AN: Same TRIGGER WARNING.

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Well then.

"Don't you recognise one of these faces? I know they're a little difficult to make out after I fed them their eyeballs and whatever else is missing. Most of them prefer the toasting laser we have yet to bring to market. It does quite the amazing job of cooking thinly sliced meat. They don't much like themselves raw."

Another involuntary gag from the man.

"But back on topic, Hamadi. Do you really not recognise this one's face? Honestly, that one's the original owner of the mansion you're in. Your missing warlord of a brother! It'll be such a lovely family reunion!!"

I clapped my hands together in happy excitement, ignoring the pain that shot up from my right hand.

So easy to read when he recognised his childhood hero. How his body tensed, shifting between outrage and terror. So dumb that he hadn't noticed Eve's changes to the face of the doll next to me as I was talking. Straight up changed the skin colour.

"Hasani!!" the man screamed, trying to get his brother's attention. "Hasani!!!"

"He can't hear you. I've long punctured his eardrums. He hasn't heard a thing in years."

"You – !!!!"

He huffed and puffed as if he ran a long marathon, sweat dripping off his chin.

"I do hope you open your mouth. Matching sets are so much fun! Oh you'll love it here. If you piss us off enough, I'll even add your children in. Wouldn't be at all difficult to collect each and every bastard child you hid away. Make a mini collection out of the lot of you."

The man was a menace to all in his life but one young girl he carefully hid away from the rest of the world. A young girl given to him by the love of his life from before all this twisted the brothers into what they were now.

No doubt she was the price too high for him to pay.

And I knew exactly where she was.

"Jamali's food tastes just like home, doesn't it?" I teased, grinning wider at the pure horror on his face.

Like every person before him, he danced the same when the Dollhouse came into play. Only took a little nudge to shattered them so completely.

Hamadi glanced over his shoulder at the door, expecting people to come in already. But they won't until I was finished with him.

He pressed the barrel to his head. His finger desperately pulled the trigger over and over again. Instead of the sweet death he desperately searched for, Odinga only managed to burn the side of his face.

'Rather dead than risk talking, huh?'

But we wanted him more alive than dead. May come in use some day.

"Hey now. Don't do that. It's hard to tell matching sets when half your face is all messed up. Then again, I can just do the same with Hasani. Now where did I put the blowtorch? Maybe I'll just have them save your gun and load it with blanks. Save me the trouble of trying to create the scars with a torch on the lot of you," I mused, tapping my chin lightly.

I reached out slightly behind me, pretending to stroke the cheek of "his brother" with the back of my hand. Eve did a wonderful job of animating the frightened struggle of a man missing his voice box and left only with this sense of touch and smell.

The screams that spilled through the line were... fitting. The pure terror behind the sounds. The hopelessness in his blabbering. I could practically hear the pieces of his sanity slipping away.

"Oh hush now," I snapped lightly. "Did I not say I'll only add you to my collection of dolls if you misbehave? It's more fun that way. To know you brought it all on yourself. Your own damned fault you ended up here."

Hamadi's jaw snapped shut with an audible click.

"But alas, there's a slight chance you're not as dumb as your brother, which I do hope you're not, you're only being charged with a couple of war crimes. We'll make sure you go away for just that on your very long list, and that you'll get out probably after you've gone all wrinkly. Though, if you do find your cell too boring, you always have the choice of joining my collection whenever you wish. You know a fraction of our reach already. The choice is yours to make, Hamadi."

With that, I motioned for Eve to cut the line and chucked the octo mask thing to the side. The operation would be completed with my part staying unknown to anybody else.

"With four minutes to spare."

Four minutes to get this out of my system. The disgust of being so filled with excitement and thrill of shattering a mind to pieces.

I needed to bury this bit of me as far as I possibly could. The sadistic streak in me. Bucky could never find out. He already freaked out at a glimpse of it over Zephyr and food.

The man's faith in me to be better....

Better than those who had controlled him....

"You did a number on Odinga. He's eagerly following every order. As a joke, I had one of them tell him to hop on a leg while rubbing his stomach and tapping his head. This is hilarious."

A live clip from Odinga's webcam came back to my screen. And as Eve said, the man was obediently doing stupid shit with gusto.

I dropped my eyes to my nails. I had no joy in watching a broken man imitate a monkey.

"Is everything in play with Cheboi? He'd get us back into Africa."

"If all goes according to plan, the transition will be smooth."

Which meant it'd go smoothly.

Perfect.

Got our way back into Africa and crossed out another monster out of my life.

The Hague was only four walls. The threat of the Dollhouse was an ever looming mental prison. No escaping that. There's no hole he could crawl into in hopes to hide from us.

"I feel icky."

The dress peeled off of my skin and dropped to the floor. I quickly slipped back into an oversized shirt in hopes to find a bit of myself again. Or at least the girl who explored the city and shared a sandwich with a stranger.

"Not according to what your chemical levels are saying," Eve practically sang.

Irritated, I shifted the monitoring bracelet from its magnetic port on my inner wrist. Cut Eve's sensors that told her exactly was flowing in my bloodstream.

I stared at the shorts in distaste. If I could get away with it, I'd probably run about in a pair of panties.

But Bucky was here, and he was surprisingly shy about the most random things.

So I pulled up my shorts before hobbling for the door.

A glance out the massive window in my room spoke of the total darkness the mountain was mostly drowned in. No way in hell was Bucky letting me take a bike out even if it were midday. I doubt he'd agree with the idea of me clamouring about the cliff either. He was already frowning every time I walked on my stupid ankle.

With a sigh, I tore my eyes away from the unsettling darkness and set them on one of Eve's eyes. "You remember that strawberry milk thing Tristen used to make? Do we have that stuff here?"

"Not going to go latch yourself onto the Sergeant?"

I froze at that jab. Couldn't help the sneer that curled my lip. "Sorry for bloody breaking so much lately," I snapped, sarcasm dripping off every word. "I just so love cleaning up after the family. And doing your bloody dirty work. So much fun."

"Odinga was your problem, Val."

"No. Odinga was their problem, and they shrugged him off to me. You knew exactly who we were going to work with. You all knew those villages were going to be slaughtered and that was eventually going to bite us in the ass. So don't play naïve with me."

"...I never wished for this outcome.... I don't believe any of us did."

"Whatever," I huffed with a hand wave.

They knew, they chose, and I did as told.

The energy bubbling up inside me wasn't helping at all. The excitement of breaking a person. The anger of having to do it at all.

I wanted to work it out of my body. Climb for the skies or ride through the trees. Neither were particularly smart moves.

"I've warned you to anticipate your parents' movements. Find a solution to their problems that you can live with before they end up with one you can't."

"Yeah, like kidnapping my best friend and telling me that I got her killed? And a month later, they send me to deal with Odinga? You guys didn't even let me go to her bloody funeral!!! I didn't even have time to mourn! Have to keep up that bloody perfect image!"

"Since when have you been this childish? I wonder if it's because he's letting you do so."

At this rate, I was never going to make it out of my room with all the pausing. Hobbling around already took forever in this gigantic building.

Forcing myself to brush off her words, I continued the long journey out of my damn bedroom. Needed to use the time to focus on anything besides the dark and twisted recesses of my mind. Or the fact that bits and pieces of the Dollhouse actually existed in this lovely world I live in. The people keeping actual limbless human dolls. The people being fed their own body parts.

"At least you still know how to lie convincingly."

"Good god, Eve. I was taught how to lie before my first word. I sure as fucking hell hope I know what I'm doing by now."

But how much of that performance I gave was an actual lie? Most of it was basically a promise. I might not keep him alive as a doll. But the man would suffer if a word I didn't like passed his lips.

If Odinga looked into it, wouldn't be too hard for his paranoid brain to piece together how his idiot brother ended up with me. After all, I was behind his disappearance. Dead but didn't go easy in any way.

'Fucking finally reached the bloody ass door.'

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Author's Note:

If you enjoyed this part, please consider leaving a vote. They're very much appreciated. ^^

And a big thank you to TinselA/Bunny Carrot (https://www.fanfiction.net/u/7591081/) and the Anonymous Fifth Beta for Beta-ing this chapter.