by Mara Black
Just a little farther. Just a few more steps. A few more minutes.
You have to.
Just a few more -
I stepped on something that felt strange under my feet, not like the rocks and grass and dirt. But I barely had time to feel it before my foot was airborne again, before a sharp burst of pain made me stumble and lose my footing.
I cried out, unable to stop myself.
It was agony. The way I imagined a bear trap must feel, snapping shut on my ankle. For one brief moment I wondered if Tate had actually done that, scattering his own backyard with sharp vicious jaws to snap my leg in two if I tried to run away.
A moment later, I remembered.
Careful. There's snakes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Fever
Tate
Her scream made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
Such a peculiar sensation. I couldn't remember feeling it before, although I must have. Everyone has. It's purely visceral, a reaction, a warning sign. Perfectly normal.
When was the last time I felt normal?
I was half-dressed, still damp from the shower, but I only took time to throw on a pair of jackboots and grab a flashlight before I slammed the front door open and leapt over the stairs, skipping them completely, running across the tall grass towards the sound.
The Viper was still standing by my vanity mirror, fiddling with his cufflinks. Let the stupid bitch die.
But I was running.
The closer I got, the more I could hear the sounds she was still making, teeth-gritting moans, choking sobs, sounds that made something jagged and raw scrape against my heart.
Finally, I could see her. She was crumpled on the ground, her hands clasped around her calf, jaw slack and eyes streaming. I knelt down on the ground and gathered her into my arms, without a word.
The Viper had murder in his eyes, but I set my jaw and started running again.
By the time we got inside, and I was able to drop her on the lounge in the main living room, her sobbing was loud and incessant. I knew there was no point in trying to quiet her without something for the pain. I knew what it felt like.
Moving swiftly, I went to fetch supplies, ignoring everything except the task at hand. Including the voice in the back of my head.
Let the stupid bitch die.
I could hear her keening, all the way to my office and back.
Dropping an armful of supplies on an end-table, I knelt down to examine the puncture wound. Copperhead. Naturally.
"Open your mouth," I said, and she didn't hesitate, although she trembled with the exertion of doing anything at all. Setting the pill on her tongue, I closed her jaw for her and said, "swallow."
Finally, her body relaxed. Chest still heaving, she stared at me, even as her eyes started to go a little glassy.
The puncture site was turning ugly, but I was already drawing the syringe for the anti-venom. The first dose went in under the skin, near the bite, where her skin was starting to turn purple. The second...
I looked up at her. She was only half-there, and the morphine couldn't be working that well yet. Fuck. I put my wrist to her forehead. She was starting to feel hot, clammy, and in a second she would start shivering.
The tissue damage would be trivial, as far as these things went. But the venom had pumped through her too fast for me to prevent the sickness. She'd be feverish for days, weeks if she was unlucky, and...
Let the stupid bitch die.
I paced the room, watching her slip in and out of consciousness. The Viper just smiled, knowingly. He didn't need to say it.
"Shut up," I muttered, aloud. She didn't stir.
The Viper just chuckled. He knew what I wanted - what I would deny myself, for as long as I fucking lived, just to prove a point.
You're so stubborn. Just do it. Take what you want. She won't even remember.
"But I will," I growled.
Nothing ever silenced him for long. But I poured myself a glass of whiskey, and waited.
I was going to be waiting a long time.
For most of the next few days, she was murmuring, delirious. The Viper finally stopped plaguing me when he realized there was no use. I became absorbed with caring for her, nursing her back to health.
I couldn't let myself think about how I'd told her my protection only extended to this house, and that if she left, it was all over. I'd acted in full defiance of that, and she couldn't know that she was my weakness.
But in her feverish state, I had nothing to worry about. She wouldn't remember this - and if anything did stick in her mind, she'd write it off as a dream.
So I allowed myself to hold her tenderly, stroking her hair while I coaxed a drink of water down her throat. I kissed her forehead. I let myself pretend. For a little while, I was normal. I was unguarded.
When the danger had passed, the darkness started to creep back in.
I didn't have much of the good whiskey left. God only knew how long it would be until I could get my hands on it again. But I finished off the bottle anyway, slouched in a chair in the corner of Autumn's room. Watching her breathe, quiet and steady at last.
This girl had the audacity, the sheer fucking balls to assume that I was a human being. That I could be trusted to treat her with a modicum of dignity. And how did I repay her?
Anger. Cruelty. Neglect.
I remembered that moment, just after I rutted against her like a fucking dog, when the shame coursed through me and all I could see was red. I threw her in the basement, because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Because I was a brutal fucking animal without a soul. Without a conscience. Without anything to stop me from acting that way.
I remembered, and I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper.
This wasn't how things were supposed to be.
I was supposed to live out the rest of my wretched existence in peace. I was supposed to stay here, alone, where I couldn't poison any other women's lives. They'd be poisoned regardless, by someone - I wasn't stupid. I knew that. I didn't care. I just didn't want to be a part of it anymore. I couldn't.
Daniela had ruined me for that.
As I polished off the last of my whiskey, the memories slipped over me, like a cold blanket of water just before drowning.
Mr. Holland was his name. That was how he introduced himself to me, at any rate. Real names didn't mean much anymore, if they ever did. He handed me his card, and a sticky sweet bun that smelled like heaven. I hadn't eaten in three days.
He said: "There's plenty more where that came from, if you come and work for me."
Back then, nobody knew much about Stoker. Mr. Charles was still just one of the Seven, the board of directors that pulled all the strings. I knew they dealt in girls. It was distasteful, but not as distasteful as starving to death. Not as distasteful as the shit I'd seen on the streets, the girls - and the boys - who would suck cock for a scrap of bread, and more often than not, wind up dead and robbed for the clothes on their backs.
Stoker seemed like a viable alternative. I didn't want to think about what I would have done, if they hadn't come along.
As it turns out, I would have been better off stabbed in an alley. At least that would have been quick.
Mr. Holland took a particular liking to me. I soon realized this was a double-edged sword. If I recruited twice as many girls as the other headhunters, it still wasn't enough. I could always do better. He kept telling me I had a handsome face. Trustworthy. I should never have to take no for an answer.
And then, before long, I was training them too. The first time I slapped a girl, Holland convinced me I was doing her a kindness. He was very persuasive.
He taught me to be persuasive, too.
By the time I met Daniela, I was hardly recognizable. Whoever Tate had once been - that boy was dead. Or so I thought. The Viper was calling all the shots, until I saw the way her eyes flashed.
It felt wrong, what I was doing to her. For the first time, I began to fee
l the doubts and hesitations that I'd once felt, before Holland poisoned my mind. I was confused, appalled, conflicted. At the same time, hurting Daniela made me hard. I hated it. One of the reasons I was so good at breaking girls was because of my total detachment. She robbed me of that, her sharp defiance and her angry tears making me pant with lust.
The first time I touched her there, felt how hot it made her, in spite of her cries - I was lost forever.
It became a game, between us. I learned what she liked and we found ways to communicate without speaking, without acknowledging what was happening between us. Most of my sessions were in private anyway, but even if someone had been watching, they wouldn't have seen the truth.
We were falling in love.
In the midst of the darkness and depravity and the horror all around us, we found something in each other. I'll never forget the first time I kissed her, frantic and desperate, tasting the saltiness of her tears. She clung to me and whispered how we had to leave this place.
I knew that she was right, but the thought terrified me.
Holland noticed something was wrong, but at first, he didn't suspect exactly why. There were too many girls for him to keep track of. But he started having me watched, and I had to be more careful. I started avoiding Daniela as much as possible, but being with the other girls wasn't much better. I couldn't hurt them. I couldn't do what I was supposed to. Not anymore. They'd cry and plead and I'd see myself reflected in their eyes. Remembering, for the first time in so long, that they were human. That I could have easily been born in their place.
I was punished for my defiance, but it didn't matter. All I cared about was Daniela. I hated the look in her eyes when she saw the aftermath of what they'd done to me, but all I could do was endure.
I knew we didn't have much time. Daniela would be sold, before long, and then there was no chance I'd find her again. We made plans, but they were always too complicated. Too difficult. One night, when I'd managed to sneak to her, she cried in my arms and confessed how frightened she was. She was a virgin. She would be sold to a stranger, and she didn't want it to be like that. Not her first time.
She begged me.
It was unwise. It was terribly unwise, but I fucked her, as slow and gentle as I could manage. I kissed away her tears and held her and whispered that everything was going to be all right.
The next morning, they announced an impromptu medical inspection in her cell block. She didn't even have time to clean up properly. In that moment, I knew we were lost.
They wouldn't tell me how she was punished for allowing me to deflower her, for knocking several thousand dollars off of her asking price. Holland didn't even speak to me, just continued to have me followed, to punish me when I refused to cause pain.
When I was called into the boardroom, I knew I ought to be prepared for the worst. But nothing could have readied me for what happened there.
Suddenly, a noise in the corner stirred me out of my dark thoughts. I shook myself, having forgotten where I was. Who I was with.
Not Daniela. Of course, not Daniela. Daniela was dead.
It was Autumn. The girl with the green eyes and hair the color of the oak tree outside my house, when I was a boy.
Before I saw her, I never would have guessed that I remembered that color. But I did now. It was unforgettable.
Throwing Autumn in the basement had been my attempt at exorcising the part of myself that still yearned to deal out pain and punishment. The only way Daniela had calmed that beast was by craving it, and sometimes I wondered if she only liked it because she had to. Because she needed a way to cope, to survive. Slaves would do anything they thought they had to do, to survive.
I felt sick to my stomach. Didn't she have any self-respect? Didn't any of them?
That was the one thing I couldn't allow myself to forget. No matter how pretty this girl was, this Autumn, I had to remember what she was. She had willingly sold herself to be treated as less than human. No dignity. No shame. Her survival instinct was stronger than her desire to be treated like a person, and what did that make her?
An animal. Lower than me. Because at least, when it came to that, I fought back. I might have endured worse humiliation than she had, when all was said and done, but I never went down without a fight.
Holland's voice still rang in the back of my head.
My boy, the important thing to remember is they're not like us. They'll do anything for a meal and a bed to sleep in. We're giving them exactly the amount of respect they deserve.
Daniela had almost made me believe he was wrong. But then...
No, she was just like all the rest. And so was Autumn.
Broken things. Not worth saving.
She cried out in her sleep, and in spite of myself, I was at her side. Checking her pulse, feeling it flutter like a trapped bird under my fingers.
Slowly, her eyes opened. She blinked, and for the first time in days, they were clear.
"Tate?" she rasped.
Less than human.
Broken things.
The ache in my chest was all-consuming.
"I'm here," I heard myself say. "I'm here."
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Circle Game
I drifted in and out of consciousness, seeing faces I knew could not possibly be real. In my fever I swore I felt Tate cradling me like a cherished thing, not something broken. His face pressed against mine. His lips on my cheek, my forehead. I even thought that I heard him singing to me, low and rough, more murmuring, really, than anything else. Something about a little boy who caught a dragonfly in a jar.
Am I the dragonfly?
I know this melody. I've heard it before.
Of course you have. This is a fever dream, idiot.
The boy was afraid of thunder and he cried when a star fell from the sky. In my fog, my brain struggled to reconcile all of this, unable to separate the real Tate from his dream Tate from the boy in the song. I couldn't picture any version of Tate with tears in his eyes. Not for anything.
Not even a fallen star.
The song was about a carousel. That's right. I remembered now. Beautiful painted horses. Carousels, carnivals, hayrides. Cotton candy and apples. Hayrides. Hay. The barn.
Tate's barn. The sack over my head. The rope. His cold, cruel eyes.
It happened very slowly, then all at once. My eyelids unglued. Abruptly, the song stopped.
I realized that I didn't want it to.
Before my surroundings could become too distinct, before the dream faded away, I closed my eyes again. Blessedly, I began to drift away. Just as the boy was ice-skating on frozen streams, I slipped into darkness for a long time.
When I finally woke up, Tate was there.
The look on his face was almost enough to make me forgive him.
I still remembered the vice-like feeling of his hand on my arm, dragging me down to the basement. How long ago was that, now? How long had I been languishing in the darkness before I gained the strength to run?
For a moment, I saw it. The concern in his face, the tenderness. Everything I knew must be there, otherwise I wouldn't be awake now.
"Tate," I said, softly, my voice so rough I hardly recognized it.
"I'm here," he said. "I'm here."
My brain was filled with cobwebs, and I let myself surrender to the feeling of safety and comfort. I knew better, but I didn't want to. Just for a moment, I wanted to pretend that I could trust this man with my life.
Even though he'd promised me that his protection ended the moment I left his house, he'd still come for me.
"Was it a snakebite?" I asked. A stupid question. He had his wrist on my forehead, checking my temperature.
He nodded. "You'll be fine, now."
I wanted to thank him, but I knew he didn't want to hear it.
"You have anti-venom?"
Another nod. "Be stupid not to, living out here."
That didn't answer the question of where he'd gotten it, or why he was happy to
waste it on me. But those questions, I assumed, were off-limits.
"How long has it been?"
"A few days," he said.
A few days? Oh, God.
I had visions of him carrying me into the bathroom, or worse, cleaning up after me. As if this whole situation wasn't humiliating enough, as it was. And what about bathing me? I didn't feel as disgusting as I would have imagined, being covered in sweat for days, but I didn't exactly feel clean either.
"I must smell terrible," I said, with a weak smile.
He shrugged, but a hint of an answering smirk played on his lips. "I've smelled worse," he said. "Sponged you off a bit. But you can have a bath, if you're feeling up to it."
I swallowed. "Will you help me?"
The words came out before I could think twice, and a moment of surprise registered on his face before he nodded again.
God damn it. Oh well, this was hardly the most compromising position he'd seen me in.
"Can you stand up?" he asked me.
I wasn't sure, but I decided to just shake my head. "I still feel pretty weak," I said, sheepishly.
Without a moment's hesitation, he lifted me up and carried me.
Last time, I hadn't been in any condition to appreciate it. But now I wound my arms around his neck, letting my head nestle against his chest.
Are you insane? This is the guy who locked you in the fucking basement.
And he was also the man who saved my life. I couldn't ignore that. I had to embrace the paradox, embrace him, because without him, I was lost.
He set me down on the bathmat while he turned on the taps and let the water run, testing the temperature on his wrist.
"Do you..." he started, looking at me, and then looking away. He was almost bashful. It would have been adorable, if he weren't Tate.
"Do I what?" I looked at the water. "Is it ready?"
"Yes," he said. "I can help you, but -"
"But what?"
