Twisted: A Dark Romance (Barrowlands Book 1)

by Esme Devlin

  The woman stares at me, saying nothing.

  She’s dressed from head to toe in black, a shawl covering silver curls and providing warmth on her shoulders. From her face, I can see she carries some extra weight, and that is unusual in a world where food is so scarce.

  “Pass me that vase, will you?” she asks, nodding toward Baron’s desk behind me.

  I get up to do her bidding and spot the empty glass. By the time I’ve fetched it and turned around, she is already lighting up a cigarette.

  “You want one?”

  “No thank you,” I reply, placing the vase down next to her. “I never started.”

  She nods. “Good thing, too. Baron would likely have your fingers. Come. Sit.” She nods again, this time to the chair opposite.

  I do as I’m told. The woman strikes me as someone who doesn’t take any nonsense, and to be honest, I’m just glad someone is actually talking to me.

  “You are Baron’s… mother?”

  She lifts an eyebrow at me before inhaling a draw of smoke and letting it out between thin lips. “Baron told me you were sweet,” she says. “No. I’m his grandmother.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I offer. “I’m Sapphire.”

  “I know.” She taps the end of her cigarette on the edge of the vase. “Now. Tell me, what’s this all about?”

  I stare at her blankly for a moment. “What is what about?”

  “Has your bleeding started?” she asks.

  Again I find myself staring at her, blinking in confusion. Then it dawns on me. I told Baron I needed a female friend. “I… I’ve been bleeding for years,” I tell her.

  She lets out a hmm sound. “Well, ’tis hard to tell with all that muck on your face. Baron did try to explain what this conversation would be about, but, well, you always have to make assumptions with him.”

  “You’ve spoken to him?”

  She flicks her cigarette against the vase as if she’s angry with it. “I have.”

  Just then, Andrei comes back with a tray in his hand and places it down on the table between us. There are two small glasses with a bigger decanter and what looks like a chocolate cake, about the size of my palm, sliced in two.

  Andrei nods at the cake. “I didn’t know if you wanted it halv—”

  “You think me a greedy, old ogre, boy?” Celeste cuts him off.

  Andrei smiles at her warmly and makes to leave the room while Celeste pours the dark red liquid into the glasses. She pushes one of them across the table to me.

  We were never allowed alcohol at the carnival. It might have made us emotional, that was Maxim’s reasoning. And emotional girls do not make good submissives.

  “Thanks,” I say, drawing the glass to my lips. I take a sip and can’t help screwing my face up at the bitter taste.

  Celeste laughs. “That’ll put hairs on your chest, girl. Here. It’s been too long since I’ve had cake.” I reach over and take the half she’s offering. Unlike wine, chocolate is something I absolutely adore. There was never much of it, and I almost wish that, like the wine, I’d never tasted it. You can’t crave what you don’t know exists.

  Which reminds me why I wanted to speak to someone in the first place. To find out what exists.

  But I can’t jump straight in with that. I need her to trust me, if such a thing is even possible.

  “So… Baron isn’t gone then?” I’m trying to keep my voice as casual as possible, but the faint smirk on Celeste’s face tells me I’m failing.

  “He was,” she says. “He returned two nights’ past. He has not come to see you?”

  I shake my head and look down at the lines on the wooden table. “No.”

  “And that upsets you?”

  I glance up at her and see she is watching me intently. “I’m not sure how that makes me feel.”

  Celeste shrugs. “Understandable, I suppose. Baron is a paradox. I love him with my whole heart, but I don’t particularly like him.”

  “He has always been this way?” I take a bite of the cake. It’s sickly sweet and moist. Fresh, as if it were only baked this morning. I wonder how they got the ingredients for it.

  “What way?”

  “Cruel,” I answer. It’s the best word I can think of.

  Celeste leans back in her chair. “Is cruel a word you would use to describe Maxim?”

  I think about it for a moment. Maxim is many things… selfish, cold. Perhaps a little insane. But not cruel. “No.”

  “Maxim makes money from risking girls’ lives, while Baron makes money from risking their sanity. Should we argue about which one is crueler?” She lifts an eyebrow at me.

  I do take her point. “Maxim never seemed to enjoy it the way Baron does.”

  Celeste laughs at that. “I don’t think Baron enjoys it. I think he is a man who would be capable of good but not in a world where good and magnificent are mutually exclusive.”

  “You mean if the world wasn’t different…”

  She looks like she’s thinking about it. “Even in the old world, sometimes the worst men were the most brilliant.”

  “I wish I could have lived in it,” I tell her. “I have only heard stories.”

  She smiles. “I was probably your age when things really began to change.”

  “The curse?”

  “Is that what we’re calling it now? You young ones are so superstitious. It wasn’t a curse that ended the world; it was vanity.”

  “Vanity?”

  “Vanity. And perhaps a touch of capitalism.”

  “I… I don’t understand.”

  “To understand it, you would have needed to live through it.”

  “Try me,” I say.

  This seems to amuse her. “Since humans have walked the earth, each sex had a role. The men provided, the women did everything else. We cooked, we cleaned, we died in childbirth. That changed. Suddenly, we became equal.”

  I nod along.

  “We won the vote. The right to work equal jobs for equal pay. But we never relinquished all the other things. We had drugs that ensured an unexpected pregnancy wouldn’t ruin that promotion for us. They involved taking a pill every day or having an implant in your arm. Sometimes, an injection straight into your ass cheek.” She laughs as she says it and then her face turns serious.

  “Miserable things for many people, made your face break out in pimples. Made you balloon in weight. Sometimes, your bleeding stopped. Sometimes, it was worse. That was until that curse of yours came along. Although in those days, it was called the miracle.”

  “So… what happened?”

  “Nothing. For a while. Everyone loved the miracle drug. No bleeding. No weight gain. More energy. Shiny hair. Glowing skin. See, vanity. One pill a year and your troubles would be gone. They started giving it to girls before their bleeding even started. They found out it protected against all sorts of diseases—HIV, syphilis, herpes. Do you know about them? Doesn’t matter, I suppose. They’re gone now. Taking that pill became as common as bathing. It took them years to realize what it was really doing.”

  I raise my eyebrows at her, urging her to go on. This is all new to me. No one has ever actually explained to me what happened.

  “It made your daughter’s chances of birthing a healthy girl the same as being struck by lightning. By the time they realized, it was already too late. The damage had been done.”

  “I thought it was a virus,” I tell her. “I thought it could be caught just by going outside.”

  “If you had a very rare thing and feared it running away, what would be the easiest way to ensure it never did?”

  I smile at her. “You’re right.”

  Celeste shrugs. “Usually am.”

  “Baron said something similar… he just didn’t explain it as well as you did.”

  She laughs at that. “He never does. There is always something hidden behind what he says. He rarely lies… that would be too easy for him. But he is a master at using words with such skill that he doesn’t need to lie. Y
ou must watch out for that.”

  “I’m trying to.”

  “I know.”

  “You have always lived here with him?”

  “No,” she says. “Not always.”

  “He had a mother and a father?”

  She smiles at me knowingly. “Everyone had a mother and a father. But that was not really your question, was it?”

  I shake my head at her.

  “We don’t speak of Baron’s parents. If you are wise, which I happen to think you are, you will not pry. Least of all with Baron.”

  “They are dead?”

  Celeste sighs. “In the old days—before the curse you speak of—people dressed in black as a sign of mourning. Sometimes, they’d wear it for years. I chose to wear only black not on the day my daughter died… but on the day she married his father.”

  Her eyes are glassy, as if I’ve touched on something that is still raw for her. I won’t push her any further. She’s giving me answers, even if some of them are off-limits. And answers, after all, are the things I wanted most.

  I take another sip of wine and try to think of the best way to say it.

  “You’ve been so kind to me, and helpful,” I tell her. “I appreciate it more than you could know. But there is something that has been playing on my mind for a long time, and I thought you might have the answer.”

  “Go on.”

  “Is there truly nothing else out there? Is everywhere just as bad as here?”

  “Truthfully, the only places I have been are worse.”

  “Is that why you stay here? Is that why you can still bring yourself to love him?”

  “You have heard the sounds of a woman being raped in that god-awful ring, correct? The screams. The tears.”

  I close my eyes as I remember that very first night and nod.

  “Do you know the only thing worse than hearing the screams? It’s hearing nothing at all. The women who have tried to survive on their own outside, the women who ran here from that carnival you are so convinced isn’t cruel, they never scream. The women who come from outside… they are already dead. When you understand that, it is hard not to love your own flesh and blood. Even if his ways can be cruel.”

  I knock back the rest of my drink while I try to process what she is telling me.

  There is nothing.

  Nothing to run toward.

  No light at the end of the long tunnel to reach for.

  This is apparently the light.

  And yet again, I find myself not even experiencing the worst of it. I’m one of the lucky ones. For reasons completely unknown to me, I’m special. At least, for now. I’m well aware that could change at any moment. Just one of Baron’s whims could see me in that ring… and he doesn’t even visit me anymore.

  Perhaps his patience with me is wearing thin.

  “How do I… how do I survive a man like him? Has anyone?”

  Celeste puts her empty glass down on the table. “There have never been others,” she says. “Whether you want to be or not, you are special to him in some way. As for how you survive… why would you want merely to survive? To endure, that is your ultimate aim? I’m disheartened by that.”

  “You’re suggesting I fight him?”

  “No. That’d be rather foolish.”

  “So what? I do everything he says? I be good?”

  She laughs, a high-pitched tinkle that sounds like glass. “Of course not. Remember what I told you? There is good and there is great, and in this world, you can never be both.”

  I stare at her for a moment, not really understanding what she’s telling me, but at the same time I feel like asking for elaboration would make me sound even more stupid than I do already. She’s speaking in riddles, just as Baron does.

  “Are you all right?” Celeste asks.

  “Yes,” I reply, although I don’t feel it. “I’m fine. Just… tired. I think I will retire now, if you don’t mind.”

  Celeste raises her hand. “Of course. We’ll meet again, of that I’m certain.”

  I smile at her as I stand up from my chair. “Thank you. Truly. And, goodnight.”

  “Sleep well,” she says.

  I leave the room quickly, quietly closing the door behind me. I can get myself back to my room now with ease. There are certain places I still struggle with, mostly because there are so many corridors that look the same and so many paths that are blocked. But the route between Baron’s office and my room is a path well-tread.

  For the whole journey, my thoughts are swirling with what this means. On one hand, I should be overjoyed. There is no curse, no virus outside waiting to infect me.

  But if what Celeste says is true… then it doesn’t matter. I’m safer here than I would ever be away from here.

  So why doesn’t it feel that way?

  Of course, she could be lying. She told me from her own lips she loves Baron. She could easily be telling me what he wants me to hear.

  The closer I get to my room, the more exhausted I become just thinking about it. I feel like I should be planning my next move, but how can I do that when, yet again, I don’t know what comes next?

  I haven’t seen Baron in days.

  I won the deal to speak to a friend, but he played me. He knew I wanted to speak to the women who lived here, and while technically he did give me a woman who lived here, it wasn’t the one I needed.

  And now I have no other hand to play. No way of getting any more answers. And no way of knowing when I will see him again.

  I enter the room and am surprised to see the candles aren’t lit. Usually, that’s always taken care of—by whom, I do not know. Perhaps the lamp is working tonight.

  Carefully, I take slow steps toward it and feel around for the switch.

  Shit.

  The thing almost blinds me, which is my own stupid fault for staring at it.

  I never really expected it to turn on. Blinking a few times to get the sting away, my eyes are drawn to an unfamiliar shape on the floor.

  Shoes.

  Dress shoes.

  A tailored suit.

  “Did you miss us, little circus freak?”

  18

  Sapphire

  Every muscle in my body freezes while I try to think of what to do next.

  Fight? Don’t be so fucking ridiculous.

  Run.

  I need to run.

  I stumble back, afraid to take my eyes away from the two men in front of me. My arm scrapes along the rough wall as I use it to guide me back to the door I just entered through.

  The man, the one who spoke, just stares at me with a thirsty look on his face. The one beside him is smirking.

  “We’re not going to kill you,” the second man says. He’s the one with the shaved head and those freezing-cold blue eyes.

  “Yes. We’re just going to hurt you a little.” A third voice from behind has my heart stopping. His hands grip my shoulders and root me in place before I’ve even had time to turn around.

  I know these faces. These are the men who wanted to buy me at the carnival. I hadn’t fully realized Baron had saved me from that until this very moment.

  “Give her here,” one says. The one who called me a circus freak. The thirsty one.

  Before I have time to steady myself, the hands on my shoulders push me forward and I’m stumbling. I trip over my own feet and land on my knees a few steps away from him.

  The man closes the distance as I’m attempting to scramble away from him.

  He grabs my ponytail and my scalp burns as I’m dragged toward him.

  My hands grip his wrists, my fingers slipping against that thick watch I noticed on the very first night. But they’re powerless against him.

  Useless.

  He forces my head roughly against his crotch, and my cheek connects with the bulge there.

  I cry out as he rubs my face against him, a cruel laugh escaping his lips.

  How did this happen? Baron would never allow this. He wouldn’t.

  But even as
I try to convince myself, the doubts are tugging at my brain.

  He doesn’t see me anymore.

  I thought he was withdrawing as a form of punishment, but maybe I was wrong.

  Maybe he is bored with me.

  He does get bored so easily.

  Maybe he just wants a return on his investment, just like Maxim did.

  The words Baron said to me on the very first night ring in my ears like a cruel taunt, stinging as much now as they did then. Four men, three holes, I wonder what a little thing like you would do with the fourth one?

  Bile rises in my throat as the man pulls my head back, forcing it up so I have no choice but to look at him.

  “Tonight, we will find out exactly what makes you so special. But first…” he says.

  “First,” someone behind me continues. “First you will tell us why he wears that mask. Who is he?”

  Panic takes over my body as the words sink in. Up until this point, I’d been frozen in shock. Now that feels like a blessing.

  I don’t know.

  I can’t give them what they want.

  The first man bends down slightly, his hand rearing back, and all I can do is close my eyes while the air shifts around me. My cheek stings as he cracks his open palm across my face. I can’t even turn my head away because of the iron grip on my hair.

  I cry out from the fright of the impact.

  I need to tell them that I don’t know anything, but my mouth won’t move for me.

  And I can’t even shake my head.

  It dawns on me through all the confusion that Baron doesn’t know. Somehow that makes me feel better. I start to hate myself again. Everything with me now leads to him. He’s not even here, and he’s still invading every thought I have.

  “Who is he?”

  “I-I-I don’t know,” I say, stumbling over my words.

  The man with the grip on my hair just laughs.

  “Such a shame. We’ll have to beat it out of you.”

  He lets go of my hair only to kick me back with the heel of his foot.

  I barely even feel the pain this time.

  Thank fuck for adrenaline.

  I’m not left on the floor long before different hands are lifting me to my feet. My heart sinks. Not again.

  This one latches on to my breast and digs his fingers in brutally.