

“There you are. Not like you to be late. I was getting worried,” I tease, but that’s before I see his expression.

His eyes are fixed on me as he closes in, appearing through the darkness like I’m the only source of water in the desert. I don’t think anyone’s ever looked at me so intensely. He doesn’t slow his stride as he gets closer and closer, and I look up at him, thinking he’s about to gather me up in his arms and kiss me… 

When he stops, looking down on me. Our lips inches apart. 

“Hey,” he says in a stiff voice. 

“Hi.”