Release

by A. M. Sexton

  Possibly the biggest mistake I’d ever live to make.

  “Shut up!” He hit me again. “Shut up, you stupid fucking whore!” And again. And again. I tried to roll away but fell from the bed. My bound arms brought me up short, straining in their sockets. I couldn’t quite sit on the floor with my hands tied, so I hung there as he kicked me in the ribs, hard enough to take my breath away for a second time.

  “Master, no,” Ayo cried, tugging on Donato’s arm in an effort to turn him away from me. “Master, hit me! Hit me instead.”

  Donato obliged him, turning to backhand him across the face. My head still pounded. The room still seemed to move from side to side. I struggled to come up with a plan—something that would save Ayo and me both—but I couldn’t get past what he’d said.

  “Slaves?” I gasped.

  He turned on me. “What did you say?”

  At least he was focused on me again, instead of Ayo. I squirmed, trying to bring myself upright in order to face him. I managed to get my feet under me, although the room still swayed. My arms were twisted uncomfortably in their binding, and I had to lean against the bedpost to stay on my feet, but it felt like victory. I wiped my eye on my shoulder, trying to clear the blood from my vision. Trying to get enough air into my lungs to say the words. “You said ‘slaves.’”

  “Explain yourself, whore.”

  I glanced at Ayo. He was quiet, his eyes wide. His pale hands covered his mouth. Tears streamed down his face. He shook his head at me. His eyes seemed to beg me to do something. Or to do nothing. I couldn’t tell which.

  “You said, dealing with ‘bitch slaves’ for three days. Do you mean, on your boat? You had slaves on your boat?”

  Donato stepped toward me, his cheeks red with anger. “I think you’ve forgotten your place.”

  But I hadn’t. The truth was, I’d finally remembered it. And it wasn’t in his arms, or even in his bed. It was in the trenches, with the people who knew the value of life. And Jabin’s words echoed in my ears. Better than the auctioning block, right? That’s what they kept telling me. Better than those other poor fools. Jabin had obviously gone across on a previous trip, but the fact remained that Donato seemed to be shipping arrestees across the sea on a regular basis. And this time... “It was Talia’s whores, wasn’t it? You took them to Deliphine. All those raids, and you leaving town each time right after. All those people never heard from again. Except the few who get lucky and end up with implants—”

  “You better shut your mouth—” he said, advancing on me, but I wasn’t about to stop now.

  “You’re selling them. You’re selling your own people to the slave trade in Deliphine!”

  He clenched his fists and closed in on me. I was already against the bedpost with no place to go. “Who told you that? Who the fuck told you that? Was it Benedict?”

  “Nobody told me.”

  “Liar!” He hit me again, a backhand across the face that made the punches he’d meted out earlier seem like child’s play. “Don’t you lie to me!” He hit me again, across the other cheek this time. My ears rang. My vision skewed. I fell again, and couldn’t tell if I’d landed on the bed or the floor. “I’ll beat it out of you, if that’s what it takes.” He hit me again.

  “No!” Ayo cried again, trying to put himself between us. “Stop. Please stop. You’ll kill him.”

  “Ayo,” I said weakly. “Don’t.”

  Donato turned on me, and if I thought he’d been angry before, it was nothing compared to the rage I was faced with now. “What the fuck did you call him?”

  Holy Goddess, I’d said his name. “Nothing,” I tried to say. I wanted to stand. I wanted to bring all of his anger down on me, if that’s what it took. But it was too late.

  Donato grabbed a handful of Ayo’s hair and pulled the boy in front of me. “You take it well enough when it’s you I’m beating. But how will you handle it when I take my anger at you out on him?”

  “I’m sorry. Master, please—”

  He spun Ayo around, letting him go with the one hand while spinning to strike him with the other. The blow knocked Ayo back onto the bed, and Donato lunged at him, punching him with both hands, swearing as he swung. Ayo curled into a ball, trying to protect his face and his ribs, but it only made Donato angrier. “You stupid fucking slave!” he screamed. He began tearing at Ayo’s tunic. It took only a moment to strip him bare. Donato hit him again, alternately punching him and fumbling with his belt.

  “Don’t!” I pleaded. I tried kicking, but tied to the bed as I was, he was out of my reach, and his blows had ruined my balance. The attempt only made me fall again.

  Donato’s anger had turned to lust. He pushed his pants down as he pulled Ayo toward him. “Fucking whore. Fucking slave. I’ll fuck you both bloody—”

  Ayo sobbed. His face was already turning red from Donato’s blows. Donato grabbed a handful of Ayo’s hair and pulled, wrenching the boy’s head backward. Ayo screamed, and not only from the pain. The programming was at work, making his cock hard, making him moan and writhe. He managed to turn his head enough to look at me. “Please,” he said.

  Not to Donato, but to me.

  “Shut up!” Donato roared at him, before turning to me. “Shall I make you fuck him instead? I could make him suck you while I pummel him. How would that be? You can act high and mighty, like you’re somehow better than me, but you’ll still rise for his sweet mouth. You’ll still come if he does it right.”

  “Leave him alone! He’s done nothing!”

  “No, but you have, whore. And punishing him is the best way I know to punish you.”

  He pulled his belt free of his pants. He wrapped it around Ayo’s neck like a noose, pulling the end back through the buckle, tightening the leather around his pale throat. Ayo gasped, bucking backward, prying at it with his fingertips. Donato pushed him down face-first onto the bed. He held him in place as he fisted his erect cock, angling it toward Ayo’s hole.

  “If you’re lucky,” Donato said to me, no longer yelling, but speaking in a voice that was so low and taut with anger, it made my knees shake, “I’ll come before he chokes.”

  He slammed his cock home. Ayo bucked. He might have screamed, but with the belt tight around his neck, it came out a strangled whimper.

  “Please, sir. Donato. Master. Stop,” I begged. My bravado was gone. I choked on my tears. “Please. Hit me. Beat me. Fuck me. Please. I’ll do anything. Just let him go.”

  Donato ignored me. He began to slam into Ayo ruthlessly, panting, calling him filthy and disgusting, telling him he’d pay. He held him to the bed with one hand while pulling on the belt with the other. He fucked him violently, and as he did, the belt got tighter. Ayo’s gasps grew more shallow. His eyes were wide. He turned again—he couldn’t move much, but it was enough for him to meet my eyes.

  He struggled to speak. The words were weak and broken, nothing but tortured sounds. But I could see his eyes. I could read his lips. What he said was, “Please.”

  I sobbed. It might kill him, and yet if it didn’t, Donato surely would. Either way, his death was on me. At least this way, it would grant him one final act of defiance.

  I swallowed my tears. I brought myself to my feet. “For you,” I said.

  He understood. His eyes changed—no longer panic, but relief.

  “Verezhny.”

  Ayo’s body convulsed. He bucked violently off the bed, slamming the back of his head into Donato’s face. It was horrifying. So sudden and alarming that I screamed and tugged against my ties, trying to reach him. This wasn’t the sexual pleasure-and-pain spasms of before. It wasn’t even the contortions of gasping for air he couldn’t get. This was worse.

  I’d once seen a young girl have a seizure. She’d thrashed so hard that she’d wet her pants and cracked her head open on the cobblestone street. Even that was mild compared to this. Ayo’s back arched violently. His head whipped back with such force, I could have sworn I heard a crack.

  And then he came.


  I’d imagined a dozen times what it would be like for him when he was finally allowed to climax, but I’d pictured it being something positive, the way orgasms were meant to be. But this was anything but pleasant.

  Donato backed away in shock. His nose was bleeding from being slammed by Ayo’s head. He let go of the belt and Ayo fell to the bed, landing awkwardly on his side. He continued to convulse, his back arching painfully as he spurted semen again and again. Some landed on me. Some hit the wall. And still, he ejaculated. The entire bed shook from the force of his thrashing. His head snapped back again; his teeth clacked together onto the tip of his tongue. Blood spurted from between his lips.

  “Ayo!” I screamed.

  I was drowned out by Donato. “What have you done? You fucking bastard! What have you done?” He fell on me, striking me, screaming at me. Blood covered his lips. Spit flew from his mouth as he punched me again and again. “What have you done? Who told you that word? Who?”

  He could beat me until the end of time. He could kill me if he wanted. I didn’t care. I was immune to the pain. I fell to my knees, sobbing. His blows continued to fall, on my face and my head. He kicked me again and again, but all I could see was Ayo.

  The convulsions ended as quickly as they’d begun. He lay unmoving on the bed, a trickle of blood across his cheek, so pale and so still it could only mean one thing.

  “I’ve killed him,” I cried, choking on both blood and tears. “I’ve killed him.”

  Until finally a blow came that mercifully took it all away.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Everything was hazy after that, like flashes of life, images and sensations bubbling to the top of the murky depths of my subconscious. How much was real and how much was the fevered work of my addled brain, I didn’t know.

  Ayo, lying dead across the stained bed, utterly still.

  Donato, with his face in his hands, crying.

  The inside of a familiar carriage. A ride so bumpy that I vomited all over myself and the floor.

  After that, I regained consciousness, lying in my own bed at Talia’s. Lalo held a cool cloth to my face. “I told you this would happen,” he said angrily. Not speaking to me, I realized, but to somebody I couldn’t see.

  “He’s sending his own doctor,” a woman’s voice said. “She’s on her way.”

  The pain hit me hard, knocking the wind from my lungs. It was everywhere. My face. My mouth. My abdomen ached when I tried to breathe. But the pain wasn’t the worst of it. Images of Ayo—covered in semen and still as death—filled my head. “I killed him.”

  I tried to sit up, but the pain caused me to double over, groaning. Lalo eased me gently back against the pillows. “You need to rest. He did a lot of damage.”

  “He’s selling them in Deliphine. After the raids.”

  Lalo went still, his eyes wide with alarm. “Selling who?”

  “Misha, don’t talk,” the woman said.

  “Benedict. The Council. They’re in on it. Jabin has an implant. They’re selling them as slaves.”

  “Who?”

  “Dulcie. All of them.”

  “Holy Goddess.” The woman suddenly stepped into view. It was Talia. “Misha, are you sure?”

  “I killed him.”

  Lalo looked at her in alarm. She shook her head at him. “He’s talking gibberish. Donato’s alive and well.”

  “Not Donato. Ayo. Oh Goddess, I killed him.”

  “Misha—”

  “They’re selling the criminals. Don’t you see?”

  “I’ll tell Anzhéla. Now hush. Let it go. You’ve done your job—”

  A sob wracked through me, causing the pain to spike. “I killed him!”

  Talia looked at Lalo. “We can’t have him talking like this when the doctor gets here.”

  Lalo nodded. “Shh,” he soothed, putting the cloth down. “Enough.” He lifted a cup to my lips. “Drink.”

  I did.

  This time, the darkness didn’t hurt as much. And it lasted a lot longer.

  ***

  When I woke again, everything had changed.

  I was still in my bed at Talia’s, but it was daytime. Sunlight poured through my small window. Outside, I heard shouting. Not the normal hubbub of the market, or children paying in the street, but the chaotic noise of an angry mob. And on the chair next to my bed sat Frey, elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Long, tan fingers and heavy silver rings tangled with his close-cropped hair.

  “What’s happening?” I asked. Or tried to ask, but my throat was dry, and it came out as more of a croak.

  Frey looked up at me. His eyes were red and swollen. I’d never seen Frey cry—in truth, I’d never seen him show much emotion at all—and I knew instantly something was terribly wrong.

  I tried to sit up, although the pain brought me up short. I moaned, hugging my abdomen as I struggled to bring myself upright. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s the revolution,” another voice said. I jerked my head around, although it caused the pain in my head to spike. Aleksey stood in the corner, leaning nonchalantly against the wall. He was dressed as he had been the one other time I’d seen him, holding his silver-tipped cane in his hand. Only the lack of tattoos on his face distinguished him from the rich bastards on the hill.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He didn’t answer me, but instead went on as fervently as before, as if I’d never spoken at all. “It’s happening, Misha. Thanks to you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Talia called us here, after Donato beat you. Of course, she hardly needed to. The men at the gate saw what he’d done to you. Word was all over the street by the time we got here and Talia told us what you’d said.”

  It all came back in a rush—Donato. The prisoners turned slaves.

  Ayo, lying dead.

  I closed my eyes against the tears that tried to fill them. “How long have I been asleep?”

  Aleksey, seeing my confusion, laughed softly. “You slept through the day and another night, and most of this morning. Luckily for us, you’re rather forthcoming in your sleep. We’re lucky Donato never thought to question you when you were unconscious. You told us more than enough to fill in the blanks.”

  “About the prisoners being sold as slaves?”

  He nodded. “It was perfect. News of Donato beating some lower city whore to within an inch of his life had them riled up. They wouldn’t even let his carriage back through the gate. We put the fliers out yesterday afternoon. And then, after what happened last night—”

  “Stop!” Frey bolted from his chair to turn on Aleksey. “This isn’t a game. They’ll kill her!”

  “This is no time to get emotional.”

  “Who?” I asked

  Frey turned to look at me, and I could see how hard he was fighting to keep himself together. “Anzhéla. She’s been arrested.”

  “Holy Goddess. When?”

  “They came last night, just before dawn. I don’t know how they got through the gates without anybody knowing, but they did. Busted down the doors of the theatre. But I—” He stopped, pushing a fist against his lips as he struggled to keep his emotions in control. “We heard them come in, and she sent me to secure the passage to the den.” He ducked his head again, his shoulders shaking, although he barely made a sound as he wept.

  I wasn’t surprised Anzhéla had sent him to watch over the kids in her keeping. “She knew she couldn’t hide, too, because they’d only keep looking. But if they had her, they’d move on.”

  Frey nodded.

  “Did they find the den?”

  He shook his head, but the question seemed to bring him strength. He straightened his shoulders. “No. The kids are safe. When we heard them come in, we figured it was a raid, but they didn’t bother to arrest anybody but her.”

  “However they got through the wall, they couldn’t do it with too many prisoners.”

  Frey nodded at me. “That was my thought as well.”

  �
�We can’t lose sight of the big picture,” Aleksey said, stepping between us. “This is what she wanted. It’s what we all wanted. It’s why she pushed for us to publish the fliers in the first place.” He pointed out my window, in the direction of Plaza Gate. “She wanted to drive that mob to a frenzy. And it almost worked. We needed one more thing, and this is it, Frey! Word of her arrest has become the match that will burn the old vestiges of this city to the gr—”

  “I don’t give a fuck about your revolution!” Frey yelled back. “Not if it means Anzhéla dying!”

  “You don’t know that will happen. She’s resourceful. And the gates won’t hold. By this time tomorrow, we’ll be having this conversation on the fucking hill—”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “—And Anzhéla will be there. I know my sister—”

  “You may know your sister, but do you know Benedict? Do you know what he’ll do to her? What he’s probably already doing to her?” Frey took a step toward Aleksey, but pulled up short, as if thinking better of attacking his lover’s brother and co-conspirator. He turned instead to the small chair he’d vacated. He kicked it, and it hit the wall, losing a leg in the process. He didn’t say another word. Just turned and walked out the door, leaving me alone with Aleksey.

  Now that I knew they were siblings, I could see the resemblance. The same passionate eyes and calmly smoldering disposition. “This is a victory, Misha. We’re going to win this war because of you.”

  I thought of Ayo, and of Anzhéla. “At what cost?”

  He ducked his head. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, although no less fervent. “She knew the risks, Misha. And she chose to take them. The best thing we can do now is honor that. Don’t let this be in vain.”

  ***

  I managed to get out of bed after Aleksey’s visit, although the pain was horrific. I took stock of my injuries. My face was the worst of it. Both eyes were black, the right one nearly swollen shut. My upper lip was cracked and swollen. My jaw ached when I moved it. But as bad as my face looked, it didn’t hurt as much as my midsection. The bruising there was harder to see, but I suspected at least one cracked rib.