by Nicole Casey
“When we find her, you’ll tell her nothing about our agreement,” I added the amendment as I slammed the car door and slung the bag over my shoulder.
“Of course,” Donovan conceded graciously. Too graciously.
But it was done. When this was over, I could only hope that she hadn’t figured out what an evil fuck I really was. Because I needed to believe there would be someone out there who didn’t see me as the monster I would have to be. The monster I would always be.
5
Scarlett
Two days. I’d woken up in a stone-walled cell two days ago and hadn’t seen a single living soul. I knew it had been two days—at least since I’d woken up—because there was a window in this cell. It was too high up to reach and it wasn’t a normal window. There was no glass in it—evident by the wind and rain that had blown through it the night before. It was striped with thick bars though, and it reminded me of a window in an old dungeon. It was the only source of light. When the sun went down, the prison, or dungeon, or whatever it was, plunged into darkness.
Two days, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified that I hadn’t seen anyone the whole time. I could clearly remember the early days of my last captivity. I was cold now, and hungry, and sore from the stone floor, but no one had touched me or hurt me.
There had been three bottles of water in a row in front of the prison bars that sealed me in. I’d avoided them, but eventually, my parched throat compelled me to give in and open one. It was just water. I had tried to pace myself, not knowing how long they would have to last, but a river of tears quickly leads to dehydration it seemed, and too fast, the bottles were empty. There was no water left, but I was no longer crying.
This was it. Naked and alone, I was going to die in this cell. I had no idea how I’d gotten here. The last I remembered, I had awoken shortly after falling asleep in Derek’s arms. The clothes he’d had me put on had been uncomfortable, and I’d decided to test the freedom to make my own decisions by stripping off the pants and shirt. I’d fallen back to sleep pressed against his naked chest, knowing it was right where I wanted to fall asleep every night for the rest of my life.
And then I’d woken up here. It wasn’t a punishment for disobeying him. Derek would never be this cruel, but the alternative brought no comfort. They’d found us. Whoever had been hunting us had caught up. They’d taken me—probably keeping me in an unconscious oblivion with the same kind of sedatives the men who’d first taken me had used.
What had they done with Derek? The question had plagued me, tormented me, every second of the past two days. Was he trapped somewhere in this dungeon, too? Or…had they killed him? The thought had made me sick over and over again, but with an empty stomach, I’d done little more than dry heave in the corner before curling back up and crying on the cold floor on the other side of the cell.
“Derek…” I whispered into the silent, musky air. I just wanted to know he was OK. That’s all. I wasn’t asking for much. But no matter how many times I whispered or screamed his name, there’d been no response. I was going to die never knowing if he was even alive.
Another round of sobs ripped across my parched throat. Apparently, I wasn’t done crying altogether. I curled up tighter, innately trying to escape the cool breeze that wafted in from the window. I don’t know if I closed my eyes or not. It was so dark it was hard to tell the difference.
Open, I realized, as sometime later dawn’s light slowly began to transform my surroundings from pitch black to dingy grey. I blinked back the tears blurring my vision and glanced around.
My scream lodged behind my heart in my throat when I caught sight of the figure on the other side of the bars. I scurried back further into the corner and wrapped my arms tight around my knees as if I could curl myself up into nothingness.
He just stood there, watching me with eyes as cold as another pair I’d seen not long ago. The similarities ended there, though. This man was taller than Marcos, his hair was dark but longer, and his cold eyes were a stormy grey. It looked like storm clouds were brewing in their depths.
He didn’t move. He just kept staring. He was so still I couldn’t tell if he was even breathing.
“What do you want?” I asked when I could find my voice.
He raised one hand and covered his lips with one finger, motioning for me to be quiet. His eyes never left mine.
“Tell me now,” I persisted.
He cocked an eyebrow over one, evil eye, and I couldn’t help but question the intelligence of pushing this man.
Too late. He reached for the handle and slid open the door. It offered no resistance, even though it refused to budge for me all the times I’d tried to force it open. An electronic lock—it must be—but that seemed terribly out of place in this medieval dungeon.
He stepped into my cell and suddenly I wished for the lock, for anything that would have kept him on the other side of the bars.
He strode right to me and yanked me up onto my feet. I tried to struggle out of his grip, but he bent my arm behind my back. The burn in my shoulder forced me to stop struggling before he snapped it out of its socket.
“Please let me go,” I pleaded, though I knew he had no intention of it.
He shoved me forward, keeping my arm twisted back to ensure my obedience, and pressed me against the rough stone wall. I couldn’t move, not without dislocating my own shoulder.
A familiar whizz through the air and I was screaming before I felt the lash of a whip across the backs of my thighs. Then it came down again across the same spot, and then higher, and higher still, setting my back on fire where Marcos’ lashes had only recently begun to fade.
“Stop, please,” I cried.
The next lash contained twice the fire of the last one. I could feel the sticky, wet heat there, and knew it had dug in deep. The next was gentler, controlled.
“Please, stop this.”
The whip blazed a wet, hot trail across my lower back, making my knees give out. He held me there, suspended between his grasp on my arm and the stone wall that was biting into my flesh.
He was training me. Every time I begged, the whip came down harder than when I didn’t. I squeezed my lips shut. Another controlled lash and I did my damnedest to keep my mouth closed. Three more, each administered with a rigid control.
He released my arm, and I crumpled to the ground. I didn’t dare try to get up, so I laid there as tears streamed down and puddled on the floor. I could feel the warm trickle of drops of blood as my wounds cried, too.
“Rule number one: A slave will not speak unless spoken to,” he spoke for the first time, in a deep, gravelly voice. “There will be consequences every time a rule is broken. Rule number two: A slave will address her superiors appropriately. You will address me as ‘sir’. Do you understand?”
This couldn’t be happening. I was safe. I was free. Derek had taken me away from this life.
He yanked me up onto my knees but then backhanded me across the cheek and sent me sprawling back to the floor a second later.
“Do you understand me?” he growled, reaching for his whip.
“Y-yes, sir,” I stuttered around sobs.
“Good. Follow me, slave,” he instructed and then stepped out of my cell.
I got my hands and knees beneath me and pushed up. I didn’t bother standing up. I knew that wasn’t what he wanted. No doubt it would only result in another whipping. I crawled to the door, choking on tears, feeling weaker than I’d ever been. A bit of pain, and I was already jumping to be his obedient slave? This man wasn’t like Derek though. His eyes were as cold and lifeless as Marcos’ had been. No compassion. Only ruthlessness. There would be no softening him.
Oh god, Derek, where was he? If he was here, he’d never let this monster hurt me. He wasn’t here though, so I had no choice but to crawl across the jagged stone floor, following behind a man who would like to break me—physically or emotionally, I don’t think it mattered to him which one.
It must h
ave been fifteen yards, maybe twenty, before he came to a stop at the end of the long hall. If I looked behind me, I’d no doubt find a trail of blood left by my battered knees.
I didn’t look behind me.
“Stand up.”
I did, covering my body as best as I could with my arms.
He pointed to an alcove on the right and motioned for me to enter.
A gas chamber?—it’s the first thought that popped into my head. Maybe he was going to put an end to my misery. My heart ached thinking I’d never see Derek again. I would never know if he was even alive, but I had to believe he was. So, with wobbly legs, I stepped into the alcove. Did this make me brave or a coward?
But there was no door to seal me in. Just more stone walls in a room the size of the cell I’d just left, with a pair of shackles high up on the wall. I back-stepped when I saw them, but he was already behind me and I crashed into the hard wall of his chest. Before I could push away he grabbed my wrists and slammed me back against the wall. The fresh lashes on my back screamed in reawakened agony.
I struggled, but it was futile. My wrists were shackled high above my head within seconds, pulling me up so that my heels hovered just above the floor. His hard body pressed against me, but it evoked none of the things Derek’s had.
I opened my mouth to beg and plead, but slammed it shut, jarring my teeth. He would only punish me for speaking. My heart thudded a rapid, staccato beat in my chest and I couldn’t seem to gulp enough air into my lungs. If I didn’t calm down, I was going to pass out.
Oh god, yes. Yes, I would pass out. I let my lungs work faster as the edges of my vision grew fuzzy and dark.
“If you pass out, slave, you won’t like what I do to revive you.”
I could hear his voice, but by the time his words made sense, it was too late. The room spun wildly and the darkness had taken over most of my vision. His eerie smile was the last thing I saw, right before I slipped into blissful oblivion.
Seconds or minutes, I don’t know how long I managed to escape. But when I came to, a scream tore from my lips. Pain. Burning pain. He was beside me, but his hand was wedged behind me and his fingers were pounding into my virgin rectum. I screamed louder and tried to jerk away.
He slammed my hip into the stone with his free hand and I could feel him stretching me further, adding another finger inside me. God, no. It hurt. It burned.
He withdrew suddenly, and my screams turned to racking sobs.
“Welcome back,” he said nonchalantly as he knelt down and grabbed my ankle.
I hadn’t noticed the shackles at the base of the wall, but I saw them now as he restrained one ankle and then the other, spreading my legs obscenely. My efforts to kick and jerk my limbs out of his grasp were useless.
He stood up and moved in front of me. His eyes grazed over me, taking in every exposed inch. I squeezed my eyes shut, but there was no blocking him out. My body wore the proof of his existence and I could still feel his eyes on me.
He was still for so long, I couldn’t resist the wretched urge to open my eyes, not that it would do me any good to see what was coming next. I met his cold eyes but that was what he was waiting for. His open hand crashed into my cheek, which jerked my head and bounced it off the wall.
“Rule number three: A slave will keep her eyes down unless instructed to do otherwise.”
I glared at his toes through the stream of tears that wouldn’t stop flowing. I knew these rules. Had Derek been as brutal in his teaching of them? No. He’d never been like this man. There had always been something in his eyes—life, pain, need. There was nothing in this man’s eyes.
He crossed to the other side of the cell and returned with a long hose. He pressed down on the nozzle and my whole body was showered in a lukewarm spray. When he turned it off, he stood there. I wanted to look up to find out what was going on, but I knew better. I hung there shivering instead, part in cold, part in fear of what was to come.
“Good girl. I’m impressed,” he said, though the inflection in his tone was no different. “Let’s see if you can keep it up.”
Then his hands were on me. They were slippery, covered in soap that smelled like roses. Nothing like the soap Derek had gotten for me that was the same one I’d used at home. This man’s hands groped and rubbed everywhere while I stared miserably at his feet and watched the tears that dripped off my chin land on my breasts and mingle with the soap he’d lathered there. I would never forget the smell of that soap. Roses. A once pleasant scent turned repugnant beneath his hands.
When he grazed over the wounds on my back, I sucked in my breath and cried out at the same time, and when he slipped lower and ran his fingers over my abused rectum, I had no doubt he’d ripped me open there, too, by the sting of the soap he rubbed into me. Then the sprayer returned and he washed all the soap away. If only he could wash away my memory with it.
“Very good, slave. Perhaps you won’t be as difficult as I’d suspected. In fact, I think you’re ready for the next rule.”
No, I didn’t want any more rules. I wanted to go back to my cell and curl up in the corner until dehydration, starvation or hypothermia brought the sweet succor of death. I didn’t want to die, but this man was going to make life hell. There was no escape. No hope. His eyes held none of the promise of the humanity Derek’s had held.
Derek. I’d gladly go back to my first prison to be there with him now. Was he out there somewhere? If he was, he’d be searching for me. He wouldn’t stop until he found me. I wasn’t sure whether to grasp onto the hope or thrust it far away. Hope was a dangerous thing. It could keep a person clinging to life when the only relief to be found was in death.
If I believed he was alive though, I had to believe he was coming for me. I could endure this man—his vicious whip and vile hands. I would survive because Derek could charge in at any moment. And Derek had given me the tools I would need to survive. Submission, obedience—that’s what this man wanted. It made my skin crawl to think of submitting to him willingly, but it wasn’t for him that I would obey. It was for Derek so that his efforts to save me would not be wasted. I wouldn’t make him go through whatever he was going through to rescue a corpse.
So, I kept my eyes on the floor when he came close, and I resisted the urge to jerk away from him when he reached out and brushed his fingers over my nipples. They were already hard from the cold and friction, but his touch did nothing to stir arousal inside me.
“Yes, I like you like this, slave,” he said. “Now, look at me.”
I raised my head and forced eye contact. The coldness in his gaze sent a shiver down my spine.
“That’s it. I want you to keep looking at me with those pretty, green eyes. Do not look away, or my fingers in your ass will seem like a mere tickle in comparison to what I’ll shove in there next. Do you understand me?”
“Y-yes, sir.” My whole body was shaking so hard the shackles on my wrists and ankles clattered loudly.
“Don’t be afraid. What I’m going to do isn’t going to hurt one bit.”
Somehow his words weren’t reassuring.
One hand slipped between my thighs and he cupped my sex with the palm of his hand. My pleas hovered on my tongue, but I held them there. I wanted to look away or close my eyes, but I kept them locked on him while silent tears slipped down my cheeks.
He knelt down in front of me, forcing me to look down to maintain eye contact. And that meant I could see his hand on me, too. The tears fell faster. I didn’t want him touching me. I wasn’t his. He wasn’t my master. He wasn’t allowed to be touching me.
When his fingers fastened on my clit, I tried to jerk away, but I was stuck there. I couldn’t stop him as he started to rub. He moved in slow, languid circles at first. I wanted to scream at him to get his hands off me, but I had to keep it in. Obey and stay alive for Derek. That was all that mattered.
His fingers moved faster, and his other hand slipped between my thighs. A finger ran along my sex. Then he was inside me. God, no, I
didn’t want him inside me. He stroked my inner walls as his fingers on my clit picked up their pace.
Then I felt it.
No. No. No. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to respond to him. It was just a flicker, my traitorous body’s innate response to physical stimulation, but it was sick. Wrong. Disgusting.
His pace increased and he leaned in to graze his teeth along my inner thigh. No matter how much I didn’t want it to, it sent a ripple of heat through my sex. Please no. This couldn’t be happening.
“Yes, that’s it, slave. You’re just a little slut, aren’t you?” He eyed me, expecting an answer.
“No, sir,” I whispered miserably. I wanted to disappear. It would have been better if I’d never existed than to be humiliated like this.
“We’ll see,” he said and then leaned up and nipped at my nipple.
More heat. I gritted my teeth, fighting it, trying to extinguish the flames. It was no use. He moved expertly. I cried harder the hotter the fire got. I couldn’t take this. His whip I could survive, not this. Not this.
“Stop!” I screamed. “Please stop.”
He moved faster, ignoring my pleas. His finger drove into me, slamming against my sex with every stroke, and making wet, smacking sounds. Oh god, it was me. It was my own wetness. My breath was coming faster by the second as heat coiled low in my abdomen. I wasn’t going to be able to stop it. I was crying frantically. I couldn’t see him through the blur of steady tears, but my body wouldn’t stop. It was too damn close.
“Come, slave.”
All of a sudden, the coil sprung free and my release rippled out from my treacherous sex. I’d never been more humiliated or felt more betrayed. My own body had betrayed me. And despite how hard I’d tried to hide it, his smile made it clear I’d failed. He knew exactly what he’d coerced from my body.
“Yes, you are most definitely my little slut.”
