Chapter 23 Scream, Little One
My breath hitched. There was no longer anywhere or any way I could escape my reality. This was really happening. The realization hit me like full speed train.
I was trapped more than I’d ever been.
I burst into tears. How had I fucked up so badly? What had I done to deserve this? How could anyone deserve this? I’d tried so hard. God, I swear I tried to be good. I tried so fucking hard. Where are you, God? Hmm? Why—why don’t you love me? Why? Why can’t you love me?
Thoughts raced through my mind and tangled until Sir’s warm hand took mine as he towered over me, my knees touching his shins. “Little One.” The voice was deep, raspy, and husky. I didn’t have the brain space to hate what it did to me. A chill ran to me, making me tremble.
For a second, I wished he was the voice of God. I wished he would just comfort me, tell me everything would be fine.
“Huh?” I looked up to him. In that lighting, there wasn’t much I could see of his face. There was a glint to his eyes. The curls at the end of his hair haloed his face. “Oh, sorry. Yes, Sir?”
“Have you not heard a word I’ve said?”
It was as if I’d just woken. How long had he been there? Was this our first time in this room? No. I knew this room. I was so confused.
“No. I’m so sorry. I’m just … I don’t do well in the dark. There’s a lot on my mind. I apologize … Sir.” The words tumbled out of my mouth. My nervousness and fear were so blatant and pathetic.
“The only thing that should be on your mind is me. Your life depends on it. Nothing else matters, Little One. The only way you’ll survive is through my training, pleasing me, no matter how painful or disgusting it gets.
Do you understand me?” His voice held power, as if he were a coach yelling at me before a game.
This place was too quiet. I could hear the rhythm of our breaths.
Mine was trembling, his was calm. His fingers swept up my jaw into my hair, raking it.
I didn’t understand why that made my eyes flutter, why I had to lean my head into his big hand.
It made a warmth I needed rise inside me.
“Yes. I understand, Sir. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I’m so confused. Please don’t be angry with me. I’m sorry. I’ve never—” I lost my thoughts, lost time. I couldn’t tell how many minutes had past.
“You’ve never what?” His silence brought me back again.
“I’ve never done this, and I-I don’t even know if my family is alive.
” A whimper almost escaped, but I swallowed it.
God, I missed them. Were they alive? Where did Daddy go?
Did they have him? I regretted not visiting them more often, then hated myself for involving them in this at all.
If I’d stayed in London, Mael’s twin would have taken only me, not them. Maybe not.
“In this place, you have to earn everything. Nothing is handed to you. Nothing will be made easy for you. Focus!”
Again, there was that demanding and dominating impatient tone. But he must have known how hard it was to focus on anything or do anything immediately when I’d been lying in a bed for who knew how many days.
Only when he stopped massaging my head, combing my hair with his fingers, did I realize how much I enjoyed it.
It had been the only thing keeping me sane.
As soon as he stopped, my thoughts jumbled again.
I want my family. Please. I want to know if they’re okay.
I’ll do anything you want as long as you can tell me that they weren’t hurt.
Ashton went back in for me and Ember. What happened to her?
Did you take her too? Is she here? She’s just a girl.
What have you done to my family? Dad, where did you go?
Were they here?” Had I said all that or just thought it? I had to find a way to search for them.
I could no longer hear or sense him. It was as if I had dreamed him.
Was he still in the room? Did he leave? Being in the dark without a sound other than my breathing and my drumming heart dragged my mind into the pit of hell.
And to think I used to love listening to my own heartbeat.
This is all my fault! I remembered the house on fire.
Mael throwing me off the balcony. No. No, it wasn’t him.
Or was it? Maybe I never left this place.
Maybe Cambridge was a dream, and I’ve been here all along.
No, that’s impossible. Ember and Ashton grew, they were older.
Each thought melted into the next, then every bad thing that had ever haunted me rose from the shadows.
I’m losing my mind! I planted my feet and scooted back to the wall, hugging my calves. Mommmmmyyyyyyy!
“Shut the fuck up!” The yelling startled me into taking a long gasp. It’d woken me from a living nightmare, and now I had to deal with his displeasure. I could hear his frustrated, fast breathing.
“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t … I didn’t know I had been speaking. Sir.” Not only had I been saying all of those things out loud, but I was blubbering. “I’m sorry. S-sorry. Sorry.”
His steps became distant, and I wondered where he was going. Was he leaving me here alone?
A light turned on, and all my thoughts vanished. His shadow loomed from a tiny bathroom. I could see the toilet and tub from where I sat. Could he see my relief at realizing he was still there?
I didn’t dare say a word when he started unbuttoning his shirt and walking toward me, but I couldn’t help holding myself tighter.
It was hypnotizing, the way he stared at me while undressing, revealing his fit body to me, sculpted muscles with slashes everywhere.
So, his other hobby, besides training women to be okay with getting raped, was to work out.
He lowered his pants and underwear, then stepped out of them.
Even in the dim lighting, I could see his penis, hanging.
As it stiffened, it elongated with a slight curve.
I didn’t know if it had been that big that night, but the size of it scared me.
All I knew was that whatever he’d do to me would hurt like hell.
I didn’t want any of it. I wanted to be left alone so I could go home.
I found myself clenching, remembering the excruciating pain that night despite not being a virgin.
The memory threatened to take over the room.
“No. No. No.” Although I tried to calm myself, to run away from the memory, I could feel the episode taking over my world.
I shook my head, fighting it, but within seconds, I was in the forest again.
The trees swaying above me with the night sky behind them would almost be a comfort, if I didn’t already know what was coming.
“No,” I repeated, and slapped myself. But it was too late. I wasn’t in the cell with him.
Mael was on top of me, terrifying me, stopping my breathing with his weight but also making me claustrophobic.
His cock plundered into me, breaking me, overstretching me.
He didn’t fit, and as it slid inside, it tore and burned me.
The scream stuck to my throat. It hurt so bad.
It was happening again. I didn’t want to be there. “Please stop! Stop!”
Why did he have to hurt me if he loved me? What kind of love was that? Mael groaned while raping me, restraining me, splitting me apart, then got more aggressive.
“No-no-no.” My chin was trembling violently as fat tears slid down my cheek to my lips. They’d electrocuted me so much, I could hardly talk or move.
“You’re hurting me. Please stop.”
Mael grunted and moaned, sounding more and more helpless as he pounded into me.
“No!”
His chest heaved, his eyes rolling back as his hips swung into me again and again and again. It took forever. I needed it to stop.
I didn’t realize I wasn’t there with Mael, or that I was completely curled up in a corner on top of the dingy bed, trying to melt into the wall, trying to scratch at it with the tip of my fingers to get out of the episode, reopening the wounds where my nails had once rested.
I didn’t realize he’d been watching me the whole time and had called my name.
Only when my throbbing bleeding fingers woke me from it did I realize seeing him naked had triggered me into another PTSD episode.
Thank God. Thank God I wasn’t still there on that grass being destroyed.
“It’s over. It’s over. It’s over. It’s over. It was a long time ago,” I whispered to myself repeatedly, soothing and grounding myself. My forehead was flat against the wall. I was trying to calm my breathing to stay present. I didn’t want to look at him and go back there, to that forest.
“Little One.” Surprisingly, he was calm and patient. I was so hesitant, but in the end, I knew I’d have to look at him, so I slowly turned my neck. He was standing next to the bed, completely naked. I didn’t look down at it.
“Are you a virgin, Little One?” Why would he ask me that? He knew I wasn’t.
“No … Sir.” I stared at the sheets under my feet, focusing on anything else but that thing hanging from him.
Despite knowing that virginity was a lie invented by the disgusting patriarchy and its stupid, weak, pearl-clutching, pick-me whores, that truth still shamed and stabbed me.
The pain oozed so generously from the two syllables I’d spoken.
No … Sir. A part of me would have liked to have been a virgin ’til my honeymoon with Killian.
It would have been amazing and beautiful.
Killian would have made me feel beautiful and would have found a way not to hurt me.
Instead, it had been the most disgusting terrible thing I’d ever endured.