“The Lithuanian Narco’s Dollhouse”

Rain permeated clay tiles on the farmhouse, relentless and monotonous, as far away from heartbeats beneath floorboards. Wood waited in there, wet with sweat and lies. A naked bulb hummed overhead, not changing places much, casting ugly shadows across walls of red brick with skin-tattoos of rust and tools smeared with blood. Bleach, metal, and Chanel flavored the air, all fighting under the stronger stench of flesh.

Nerijus Vainauskas stared into the mirror, steam creeping up the glass from the pipes under the heat. His chest was bare, glistening with oil, veins pounding over sculpted muscle. A syringe of heavy steel rested beside the sink, tip covered in blood, barrel still half-filled with clenbuterol and rage. Fingers curled around his jawline, evaluating his reflection not with love but with a hunger. Not for him for power. Control. Possession.

A girl groaned behind him. He did not turn around. Chains clanked quietly, persistent sounds, like a lullaby broken in an attempt not to awaken the demons.

Concrete swallowed her voice. Red burns on her wrists. Black satin ribbon gag covering all else. No bruising yet. Nerijus preferred the unmarred girls whose skin had not acquired the language of discipline. He always started slow, called it "respect," called it "worship." Eventually, it all blended into something else. Something dirt-colored.

He took down a leather trench coat from a wall hook, put it over his oiled body, muscles rolling beneath it like snakes' vines. Stalked around the room. The girl winced. He smiled.

"English farmer's daughter," he growled to no one, pushing a strand of hay from her head into his pocket. "Smells like cows, bleeds like tourists."

Above, the boots groaned against the planks. Another shadow appeared behind the cellar door, taller, broader than the other Lithuanian, the quiet one with scarred knuckles and gold teeth. They moved like fog through Ossendrecht, untraceable, weightless, deadly.

They disappeared into the darkness. Cameras snapped.

Over the fields, a Dutch farmer crouched beneath his tractor, mud on his face, watching the faint flashes of light in the barn through pilfered binoculars from the attic of a deceased cousin. His lips trembled. He knew. He knew exactly where they had taken his daughter. He had begged. He had offered livestock. He had offered money. Even his land. Nerijus did not desire pigs or money. Nerijus' desired moments. He gathered them like teeth in a jar.

In the dungeon, leather was touched by skin. Silk was cried in by the girl. The scarred man laughed, booted her, and whispered in the Lithuanian tongue to Nerijus.

"Soil her," he instructed. Nerijus did not smile. He muttered something about tulips, about how the soil here needed feeding. About purity. About rebirth.

The girl's eyes rose to meet the ceiling. There were no prayers that went up. No deity listened. There were candles lit in crevices carved in the walls, their wax pouring like tears upon concrete. Above them, knives had been carved into the walls with Latin glyphs that made circles, triangles, and lines that spoke quietly. The Jacob Witness Sect had sanctified this room with ceremony. Baptisms of silence. Marriages of shadow and skin.

Nerijus did not serve them. He honored their taste. Ultimately, with purple-shaped bruises coursing down the girl's spine, Nerijus wrapped her in white lace and left her curled up in a wheelbarrow next to the root cellar, face smeared with ash and something tackier. A Roma boy who could not have been more than sixteen pulled the wheelbarrow into the woods. The boy didn't look back.

Fog came in around the barn, hushing the hinge creak when doors closed. Nerijus walked through fog to a parked jeep, wheels shrouded in undergrowth. Boxes of pills and firearms were piled beneath plastic dolls with green eyes within. Ainsley, Chloe, Belle. Labeled each time. Empty each time.

He reached into the glove box, grabbed a burner phone, and sent three words: "Soil fed tonight." No name. No signature. The message vanished after delivery. The jeep revved into life, headlights cutting through fog like scalpels.

At his back, the wind carried a sound too soft for the birds to echo a child's humming. The sort that never forgets.

Ainis hid his phone against his thigh, fingers stroking the grip of his pistol. Not to shoot. Just to feel the weight. He loved the cold reassurance. On the screen, the red-haired girl moved in place, slow, stiff movements, like a puppet manipulated by hidden strings. Nerijus hovered over her now, speaking again stories infused with rot and myth, things a child shouldn't know but all girls knew.

The livestream stuttered. Static leaked into the image for a moment. Then it returned sharper than ever.

Inside the barn, the air thickened with odor. Not of death. Of the living. Of fear. Wet hay clung to the wood. Dried blood in hairline cracks in the floor. A pig shrieked once, sharply, nothing, somewhere nearby.

Warinya slapped her hand across her mouth. She'd seen cruelty. Bangkok didn't have a high opinion of journalists, especially those who jabbed at things high up. But this was something else. This didn't breathe. It pulsed.

In the living room below, Nerijus lit another cigarette from the one in his mouth, his eyes never leaving the girl's back. He nudged her shoulders straight. Straightened her spine. Every inch mattered. He referred to it as poise. He referred to it as respect.

In back of the glass, a backup camera reported data to an encrypted hard drive. Not for extortion. Not for money. For accumulation. Nerijus held them all. All sessions, every scream, every gasping look into servitude's abyss. He saved them in folders like love letters. He never re-read them again.

Near the chicken coop, a trapdoor creaked open down low. The Roma boy returned older than when he departed, or maybe just emptier. He dragged a box wrapped in a plastic tarp. It contained bones within. Un.cleaned. Just laid out. Like they were artifacts. He placed the box beside the silo and vanished into the trees without saying a word.

In the crawlspace over the barn rafters, Vanessa readjusted her lens, zooming in. She captured everything. Her fingers moved instinctively, her mind listing angles, timestamps, locations. A part of her wanted to scream. A larger part wanted to wait. To finish the job.

Warinya tugged on her coat. "We have to go." Vanessa shook her head. "Too early." "They'll catch our smell." Vanessa stared at the feed once more. "They already do."

On-screen, Nerijus turned around. Not to the camera. To something beyond it. The red-haired girl didn't move. She blinked once, twice. Blood seeped from her knee. The ground beneath her was glass-smooth.

Outside, the cruiser door slammed open. Ainis arched, spat on the ground, and walked towards the fence. Fog closed around him after ten steps. His form vanished like mist from a mirror. A minute passed before the front barn door creaked.

Inside, Nerijus raised one hand. The girl went down to her elbows, still quiet. Ainis entered, eyes acclimatizing to the darkness, face cracking into something that could be called a smile.

"You brought her early," Nerijus stated without turning. Ainis shrugged. "Couldn't sleep." "You never do." Their voices echoed off the walls. Familiar. Rehearsed. Like brothers around a campfire.

Vanessa leaned forward, whispering, "We catch him talking, we catch them both." Warinya tapped her notebook. "Too many shadows. Too many masks."

Vanessa clicked the shutter once. Twice. The flash was off. Nevertheless, Nerijus froze in mid-sentence. His eyes followed up to the rafters, to the spot behind the hay-lined beam. Not quite. Just enough to make ice run down Vanessa's back.

Ainis reached out for the girl's arm. She flinched. He laughed. "Still new." "She won't be," said Nerijus, walking over to the back wall, where a panel glided open. Inside, stacks of lace wedding dresses spilled off metal rods. Each was tagged. Some news from the wet. Some are marked with numbers. No duplicates.

He selected a pearl-stitched dress and handed it to Ainis. "Try this one." Ainis picked it up, fingers caressing the material as if it would fall apart. "Where is the English girl?" "Planted." "Is she alive?"

Nerijus didn't answer. Behind the barn, under loose dirt and ash, the face of the girl turned toward the apple tree roots. Her mouth was filled with rainwater. Her eyes contained no color in.

A noise cut through the still metal on stone. A trap slammed in the coop. Chickens scattered, feathers flying from the rafters. Ainis spun, pistol lifted.

Vanessa grabbed Warinya's arm. "Now." They retreated into the loft, camera in hand, creeping over rafters like spiders over death. Downstairs, Nerijus heard the sound, too. His fingers jerked. "We have visitors."

Ainis squinted his eyes towards the ceiling. "Police?" Nerijus shook his head. "Not that courageous."

He waved towards the ladder. Ainis stepped outside. Outside, tires crunched gravel. The blue Opel returned. One of the boys drove. The other crawled into the back, pulling another sack over the truck bed. This one moved.

Vanessa and Warinya made it to the rear hatch, slid it open, and fell into the grass. Quiet. Swift. They didn't take off. Not yet. Within, Nerijus grasped the lace collar again, inhaling it as if remembering something.

Ainis moved slowly towards the ladder, gun in hand, every step groaning louder than the last. Vanessa breathed softly, "We need to leave." Warinya glanced back once, at the open barn window, where the camera continued to turn, blind and willing.