by Sophia Reed
I didn't think my interests were that easily explained. That explanation – alphas like to have control wrested from them, to be controlled and even punished! – smacked of cheap psychobabble and pop psychology.
The idea that I simply liked pain I liked even less.
Since Cole had come into my life, explanations were less plentiful and the whole thing made less sense. I chafed at Cole's control. I'd come to learn that, no matter what, pain hurt.
Whatever the reasoning behind my desires, I'd find no explanations and no desires here. I'd created Lily out of whole cloth, fashioned her from girls I'd gone to school with and girls I'd arrested and other girls I'd seen hanging around with the dealers and the users.
I needed to do the same thing here. I needed to go undercover – deep undercover – and bury Annie somewhere safe. Lily wouldn't help. I didn't need opiates mixed into the hell that was Vincent Geddes and Kie.
I'd been eyeing the phone, wondering what Vincent would do about feeding me. The day before had been horrific. Now I was starving. There was nothing else for me to put on, so I wore the sweats he'd thrown at me back in Hollywood. There was no one else to ask for food, so I was going to pick up the phone and ask whoever was there what I had to do to get some.
There was no other way out of the room except the window that had proved I was on the third floor of a large house in a city that gave me no clues. So I'd have to find another way out. Undoubtedly there was an alarm on the window. I'd tried opening it and no one came, so maybe it reacted to weight on the sill or the screen being popped out.
Or maybe the fact that I was three floors up with a sheer drop convinced Vincent to skip alarms.
I sat down on the edge of the bed to figure out the parameters of the person I needed to create. Submissive, but angry. Obedient, but clearly only because she had to be.
So far? That was me.
But I needed to be untouchable. Stone-faced at any references to Cole. Scathing about his rules but not breaking them. I wouldn't be able to convince him that overnight I'd come to see the error of my ways and wanted to fall into line behind crazy Kie as concubine number two. But I could convince him I was going along to get along and to avoid beatings.
So far I was simply presenting Annie.
But Annie who logically accepted what was happening to her and waited to go back to Cole. Annie who believed whatever Vincent told her.
That Annie was the fake.
The real Annie was waiting for her chance. Her chance to run.
And her chance to kill Vincent and Kie.
I was still sitting on the edge of the bed when the screaming started.
5
Cole
I ran in the desert. I visited with Ariel. I stayed breathing down the necks of the hackers as they worked round the clock fueled by Red Bull and cheese snacks. Or in some cases, spring water and organic kale.
I contacted Claude and Chloe, and Dr. Andrews, and everyone just barely outside our circle but no one had heard from Vincent.
He'd vanished.
I destroyed three punching bags. I obsessively watched anything that might show celebrities of the financial world.
On day three I used my own discipline on myself and went back into my lab, working on several different synthetic and natural substances. Forcing my mind into new rhythms. Maybe something would come of it. I'd come out of a work session to find I had just remembered some random comment Vincent had made years ago, something about a vacation house or his own worst case scenario bunker or –
But nothing came to me. I distracted myself by thinking of how I would punish her when she came back to me. It didn't matter if it wasn't her fault. She'd be punished and I'd make damned sure she didn't enjoy it.
6
Annie
The screaming was coming from somewhere in the house. My first instinct was to respond as law enforcement. I ran to the door, already grabbing at a gun that wasn't on my person any more than actual clothing or a cell phone or a badge were.
The door was locked. For a second I hammered on it and shouted before reason returned. Not only had the people I was screaming for been the ones to lock me in, but whatever was happening, it wasn't happening to me and right now, that was the only thing I needed to worry about.
Except that was impossible. Because wherever here was, it was ruled by only one lord and master. Of that I had no doubt. Vincent ruled whatever this house was. That meant whoever was screaming – my money was on Kie though it could have been some girl brought in, god knows I was some girl dragged in – and if Vincent made someone he intended to keep scream like that, what the hell would he do with me?
For the hours that followed I drank water from the bathroom sink, paced the confines of my new room, tried to sleep, searched for food as hunger started to gnaw at me, and went back to pacing.
Vincent sent a guard to get me at sundown. She was a bodybuilder, that was certain, and she was in Vincent's employ. There was something about her, though, that didn't seem like she'd hurt me just because she could.
"Can you tell me where you'll be taking me?" I asked. I was waiting for her to handcuff me or click the restraints to the collar around my neck but she just gestured at me to pick up the shoes.
I sighed.
"Just bring them with you," she said, as if she shared a loathing for them. "I'm just taking you to dinner. You'll be fed and then you'll attend Mr. Geddes as he eats."
I didn't like the word attend but there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. "Thanks. Can you tell me what the screaming was I heard this afternoon?"
Her eyes snapped to a spot distant and past my left ear and she said flatly, "No, ma'am, I could not."
I tried again. "Can you tell me if it was Kie who was screaming?" I had my shoes in hand but no desire to leave the room, not even for food.
'No, ma'am, I could not."
I narrowed my eyes at her distant expression. "Are we under surveillance right now?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Was that a flicker of relief that ran across her face? It didn't matter. She'd been decent enough to me and I wasn't going to pursue it. I let her lead me to a kitchen where a variety of domestics or help or staff or whatever household workers were called by those rich enough to have them were also eating their dinners. The food was hot and decently prepared and nicely presented and five minutes later I couldn't have said what I ate, only that I wasn't hungry anymore.
Because it had become clear that I was going to be attending the dinner where Vincent was entertaining.
I ate fast. Just in case I got called away. Or in case he didn't feed me for another twenty-four hours.
I found out what the screaming was at the same time I found myself in the dining room.
Vincent had guests, two men in expensive suits and relaxed expressions that identified them as peers.
They glanced up at me in my sweats and back to the meals in front of them. I took a look around the room and froze. Across from me, Kie was chained to the wall by a belt around her waist. Her hair was everywhere, in her face, stuck to the tracks of her tears, in her mouth. She couldn't do anything about it because her hands were stretched overhead and fastened to the wall.
There were whip marks all over her body. Whatever she'd done to make him angry, he'd been taking it out on her for hours. There were dark circles under her eyes and every few minutes she fell off her feet, collapsing in some direction or another, yanked back up by the chains holding her in place.
Probably it had been happening since I first heard her screaming. The screaming had stopped because Kie was just too exhausted, too wasted, to go on screaming.
I could tell some of what had gone on with her. Her hair had been pulled violently enough there was actually blood in it, thin traces of red mixed in with the black. Someone had slapped her repeatedly and her mouth was swollen. There were whip marks on her bare breasts and on her back.
But I stopped then, and drank in what I was seeing. Not with pleasur
e, not even for my enemy and there was no doubt that's what Kie was.
But because she'd been his play toy for some time. They were married, for fuck's sake. And there was no reason that made sense, that she'd be broken by what had been done to her. Someone had had sex with her, that was obvious from traces on her skin, but this was her husband and if it wasn't him, I didn't think he'd allow even the most trusted and coveted colleague to go bareback where he himself later would.
All things considered, Kie's condition wasn't much worse than what I anticipated some "rough play" with Vincent Geddes generally ended with.
I dragged my eyes away from her and back to the table and a sudden, strange sensation swept over me: The knowledge that it was very possible I was living my last minutes on Earth. Because there was no way that Vincent's colleagues were going to rape me.
I'd go out fighting. I'd take one of them with me. I'd take all of them with me if I could. And if I could do that, if I could take someone with me?
Then I wasn't going.
They were.
"What's she waiting for?" one of the men asked through a full mouth. They were both completely nondescript, the kind of men that witnesses agree on in post-crime interviews because there's nothing to disagree about. If they’d stood, rather than shoveling food into their mouths, they'd be average height, somewhere around five-ten. They both had dark hair, not a shiny unnatural black and not sandy or the sort of hair that can look anything from caramel brown to honey gold. Just dark. Normal features, bland, not unattractive, but not even as forgettably attractive as the type of male model who shows up anonymously in picture frames and has to be removed before the real photo goes in.
"She's new," Vincent said lazily, not looking at me, then banged his fist on the table so hard his plate jumped.
I did, too. I was anticipating violence in the next few minutes. I was edgy. I was wondering how I'd die. If I'd be able to somehow affect my death myself.
More than that, I was horrified at the idea of not dying. That Vincent and anyone remaining would be able to get hold of me.
On the wall, Kie slid down again, jerked to a stop by her belt, and stood once more. I could almost feel sorry for her.
Vincent stood and came round the table toward me. Halfway between the table and where I stood, he slowed and put up both hands. "Whoa. Nobody's going to touch you."
One of the men behind him said, "Stuck up little cunt, isn't she?" and I wished I knew which one, so when the time came, I could choose him.
Only the time wasn't coming. Because Vincent stopped short of touching me. "You need to take off the sweats and put on the shoes. Then you're going to walk up and down the length of the room and sit down from time to time." He hesitated, then said, "Which in your case is the better idea. Just sit. Panties, heels. Naked boobs. Cross your legs. Don't cross your arms. You think you can do that?"
He wasn't asking if it was all right. Of course. But he also wasn't threatening to allow them to rape me or any other kind of assault.
My mind wouldn't wrap around it and my mouth didn't seem to want to close. If it was possible to feel shock from something like this, I did.
When he raised one brow, something I saw from the corner of my eye because I wasn't looking at him directly, I shut my mouth with a snap and said, "Yes. Sir."
He nodded like a complete dolt had just agreed that yes, she could see the point that the sky was blue and the ground was down, the thing under our feet. The instant I began to comply – because suddenly being mostly naked and in heels sounded far better than being dead – he turned back to the table and his guests and I was forgotten, as good as not here except for the occasional loving look cast at some part of my body. Loving. Lusting. Or longing to hurt. No way of knowing, if his guests were sadists.
From time to time I looked over at Kie. She'd given up trying to stand and was kneeling on all fours, her middle pulled up by the belt that didn't have quite enough length of chain to allow this. Her hair hung in her face and from time to time she sniffed, sounding like she was silently crying.
Despite their attention to whatever agreement the three of them were working out, the men’s attention came back to me more often than I'd have hoped. Long looks at my breasts, which frankly were nothing compared to the beautiful job Vincent had done on Kie's. It was a shame he'd then marked up all that firm, upthrust flesh.
And despite the fact that for me there was nothing more than feeling exposed and embarrassed by it and not quite sure if I should have fought this and quite sure the next instant that I shouldn't have, despite all of it, the panic didn't still.
Because what he'd done to Kie was appalling. Even if she liked it and if she had, she didn't now. Maybe all masochists learn that pain hurts at some point or another. Or maybe this was just farther and harder and worse than what he usually did to her.
But that he could do that to her, what could he not do to me?
So I sat quietly, displayed, wearing panties and heels and feeling less embarrassed and far less stupid than I'd expected. The first time I went back to high school, undercover and looking for dope, the first time I went to a rave, the first time I met somebody who was a biker and pretended I was Lily, looking to score, tiny and scared and addicted – those times there had been a feeling of unreality and a sensation that somehow we were all involved in some kind of over-the-top farce. It was hard at times to keep a straight face despite it being life or death.
Here, too. Their requests were so juvenile. To wander around like a one woman Hooters, or to wear heels because even when I was sitting they liked how it gave a certain elegant line to my legs.
I wanted to snap then and tell them that the line to my leg came from hours and hours of running in the desert, on dangerously rocky trails. I wanted to give it all away in a fury of protest, as if by shouting that I could run fifteen miles, surely, because I'd run twelve and we can always do more than we think and that then, fifteen miles away from them, I could find help and bring them down.
Because the help was only to get me away. Out of the house. Out of the city. Out of the country I was starting to guess.
Back to Cole.
This time I'd hang on.
On my third day in the house, Vincent ordered me to work with Kie on the whole hair, makeup, shoes thing. To be honest, she was my best chance to get it right. Kie was beautiful, even with the new cuts he'd put on her cheeks, the ones still seeping clear fluid. They had to hurt.
He also put me on a strict keto diet to lose what he called an unsightly fifteen pounds. I didn't think I'd lose that much weight, especially not during the amount of time I intended to stay stuck here.
Biding my time. Waiting for an unguarded window that wasn't three straight stories down to concrete.
My weight had never been a hang-up. I was good enough for Mark to fall in love with and more than good enough for Cole to want and obviously good enough for Vincent even, unless he went around kidnapping girls he found ugly.
I didn't want to look like Kie. Her boobs were firm and beautiful, he'd done a lovely job on them, but they seemed to sit directly on her ribcage because there was nothing to her. No muscle tone. No muscle. No deposits of fat where women are supposed to have them. I liked my muscle. I'd worked hard for it.
When he ordered us to work together, I decided to take the bull by the horns. Kie being the bull.
"There's a trick to these things, right?" I asked before she'd even turned around from staring after him with belligerence that would have gotten anybody else slapped.
Kie turned back, mid-growl, then saw me holding the shoes out by two fingers around the heels. She just looked curious. "Put them on." Then she realized what I was asking and said, "There's no trick." But she was laughing as she watched me put them on and begin hobbling across the room toward her in my sweats and heels, affecting the wizened hag curl to my body to keep from toppling over. "You look ridiculous."
"That's good," I said. "Because I feel ridiculous."
&nb
sp; Little by little, through the afternoon spent in a dining room with a view through picture windows of a city I didn't know, Kie taught me to move fast while seeming to take my time and how to take steps in such a way I really was taking my time – in order to balance and not look like some crabbed and haunted old witch shuffling along – and walking upright with some speed. I thought it was probably one of the most temporary things I'd ever learned. Working undercover I’d picked up on things and became someone else and learned entire lexicons and emotional display arrays only to abandon them and forget I'd learned them when the assignment ended.
Put me back in normal shoes and I'd forget how to do this stilt walking thing in no time.
When I stood upright, I felt like I was far taller than I was in the shoes, like I'd suddenly shot up to six-four or something, rather than adding four inches to my five-six. Sometimes it felt like I was falling. Sometimes it felt like falling would be preferable to standing even another minute with all of my weight pitched forward onto my toes. Then I just wanted to fall forward, hit the ground, and lie there.
In between, when the pain in my feet was too much, she'd plunk us both down in front of salon mirrors and explain the finer points of makeup to me. I'd never known there were so many things you could do with plain old makeup.
When she finished with me, she'd done whore. "Oh, thanks ever so," I said and heard Kie giggle for the first time. It wasn't a sane sound but it was mirth. I'd take what I could get.
