Chapter Four #2
“It’s true,” Ben, the bald guy, jumped in.
“We have tamer tastes than the rest.” His eyes narrowed.
“Compared to you and the rumours circulating about your love of blood, we’re probably pathetic, but...
we run a stressful company together. We’re the bitch of every board member we stupidly appointed, and this is the only time we get to de-stress. ”
“By fucking slaves.” I sniffed. “If you’re rich enough to visit Victor, then you could afford a good fuck out in the real world.” Stepping forward, I lowered my voice. “You’re fooling yourself that you aren’t one of us.”
“We’re not fooling anyone,” Stewart said.
“We know our limits. Ben and I don’t have time to date, and we can’t hire prostitutes if that’s what you’re getting at.
Our company is public and of a sensitive nature.
We’re watched every fucking moment. The board would steal our company if there was even a whisper of controversy.
In fact, they’ve been trying to do exactly that for years.
The one time I risked going on Tinder, the girl I matched with was one of their spies.
So...fuck you and your judgement. We want companionship as much as the next guy.
It sucks we’ve had to resort to this, but...
Victor provides us a safe space to play and—”
“What Stewart is trying to say,” Ben said with a sharp edge, “is...fuck off and leave us alone.”
Lowering the axe, I glanced at the jewels.
I studied their trusting eyes.
I vibrated with both man and beast and felt the nudges of that idiotic hero who’d come here hoping to save them.
But...that wasn’t my path anymore.
Without a word, I turned on my heel and left.
* * * * *
My torch stopped working in the fourth hour.
Four fucking hours and I still hadn’t found her.
I trembled with a deep-seated chill, and my ancient Casio hinted the morning had well and truly bled into afternoon.
I’d heard nothing.
Seen no one.
Just me in this ancient tomb, slowly dying in the dark.
Every crevice led to a blacker cave.
Every alley spat me out into emptiness.
I was lost and turned around and—
Pinpricks of light.
I stopped moving and peered at the cold ceiling above.
My eyes slowly adjusted to the claustrophobic blackness, aching with the need to see.
And...bit by bit, glow by glow...I did.
Raising my arm, I touched the forever-wet rock and stroked the faint luminescence.
A rustle of legs. A wriggle of insects. The light glowed brighter, then vanished as the critter scrambled behind a crag.
More light blinked on around me—like bluish stars falling from the heavens.
For the first time in my miserable existence, I stood in awe as more and more dots began to glow, following the contours of the cave, lighting up the space with cool teal radiance.
It felt as if I’d stepped into another dimension.
Found a portal and fallen through.
Glow worms.
The name popped into my head, followed by a stabbing memory of sitting on the rug in my childhood lounge and watching David Attenborough.
He’d bewitched me with his iconic voice, filling my young mind with facts about all sorts of animals.
His documentaries were the highlight of my weekends, all while my mother stayed locked in her room.
I’d been lonely and lost and living without any kind of guidance.
I was raised by the TV and consoled by the radio.
Enough!
Shaking my head, I pressed my fingers to the lump on my temple from the blowhole sucker-punching me.
I had to have a concussion.
No way would such a pointless, ridiculous memory dare trespass otherwise.
No way would the pathetic little boy inside me dare, fucking dare, make himself known.
Hefting the axe, I tossed away the useless torch and followed the path of glow worms.
* * * * *
I heard them before I found them.
Laughter and grunts.
Glee and despair.
Stepping from the seam that’d grown so narrow I’d had to travel sideways, I blinked at the brightness of lanterns. The four Masters didn’t notice me as two of them fucked two jewels on the ground while the other two watched.
Their paintball guns were tossed in the corner, forgotten. My stolen one clung to my back, occasionally pressing against a bruise. My jeans and t-shirt hadn’t dried. My feet were blocks of ice. And I had no doubt I was now filthy as well as orange.
Five hours I’d been stuck in this hellhole.
Five hours was a long fucking time to stay sane when every bend and shadow whispered with nightmares.
A jewel screamed as a Master rutted into her like an animal.
The cries from these jewels weren’t like the ones with Stewart and Ben. They weren’t given with an edge of acceptance or trust that their Masters wouldn’t go too far.
These men weren’t here just because they had nowhere else to go.
These men were here for pain.
Seconds ticked past as I watched.
The longer I witnessed their monstrosity, the less control I had over my sanity.
Their thrusts scrambled my mind.
Their lust seeped through me like a disease.
The loneliness of my childhood twisted into a toxic thing.
I didn’t know if it was the silence down here. The burial down here. The vacuum of everything I thought I knew and all the hauntings of memories I daren’t recall, but I’d never felt so...adrift. So lost. So fucking confused.
I’d been alone for so long.
But now I’d found men who shared my sins.
My bare feet shifted to join in.
I grew hard.
My heart pumped for the first time in hours.
I wanted Ily.
I wanted her on her back.
I wanted her heat, her fight, her kiss.
Fuck, that goddamn kiss.
I wanted to lick her again, taste her again.
I needed her to yank me back from this abyss.
This timeless, endless abyss where I became nothing more than death.
My hands balled.
The axe grew heavy.
I backed deeper into the shadows as my instincts roared into power.
As one Master came with a snarl and another moved to take his place, I fell.
Deeper into darkness.
Harder into sickness.
I no longer knew who I was.
Boy or man. Saint or sinner. Good or bad.
Watching these men...seeing myself in them...it enraged me, corrupted me, gutted me, redeemed me.
Why was I fighting it?
Why exist in such suffering?
I could be free if I—
Stop it.
Wedging a fist in my belly, I rode out the sadistic urges.
You need to get out.
I needed sunlight to banish this nightmare.
I needed open skies to resurrect me from this crypt.
I need...
I need—
Blood.
And pain.
And her.
I crashed against the wall as my floodgates smashed wide.
My teeth ached. My senses heightened. I lost myself to a creature with no name, no rules, no master.
Ily.
I have to find Ily.
I’d made the mistake of walking in darkness.
Of killing in darkness.
We were one and the same now.
Bonded by all the bad things I had done.
While Masters raped and celebrated, I stared into the black, and the black stared back, and it was over.
It opened its jaws and swallowed me down.
I sank into its belly and...ran.
Threading myself back through the chasm, I scuttled like a crab, sideways and breathing hard.
I had to get away.
I have to get the fuck out of here!
I wriggled and burrowed, desperation rising, claustrophobia clawing.
Desperate to taste fresh air.
Gasping for freedom.
Panic.
Fuck, panic.
It vised around my chest, gluing my ribcage to my heart so every breath wrenched and suffocated.
I tripped and stumbled.
Fumbled at the black wall.
Blinked with blind eyes.
With a groan that sounded as if it came from a tortured, pitiful thing, I tumbled out of the alley and back into the cave of wonders.
The glow worms flickered with indignation at my arrival.
They judged me as I collapsed to my knees like a pauper and gasped for redemption like a thief.
Pressing my sweaty forehead to the damp cave floor, I fell to my side and flopped onto my back.
Darkness.
Everywhere.
Fucking everywhere.
In me. On me. Around me.
But pinpricks.
Staring back.
Glittering like glowing sapphires, forming an entire galaxy above me.
I focused on them.
I clung to their light.
The angelical luminescence wasn’t strong enough to forgive or absolve me.
I was unforgivable.
Unredeemable.
I was nothing but blackness and death.