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"How did Truesdale do it you?" you ask.
Ellen takes a steadying breath and downs the rest of her beer, head back, neck exposed like a prey item. You watch her throat work with a clinical interest. You can almost see the vein in her neck pulse. You can practically taste her blood, hot, thick, and sweet.
She sets the bottle down on its side and then spins it on the table. It vibrates, humming softly as it rolls in tight circles. "Some kind of ritual. He marked me." she shows you a wrist. "He said… I could consider it a mortgage. Maybe I could pay it off one day."
You think of the exorbitant mortgage Candi has been paying Truesdale for the Mercer farm. You wonder just how many slaves Truesdale has.
"I don't think he meant it," she says, casting her eyes to the side, a mix of sadness and shame. "I think I'm like this forever. Until I'm all tapped out." A long pause. "I thought about killing myself but… I was afraid of what might happen to me once I die. I was afraid that Thing in the Lake would get me." She shivers slightly, hugging herself against a deep, bone-chilling cold. "Plus…" she trails off.
"Plus?" you prompt.
She spins the bottle again and shakes her head. Doesn't want to talk about it. "It's … not something you should worry about."
You suspect it has something to do with your next question, the obvious follow up. "You had a choice though, right?"
She nods.
"And you chose this?"
Ellen nods again, watching the bottle flash and spin.
"Why?"
She doesn't say anything. Doesn't move. The bottle gradually loses momentum until it's pointing straight at you. She looks up at you through thick lashes. Her hollow eyes glazed with sadness.
"Me?" you ask.
Ellen looks away again and folds her arms in a way that pushes up her breasts. "Kyle, you should have stayed far away. You were safe."
"I don't need you to protect me anymore, Miss Ellen," you say firmly.
"I'm not protecting you," she says. "I mean… I was, but not anymore. He said…" she bites her lip, stopping herself.
You could try to force her to tell you, put some power in your voice and make her speak. Maybe. But you don't need to. You have old fashioned force of will. "Tell me," you say, voice low, a command. A threat.
She does. "Truesdale showed me what he was… what he could do, the power he had," she says, speaking slowly, deliberately. "He told me some of the things he'd done, the things he'd gotten away with. He told me that… no one would miss me." She says these things matter-of-factly. "I wasn't afraid… I mean… of course I was," she says. "But when he told me that someone had to do it… someone had to submit and if I didn't… he had someone else in mind."
"Candi," you say, the answer snapping into your mind.
Ellen nods sadly.
"You did this to keep her safe from Truesdale."
