Break Me (Enslaved #2)

7 EMMA

Emma, Emma, Emma, I repeat in my mind. I’m a person. A human being with an identity, needs, and dreams. Rights.

I open my eyes and stare at my arm. The tattoo. Three letters and three numbers.

I’m not a person anymore. I’m property.

I close my eyes again. Emma, Emma, Emma. They can’t take away my name. It’s still there, lodged in my mind as a reminder that I’m someone.

Opening my eyes again, I glance at my naked body. I don’t feel like Emma anymore. I feel... broken. A mere shadow of a person that once was. In the span of barely a week, they have taken everything I have and reduced me to three letters and three numbers. An object to be processed and sold. What will happen after one more week? Two weeks? Two months?

Emma, Emma, Emma.

They can strip away my rights, but they can’t crush my will. They may break my body and my mind, but I’m determined to hold on to my name.

I close my eyes again.

DAX001.

I whimper as the image of the tattoo forces itself into my mind, shoving out my name and crushing my hope.

I stare down, seeing the symbol in the flesh before me. DAX001. A black line of letters and numbers like a stamp on a paper. Black ink embedded into my skin. Vertical on my inner arm.

It takes me back to the museum Trevor and I visited in Budapest a few days before we came to Romania. Violent pictures flash before my inner eye. Men and women stripped of all their rights. Forced to succumb to an oppressive authority. Hopelessness written deep in their sunken eyes. Numbers written across their weathered skin.

DAX001.

It’s a cruel homage to the atrocities of mankind. A statement. Human slavery and suppression have always existed and always will. And I’m the next victim to a practice as old as the world.

***

I don’t know how long I sit here, staring at the tattoo, trying to remind myself that I still have a name.

When the door opens, I’m in the same spot where Dax left me, sitting on the edge of the mattress, naked and alone. I haven’t even moved to pull the blanket over my lap, and I’m shuddering as the cold of the cell bites into my skin. But I barely even feel it.

Steps thud against the floor as someone enters. Still, I keep staring at the mark.

Hands press against my chest and my back. I think they’re warm, but I’m not sure.

“Fuck, you’re cold to the bone.”

Strong arms hoist me up against a solid chest. I keep staring, into the air, into nothingness, as I’m carried down long halls and into a new room.

I’m placed on my knees on the floor. On a mat. Water starts running, beating against a surface. The sound is loud and oppressive as it shatters the dead silence I’ve been stuck in.

Someone sinks down behind me and starts rubbing my arms, up and down.

Still, I stare at my arm.

DAX001.

The hands disappear, and the water stops running. Then I’m in someone’s arms again, being carried to a large tub and lowered into hot, foamy water.

I groan as the water burns my skin, and I grab the edges of the tub to get up.

“No, stay.” Hands grab my shoulders, holding me in the water. “It’s not that hot. It’s just you who’s cold. It will feel good in a second.”

Pushing weakly at the hands, I flick my eyes across the room as latent panic quakes within me. Old stone walls still surround me on all sides of the window-less space, but the room is not as barren as the cell—not as clinical as Dax’s office. An iron chandelier, shelves with towels, and a wooden counter lend the space some warmth. There’s even a green plant beside the sink—it might be plastic, but it looks like life.

It’s too overwhelming, so I stare down and see the mark again. Barren and cold. More fitting.

DAX001.

I realize I must have said the words out loud as the man at my side grabs my chin softly. “What’s that?”

Lifting my gaze, I stare into a pair of stark blue eyes that watch me like I’m something beyond the barren emptiness I feel. Something worth noticing.

My eyes feel dead as I give voice to the words. “Dax zero, zero, one.”

Dax sinks to his haunches beside the tub. “That’s right. You’re mine.” His eyes fill with warmth—a warmth that doesn’t go with the coldness of the words and the emptiness lodged inside me.

“Stop looking at me like that,” I mutter.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m something.” Lifting my arm, I watch the numbers intently and shake my head. “I’m nothing. You’ve reduced me to nothing.”

“You’re not nothing.” He takes my chin and looks deep into my eyes. “You’re gonna be a very precious submissive who will please a lucky master very much.”

“ Submissive. What does that even mean?” I know the common meaning, and I even know it in a sexual sense—a person who gives up control and lets her partner spank her and tie her up. But when Dax says the word, it seems to hold so much more.

“A submissive is someone who enjoys giving up control. No, needs to give up control. She might not realize it at first—like you—until someone or something sparks it in her. But she won’t be truly happy until she finds it and embraces it. When she does, she’ll find peace in letting go—giving up control and being led by a firm hand. But true submission can’t be forced. It requires trust and a dominant strong enough to carry the responsibility of her surrender.”

“I’m never going to trust you.” It’s not an accusation; it’s just a fact.

“Trust comes in many different shapes and forms.” He grabs a sponge and dips it into the water, squeezing it a few times to soak it through.

I shake my head. “No matter how you spin it, there’s no way I’ll ever trust a man who keeps me captive and—” I swallow hard to force back the grief that threatens to send tears to my eyes. “I can’t ever trust a man who marks me as property. A man who runs a place like this.”

Placing a hand on my shoulder, he starts gliding the sponge over my chest and stomach, washing me with gentle motions. “You can’t trust me to treat you like an equal and let you set your own boundaries. But you can learn to trust that I won’t hurt you and—”

“You’ve already done that,” I interject.

Pausing the sponge at my waist, he silences me with a finger on my lips . “You can learn to trust that I won’t hurt you physically. At least not irrevocably. And you can learn to trust that I’ll keep you safe where it counts.” He wrings the wet sponge in the water and takes up washing me again. “What you’re feeling right now won’t last. It will fade as I build you up and give you a new purpose.”

Hopelessness has tears spilling from my eyes as I shake my head. “How can you say that? You don’t even know me. You can’t just mold a person into anything you like.”

“I know enough to know your potential, and I know that submission is a powerful thing. And I’ve trained enough women to know they all eventually cave in. The how and when only depend on their potential and the method.” He runs the sponge deeper into the water, leaning over the side as he drags it over my legs, chasing away the numbness and loosening my stiff muscles with the soft motions.

But the emptiness remains stuck inside me as I say, “You might break me, but you can’t make me submit.”

“You don’t have to believe it right now.” He sets the sponge aside and wraps a gentle hand around the back of my neck, pressing lightly forward. “Hold your breath.”

Closing my eyes, I draw in a breath and pinch my nose. Dax guides me into the water and rubs his fingers through my hair to wet it thoroughly. The firm motions are soothing, and so is the warm water enveloping me, yet I can’t hold back more protests as he lets me come back up.

“You can’t just—” I start, but he stops me.

“Uh, uh. No more questions.”

Clenching my jaw, I stare into the water. But it’s hard to hold on to my resistance as he lathers shampoo into my hair, massages my scalp, and rubs my nape as he goes. My tight muscles and frazzled mind beckon me to give in and take the offered comfort. I’m starved for it, and as he moves behind me, out of my sight, to grab the handheld shower and rinse my hair, I forget who is rubbing my scalp and smoothing the hair out of my face. So I sink deeper into the water and allow myself this brief moment of calmness, knowing it might be the only one I’ll get for a long while.