by Nikki Rae
As soon as we started moving, I shut my eyes so tightly they blocked out all light.
EIGHTEEN
I woke on top of a hard surface, in more pain than I thought possible. When I opened my eyes, I saw the vaulted ceilings high above me, the dark wooden beams dispersed across its white surface. I was back in the house then. By the feel of it, I was on the marble floor in the foyer.
“Master Lyon,” I heard Mr. B say. His shoes squeaking as he hurried towards us.
“Please call Eckart and inform them I will need to renegotiate our terms.” His tone was even.
There was a short span of silence, then, “Of course, sir.”
More silence. “Something else?” Now there was an edge to his voice.
“N—no, sir.” It was the first time I’d heard Mr. B stutter. Then his shoes were fading away.
I heard Master Lyon sigh and felt him kneel beside me. He was slipping the coat from my shoulders, my neck stiff because of the collar. It prevented a fraction of the pain in the rest of my body, but it was still hard to keep the tears at bay.
Then, once I was flat on the floor again, the coat beneath my head now, I heard a metallic sound, felt coldness against my skin. He was cutting off my clothes, starting with the pants.
I must have tried moving—I wasn’t so unattached to my body that I was unaware—because he said, “Be still, Doe.” But it was soft. Not so much of a warning as a reminder. “I have to see what you’ve done before I risk moving you more.”
Why did he care? Soon, he was moving me out of this house, out of his control, and out of his life.
Once my lower half was exposed, he set to work snipping off the shirt I’d stolen.
I heard him let out an exasperated breath when he saw my chest. “Clever,” he mumbled before the shirt completely fell away.
Then he hands were on me, poking and prodding each and every spot that hurt most. Each one was as if he was pressing a button that brought me closer and closer to screaming.
I would have been content to never speak again, but this went on for several excruciating long minutes, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I broke.
“P—Please,” I barely whispered, voice choked and watery. “Please, sir.” I swallowed the lump in my dry throat. “It hurts.”
He kept touching my vulnerable skin, paying extra attention and lingering on the right side of my ribs and collarbone. “I’m sure it does,” he said, unfazed by my agony.
What else had I expected? Pity? Compassion? Those were things he showed me when he was still trying to fool me. Now that I had lifted off his mask to reveal that he was just another monster dressed as a man, there was no need for such elaborate deception. We both knew what was going to happen, so why waste energy on making me comfortable when it no longer served his agenda?
Part of me wanted to mourn the loss of the glimpse of the person he had shown me. Elliot. The one who called me Fawn and cared about my distress and tears.
No.
That man never existed. I had to forget about him and start working on my next moves.
“You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck or back,” he said, finally stopping, yet the pain still lingered in the areas he had most recently touched, reminding me he had been there.
I heard footsteps again—Mr. B coming over to where we were on the marble. “Sir,” he said, composed now.
“Thank you,” he responded. I heard him set something on the floor—a tray maybe—and then he said, “And did you get in touch with Master Jäger?”
There was a pause and I imagined Mr. B giving him his characteristic bow. “He looks forward to rescheduling, sir.”
That was it. Conversation over. They no longer felt the need to treat me as anything other than the property I was. Discussing my transfer was just business as usual. His footsteps retreated down the hall again without another word.
The sound of water. He wasn’t pouring it into a glass; it was more like ringing out a rag. He was going to clean me right here, in the middle of the entryway, as if I was a dog who had rolled around in the mud and he wanted to prevent me from tracking it all throughout the house.
He scrubbed my arms and legs as one would a stubborn pot or pan, unconcerned with the injured parts of my body as if they weren’t there.
I imagined my skin was red and raw and I only got relief when he paused to wash the rag and wring it out. Each time I prayed it was the last and he was finished, but there didn’t seem to be an end in sight.
“Please,” I gasped, unable to hold onto the begging behind my lips or with my clenched teeth.
“Shhh.” It was the sharpest I’d ever heard that sound and it automatically slammed my mouth shut.
But soon I found that I could have held back my plea; he was done, moving on to my face.
I wasn’t aware of the cuts and bruises there until he began to clean them, but it was far better than the rest. When he was done, I was damp, naked, and cold, but I dare not make a sound to show him my discomfort. It would give him pleasure and it would give me nothing.
I heard him toss the soiled washcloth aside and turn to retrieve something else. I smelled the acrid scent of rubbing alcohol only seconds before he was pouring it into the open wound on my chest. This time, I did scream, trying with whatever strength I had left in my muscles to get away from the source of this new profound agony.
He moved with me instead of trying to keep me still, unaffected by my reaction.
“You’re being a child,” he scolded. “It wouldn’t hurt so much if you calmed yourself.”
“Fuck you,” I spat. If he was going to drop his disguise then it was only fair I do the same. “I am a child, you sick fuck. You goddamn pig!”
I was nearly hyperventilating now, limbs flying into the air on their own accord and prompting him to sit on top of me once again, his hands on my shoulders and sending ribbons of pain throughout as he dug his fingers into my skin.
Without so much as a word, he slapped me across the face. It didn’t matter. Nothing did now. It felt too good to release my anger on someone who truly deserved it.
“You…” It was now that the tears finally decided to come, quickly transforming into strangled sobs. “It’s you who’s the Vulture,” I whispered, voice too hoarse to manage anything more. “You…traitor.”
The last words weren’t meant to leave my mouth. Since I’d first thought them, I’d done my best to stuff them down deep so I’d never again think them, but the pain was making me delirious and I couldn’t stop myself from thinking them again, saying them straight to the source of it all.
For the first time, I noticed that his cool demeanor had changed. He was breathing heavily, and when his face came into view above me, his cheeks were red.
“Don’t ever call me that again, Doe,” he said in a low voice. “I’m not one of them, and you would have known that had you been patient.”
I didn’t understand his words and I didn’t want to. They didn’t mean anything. Just more illusions he was trying to get me to see. Something to redirect my attention so I wouldn’t notice when he pulled out the rug from beneath my feet.
“Fuck. You.” My voice was weak now. I had used all of my energy to tell him these things when they ultimately meant nothing to him. The meeting—as he was calling it—would happen no matter what I said or did. It was better to be silent, I decided. Be silent while I still had the option.
Soon, I would be even less human than now, reduced to a cage again, only taken out for entertainment.
I saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed, regaining his composure. “I have to stitch your wound,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’d prefer it if you weren’t moving.”
I turned my gaze to the bit of ceiling I could see just past his head.
He took that as my answer and began taking other things off of the tray, out of my line of sight. “I’m out of Lidocane,” he informed me by way of some sort of warning. “Obviously, I hadn’t been expecting this.”<
br />
That was all he said before the needle pierced my skin. I jolted immediately, but he had one hand ready and just above the wound, pressing me back down into the marble. He didn’t say anything; just waited for me to settle before he started again. It was nothing compared to the pain of my collarbone or ribs, but it still hurt and the sound of the wound coming together made me feel lightheaded and sick. After a while, I couldn’t even feel it anymore. All I felt was my own failure and the raw, acute ache it left behind.
“Nearly finished,” he mumbled, the sound of scissors punctuating the air. “It would better if I could take you to a hospital, but that is a luxury we cannot afford.” He didn’t mean money; he didn’t want anyone to know I’d run. Then his prize would be returned and his plan to trade me for the other woman would be destroyed. Still, the taunting tone had returned to his voice.
I hadn’t meant to say anything out loud, but it was getting harder to determine what happened inside my head and what didn’t. “Who is she?”
I was asking that question over and over.
“Who is she? Who is she? Who is she?”
I heard him open some sort of bandage and he smoothed it over my chest. “Not now,” was the only answer he gave me. The tone reminded me of one time at the Compound. A girl had been delivered a box of chocolates larger than her head and one of the guards told her she could have them after lessons and once she’d finished dinner.
“But they’re mine,” I remember hearing her say through the little slit in the door, after I’d been sent back to my room until it was time to eat—a rarity; usually they forgot to feed me altogether, even if I wasn’t being starved.
“Not now,” the guard had said.
He was picking me up now, breaking me from my thoughts.
“Shhh,” he said as if I’d made a sound, but I knew I hadn’t. He brought me up the stairs and to my room, smoothing down the comforter before laying me on top. I heard him go over to the closet, the wooden hangers clacking against each other before he returned.
He lifted me again, the bones in my body screaming in protest so loudly I had to bite my tongue to keep them from escaping. I felt thick, soft, cotton against my skin and I hadn’t realized I’d been freezing until this moment. It felt like some type of robe and he only draped it over me, tucking in the loose fabric at my sides instead of tying the belt around my waist. I was more than grateful despite my rage. I was in so much pain that any extra contact would make me burst.
I felt a depression in the mattress as he knelt on it beside me, drawing the covers up to my hips before he said, “I’m going to take the collar off so I can see your neck. I don’t want you to move.”
Once again, my silence was the only indication of my compliance. He hesitated and I couldn’t turn my head to investigate the reason. Then I felt his fingers fiddling with the buckles under my chin and the catch releasing. The collar opened like he was cracking open a shell.
His hands probed the tender skin there and it made me wince. It felt badly bruised but I would think if my neck was broken that it would hurt far worse. Then his hand was behind my head, feeling the bones at the base of my skull and lower. Slowly, he moved my head to the left, towards the door, and the right, towards him. How fitting that I should be stuck between the two.
“Is that why you chose me?” The words tumbled from my mouth at the same time I met his eyes, which were narrowed in concentration and perhaps a little annoyance. He’d already made it clear we weren’t having this conversation right now and I was disobeying him. It must have been frustrating to be unable to correct my behavior in the way he wanted at the moment.
He slowly turned my head again so it was lying flat against the pillows. Without a word, he left the room. I didn’t think he was coming back, but then I heard him in the hall talking to Mr. B.
“Thank you, Marius,” he said. “You can take the rest of the day off. You’ve done more than enough.”
I wanted to move so I could look at them—or anything other than the ceiling—but any attempt sent even more intense pain through every part of my body.
“Are you sure, sir?” Mr. B was asking.
“Yes.”
“As long as you don’t require anything else, Master Lyon.”
“Thank you. One day I’ll be able to repay you for all you do.”
There was no response and soon I heard footsteps coming back into the room.
He was sitting on the bed, setting something I couldn’t see on the nightstand. I managed to get my head to sink to the right side of the pillow by going completely limp and he had a hand at that back of his neck as he stared at the floor. He didn’t say anything until he looked up and realized I could see him.
He swallowed and his expression changed to an impenetrable mask. All of my hard work at getting him to drop his disguise was nonexistent now.
“Your neck isn’t broken,” he informed me. “Just badly sprained. I’ll leave the collar off for now and see how you do without it.”
I snorted. It was as if I wasn’t even in my broken body anymore; I had no control over how it reacted or what it said. “Why bother?” my mouth asked. “I’ll soon be back in a choke collar and chains. Might as well get used to being a dog again now.”
His expression didn’t change, but I could see him clenching and unclenching his jaw.
He distracted himself by covering me the rest of the way with the comforter, my arms trapped underneath. Taking the collar from beside me, he placed it on the nightstand. He sighed. “Does it still hurt?”
So this was it. He would ignore any allusion to his true plans until he was rid of me? I wanted to scream, to hit him, bite him, and taste his blood. Was there a human behind that mask at all, or had that been another trick of the light?
“Doe.” He sounded exasperated. “I cannot help you if you ignore me. I’ll ask you once more before I leave: are you still in pain?”
I wanted to lie. I wanted to show him I didn’t need his pity, but the truth was that it hurt so badly that I couldn’t possibly fake being fine.
“Yes, sir,” I croaked.
He stared at me, eyes shifting over my covered body as if it was bare. “You need to rest.”
He lifted the blanket near my right leg and before I could ask what he was doing, I felt a sharp prick in the fleshiest part of my backside he could reach while I was still lying face up.
“No—” I said weakly, whatever it was he’d given me already taking affect, or maybe my body was that exhausted already.
“Shhh.” His hand came up to touch my hair, ignoring when I flinched. “Close your eyes, Doe.” He smoothed a few strands away from my forehead.
Now he was being kind to me, but it took the kindness out of the action when he used the name he’d given me. My slave name. It was now that another tear squeezed itself out, rolling down the side of my cheek with the promise of more. The physical pain and exhaustion combined with the mental turmoil and emotional disintegration were too much. I would have preferred him slapping me across the face again.
I was surprised when instead of ignoring my tears, he wiped them away. I didn’t know if it was because he thought I couldn’t see him or if he was too tired to realize, but for a moment, his mask fell and I saw in his eyes a sadness I’d never seen in him before. In my rapidly blurring mind and vision, I recognized that sadness. It was something borne of fear and strengthened by repeated defeat.
“I could have been her for you,” I whispered, only half aware of what I was saying and not sure what I meant.
His hand stilled in my hair before slowly retracing. “Rest, Doe,” he said, but his voice sounded raw this time, like he was holding something back and unsure of how long he could.
Turning away from me, he set the syringe on the nightstand and then covered up my leg. “I know…” It took him what felt like a long time to continue. My eyelids were heavy and I felt like I was sinking into the sheets, the pain floating away, but I fought to remain awake.
He
exhaled; he still wouldn’t look at me. “You’re afraid and confused,” he said. “I know you won’t believe me, but I haven’t betrayed you. I wouldn’t do that.”
The drug must have been stronger than I thought. There was no way he would think he could pass off such a blatant lie as truth—especially to me, especially now. I shook my head, only a dull ache at the back of my skull and echoing in my collarbone. “Please,” I whispered. “Please don’t lie.”
I saw his lip twitch like I had tried to strike him and now I wish I could. “Rest, Doe,” he said, finally standing. “We’ll talk later.”
There was a brief squeeze of my thigh, the depression in the mattress rising again, and then he was gone.
***
When I next opened my eyes, I was freezing cold and back in pain. For a fleeting moment, when I saw the white ceiling above me, I thought I was still in the woods, the sky preparing for a storm.
But then the pressure on my collarbone snapped me directly out of it.
“Almost done,” he was saying, but it hurt too bad to look where he was.
I gasped as I heard a loud pop, a fountain of white hot knives stabbing me at the source. I screamed when it hit its peak, another softer pop breaking through my mind like someone smashing fine china.
This was my punishment then. I didn’t think I could be in more pain, but I’d obviously been wrong.
“Please,” I begged, only able to stare upwards as my vision flooded with unshed tears. “I—I’m sorry, sir. Please, please stop. It hurts.” I was sobbing, babbling, and desperate. If I wasn’t so delirious, I reasoned, I would probably be able to keep my pain to myself. Right now I didn’t care what he saw as long as he put an end to it.
