Fearless

by Maren Smith

  You are restricted to the kitchen until further notice. You will use your litterbox and you will sleep on the floor. When you are ready to apologize, you will bring me the Punishment Paddle. Until then, you will not speak and you will not be spoken to. For every day you delay, a penalty will be added to your sentence.

  Sure enough, he’d pulled the litterbox out. It was tucked up against the wall on the far side of the island, where everyone would see her use it. He’d left no blankets, no pillow. Nothing between herself and the red kitchen tiles. He hadn’t even granted permission for her to take her harness off. In the morning, she would be chafed. But then, she was wet and dirty now, welted and bruised, so really… what did a little chafing matter? What did any of it matter? She was trapped in a nightmare where the worst was far from over and from which there was no escape.

  Except, Hadlee had escaped. On a night very much like this one, she had got up out of the muddy mire in which Ethen had forced her to kneel and simply walked away. So… it could be done. But could she do it?

  Not dressed like this, she’d freeze to death. She needed clothes, but those were all in Ethen’s room, in his closet with a lock on the door.

  Maybe if she had some way to call someone, so she didn’t have to be outside for so very long…?

  Frozen where she stood, terrified her slightest movement might give her traitorous thoughts away, Kitty did not even look to the kitchen counter where their cellphones lay charging in a neat row, according to each user’s rank. Ethen’s was always first, then hers, Pony’s, and finally Puppy’s. Hadlee’s used to be last, back when she was Piggy and lived here. The girls in his Menagerie were forbidden to touch their cellphones at the farmhouse. Use was only allowed during the workweek and only when Ethen needed to get a hold of them.

  Kitty hugged herself. Every wound on her body pulsed in dread thinking about it, but if she were going to pull a Piggy and walk away from here, then how much worse could it get if she took her cellphone with her? She’d bought the silly thing, with her own money. It wasn’t like she was stealing it; Ethen, of course, would disagree.

  The man with the paddle makes the rules. Ethen was fond of saying that.

  Everything you own became mine the day you signed my contract. He liked to say that too. He also had tracking apps on each of their phones, as well as apps that logged their usage. He could pull it up on his computer, and he did. Every single day, just to check on them. Kitty could take her phone and run, but if she did, he would find her. If she made a phone call, he would know when, where, and to whom. Her phone, Pony’s, and Puppy’s, they were all extensions of Ethen’s prison.

  Piggy’s phone, however, sat in the kitchen’s catchall drawer where Ethen had thrown it the morning he’d found her gone. That had been six months ago. By now that phone would be dead as hell. He might even have shut off service to it, and it absolutely would have all the same tracking apps that hers did. But he might not check it the way he did theirs. And it was a phone, the only one she had access to that he might not think of right away when it came time to hunt her down.

  Her heart in her throat, slowly, Kitty glanced at the kitchen catchall drawer. Hugging herself tighter, she looked to Ethen’s bedroom next. Was he asleep, or was he lying there listening for any sounds her movements might make? What about Pony? Pony was a light sleeper and she liked to tattle, but she was also the only one of the Menagerie allowed to sleep in a bedroom. It was decorated to look like a horse stall, complete with hay on the floor. Right now, the door to it was closed.

  Puppy, on the other hand, slept in her kennel in the living room. If she heard anything, she’d start barking and then Ethen really would come out of his bedroom.

  The whiteboard expressly forbade her from leaving the kitchen. As much as it itched at the back of her head to creep down the dining room wall far enough to steal a peek at Puppy in her kennel, she didn’t dare. The floor there creaked. The floor in the kitchen creaked too, but she could always say she was getting a glass of water. Except that Ethen hadn’t given her permission to drink anything. He hadn’t even set out her food and water bowl. She wouldn’t see those until the morning. Depending on how angry he was with her, she might not see them for days.

  Why was she even thinking about this? She ought to lay down, shut off her mind, and go to sleep. What was she doing, acting like this was as bad as it could get? It wasn’t, not by a longshot. So what, if she didn’t have a pillow or a blanket to comfort her? So what, if she had to spend tomorrow or the next day or even the next few weeks, embarrassed because she had to squat over a litterbox? And yes, maybe he wouldn’t feed her for a few meals, to reinforce the message he was sending now. But at least he’d let her sleep in the kitchen. What right did she have to complain when he could have put her in the Box?

  Shuddering, Kitty’s grip on her own shoulders tightened. She tucked her chin, burying the lower half of her face in the vee of her crisscrossing arms.

  Simply because he hadn’t done it yet, didn’t mean he wouldn’t. He might do that tomorrow. The last time—her knees almost buckled—the last time, he’d left her in there for two full days.

  Kitty began to shake all over again and, for a moment, the darkness in the kitchen seemed to close in tight around her.

  She couldn’t do that again. She couldn’t go back in the Box. Ethen could do anything he wanted to her so long as he didn’t—

  Kitty froze all over again, every muscle in her body locking as tight as a cramp when her gaze fell on the line of cellphones. Ethen’s blinked an angry red while it charged; the other three showed solid green. Her cellphone had been moved. No longer did she hold that coveted position of preferential rank right next to Ethen’s. Pony had that position now, and Kitty’s had been shifted all the way to the end of the line, in absolute last place. Where Puppy’s had been up until tonight. Where Piggy’s had been right up until she ran away. Because shit rolls downhill, Ethen would say when the mood for cruelty overtook him.

  Oh God…

  Beating or not, Box or not, Kitty dropped to her knees and crawled around the cooking island to the catchall drawer. Her heart in her throat, hearing nothing but her own frightened breathing, she pulled it open. She expected barking, sirens, for Ethen to come stalking out of his back bedroom, alerted by some hidden alarm and his belt in his hand. But apart from her own panicky gasps as she struggled to keep from throwing up, the house stayed quiet.

  Rising on her knees high enough to see into the drawer, she dug past the new phonebook, a loose accumulation of whiteboard markers, and finally found it: Piggy’s abandoned phone and charger.

  The alarms really would go off now. Scuttling across the floor to the nearest wall socket, she plugged it in. Flattening herself between the wall and pantry closet, she smashed the phone to her chest so no charging light would be seen. It took almost a full minute before it charged enough even to acknowledge it was plugged in. Kitty jumped as, somewhere in the house, something popped and creaked. A moment later, she all but wet herself when the heater clicked on, circulating warm air through the vents.

  Any minute now, she was going to get caught. Any minute now, someone was going to wake up. They would walk in here, take one look at her, and know. Oh Jesus… Oh Jesus… Her leg started jiggling, bouncing rapidly up and down as she fought herself for control.

  She looked at the phone display, three percent power. Not good enough yet, but, she noted, it still had service. Not only that, but when her fumbling fingers accidentally tapped the wrong button, the text screen came up. She was shocked to find a message there from someone other than Ethen. It was undistinguished, a number without a name and made up of only a few words: If you need me, call.

  Had Hadlee read this message? Was this what had given her the unbelievable courage to run in the first place? Had she called this number to get the help she needed? If Kitty called it, would Hadlee pick up on the other end of the line?

  Nine percent.

  This was it. The point of no return.
Stay or go, go or stay. She would be punished either way.

  Kitty closed her eyes, she fought herself for calm. It helped to be pressed this hard up to the wall, the pain across her welted back grounded her.

  Twelve percent. Close enough.

  She yanked the cord off the phone, clutching it one-handed to her chest while she crawled on one arm and her knees through the dining room (and right over that squeaky floorboard), past the living room (with Puppy still sound asleep in her crate by the cold hearth) and to the front door.

  This was it. She reached for the door knob with a badly shaking hand.

  This was a bridge-burning event, the kind a girl didn’t come back from. The cold enveloped her as she slipped outside, shutting the door as silently as she could behind her.

  She barely had a plan—run until she was safe and then call Hadlee—and she was still every bit as scared now as she had ever been, but she knew what she had to look forward to if she stayed. And still it took the snap of some ice-laden tree branch scaring the hell out of her before Kitty could make herself bolt. But once she did, she put everything her wounded body had into it. The gravel hurt her feet. The ice and snow hurt them more after that, and it was such a crock of shit that cold numbed. It didn’t numb. It prickled and it burned, and anyone who saw her like this likely would not have recognized her as a human being running down the road. She was hunched and crying and probably looked like Quasimodo running for the safety of his bell tower. She fell multiple times. Sometimes she crawled. She cut her feet, her hands and her knees, and she sobbed pathetically every step of the way. Though she followed the road, not once did she ever see the lights of an approaching car. She didn’t know if she would have hidden from one if she had, but eventually, she found that half-thought-out thing she was looking for. Safety.

  It came in the form of an archaic phonebooth on the outskirts of an abandoned gas station parking lot. Had she gone all the way to town? Jesus. Her hands were purple and barely obeyed her as she pushed and shoved to get the rusty door open far enough for her to crawl inside. It wasn’t any warmer than outside had been, but it did shelter her against the breeze that periodically cut across her skin as if with actual razors.

  Collapsing in a chattering, shaking heap in the bottom, cradling her wet and stolen cellphone to her chest, Kitty gave in to her exhaustion. She closed her eyes, resting her head against the frosty plastic-glass wall while she caught her breath. Cold as she was, she could almost have gone to sleep right there. Through sheer force of will, she dragged her head back up off the wall and looked at the phone. Five percent power.

  Her fingers refused to work. It took three attempts and she had to blow on them before she could get the phone on and the screen to swipe. It was nothing short of a miracle that she hit the right number to call, instead of Ethen’s. And still her heart leapt right into the back of her throat when she heard the click as it was answered, almost immediately a male voice, gruff with sleep, mumbled, “I’m up. Be there in five.”

  That wasn’t Ethen, although her ears tried hard to convince her otherwise. It wasn’t Hadlee either. What was she going to do if Hadlee wasn’t even there? What if he said ‘Wrong number’ and hung up on her? Where was she going to go? What could she do?

  Her breath caught in the back of her throat, and here came a whole new rush of tears, burning her eyes with the kind of warmth no other part of her currently felt. How many tears did one woman have to cry before she ran out? Kitty would have thought she’d hit her limit two damn miles ago.

  She was so pathetic.

  “Is Hadlee there?” she finally begged, only no sound came out, just a rasp of breath broken by the relentless chattering of her teeth and the movement of her lips.

  Panic hit her. Oh God… Oh noNoNO!

  “D-d-don’t hang up,” she cried, but still without sound. Just a harsh cough of air where the ‘h’ should have been and a squeak of helpless frustration when that was all.

  From the other end of the phone, she thought she heard a familiar female voice sleepily ask, “Who is it?”

  Hadlee! It was Hadlee!

  Grabbing her throat, Kitty swallowed, bringing moisture back to a mouth and throat gone dry from panting the cold winter air. Still, her voice was more like a squeaky gate hinge when she at last managed a real sound, “H-Hadlee?” It’s me, she tried to add, but again, her voice winked out.

  The response on the other end, however, was as instantaneous as it was brusque. “Hang on.”

  Kitty did. To the cellphone. With both hands.

  “Who is it?” she heard Hadlee say again, but clearer now.

  “Hadlee?” she croaked again, her voice squeaking in and out, but it was coming back. She almost started crying all over again.

  “Kitty?” The shock in her old friend’s voice was as clear as the night was freezing cold.

  “I’ve left him.” Her eyes burned even harder and though she gritted her teeth to keep back the uselessness of another round of sobs. Please, she mouthed. Help me. She had to cough before her voice warbled back into an audible range. “I don’t have anything”—she squeaked in and out of sound—“not even my shoes. Please, can you come get me?”

  “Where are you?”

  “At a payphone.” Kitty looked through the frosted plastic-glass, taking stock of her surroundings. “I think I’m at a gas station, but I don’t think it’s open anymore. The pumps are gone. It looks abandoned.”

  “I know exactly where you are,” the male voice broke in, startling Kitty once more. He’d been so quiet up until then. He must have her on speaker phone. “Hang tight. We’re on our way.”

  The sound of rustling clothes and jostling as the phone moved about nearly drowned out everything else.

  Almost afraid to ask, Kitty whispered, “W-who is that?”

  “Garreth from Black Light. It’s okay,” her old friend assured her. “You can trust him. We’ll be there as fast as we can.”

  “Hurry,” Kitty begged, swiping her numb hands to brush to cooling tears from her face. “He’ll be up any minute and when he finds me gone…”

  The phone beeped. Pulling it back, Kitty looked at the display. Two-percent.

  “What is that?”

  “Your phone,” Kitty said dully. “I barely had time to put a charge on it. It’s almost out of power.”

  “Hang up,” the man ordered. “Save what battery power you have left. If Ethen finds you before we do, use it to call 9-1-1, do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Kitty said, but she also knew that wouldn’t happen. She couldn’t afford to call the police, and if Ethen found her first, she wouldn’t have time to call anyone much less emergency services. Huddling in on herself, Kitty hugged her knees to her chest and tried to stay warm. If Ethen did find her, with any luck it wouldn’t be until after she froze to death.

  At least that gave her something to hope for.

  Chapter 2

  Australia, almost two months later…

  “You zonked out yet?” Noah Carver asked, leaning over the side of his boat. He peered into the dark, calm water of the Endeavour River and promptly set off the sixteen-foot salty snagged on his bait line. Two tons of angry crocodile splashed and thrashed, its massive tail slamming into the side of the small boat, rocking it wildly. Quickly sitting before he ended up in the water on top of the beast, Noah waited until the thrashing subsided and, with a low growl, the massive crocodile fell still once more.

  “Sadly, mate”—Noah tsked with a sympathetic shake of his head—“this is what happens when you go eating people’s cats and sleeping in their kiddy pools. Sooner or later, I get a phone call.”

  As if on cue, the Bluetooth hooked to his ear chirped.

  “See?” Noah pointed out. “It’s always busy in the wet season.” He tapped the headset. “Hello, hello,” he said cheerfully. “When wildlife invades, I can make ‘em behave. How can I help you?”

  “Hey, Noah. How’s business?”

  “Blokey!” Noah brightene
d, a grin splitting his sun-bronzed face as he recognized the voice. “Never better, never better. On the job right now, as a matter of fact. How the hell are you? It’s been a couple of weeks.”

  “Yeah, it’s been busy.” Garreth sighed heavily, which caught Noah’s immediate attention.

  “You say that like you’d rather say ‘it’s been hell.’” Standing up, Noah moved to the far end of his small boat and away from the low, rumbling hiss of the angry crocodile. Propping his foot up by the resting motor, he looked out over the night-blackened water. “What’s the trouble? It’s not the ol’ ladyluv, is it?”

  “No, Hadlee’s fine.”

  “The roommate, then?” The stars were out, the moon was full, and there were no houses along this stretch of the river. Something that suited his immediate needs just fine. “Are both girls still living with you? I thought you once said Hadlee has her own place.”

  Garreth snorted. “She does, but with Ethen stalking their shadows like some psychotic serial killer? I’m not letting either one of them out of my sight.”

  Noah couldn’t argue. He could see himself doing the same thing. “What was her name again?”

  “Kitty’s all she claims,” his American friend said, but Noah detected notes of bitterness. From Garreth, that was saying something.

  Garreth was a dungeon monitor he’d met in D.C. almost two months ago, while he’d been touring the United States. At the time, Noah had been bouncing from one BDSM club to another, teaching others not only how to crack a bullwhip, but how best to use it without flaying the flesh from their submissive’s back. Black Light had been the last club on his tour, and never had he met a dom more silently tortured by the pangs of love as Garreth. He didn’t know Hadlee’s story, but he’d gotten to scene that night with her and halfway through the first session, he knew there was some trauma in there somewhere. Still, Garreth had been ass over teakettles in love with her, and Noah never could resist a chance to play cupid. Privately, he was sure he’d never visit another playspace that was half as much fun—or half as much drama—as that one.