Chapter 29 A Friend In Hell
It was difficult to walk the next day, but I powered through to go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, and shower. When the door opened, the man who usually brought my meals brought a white hospital gown.
“Are you feeling better?”
Feeling better? What was he talking about? Had I been sick?
“Uh … yeah. Why?” I asked as I stood, grabbed the gown, and put it on. The fabric was too rough after not wearing clothes for so long.
“Follow me.”
He strode too quickly through the halls, but I was sure if I’d asked him to slow down, he’d ignore me, so I suffered in silence.
Finally, we arrived at a big room with a glass ceiling and a tall tree planted in a fountain at the center.
With the combination of the sunlight raining down and the fluorescent lighting, everything was too white.
Small square tables surrounded the tree, with other slaves sitting, eating, and conversing.
It felt like another dimension, as if I’d exited the sex-slave training center and entered some fancy cafeteria.
I scanned the entire room searching for Ember. Nothing. Maybe it was for the best that she wasn’t here. Maybe that meant she was home.
At the very back sat the kitchen, where slaves lined up to grab food. I ambled over and grabbed a tray, then was served fruits, soup, oatmeal, and yogurt. My mouth watered at the sight of the chocolate brownies, and I almost squealed.
“First time, huh?” a female voice came from behind me. I turned to see if she was speaking to me.
“Huh?”
“First time they let you out of your room, right?”
“Yes. That brownie looks like gold after that horrible lukewarm chicken-stock thing.”
“Here.” She was handing me her piece.
“Oh, no. You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s okay. I’m tired of it, to be honest. What’s your name?” she asked as I followed her back toward the tables.
Some other slave with a tray full of food crossed before me, and as she walked, she greeted, “Oh, hi, Little One.” There was a smile on her face and in her tone.
“Uhh … hi.” Seconds later, there was laughter behind me. I didn’t think much of it because I was alarmed I couldn’t remember my name. “Uhh.” My brow furrowed; I truly didn’t remember. It was on the tip of my tongue. The other girl stopped walking, waiting for me to answer.
“I-I don’t remember.” I searched in every corner of my memory. Where was it? How could I not remember? “My slave number is 5156A.” Wait, why couldn’t I remember my name but remembered that? I screamed in my mind while scouring for the letters that would spell it. None felt correct.
What’s the first letter, Little One?
I looked around because I could have sworn he was behind me asking me that question.
I heard his chuckle at my realization that I had lost my name and he wasn’t there after all.
What had they been doing to me? What’s happening?
Despite the panic taking over my mind, I met her gaze again.
With the way she gawked at me, studying me, I could tell she didn’t believe me.
“Not there yet?” She smiled and started walking again. “That’s okay. I’m Summer.” When she placed her tray on a table, I dragged my palm along the edge of it, letting it scratch me, to make sure it was real because nothing seemed clear or real. We sat facing each other next to the fountain.
“How long have you been here?” I asked, trying to sound normal even though I was losing my feeble hold on reality.
“Eight months. Are you okay? You look … a little paler than before.”
“I’m fine.”
After starving for so long, I scarfed everything except the soup. Summer pushed her yogurt toward me.
“What are you doing? Aren’t you going to eat?” I asked.
“I’m not so hungry.”
I hesitated but kept looking at the yogurt, then at her, then back at the yogurt, and in the end, I gave into my temptation and took it for later. “Thank you. May I ask why aren’t you hungry?”
“My trainer told me something so awful that I don’t know what to believe.”
“What?”
“He said they ate my baby.”
I stopped chewing and lifted my gaze to hers. “Do you think … it’s possible? I mean, would they?”
She nodded. I stared at her, not wanting to believe they would do that, yet feeling like an idiot for doubting it. How many times would they shock me, fool me?
Summer sighed, and now that she’d told me that, I could see she looked sick to her stomach. She then added, “He does love to fuck with my mind.”
“Yeah. Mine does too. I don’t know what to say. I’m … so sorry. Did you love him?”
“Who?
“The father.”
“I didn’t know I was pregnant …” She paused, looking to the distance. “Until I lost it.”
“Fuck. Life really sucks, doesn’t it?”
“I’ve never seen it do anything else. You don’t have to say anything.” Summer ate a spoonful of food, then stared at the table while I gawked at the trickling fountain. The sound and smell of the water were almost soothing, but I was trying to find my name, my past.
I couldn’t remember anything else before this place. I forced my mind. There had been a fire and then … I killed him, right? The guy who’d taken me. At least I still remembered the name I prayed to every night. Killian …
How could this be? When I tried searching the past, there was just a blank space. Although, I could feel the love. I had been loved once. That’s all I knew. I guessed that’s all that mattered.
Another girl passed by us and greeted, “Oh, hey, Little One. They let you out of your bunker?”
“Oh, hi. What’s—” She’d walked away before I could finish my question, and again, there was a group giggling.
With my eyes, I asked Summer what was going on.
“They are just trying to get to you. Your trainer is the nicest here, so they’re jealous and making fun of the nickname. He calls all his slaves that nickname.”
“Jealous? Seriously? What is this, high school?”
“You gotta admit high school wasn’t that much different,” she joked.
My heart fell. The nickname that had pushed me into orgasms time and time again was just something he called all his slaves? The realization made me feel sick. Of course he’d called all of them that. He’d told me himself I wasn’t special.
“I watched you.” Her words brought me back to this world.
“You mean on the stage?”
“No. The other night.”
“Wh-what are you talking about?”
“All the rooms have a two-way mirror so that they can watch.” The heat drained from my face.
I diverted my gaze. “It’s okay. They do it to all of us right before letting us out.
Don’t feel embarrassed. If you wouldn’t have obeyed and orgasmed, they wouldn’t have allowed you out here.
” She shrugged. “What choice do we have?”
I couldn’t really think. She’d said the “other night,” but my body hurt as if it had been yesterday.
Once again, he’d managed to make me feel like an idiot.
I thought I’d done this for him, to please him, but once again, I’d been used for his show, for his buddies to jack off to.
Why didn’t he tell me this was how it would be when we had that stupid apartment?
“Hey”—I snapped back into the present— “don’t let it get to you. I just … I didn’t want you walking around without knowing and having everyone whispering about it like they did to me.”
“Did your trainer make you do the same thing?”
“Not exactly. It’s their job to figure out our weakest point, what we can’t handle, and that’s what they target. So yours must’ve known you had a thing against anal sex.”
My cheeks heated as I remembered him inside me, how much pain I’d endured, and how it’d somehow transformed into an equal amount of pleasure beyond anything I’d felt before.
It was repulsive to think there had been a whole audience watching me go from ugly crying because of the excruciating agony to begging for him to come inside me and feeling rewarded when he had.
The emptiness gathered in my chest and stabbed me.
I felt worthless, used, and duped. I wanted to vomit the food I had scarfed down.
“Hey.” Her warm palm covered mine, waking me from my trance and faraway thoughts. “What’s wrong? You’re pale as hell. Do you want to go outside?”
No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t find my breaths or speak, so I just nodded, then followed her out of the food court in a daze, with the yogurt and brownies in my pocket. I was not about to starve the rest of the day because of him.
At the door, the guards patted us for utensils, but I hardly noticed.
All I cared about was that he’d promised to allow me to step outside the room on my own but only after showing everyone how much I was willing to do for it, how I submitted to him in the most-disgusting, -degrading way.
I’d allowed him to come inside my ass in exchange for a little bit of sunlight.
He’d known how repulsed I’d be because he’d been there when … When what, Little One? Every time I gave him another chance, gaslighted myself about how manipulative and evil he was, he’d flip and show me what a fool I was.
Why did I keep doing this to myself? When we finally stepped out of the rat maze, I didn’t know if it was the sunlight heating me or my rage.
Not even the crisp smell of wet grass calmed it.
I wanted to stab him, gouge his eyes out, cut his dick off and make him suck it.
Summer kept peeking back at me without saying a word as if she could hear my violent thoughts and how mad I was.
Maybe she’d been put through the same.
Outside, the gray building was a gigantic concrete box with windows starting way above ground level. Some thin towers stuck out of it way up high at the top, letting out thick white smoke. It was a fortress that looked like a drawing some messed-up kid had drawn.
Other slaves walked through the area without noticing us.
As if she were training me for a marathon, Summer walked faster and faster, circling the building despite there being tons of space allotted away from it.
Only after the rage evaporated did I understand the fast walk was helping me get over it.