Marilyn flung herself at the basement door, but it was too late.
She had heard the soft click and knew what it meant yet she couldn't stop herself from beating her fists helplessly against the barrier between her and the doctor.
"Oliver!" she screamed, pounding so hard she felt the bones in her hand buzzing from the impact. "Oliver, please, don't do this! She's lying!"
"He can't hear you," Lana said dully from her prone position on the bed. "The walls are soundproof."
Marilyn turned from the door at once and bolted across the room, launching herself onto the mattress and on top of the shackled woman who lay there. Fury burned in the pit of her stomach like a glowing red coal; it seemed the only thing to do was to put her hands around Lana's neck and squeeze, and squeeze, and squeeze.
"You stupid cunt," she hissed, shaking her a little to emphasize her words. "Do you have any idea - any idea - what you've done?"
Lana's lips pulled back from her teeth in a half-smile as she clawed at the hands around her throat.
"Guess... you don't get... to play house... anymore," she managed.
Marilyn heard someone scream in frustration and she supposed it was herself. She tightened her grip around Lana's neck for only a moment before thrusting her away, striking the other woman's head hard against the bed's headboard.
Lana cried out and crumpled to the sheets as Marilyn got shakily to her feet. Much as she wanted to choke the very life out of this woman she knew Oliver would never forgive her if he came downstairs and found Lana dead.
And now? Would he forgive her for the lies Lana had told?
She began to pace the length of the basement like a restless caged animal.
It was true she was frightened. It was true that the prospect of bearing Bloody Face's child was something she could hardly fathom. It was true she'd considered her options.
It was not true, what Lana had said.
As monumentally twisted as the whole situation was, Marilyn could no longer deny that part of her actually wanted to have this baby, to give it the life Oliver had been so cruelly denied. The doctor himself was a picture-perfect example of why children needed good mothers. She had long scoffed at the idea of settling down, getting married, having babies, but something... something was different now.
She was different now.
And if only she could tell Oliver. If only he would listen, hear her actually say the words... she was sure he would forgive her.
There was the sound of quiet, breathless laughter from the bed. Marilyn turned and glared as Lana drew to a sitting position, rubbing the back of her head.
"I'm doing you a favor," she said, giggling almost hysterically.
"A favor?" Marilyn murmured incredulously. She took a step towards the bed, hands flexing as if to take Lana by the throat again, then thought better of it and backed away. "How on earth or in hell do you think you're doing me a god damned favor? He's going to kill me, most likely, and then you'll be all that's left and he'll kill you too."
"Exactly." Lana's giggles began to subside but there was still a strange faraway look to her eyes; Marilyn began to wonder if the drug she'd forced down her throat had affected her in some deep, dark way, or if perhaps the reporter was finally succumbing to the madness of her fate.
"You think you can just keep playing the good little wife and have his baby and everything will just be fine?" Lana asked in her dry cracked voice. "The man's a murderer, you stupid girl, he's not going to change. He can't."
"He could." Marilyn's eyes flicked involuntarily to the wall of shiny metal tools.
"He promised me too," Lana went on. "When I showed him I was pregnant, he promised he'd be different, he'd be a good man. I knew then, you should know now. He can't change."
"He did," Marilyn insisted. "I'm still here!" She gestured wildly to her body. "I've still got my skin! I'm special! I-"
"You're locked in the basement," Lana said flatly, "with me."
The crush of reality hit her like a ton of bricks. Suddenly it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room and her chest could only hitch with useless effort. Marilyn slid slowly to the cool tiled floor as all the strength seeped out of her legs.
Lana regarded her with cold eyes. After a moment she moved onto her side, turning her back to Marilyn. The ankle restraint clanked loudly in the silence.
"You have to face the truth eventually," she said dully. "He's a maniac. Not a lover, not a father. A monster."
"I can't breathe," Marilyn gasped, choking on the lump in her throat.
Another pause passed between them.
"He killed Wendy, you know," Lana said at last.
Marilyn swallowed desperately and stared at Lana's back.
"My Wendy. He went to our home and he murdered her. And when I ended up here..." Her shoulders shuddered. "...she was in the basement, too."
Hot tears slid down Marilyn's cheeks, but she couldn't be sure who she was crying for.
She listened for Lana to say more but there was no more. As the light began to fall outside she drew her knees up under her chin and, once again, she waited.
She had slipped into a fitful sleep when she was roused by two strong hands lifting her from the cold tile floor. Marilyn began to struggle groggily, unable to see her attacker in the utter blackness of the basement at nighttime.
"Shhh, no, it's all right," she heard a deep voice whisper, and its familiarity both comforted and alarmed her in the same moment.
"Oliver," she mumbled, pushing at him weakly, because how could she tell? How could be sure exactly what he was here for? Perhaps it was truly time to end this sick twisted game, for her to be found headless and skinless in an open field, the subject of news headlines for the next few months until some other tragedy struck and she was forgotten forever.
"It's me, it's just me, you're all right." The doctor held her close to his chest, cradling her slim body against his like something precious. He turned and began to ascend the steps out of the basement.
"It's not true," Marilyn said helplessly, feeling tears rise hot in the back of her throat. She was too tired to fight; the day and night spent on the cold hard floor had left her muscles aching. "I'm not like her, I'm not like them, please don't hurt me..."
Oliver quietly closed the door behind them and carried her through the darkened den towards their bedroom.
"I told you before," he murmured, sounding somewhat disappointed. "Your baby would never hurt you. You know that."
He laid her down gently on the bed and drew the sheets up to her waist. In the pale moonlight Marilyn could see her face glinting off the lenses of his black-rimmed glasses. She looked small and frightened.
"You left me in the basement," she said, and before she knew it she was crying, pathetic little sobs catching in her throat. The doctor smoothed the hair back from her forehead tenderly.
"I know. I'm sorry. Sometimes I can't... I can't control myself." He let her cry for a few moments, then began to unbutton his starched white dress shirt. She watched, hiccupping through her tears, as Oliver undressed fully, shedding his layers until he was stark naked. He reached for her and gently tugged the black silk nightie over her head, leaving her as nude as he was; tossing the negligee aside, the doctor slipped into bed with her, curling his body around Marilyn's like a child.
As soon as her warm flesh met his Oliver sighed softly.
"I'm sorry," he said again. One long-fingered hand crept down to the hard little bulge of her belly and rubbed soothing circles over the skin there. "I should've known. I suppose I did, in a way."
Marilyn's sobs began to ebb as his touch calmed her, comforted her. He was not going to kill her, once again. She was back in his good graces, and it was a good thing.
"I couldn't allow myself to believe it, you see," he went on thoughtfully, leaning his nose into the blonde tangle of her hair. "Lana, as I expected, did the unthinkable to our unborn baby. What she did was worse than the injustices I suffered as a child, because our child had a father who would've loved him unconditionally. But it was..." Here his voice grew thick; he took a moment to compose himself before going on. "...a cosmic joke for that child to end up inside yet another woman devoid of any motherly love whatsoever."
Oliver took her gently by the chin and turned her face towards his, wiping away the tears cooling on her cheeks.
"But you," he said softly, "you're not like her. I know you're not."
He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead and Marilyn felt the reliable hardness of his rising erection against her thigh.
"You'll love our child." Oliver's whisper was so soft she may have missed it had she not been listening closely. "Right? You'll love our child, won't you? The way you love me?"
Marilyn thought for a moment. She closed her eyes and savored the way his palm felt moving slowly across the curve of her full stomach.
"You know I will," she said at last. The doctor made a small sound of relief in her ear.
"Mommy," he moaned quietly, and his hand began to roam further south, his fingertips trailing along the gentle dips of her hipbones. Oliver began to rock his own hips slowly against the warm flesh of her thigh.
He lowered his mouth to the swell of her breast and closed his mouth over one pebbly nipple, teasing it delicately with the tip of his tongue.
"Your milk will come in soon," he mumbled against her skin, and the very thought made him grind his stiff member harder on her leg. She sighed as the warm heat of his mouth on her breast urged a slow throb into her already damp sex.
Briefly Marilyn wondered if she was actually going along with this madness, if she was truly going to oblige this man whose issues with his mother and touch ran so deep he literally skinned women to feel close to them. She wondered if he was going to try to breastfeed from her. She supposed he might.
But what choice did she have? She was in so deep now there was no escaping the doctor, and this was a fact. They were so entangled that she would never be capable of pulling herself free from him; he would follow her to the ends of the earth if she left, and his punishment when he found her would be swift and severe. And he would find her.
And so - knowing there was little room in her cage and she must not take it for granted - Marilyn raked her nails through the doctor's thick dark hair, reveling in the way her fingers broke apart its impeccable style, just as she had the first night he appeared in the doorway of her bedroom.
Oliver growled deep in his throat and moved atop her, spreading her legs expertly with a quick move of his knee. Before entering her he stopped and smiled a strange sort of smile.
"You were right all along," he murmured, placing the tips of his fingers gently at the base of her throat. "It's too dangerous to have her here. I have to protect my family."
Marilyn's brows furrowed into a frown but she barely had time to consider his words before he moved his hips forward, burying his throbbing length deep inside her warm wet center. She whimpered and clutched at the firm skin of his back as Oliver began to rock slowly against her in the rhythm she'd taught him.
"Tomorrow," he said through clenched teeth, trying to pace himself, "tomorrow we'll do what we should've done a long time ago."
A spark went off inside her brain.
"Lana?" she asked breathlessly. Her hands crept to his bare chest and began inching through the dark wiry hair there.
Oliver groaned, burying his face in the curve of her neck.
"We'll take care of her," he whispered, and before they knew it they were tumbling over the edge of ecstasy together, clutching at each other like lovers drowning, sealing Lana's fate even as she slept fitfully in the basement, unaware of the choice they had made.