58. Cal Walker
I forgot how weird time behaves during recalibration. It was impossible to tell if I had been chained down here for hours or days. I was beginning to suspect days after the seventh time I nodded off, only to be blasted back into consciousness by excessively loud dubstep.
Damian made sure I was given water to drink, but I wasn’t permitted food for way longer than my body could handle.
After an undetermined amount of time, I was so weak from hunger, exhaustion, and relentless torture that I couldn’t even make fun of McGreggor anymore.
You win this round, asshat.
I fought for as long as I could, but submission was inevitable. It always was. Damian was a master at psychological conditioning.
At first, he would punish me no matter what I said or did, so when he started rewarding me for saying the right thing, it hit that much harder.
I started to crave his praise, and the best way to do that was to convince him that I believed whatever it was he was forcing me to say.
The focus of most of my sessions was Ryan.
Apparently, Ryan texted my phone constantly. Damian never let me see the messages, but every time the dubstep started up, and Damian walked in with McGreggor, I found myself praying Ryan hadn’t sent me any new texts.
He always had, though.
The entire time I was chained in that tub, not a single session passed where Ryan hadn’t left me a new message.
It was making it difficult for me to convince Damian that Ryan wasn’t someone I cared about, and I was punished relentlessly for it.
It made me resent Ryan, which was exactly what Damian wanted.
“Callum, it’s inappropriate, you know. For you to have led this man on to this point. You know better.”
“He’s nothing. Just a good lay,” I croaked, despite the fact that I knew that wasn’t true. Damian brushed my hair back out of my eyes, looking at me with an expression that meant I might have finally said something right.
“Correct, Callum. He is nothing. When I allow you to leave here, what are you going to do to prove that to me?”
I swallowed, shivering in the cold tub.
To prevent me from getting hypothermia, Damian covered me with a blanket in between sessions. But whenever he and McGreggor were in the room with me, the blanket was removed.
“I’ll tell him we’re done,” I promised, closing my eyes and forcing myself not to jerk away from Damian’s relentless stroking. “I won’t see him anymore.”
Damian was being gentle, but it didn’t matter. I was so raw and tired that even the lightest touches hurt.
“Such a good boy, Callum. You know I’m doing this to help you, right? You have always needed a little extra help focusing. You’ve been doing so well though, I’m very pleased with your progress.”
My head was heavy, and my thoughts were sluggish. It wasn’t possible for me to think straight when I was this sleep-deprived and hungry.
I nodded. “I know, Damian.” I sighed, sinking further back into the tub.
“Tell me you love me, Callum,” he crooned, and I winced.
“I love you.”
The cruel smile that curled on Damian’s face made me feel off balance. The days of torture and sleep deprivation meant I wasn’t as mentally strong as I normally was, and even though I knew I didn’t love him, I still found myself waiting for him to say it back.
When he didn’t, the small, broken child that my mother had tried to kill all those years ago seemed to take over my brain. Without my permission, the child version of myself used my voice to ask Damian something I hadn’t ever been able to ask anyone since the day my own mother had told me she didn’t love me.
“Do you… do you love me, too?” I whispered, desperate to hear someone say it back to me. Even if it was just one time from a man I fucking hated.
Damian’s eyebrows raised in surprise, and McGreggor snickered in the corner. Stroking my face gently, Ryker shook his head, looking at me with something close to pity on his face.
“How could I ever love you, Callum? All you ever do is disobey.”
Tears filled my eyes, and I nodded, trying to ignore the fact that my heart felt like it was breaking, even though I knew deep down that Damian Ryker wasn’t capable of loving anyone. Especially not the people he saw as possessions.
As an adult, I knew this. However, there was a time when I was a child that I really did think I loved him, and I believed he loved me back. He was always so proud of me when I followed his orders, and he used to take me to all the shit that I imagined parents did with their kids.
When I was eighteen, he bought me tickets to Tomorrowland and flew me out to Belgium so I could see all my favorite DJs live.
It was a core memory for me, and sometimes, these bright spots outshone the pockets of abuse he forced me to endure.
I knew this was abuse. But it sometimes got so mixed up with all the amazing things Damian had done for me that it was hard for me to truly hate him.
I owed so much to him, and even though he hurt me, I couldn’t deny that I was grateful for the life he had allowed me to live.
He’d given me what I needed to keep my sisters safe. We never wanted for anything because of him. Maybe he was right, and I was being ungrateful for wanting more than this.
I certainly felt selfish for pulling Ryan into this life. It would be kinder to let him go. For a split second, I imagined how I would feel if Damian put Ryan in this tub instead of me, and a shock of fear bolted through my frazzled mind.
No, no. I couldn’t let that happen to him. I needed to stop being such a baby and let him go. Being around me was only going to get him hurt.
“Do you think you’ve learned your lesson, Callum?” Damian asked, watching me carefully from where he was perched on the edge of the tub.
I nodded. “Yes, Damian.”
“Good. Now, I just want to make sure you have a little reminder of who you belong to so you don’t forget again.”
I could barely hear what he was saying anymore; sleep was pressing insistently against the corners of my mind, dragging me under.
I just nodded because he liked it when I agreed with him.
“After this, you can rest, I need you to be strong for me, Callum. Can you do that?”
I nodded again despite the warning bells that were blaring in my head.
My eyes fluttered, and I tried to focus as a burning scent filled the room. McGreggor was approaching, and he was holding a long stick again.
Was that the cattle prodder? It looked different…
Damian circled around the tub and put me in a loose headlock, pressing his mouth against my ear.
Instinct had me tensing. I didn’t know what was about to happen, but I knew it was going to fucking hurt.
“Take a deep breath for me, Callum,” Damian whispered.
“What are you —”
“Right here, on his chest,” Damian said, stroking his fingers directly over my heart.
My eyes widened as McGreggor lifted the long stick, and I saw that the end was bright red.
It was a brand.
The letters DR were so red hot they were smoking, and I could barely get a scream out before McGreggor pressed it into my chest, right where Damian had ordered him to brand me.
My screams competed with the dubstep, and I thrashed briefly as my nose filled with the scent of burnt flesh.
My burnt flesh.
That was the last thought I had before everything went black.