Twenty-One

by D. Victoria BonAnno

  Chapter 32

  November 29, 2011

  Demetrius hadn’t returned. Twenty-One felt strange without him or Gabe or the twins telling her what to do. She had followed Ash back to the table and sat on her stool, returning to the posture Demetrius had placed her in at the start of the night. No one had corrected her or even acknowledged her. Once she stepped off the podium, she was invisible.

  Her conversation with Ash played in her head over and over again. It had been at least an hour and he had done nothing but sit obediently at Abigail’s side while she chatted and answered questions and interacted with buyers. Now and then her cell phone, a small but sleek smart phone in a little blue sleeve, would emerge from a hidden pocket in her gown, and Twenty-One’s heart would stop, but nothing would happen. Games came and went on the podium, slaves had been brought up and examined, and Ash had made no move for the phone. Twenty-One felt more relieved with each moment that passed. She couldn’t imagine the punishment Ash would suffer if he were to act on his impulse to take the phone. Her mind wandered to more important matters. Where was her Master? She hadn’t seen any sign of him and it didn’t seem anyone else had left the party. Was he upset with her for winning the head race? She knew he hadn’t been happy about her playing, but he had ordered her to do so. Twenty-One felt the same way she had when she had played the retrieval game with the twins up in the suite. He was angry, yet she had to obey his orders. What could she possibly do to stay in his good graces?

  “All right, everyone!” Abigail announced, rising and setting her phone aside. “I had hoped our host would be back from his…errands…before this, but it’s time for dessert. As usual, my slaves will start things off by clearing the table. Boys, it’s time to eat.”

  The male slaves sprung from their still positions behind Twenty-One and Demetrius’ chairs, crawled onto the table, and descended upon Seven, who still lay prone and covered in scraps of fruit. They took the remaining fruit in their mouths and lapped at the streaks of honey on her and the other steel slaves’ bodies. Seven moaned, her back arching off the table and thrusting her body into the swarm of hungry hands and mouths all over her.

  Twenty-One was so mesmerized by the sight that she hadn’t noticed Ash get up with the others, practically knocking over his stool. Abigail uttered a small shriek and sprang from her chair.

  “The wine, you idiot!” she screeched, her cry shrill and very unlike the luscious purr Twenty-One had gotten used to hearing in her voice. Dark red wine spattered her white column gown.

  The attendants burst into laughter, shouting. “Spill! Spill! Spill!”

  Ash scrambled off the table and nearly backed into Twenty-One, his head bowed. Something small and solid dropped into Twenty-One’s lap. She saw a little blue phone on her thighs and panicked. She opened her legs and it drop into the crevice of her lap. She clenched her thighs together. Blood roared in her ears. Had anyone seen it?

  Abigail seemed like a different person, her eyes wide and sharp, her face as red as the wine staining her dress. She struck Ash across the face, jerking his head to the side, and he dropped to his knees.

  “I’m sorry, Mistress!” he cried over the chants of Spill! Spill! Spill! “I’m sorry!”

  Twenty-One stared awestruck as Abigail loomed over him, her hair like golden fire. She composed herself almost as well as Twenty-One had seen Demetrius do. She smiled slowly.

  “First spill of the night,” she hissed, gesturing toward her ruined dress. “Faith, Charity, if you wouldn’t mind? I’m going to see if someone can get this out in the kitchen. Konri, if you would be so kind as to join me, I have something to discuss with you.”

  The twins scooped up Ash by the arms as Konri and Abigail departed for the kitchen. Ash rose and dared to glance over his shoulder at Twenty-One before the twins dragged him to the podium across the room. Faith strapped his wrists and ankles to the same cross that Ash and Twenty-One had used. The male slave stood almost spread-eagled against it, his back and buttocks exposed to the table.

  “Clumsy boy,” Charity crooned, patting his ass. “What should we punish him with?”

  Attendants shouted out suggestions. The twins ignored them and looked to the cameras. Charity finally grabbed two long, slender bamboo canes and handed one to her sister. They tapped at Ash’s calves, which didn’t seem terribly harsh to Twenty-One, but the slave’s skin reddened and he began to fidget. Twenty-One looked down when he started to shout.

  She retrieved the cell phone from the stool. She hadn’t seen one since before she came here, when she lived in her own apartment and…no, she couldn’t think about it. The person she was before coming here meant nothing. She was a slave. She belonged to her Master. But even as those thoughts ran through her mind, her fingers crept onto the keypad and dialed numbers they knew even when she refused to acknowledge it. She stared at the number on the screen, a number from another life. She glanced up. All eyes were on the sobbing, writhing slave on the podium, who had thrust her own fate into her hands.

  Save us, Chloe.

  Twenty-One slid as slowly as she could off the stool and beneath the table. She pressed send.

  She couldn’t hear the dial tone over the sound of her own ragged breath. She wanted to hang up, to drop the phone, to pretend she’d never had it to begin with. She was a slave. She was meant for her Master. She deserved nothing more than what he desired of her.

  “This is Dr. Leroux.”

  The world shattered. She was five years old, buried in her father’s chest as he hummed songs to her and played games in the park. She was lost in the lilac bush, and his arms broke through the blossoms, reaching for her.

  “Hello?”

  Twenty-One’s voice was thick with tears she hadn’t known she was still capable of.

  “…Daddy?”

  “Chloe? Chloe! Mon Dieu!”

  The stool behind Chloe tumbled over with a clatter and a pair of iron hands wrenched her from under the table.

  Demetrius snatched the phone from her hand and threw it against a pillar, shattering it, but Chloe only noticed the crushing grip he had on her hair. He clutched the sides of her head, bringing her a millimeter from his face, his eyes as wild and terrifying as she had ever seen them.

  “Where did you get it?” he bellowed, his voice loud enough to crack the Earth. “Where?”

  The attendants were silent. Chloe fought not to speak. He dug his fingers into her face and she screamed for him. His crushing fingers did not relent. Her skull would crack if he kept going. She just knew it. Every nerve in her head ignited, maddening her.

  “Ash.”

  She despised herself the moment the name left her lips. She wished Demetrius had crushed her skull. She looked over at the bound slave covered in red cane marks and straining to look at the scene behind him.

  “Chloe!” Ash shouted, startling the entire room.

  Chloe watched Demetrius’ face snap from rage into complete stillness. He dropped Chloe like an afterthought. She collapsed and prepared to scramble away from further violence, but he was gone, walking over to the podium with cold, determined steps.

  “D…” came a weak protest from an attendant as Demetrius passed him. He grabbed the attendant, pulled something from the young man’s waistband, and strode up to Ash on the podium. Only when he outstretched his arm and revealed a handgun did Ash start screaming.

  “NO-!”

  Chloe didn’t know what was more deafening; the gunshot or the chaos that followed. Slaves screamed. Attendants scrambled to get them to the floor and maintain control. Ash’s head slumped to the side. Chloe didn’t look away from the hole in his temple or the blood that flowed down his slack face. She was numb, as if she were watching the scene through a window in the distance. The attendants shoved their slaves on the floor and the slaves obeyed despite their panic, adhering to the system that had been drilled into their heads. A system designed by Demetrius to keep them under his control. Chloe almost smiled. The system worked even when the Master
himself lost control.

  The dinner party dissolved into silence, the slaves flat on their bellies. Faith and Charity were just in front of the podium on their knees, clutching one another tightly. All eyes were on Demetrius, frozen beside Ash’s corpse. Chloe stared at him, at the man she called Master, the man who had snatched her from her life, starved her, brainwashed her. She stared at the slaves, all stolen, all conditioned into tools for pleasure, like her. She stared at the attendants; twenty young man fully capable of resisting, of saving these women, who instead aided in their torture. Gabe was crouched over Seventeen, the self-proclaimed teddy bear of attendants. Chloe’s numbness twisted into shame. She clutched the aching sides of her head and fought not to scream. She looked at Ash…Jason…the one person who had tried to stop this, who had trusted her to save them all. She forced herself to stare at his corpse, at his misshapen skull where the bullet had left it. She had done this. She had failed.

  Demetrius lowered his arm. He studied the room as if it were his first time seeing it. He stared at the cameras, unblinking.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” his voice was flat and dull, “we apologize for the incident. We will release a statement tomorrow. Have a good evening.”

  He reached into his pocket with his free hand, pulled out the remote, and shut off the cameras. No one else dared move. Again, Demetrius swept the room, and Chloe felt his eyes on her, stinging her like a winter wind. She didn’t look away. The gun still hung in his hand, a finger on the trigger.

  “Faith, Charity,” said Demetrius. “Take Twenty-One to the suite and chain her. I will deal with her shortly.”

  The twins struggled to their feet, pale and wide-eyed. Chloe lowered her head. She gave them no trouble as they lifted her up and held her wrists behind her back. She had lost herself completely and become a mindless slave. She had blown her only chance for escape, everyone’s only chance, and she had gotten someone killed. She didn’t deserve to live.

  A shrill scream severed the silence as the twins led Chloe away. She turned back and saw Abigail, in a fresh dress, sinking to her knees in front of the table, screaming over and over as Konri held her by the shoulders.

  xxi

  The twins bound Chloe’s wrists with steel cuffs and strung her on a chain from a hook on the ceiling. She sat on her knees, her arms stretched high overhead. She didn’t resist the twins, but she refused to act like a well-mannered slave. She watched them as they did their work in anxious silence, daring to look them full in the face. She was surprised when they avoided her gaze. There was no sharp order to look down, no teasing about her body or crooning over her, no reprimand. They would not look at her and barely exchanged glances with each other as they fastened her to the ceiling as if she were a hanging plant. Chloe understood their detachment. They had seen Demetrius truly snap, just as she had. She wasn’t their boss’s pet project any more. She wasn’t the little mystery in the suite or the new slave who had come so far. She was just someone who was about to die, and Faith and Charity didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire. Chloe had the urge to tell them it was all right, that she wanted this after what she had caused, but she knew that was ridiculous. Even at her best, she was just another slave to these bizarre and mesmerizing women. They couldn’t have cared less about her. Disgust seeped into her mouth. Last night, she had been desperate to please these women. Loved these women. She had performed humiliating acts for them. And now…now nothing mattered. She retreated within herself and focused on the memory of her father’s voice on the stolen cell phone. Tears welled.

  The twins were already on their way out when the door beeped and burst open. Demetrius charged in, just missing the twins as they scurried out of the room, his eyes trained on Chloe. Chloe balked, losing all resolve, scrambling to get to her feet and break free of the chain.

  A strike to the face knocked her right back onto her knees. She was so preoccupied with its vicious sting that she did not notice the blood pour from a fresh cut on her eyebrow. Another hit came, across the side of the head. Her ears rang. She yanked at the chain, her vision swimming red, but Demetrius kneed her in the stomach and struck the air from her lungs.

  Chloe’s mind was empty, her body flailing and struggling of its own volition. She kicked her legs out in any direction she could, and she felt one kick make contact, but nothing slowed him. He grabbed her by the throat and lifted her up to her toes. Chloe stared at him through bloodstained vision as he squeezed her windpipe shut.

  His eyes were ablaze, the grey of a torrential downpour that had the power to obliterate everything in its wake. Chloe tried to breathe but found she couldn’t even complete the motion. Her chest spasmed over and over again, desperate to take in air. She kicked at him, fought as best she could. He remained a statue, his eyes locked on her face.

  This was it. She was going to die. Somehow the most frightening part of it all was that Demetrius said nothing. He was enraged, unlike the cold, calculated snap she had witnessed when he murdered Jason, but he was just as silent. She read the message in his face. There was no enigma anymore. It wasn’t that she had caused such trouble in front of the buyers. She had been his, wholly and completely his, and now she wasn’t. At least she would die with that small satisfaction.

  Demetrius dropped her as her vision began to go black. She fell hard on her knees, but she didn’t feel anything. She gasped in air, but Chloe thought nothing, felt nothing as Demetrius unchained her and dragged her limp body into the cage. The last thing she saw before the blackness swallowed her was the man who had been her Master walking away.

  Chapter 33

  November 30, 2011

  Mr. Zachary Rhoades showed all the signs of agitation: sweating, fidgeting, and from the observation room behind the double mirrors, Detective Gatz could see his feet hooked onto the legs of his chair.

  “You got him, Paul” she whispered. “Bring it home.”

  On the other side of the glass, in the interrogation room, Detective Billman stopped his restless pacing and sat down in front of Zachary.

  “It was four o’clock in the morning,” he said. “Do you actually expect us to believe you were doing yard work? You were there to pick up the girls Mr. Heart had brought to the club. We know these girls are being held against their will.”

  Zachary opened his mouth to argue and Billman shot him down with a stern look.

  “These women were stolen from their homes,” he said. He sat down and rubbed his eyes, the perfect portrait of exasperation. “From their families. Help us bring them back.”

  Gatz bit her lip. Sympathy might not have been the best route to take with Zachary. During questioning he’d been combative and defensive, like Mariane McCandal, but harder to trip up. He’d only responded to what her partner called the “angry daddy” routine, wherein Billman took on an angry but protective persona. Zachary seemed only concerned for himself. Making him appear to be the “hero” aiding in “rescuing” these women seemed an inappropriate route to take.

  Zachary wiped his palms on his pant leg. He was still on the fence, but he appeared to be teetering.

  “Can prostitutes be held against their will?”

  Gatz held her breath.

  “Got him!” a local officer whispered behind her.

  Gatz tried not to laugh under her breath. The Oak County police had been less than charitable when Chloe Leroux had first gone missing. Now faced with possible charges of corruption, they had become a bit too eager to accommodate them in the case.

  “I mean, they’re all just whores, man,” Zachary continued. “They don’t have families or anything.”

  He was distancing himself from the situation, staving off guilt, another sign he was about to crack. Billman seemed to sense it, too.

  “Look,” Billman said, folding his arms over his chest. “Zach, you’ve got two felonies on your record. If you go down for this, it’s over. I don’t even want to think about how long you’d be in prison.”

  Back to angry daddy mode. He let his w
ords sink in before continuing. This was why, despite the chain smoking and the occasional impulsive outburst, Gatz was happy to have Billman as a partner. His instincts in the interrogation room were unparalleled.

  “There are a lot of people involved in this. Someone could pin something you didn’t do on you and you’ll end up getting a worse sentence, even if you’re the tiniest cog in the machine. The best thing you can do for yourself is tell us as much as you can.”

  Gatz thanked God that Billman was able to lie so easily. Their information from Mariane was little more than hearsay, and even with the information on Anthony Ramirez’s laptop, it was practically useless without a body. Rafe Raynal’s participation had yielded no confessions or crimes, but he had identified Zachary and a few others they planned on bringing in for questioning. If Zachary gave no information, they had absolutely no case against Demetrius Heart; for murder, for kidnapping, for the disappearance of Chloe Leroux, nothing. Both Gatz and Billman knew they had the pieces of a huge puzzle. They needed more than a gut feeling to solve this.

  “I didn’t kidnap anyone,” Zachary finally muttered. “All I had to do is help train one girl. That’s all any of us do. Demetrius is the one who finds the girls, he’s the one who breaks them or whatever. We just come in and help manage them.”

  “Oh, shit,” Gatz whispered. She sat down in the office chair behind her, ignoring the officers behind her cheering as quietly as they could. Just like that, they had a case.

  Chapter 34

  December 1, 2011

  Abigail appeared to have calmed down by the next afternoon when Demetrius came to his partners with his statement for the buyers about the incident at the dinner party. She was no longer crying, but her eyes were red-rimmed and raw, the skin around them puffed up and irritated. Her eyes narrowed the moment he walked into Konri’s room. Demetrius ignored her, though her straight posture as she sat on the bed begged his attention.