"You… what?"
The Dolly was surprised to hear a male voice. So surprised, in fact, that she quickly scampered back down the hallway and hid in the first room she could find, ear pressed to the door as she struggled to hear more of the conversation. Even though she knew that eavesdropping could have deadly consequences, her curiosity outweighed her fear. Before long, she managed to catch Angie's voice as well.
"You heard me," she said, calm and quiet, but confident and fierce. "If you still think betraying me is a good idea, then by all means, do continue. Just know that I will indeed strike back, and now you just how bad things could get for you."
"You're fucking disgusting."
The Dolly inhaled sharply, bracing herself for Angie's retaliation, but it never came. Instead, the Dolly only heard maddened laughter.
"I am no more or less disgusting than the rest of this rotting world, my friend!" Angie sneered. "After all, are your hands cleaner than mine?"
"Even I would never sink to something like this!" The man interrupted, sounded genuinely repulsed and offended that Angie would even think to try to compare him to her.
"It's just life," Angie shrugged. "And life doesn't care about your feelings."
"But what the Hell could they have done to deserve this?" The man still sounded at a loss for words, so great was his shock. The Dolly pressed her ear harder against the door. She realized that he must've seen some of Angie's other… handiwork. Their voices were getting louder, they were drawing nearer. The Dolly was desperate to know what exact the man had seen. She heard Angie speak up first.
"She tried to kill my sister."
Her tone was underwhelming, given what she just said, but there was something even scarier than the flat tone with which she reported her little sister's almost-assassination. She. So it was one of the old Dollies that the man saw. The current Dolly felt a chill run down her back.
"There's nothing that girl could've done to your sister that would've warranted this!" the man cried in outrage. "Besides, your sister is still alive!"
"Oh, I know, I know," Angie shrugged casually. "In fact, everything that happened that night, from start to end, was orchestrated solely by me!" She gave the man a bright smile. He didn't return it. Instead, his face only twisted even more in horror. The eavesdropping Dolly made the same face.
"You… what?" the man repeated, but this time, he sounded even more repulsed.
"The Dolly was… getting a little too close to my sister for comfort," Angie explained, smiling dryly. "Something had to be done, so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone. It felt… poetic to have Emmie sign her death warrant. Even though it was I who performed the final operation, it was only upon Emmie's request that I do it."
"So that entire thing… was a setup?" The man managed to speak what the Dolly could barely bring herself to think.
"The whole way through," Angie confirmed. "I promised to free her if she killed Emmie for me. I told her that I wanted my little sister out of my hair, that she was becoming too much of a pest for me to want to keep around any longer." Angie paused for a cruel and sadistic laugh. "It never failed to astonish me how quickly the Dolly believed what I said. Poor, stupid, desperate, little thing!"
Once Angie was done setting the Dolly up for failure, she went to her little sister. She told Emmie that she suspected the Dolly was being unfaithful, and that Emmie needed to keep a closer watch over her for the next few days. Just like the Dolly, Emmie ate up everything Angie said without even the slightest hesitation or doubt. Unfortunately for Angie, the little idiot actually did fall asleep and was nearly killed by her first Dolly for it. It was only thanks to Angie's timely intervention that the Dolly didn't actually succeed in her mission, but she came very close.
It was clear from the look on Angie's face that the Dolly came much closer than even she cared to admit, and Emmie received quite the tongue-lashing for her carelessness, but it was nothing compared to what the Dolly went through. It was Angie's most violent, brutal, and dragged-out surgery, and she still hadn't topped it these few years later. She would never forget how long and loud the Dolly screamed, nor would she forget the unspeakable and burning rage she felt that someone came so close to defeating her at her own game.
"The second Dolly met much the same fate," Angie said airily. "And I will not hesitate to repeat it a third time if I sense that the latest Dolly is starting to overstep her boundaries. So tell me, are you sure you still wish to try to cross me?" Her smile was sickening. She'd won the debate. "As I told you before, my good sir, I am the one who pulls all the strings. I am the dollmaker, the puppet master. You would be wise to remember that."
The Dolly didn't hear the man's reply, he was too far away now, he and Angie had passed the room the Dolly was hiding in just a moment earlier. But even if the man had spoken right outside the door, the Dolly still wasn't sure she would've heard him. Her mind was reeling, just trying to process Angie's story. So, all along, everything was nothing more than an elaborate setup masterminded by Angie to keep control over her sister, and the first two Dollies… The current one swallowed in terror. So that was it then. There was no hope.
Either the Dolly tried to distance herself from Emmie and run the risk of being accused of abandonment or disloyalty, which could end in death, or she could linger until she accidentally got too close to Emmie and incited Angie's jealousy. She was doomed to fail either way, it was only a matter of time. Nothing she did actually mattered, it was all Angie, only Angie. And to think she'd pulled off the same scheme twice already! The Dolly knew that Angie could be bluffing. She was hardly the pinnacle of honesty. But this time was different. There was something in her tone of voice that the Dolly was very good at picking up on now. Angie, for once, was telling the truth.
She wasn't telling the truth, though, just to scare the man with stories and images of the Dollies. She wanted him to realize that if this was the type of thing she would do if she felt threatened or crossed, then he could still try to challenge her authority and position, but it was his bloody and drawn-out funeral! How hard would it be for someone as cunning and ruthless as her to turn the man's family against him the same way she turned Emmie against her own Dolly? It wasn't as if it took her very much time or effort, either.
For just a second, the Dolly felt a flash of pity for Emmie. Even though, in some ways, she was even more psychotic and murderous than her big sis, it sounded as if she was just as much a slave to Angie's power-hungry and over-controlling desires as anyone. Granted, she was kept in far a better state, living in the lap of luxury thanks to how much money Angie's business afforded them, but Emmie was still hardly a free bird.
At the end of the day, only one thing mattered: Angie's will. Her word was law. It didn't matter what anyone else said or did. She always came out on top in the end, no matter what she had to do to get there, or how long it took. They were all powerless to stop her, even Emmie. If Angie so decided, she could kill or torture Emmie whenever she pleased, and Emmie wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it.
In fact, the Dolly suddenly remembered Emmie saying that she didn't have any friends. It was almost laughable at the time. Was it any surprise why someone so wild, loud, unhinged, controlling, and abusive would find herself without many friends? But now the Dolly wondered just how much of it might've been Angie's fault, too. Had she killed other friends, family, and acquaintances of Emmie just to keep Emmie all to herself? If she had, how many did she kill?
Of course, none of this excused any of Emmie's crimes, but it explained why she was so desperate for a Dolly. She was lonely. She loved her sister, at least as much as someone as broken and twisted as her could love, but Angie was a very busy woman. Whether she wanted to or not, she didn't always have time for Emmie, and that made Emmie sad. She wanted a playmate and a plaything.
The true yandere was not Emmie, but Angie, the Dolly was starting to realize that now. Angie knew what was hers, and she knew how to keep it that way, and there was no line she wouldn't cross to see it done. Emmie was Angie's most prized possession, but she was still a possession. That meant Angie would use and abuse her as she saw fit, taking none of Emmie's whims, wills, or wants into account at all. Sometimes, it was as if she forgot her sister was human, and not just an object to own. Then again, the humanity of either sister was very much in question.
All that mattered was remembering that whatever Angie wanted, Angie got, and whatever belonged to her, stayed as hers. She never let any of her possessions go, and that applied to people just as much as it did to items. She would never let Emmie leave or have anyone else in her life more important than her big sis. Angie would see to it personally. Emmie was hers. That was that. They didn't need anyone else, and anyone else who was interested could find their own pack somewhere else.
The Dolly scurried from her hiding place after that, swift to return to a more… public place of Angie's abode. The last thing she wanted was for Angie to come back and discover her hiding in the empty room. Emmie was running more errands for Angie, hence why the Dolly was not with Emmie today. As she raced back to the upstairs, she remembered something else.
Angie and Emmie owned properties and hideouts around the country, but of the handful they frequented the most often, Emmie sometimes called them Dollhouses (though Angie preferred to call them Abattoirs since it sounded more refined). The Dolly had come to see just how fitting both names really were. It was a place of slaughter, certainly, and none inside would ever escape the iron grip of the cruel head of the house.
The world was a stage, Angie was the director, and she was more than happy to collect and kill off as many cast members and characters as she wanted. It was her story after all, as far as she was concerned, and who would tell her otherwise? Toys did not challenge their maker, and the world would've been wise to remember that she was the one who pulled all the strings.
