by V. F. Mason
Lachlan’s Protégé
V. F. Mason
Copyright © 2018 by V. F. Mason
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Edited by Hot Tree Editing
Cover Design: Sommer Stein
Photographer: Wander Aguiar
Cover Model: Colton Benson
Contents
Prologue
1. Chapter One
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
14. Chapter Fourteen
15. Chapter Fifteen
16. Chapter Sixteen
17. Chapter Seventeen
18. Chapter Eighteen
19. Chapter Nineteen
20. Chapter Twenty
21. Chapter Twenty-One
22. Chapter Twenty-Two
23. Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by V. F. Mason
Connect
To the power of love.
Prologue
Valencia
My eyes snap open. I look straight ahead and take a deep breath, then step into a pose. I’m illuminated by the moonlight shining brightly into the room from the glass-like ceiling above me. This silent space is filled with a mysterious atmosphere, creating an almost-perfect setting for a romantic evening.
The familiar first notes of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake echo through the room, and I assume the position, rising on my toes and swaying from side to side while slowly moving to the corner. I hop on my toes again, owning the stage as if nothing matters, blocking the outside world away.
To each dramatic note, I perform with my hands and facial expressions, giving away all the hopelessness of the swan, the beautiful young woman Odette, who’s been captured by the dark sorcerer and can’t be reunited with her lover.
The pain and heartache fuel her desire to fight against him, so she feeds on them even if they threaten to destroy her.
I swirl and swirl, rising up and down, up and down, and then a cry of pain slips past my lips as my feet land on glass. I halt my movements, barely breathing from the glass digging into my skin.
I glance down to see my white pointe shoes slowly coating in blood from all the scattered glass covering the floor; if one is careful enough to avoid it, he is a master.
My feet agonizingly throb. I can barely stand on them. My rasping breaths help me to concentrate on something other than the pain.
I’ve been doing nothing but dancing for the last hour. I’ve never performed for this long without a break in my life.
The sound of the lighter flicking fills the space as he lights up his cigarette, takes a deep breath, and exhales it in my direction while resting comfortably on the chair right in front of me. “Ah, Valencia. You know the rules. Never stop.” His deep, dangerous voice raises goose bumps on my skin, reminding me once again that the monster never sleeps.
He just feeds on my misery.
He tugs on the rope wrapped tightly around my waist and I stumble forward. I can’t help the groan of pain when he directs me onto the big pile of glass. The air freezes in my lungs while I pray for the hurt to pass so I can continue.
But I can’t.
Instead, fear unlike anything before spreads through me. Injuries like this may ruin a dancer’s career forever, and if I don’t have dancing, I won’t have anything in this life.
But he knows that.
Another tug. This time, I can’t keep up. I land on my knees, biting my lip hard so I won’t groan when the bare skin on my palms and knees land on the glass.
“Get up,” he orders, but I don’t.
He can dish any punishment he wants. God knows the cuts and throbbing skin are an indication of that. But I won’t let him taint the one thing in my life that I love the most.
He’s already taken everything else; he doesn’t get to have ballet too.
He exhales heavily at my disobedience and rises, straightening his perfectly ironed three-piece suit, then walks to me as his expensive Italian leather shoes make an unmistakable sound against the floor.
With each step he takes, my heartbeat speeds up faster and faster to the point of feeling it in my throat. He places the metal head of his cane under my chin and lifts it up.
I meet his stare head on. I hate everything about this man.
Or at least I hope it’s hate.
“So that’s your choice?” he asks as his lazy gaze roams over me, but I say nothing.
I won’t give him the last part of me that matters.
Even if it seals my death tonight.
Chapter One
Somewhere in the world…
Fall 2018
Valencia
Breathing heavily, I close my eyes, hoping the agonizing pain traveling from my stomach to my head will pass, but I still the moan threatening to spill past my lips.
The white gown I’m wearing is coated in sweat as goose bumps break out on my heated skin. I try to raise my hand to find some solution or shift on the bed, but my wrist is pulled back, because the tight handcuffs don’t give me freedom to move.
The metal bruises my flesh, disturbing the already-festered skin, and I hate the tears rolling down my cheeks, as they speak about my weakness. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper into the space, tasting the salt on my tongue.
I can’t be weak; I have to survive this, no matter what the cost.
The room’s white color disturbs my eyes, because with all the harsh light shining from the ceiling, it’s too bright. It has nothing but a single bed in the middle with a table behind me and the AC running in front of me that hits me directly in the face. It’s a wonder I don’t have a fever at this point. The walls are soundproof with an additional layer of white velvet covering them, which suffocates me even more, because no matter how much I will cry out, no one will hear me in this place.
The “punishment room,” as he calls it.
He doesn’t much like my disobedience, which pretty much means I’ve spent more time in here than anywhere else. Although the caged space downstairs can barely count as anything better, at least there the cameras in the corners above me do not monitor my every move.
In a second, the door opens and the woman walks in, void of any emotion as she holds a notepad in her hand. She then shifts to the table, where she breaks a few ampules and mixes something into the IV bag.
Probably vitamins that keep me alive despite his starving me.
I don’t bother begging or asking for help, because it’s useless. I found out the hard way these past few months that most people stay numb to everyone’s problem as long as they are not affected by them.
A humorless chuckle escapes me, and although my whole body freezes in a cramp from the action, I can’t stop it.
My naivety has to be seen to be believed. The woman turns around, frowning as she picks up the bag and walks to me, placing it on the table next to the bed. She opens her mouth to say something but quickly snaps it shut, her lips thinning into a li
ne as if she barely keeps herself from giving me a piece of her mind.
Right. No matter how much she wants me to act normal and agreeable, he doesn’t pay them to lecture me.
He pays them to keep me alive to play his twisted, disgusting games.
“You are a disgrace as a woman, you know that?” I croak through my dry throat, and her hands on the IV drip still as she sends daggers my way, but I meet her stare head on. “How you sleep at night, I don’t know.” Instead of responding to my jab, not that I expect it, she inserts the needle into my vein and I don’t even flinch, considering they’ve poked holes almost everywhere.
She is quickly done with her stuff then adjusts the dosage and leans forward behind the headboard of the bed, probably to lift one of the Newton’s Cradle balls. In a second, the sound of them hitting against each other echoes through the space as she walks out, leaving me alone once again while the sound drives me insane, grating on my nerves, and reminding me this nightmare never ends no matter how much I wish it was just a dream.
But I know that’s what he wants, for me to go insane, so he can attack, because he only feeds on the weak victims who he can break and destroy.
I can’t give him the satisfaction. I can’t let him win this time.
Snapping my eyes shut, I transfer myself to the ballet stage as the classical music fills my mind and takes me away from this place that threatens to strip me from myself once and for all.
And while I do this, the images of the last year play in my head like a colorful, horrifying movie that I know will end badly, but one I can’t look away from.
I always knew monsters existed in this world.
But I didn’t know they had the tendency to hide behind masks of good people.
Chapter Two
New York, New York
January 2018
Lachlan
Whistling loudly, I put on black leather gloves and smile at the whimper that erupts from the man currently pinned to the wall by several coach bolts located in his palms, feet, and thighs.
Not that the cuts are deep, but the specific places work well on the nerves, sending signals to the head, which mix with fear and create this suffocating feeling inside one’s body that he or she can never escape.
I should know, considering I’ve mastered and refined the craft since the age of fourteen.
“Please let me go,” the man begs, but I ignore him, putting the drill together and pressing the button so the trrr sound fills the space. The man gasps in shock. “What are you going to do with it?”
The funniest part about humankind I’ve discovered during torture is everyone asks and says the same shit, no matter their circumstances or society.
I would have covered their mouths with tape just to not listen to those annoying fucking words, but then I love their screams too much to pass up an opportunity.
Spinning around, I face my victim—or teaching example, as I like to call them—and study him from every angle, displeasure speeding through me.
Sweat is coating his clothes. He breathes heavily, barely standing in place while blood slips to the floor from his wounds. The front of his pants is wet, and by the disgusting smell, I conclude it’s urine.
Frowning, I check his file one more time and shake my head at the fact that this man is a preacher.
Where is his faith now?
I snap my fingers and raise them up, and in a second, classical music by Mozart blasts from the speakers. I crack my neck from side to side, basking in the energy of it.
Showtime.
Without further ado, I drill the bolts firmly into his arms and arteries, and his scream awakens the monster in me. I chuckle then shift to the other side and drill a bit more. It oozes so much blood, but he still stays alive and barely manages to rasp something under his breath—not that I care to listen.
My intention is not to kill him. Well… not yet.
First, he has to suffer. Has to experience the pain and desperation that forever coat the walls of my room, so he will know what it’s like to be in the position where, no matter how much you beg, the evil person will never stop.
He’ll just increase his actions, laughing at your pleadings.
So I go back to my weapons table, shaking my finger in the air and enjoying the particularly high note of the music while I scan my blade collection. The finest of silver glistens in the light and I finally choose a three-inch blade with the sharpest tip.
Walking back to him, I graze his skin from his cheek to his neck as the pulse under it speeds up, and his eyes snap open, with fear and agony permanently settled there. And then I stab him in his side. I take out the knife—he doesn’t even have time to catch his breath—and I repeat the action on the other side and then right in the middle of his abdomen. He whimpers, obviously having no strength left for anything else.
I leave the knife in his gut, because I don’t need him bleeding to death yet. I set the timer on the table clock, because in exactly twelve minutes, he will die as the blood drains from his severed arteries and damaged internal organs, and his body will shut down completely.
After all, I didn’t get my medical degree for nothing.
Grabbing the pliers, I free his hand from the bolt nail and raise it as I lean closer to his face. I know he can hear me even if he is barely holding on to his body’s last resources. “Preacher Cane,” I say, and his eyelashes barely move, but it’s there, so I lower my voice, because what I have to say is for his ears only. “Remember how you used to say boys who point their fingers and accuse others are sinners fit for hell?” He meets my gaze, recognition settling in his eyes. But I don’t let him dwell on it for long. “Welcome to my hell,” I mutter, and cut off his fingers one by one while he thrashes, but I don’t give a fuck.
The minute I’m done with his last finger, I check the time and see I have five minutes left. Stepping on and cursing the fingers on the floor for good measure, I prop his eyes open with toothpicks, not letting them close, while his tainted blood almost sullies my suit. Then I turn on the video on the screen located directly across on the opposite wall.
Screams and begging erupts from the screen, and even though I have him in this position, which doesn’t change any fucking thing, it still gives me satisfaction. Before he succumbs to death, I proclaim, “Your son is next.” And then add, “Bon voyage to hell, Pastor.” And he freezes, appearing pitiful with everything I’ve done to him.
Just as his last breath leaves his body, the music of Symphony No. 40 ends.
I turn to the window behind me and bow as applause erupts from my protégés as they watch my victim with awe, murmuring excitedly to each other—probably commenting on my technique.
Ah, the young minds who get off on just a single thought about torture.
My favorite students, they are always filled with so much hope and naivety.
Not really knowing that it’s easy to dream about hurting someone, but it’s hard to actually do—and control your desires, to make them work for you and not be their prisoner.
I’m always there to crush their hopes and introduce them to the world full of gore, darkness, and power that shakes your body to the point of insanity, as nothing compares to the high of taking a life.
The smell of a fresh kill.
Torture is an art form I’ve learned through the years, mastered for decades, and explored in different variations with anyone who I found fit.
Most people will say I’m a monster or a psycho.
However, in life, nothing is ever that simple, as evil and goodness are in the eyes of the beholder.
Valencia
The music of Tchaikovsky speeds up, sending swiping drums and piano mixed with violin echoing through the space and across the stage as I start to do pique turns. Swirling effortlessly on my pointed shoes, my arms meeting and separating, bringing attention to the gracefulness of each movement. The lacy white tutu stays unmovable, drawing attention to the movements of my legs as I give all of myself to the dance of the S
ugar Plum Fairy.
Time and time again, I swirl on the stage as the music becomes louder and faster, pitching higher and higher, when it finally ends on the soft dzing. I freeze in position with one leg pointed on the floor, my body slightly leaning to the side and one arm lifted while the other is just straight by my side. I almost exhale a sigh of relief, because I’ve managed to handle this dance without a single mistake.
Loud applause erupts as I return to first position, taking deep graceful bows while they still cheer and applaud. I keep the wide smile on my face intact, although it takes enormous effort to do so.
Then I take a few steps forward and repeat the action, showing everyone that I have nothing but deep love for their attention and appreciation for this beautiful and mesmerizing art.
Finally, with one last bow, I dance off in the direction of the curtains and quickly end up backstage where the AC hits me from all corners, instantly creating goose bumps on my heated skin, and I shiver slightly.
Who thinks it’s a good idea to blast it on max for when sweaty dancers come back? We will catch colds at this rate!
Instantly, Nora, the backstage manager, places an opened bottle of water in my hand, and orders, “Drink, we need to get you ready for Act III. Do you want to grab a bite?”
I shake my head, greedily pouring the water down my throat, and almost moan from the cooling sensations it brings me. The costume is stuck to my sweaty body, and I hate the tulle digging into my skin. It’ll leave irritated spots that will last for days.
