by JA Huss
“Who’s Yasmine?” I ask.
“The woman,” he says. “The doctor. She was on the floor. Pinned underneath one of her cohorts.”
“Was she dead?” I ask.
“One could hope.” He laughs, then stops abruptly. “She’s not one of the good guys.”
“Neither are you,” I shoot back.
He nods. “No. I’m not either. But there’s worse than me out there. For sure.”
“What are you going to do with me?” I ask.
“I’m helping you, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“Because you intrigue me, Sadie. You shouldn’t exist and yet you do. And regardless of what side we’re each on now, if we both came from Prodigy, and we both did, then we started out the same. We could be a team.”
“I work alone.”
“Do you?”
It came out so fast I didn’t have time to think. But I feel that to be true as well. “Yes,” I say. “I do. I’m confused now and I don’t quite know what’s happening. But I can feel it coming back. I will understand soon.”
“Good,” he says. “That’s what I want too. But you’re going to get very tired very fast. That’s the nature of the drug I gave you. So why not let it come back when it’s good and ready, hmm? Close your eyes and relax.”
I want to resist him. Like really want to. But he’s right. I can’t fight it. I can feel my body becoming heavy.
“It’s almost night, anyway,” Thomas continues to persuade.
My eyelids fall and that one simple action is like a trigger. Like a switch. Like a signal to just let go.
Can’t fight it.
“Don’t make this hard.”
The voice is unfamiliar. A hand is pressed hard against my mouth. My eyes are desperate to open, but they can’t. Or won’t.
“If you fight, I’ll win,” the voice continues. “So be a good girl and just go along.”
I wiggle and realize my wrists are tied with some kind of thick scratchy rope that scrapes my skin as I resist, making it burn.
“You think you’re here to kill me, little girl?”
“Who…” I try to say. Who are you? But my words—word—is thick and my tongue won’t work.
“Just be still and quiet, little Sadie. Be good, like you’ve been taught. They spent a lot of years forcing you to obey, didn’t they?”
My mind responds with a yes. But there is no hope of speech. It’s like my mind and my body are two separate entities.
Then… who was forcing me to obey? I don’t know that’s true even though the yes formed in my mind automatically.
“I won’t hurt you,” he says. “Not if you’re good.”
How does one be good?
“But if you cross me I’ll have to react. You understand, right?”
I understand nothing.
“Say yes, Sadie.” A hand pets my hair. I realize I’m wet with sweat when he leans in and his soft breath creates a coolness across my neck.
I can’t even open my mouth, but a stinging slap across my face makes me try.
“Whoaaaaaaa…” leaks out from between my lips.
“Don’t worry. I’m not unreasonable. I know you can’t properly talk just yet. So I won’t require much speech from you. Believe me”—he laughs—“I’m not interested in you for your intellectual prowess.”
Then what? I ask myself. What does this man want? Who is he?
Thomas, you idiot. My brain is catching up with the situation. My body is heavy and my senses are dull. But it’s beginning to wear off. This man is Thomas Brooks. The one who… well, I’m still not sure what happened back at that hospital. But he was the one responsible for it.
“You like me, don’t you?” he whispers against the heat of my neck.
I like the coolness he brings to my skin. But that’s about all I’m capable of understanding at the moment.
“You want me, don’t you?”
I want to know what the fuck is happening to me. I arch my back, just barely lifting off the table, since my muscles are so uncoordinated.
“Don’t fight,” he warns. And now his mouth is right over mine. His lips brush along my cheek. He smells like the woods.
What?
His hand rests on my hip. Just enough pressure for me to understand he’s there. He’s touching me. And then a kiss. A soft flutter of lips on my lips. His mouth pressing against mine. His tongue… then his hand leaves my hip and slides right between my legs.
I have no clothes on, I realize. The same scratchy rope is burning my ankles. My legs are tied open.
My back arches again when his fingers find what they’re looking for.
“What did I just say?” he whispers into my mouth. “Don’t fight it. You won’t be able to stop me and you’ll make everything harder.”
His finger is inside me. Probing, pushing. And I realize, with much horror, that I’m slick down there. I’m responding to him.
“See how nice that is, Sadie?” He’s still kissing me. His finger is pressing inside me. In and out. A soft—very soft—slow—very slow—in and out. With each stroke the friction decreases as I become wet.
“You like it, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I say. And this time the word is very clear.
“They always do,” he growls against my mouth.
They? What the fuck are you doing, Sadie Scott? You’re letting a man touch you! “Stop,” I say, just as clear as the yes.
“No,” he insists, back to kissing my mouth. “You already gave me permission.”
I buck my back again. The feeling in my limbs is coming back. My muscles begin to respond. Not quite at the level I’ll need to fight this guy off—not that I really could, since I’m tied down—but enough for him to take notice.
Another slap across my face. Harder this time. More than a sting. A burn. A hot smack of heat across my cheek.
“You don’t control me, little Sadie.” His kiss is stronger now. More insistent. Not gentle and soft like it was a few seconds ago. “It’s the other way around. I’m the one in charge here. You belong to me.” He growls the words into my mouth. Claiming me.
“No,” I say, sucking in a breath when he draws back. I try to open my eyes but they refuse to respond. I realize they’re taped shut.
Panic.
“Stop,” I groan. My whole body wiggles under the restraints. My wrists and ankles are burning from the rope. My heart is beating fast. Thump, thump, thump, thump in my chest. I can’t breathe. I can’t suck in enough air because his mouth is there. Pressing me for a kiss.
His hand grabs my face, thumb and forefinger digging into my jawbone hard enough to feel the bruise forming. “If you fight,” he says, pulling back momentarily to speak, “you’ll lose.”
I realize with horror that his fingers are still inside me. Still stimulating me. And the moment I let that sensation back into the front of my mind, I begin to climax.
“No,” I say, frantically wiggling. Desperate to make him stop his stimulation. Desperate to not respond the way he wants me to.
But it’s no use.
I come.
I moan, and my back arches again, only this time it’s from pleasure.
His mouth is on mine again. Kissing. And even if I wanted to—and I don’t—I can’t stop myself from kissing him back.
I let him overpower me. I let him kiss me and finger me. I kiss him back. He presses his groin against my clenched fist at my side and my hand opens. I find him hard and ready, my fingers grabbing him, closing around his thick cock beneath his pants.
“See,” he says, his mouth still hovering over mine. “What did I tell you?”
My orgasm is subsiding and the realization of what I just did comes rushing back.
I let go of his dick and clench my fist again.
“No,” I say.
“It’s too late, Sadie. It’s simply too late.”
A sharp prick in my neck makes me scream. He pushes something inside me. Some drug that burns like
fuck as it enters my bloodstream. I can feel it making its way through my body. And the moment it hits my heart—that moment when the thump, thump, thump, thump delivers it to every cell in my body—everything goes black.
I sit up in bed, breathing hard and sweating profusely. I am covered in heat. I kick off the covers, panic setting in as I check my body.
I am dressed. In the same weird clothes I was in earlier. The bed is soft and comfortable, the blanket a thick down comforter. I turn around and find several pillows—all damp from my body—stacked against a headboard.
What the fuck?
Did I hallucinate?
Which makes me laugh out loud. Because that’s what I make other people do, right? It’s my superpower.
“You’re awake?” Thomas calls from another room. The door is open, so I can hear him clearly. His fingers are tapping out something on a keyboard.
I just stare at the open door, trying to figure out what’s real.
“Sadie?” he calls again. “Are you awake in there?”
“Yes,” I manage to croak out.
“Take your time. You’ve been out for a while. Almost twelve hours.”
Out. I was sleeping. That was a dream—nightmare—I correct myself. I reach up to wipe the sweat from my forehead and stop.
There’s a rope burn ringing my wrist. I check my other hand and find the same leftover evidence of… my nightmare. I lean down, pull up my pant leg, and look at the matching burn on my ankle.
It was real. He did that to me. He drugged me, took off my clothes, tied me down, and then… violated me.
“When you’re feeling OK, come out here. I think I know what’s happening,” Thomas calls.
Was it him? Maybe it was someone else. I didn’t see him, did I?
No, he taped your fucking eyes closed so you couldn’t open them, remember?
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and lean my elbows on my knees, head in hands.
“Hey,” he says from the open door. “You still feel off?”
I look up at him from underneath my sweat-soaked hair. “Off?” I snarl.
“You look better though. A little flushed. You might have a fever. I have something for that.” He turns to leave, presumably to go get some drug that will put me out again.
“No,” I say, making him turn back to me. “No. I was just…” I turn to look at the bed. “I was under that heavy blanket, that’s all.”
“You’re probably hungry,” Thomas says. “We’ve got emergency food here. But we can go shopping. Pick up stuff for a good meal. The kitchen isn’t anything special, but there’s an oven and a cooktop.”
Is he for real right now? He practically raped me. While I was drugged unconscious. “What the fuck?” I yell.
His head instinctively retreats backwards, like my outburst took him by surprise. “What’s wrong?”
“You—” I stop. Because it’s so… unthinkable. That he would do that and then just… pretend it didn’t happen.
Maybe it didn’t happen?
“I have rope burns,” I say, holding up my wrists. “And on my ankles too.” I mean the words to be an accusation but they come out weak and confused.
Thomas walks over to me and sits down on the bed very close to me. So close I have to lean into him when the mattress sags. “Let me see,” he says, taking my wrist in his hand. His eyes meet mine. “I’m sorry they did that shit to you.”
“They?” I ask. “What shit?”
He shrugs, nothing but sympathy in his eyes. Pity, I think. That’s a much better word for what’s in his eyes. “I don’t know what they did.” He sighs. “But I can imagine. They did a lot of shit to me too when I was young. So I’m sorry. I have ointment that might help. Take the sting away, at least.”
I squint my eyes, unsure of what to make of this. He’s certainly not acting like he’s the one who did this to me. In fact, he’s insinuating that I came here with these rope burns.
Did I?
His hand squeezes mine. “Sadie,” he says. “It’s OK. Whatever they were doing, it’s over now. You’re with me. I know it’s not much since we’re complete strangers. But I’ve been there. I’ve been where you are now. The weeks and months after I left Prodigy were the worst time in my life. I was on my own because my friends and I had to split up. It was a very fucked-up time. I get it.”
I just stare up at his dark eyes. He’s definitely handsome. He’s got one of those faces that say—dashing. Square jaw with a light coat of shadowed stubble. He’s wearing a t-shirt now. His shoulders are broad and his arms well-muscled. His hand is big, completely covering mine.
“Did you… have nightmares?” I ask. “When you left?”
A slow nod of affirmation. “For years. I know we weren’t in the same school.” He looks away, like this is something he takes personally. “I didn’t know they had more than one school, you understand, right?”
I don’t know. I don’t think I understand anything right now.
“I would’ve blown up all of them if I had known there were more. I would’ve saved you.” His eyes dart away from mine, but return in almost the same instant. “Killed you, at least.”
“Killed me?” I ask, almost out of breath.
He shrugs. “To save you from what they were doing. So I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
I feel… defeated. And sad. And stupid. “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I finally manage to say.
“I know,” he says softly. “But it’ll get better. I promise.”
“When?” I ask. “I don’t even have my memories. I don’t even know what they did. They’re going to come back and—”
“Shhh,” he says, putting an arm around me. Holding me close to him. “We can worry about that later. I’ll try to prepare you as best I can. I imagine it won’t take long for the effects of my blast to wear off, so we’ll talk about it today. But not now.”
“You have something to show me?” I ask. The panic has faded. The uncertainty is still there, but I don’t think he’s the kind of man who’d drug a woman and violate her. He seems concerned. It was a dream. A nightmare. A hallucination.
“Later, huh?” he says, smiling. “We’re going to go grocery shopping and then we’ll stop by a store and get you things to wear. When we get back, I’ll show you then. We can talk then.” He gets up and walks out of the room, only to return a few minutes later with a little bag in his hands. “Here,” he says, putting the bag down on the bed beside me. “There’s some stuff in there to help you freshen up. Toothbrush, washcloth, soap. You can take a real shower when we get back with clothes.”
He turns and walks out. Cool as can be.
It was a dream. That’s all.
“Don’t make this hard.”
CHAPTER NINE - THOMAS
“Sadie,” I say as we drive out of the forest and back onto the roads. “What’s your last name?”
“What?” She’s nervous. Very nervous. And she’s got a confused look on her face.
“Relax. I’m just making conversation since you’re so quiet. What’s your last name?”
“Scott,” she says. “And sorry. I’m pretty sure I’m not a very good socializer. Are you sure it’s safe to go into town?”
“It’s the edge of town. Barely counts.”
“You don’t think they’re looking for us?”
“They probably are. Maybe even seriously. But they don’t have this vehicle on their radar. It’s not registered to me. And we came out the tunnel, so even if they’re watching the towers, and I doubt they are because no one in their right mind builds a Batcave under a tower, they won’t know what car we’re in. I left the one we came in back in the forest. It’s covered up so they can’t fly a drone over and spot it.”
The confused look is even more pronounced. Like I was just speaking a foreign language. “How long have you been out?” I ask.
“Out?”
“Of the school, Sadie. How long have you been away from them?”
�
��I have no idea what you’re even talking about, Thomas. I really don’t.”
Hmmm. I reach over her lap, open the glove box, and pull out a map of Cathedral City. “Here. Can you read this?”
She takes the map from my fingertips with an annoyed huff. “I know how to read a map.”
“OK. So tell me where we are.” I point to an upcoming sign, just before the entrance to the freeway. “This is Meadowlark Boulevard and that’s the Ninth Street Freeway. Find it on the map.”
She knows what I’m doing. But she also knows how to read a map. So she takes a few seconds to orient herself and points. “Here. We’re right here.”
“OK. So they at least taught you things.”
“I’m not stupid, either.”
“Sadie,” I say, cocking an eyebrow at her. “Don’t be so damn defensive. I can’t ask you anything because you don’t remember. I’m just trying to form an opinion on things. You don’t know anything but your name. Which I find interesting. Because most amnesiacs lose all memories.”
She frowns. “Do you think I’m lying?”
“Not at all.” I laugh. “If you knew who you were we would definitely not be going out to breakfast right now.”
“Why?” She’s still scowling. “And you never said anything about going out to breakfast.”
“Because they sent you to kill me, Sadie. And I’m pretty sure if you were faking it, you’d have completed that mission last night. And I did say we were going out to eat. I just changed my mind on how to go about getting food. You look like you need a meal now. We can shop after.”
She laughs this time, which is a nice change. “Why the hell would anyone send me to kill you?”
“Because we’re Prodigy, right? You didn’t come to that hospital to check me out and take me home.” I waggle my eyebrows at her. “If you know what I mean. You came to kill me or take me back to them so they could do it themselves.”
