In the basement of the Jones's house, dark and oppressive. Marietta crouches behind a stack of dusty boxes, her heart racing as she hears whispers in the corners. Anne Faith stands beside her, eyes wide with fear.
Dan appears from out of nowhere, towering over them both like an evil god. He reaches for Marietta first, his fingers twitching towards her throat. She screams and lunges forward but is pushed back by invisible forces. Dan's gaze narrows as he sees her resistance.
Anne faith stumbles backward into a corner where she falls to the floor in a fetal position, rocking back and forth with sobs wrecking her body. Her eyes are wide with terror and desperation.
Marietta's fingers brush against something sharp-she recognizes it now: one of Dan's hex-dolls. It's lying on the ground beside a pile of blood-soaked rags. She stands up, trembling but determined. " I wont let you hurt my sister," she whispers through clenched teeth, her eyes glowing with newfound resolve.
Dan chuckles darkly as he steps closer to Anne Faith again " You're brave." His voice drips with malice and a hint of something else-something humanly innocent.
Marietta lunges forward once more, but this time Dan's fingers are gone before she can even see them move. He snatches the hex-doll from her reach, examining it closely as though studying an ancient artifact.
Anne Faith's body convulses violently now, spasms wrecking every limb and causing a low moan to escape through clenched teeth.
Dan returns his attention back to Marietta with renewed interest. " You're smart," he says softly. "I like that twiddling his thumbs in a sadistic manner.
Marietta's knuckles turn pale as a ghost as she clutches the hex-doll tighter in her grasp, its wreathing for something or someone to use it for good or evil. She feels a strange tingling sensation spreading through her veins.
Dan, with one swift motion, he grabs Marietta by the hair and lifts her off the ground, slamming her against the wall with enough force to leave tears in her skin and creaks in her bones. " You're going to learn today, whose you're maker," he growls in a animalistic tone before she wriggles out of his grasp.
Marietta staggers back onto shaky legs but doesn't falter for a second. She clenches the hex-doll tighter its fabric crinkling with each heartbeat of terror and tears she has been born to shed.
Anne Faith cries out again, blood trailing from between her teeth as she curls into herself in a more desperate fetal position begging for mercy from Dan.
Dan looks down at Marietta's face and grins wickedly. "And you're going to learn sisters aren't
worth fighting for, not when they are useless like her," he spits on the floor.
Marietta feels a surge of courage ignite within her, as she reaches up and snatches the hex-doll back. It's now covered with dried blood from where Anne Faith had clung onto it. As Marietta holds the hex-doll aloft, tears streaming down her face but eyes blazing brighter than the stars of heaven she whispers to Dan: You're going to rue the day you messed with us. My sister's my world, and you're not taking the only thing I have left in this world! She lunges forward but is met by dans sly movement and she falls to the ground.
As Marietta stands up, trembling but determined. She recognizes the hex-doll lying on the ground beside Anne Faith. Her fingers brush it first, recognizing its significance.
"I don't want to but I might have to use that ugly thing, she says to herself."
Dan grabs Marietta by the hair and slams her against the wall with exceeding force enough to knock most people out but Marietta's resolve stays firm. Her eyes burning brighter than Maryanne's when she jumped into the abyss willing to drown before she'd forsake GOD. She doesn't falter for a moment, an almost supernatural force is keeping her alive at this point. Marietta lunges forwards once more with all the strength she can muster and grabs Dan's hex-doll from his hand. She hold it tilted slightly in one fist while clutching Anne Faith's blood-soaked rag in the other hand. Still shaking but now more determined than ever...
She uses a small piece of the hex-doll's fabric to smear Dan's face with some of Anne Faith's dried blood from her cheek. "This is your last chance," she hisses in a remorseful tone " keep pushing and you'll regret what happens next, voice raw as salmonella."
The hex-doll in her hand begins to glow faintly, as if awakening under her forceful touch. Its fabric starts tearing apart at Marietta's desperate plea's.
Dan recoils back, eyes wide and mouth open in shock or perhaps pain. " What are you doing... Uh... he stumbles on his words. You, you don't know how to use that just give it here and everything will be okay I promise."
Marietta turns to Anne Faith who is still lying in the fetal position on the ground, eyes wide with amazement on her sisters ferocity and Faith. Now she's pleading with tears "Be careful sister! Please help me, but don't kill Dan!" Anne Faith said, "Remember what Mama taught us, even monsters deserve mercy!" Her voice crack like a broken note as tears overwhelm her.
Marietta reaches for Anne Faith's blood soaked rag and uses it to smear Dan's face with the blood stained fabric, she drags the rugged rag across Dan's face like sackcloth, reminding herself of an ancient sacrificial offering.
As she finishes applying the rag to Dan's face. "We wont trust you like our Mom you bastard! I'm not letting you hurt Anne anymore!"
Dan's eyes roll back in his head, and his body convulses like lightning in a bottle violently shocking him. He then collapses in his own putrid vomit. The hex-doll shatters to pieces after Marietta drops it.
"Thank you sis!" Anne Faith said to Marietta. Marietta helps Anne Faith to her feet and they make their way cautiously out of the basement. the sisters leave with a bond and a lesson that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.