17 - Shep
I t’s so weird to watch the light fade from her eyes as her body nearly convulses with the orgasm. But what surprises me the most is my reaction to it. Which isn’t what I expected, because I have to close my eyes and clench my jaw to stop myself from coming in her hand, loose around my dick now.
When she’s properly passed out, her body crumples like the little puppet she is and I hold her in my arms for a moment, letting her head rest on my shoulder as she takes a gasping breath.
It’s dangerous what I just did. Very, very risky. Sexual asphyxiation is nothing to fuck around with and I shouldn’t have given in, but my God, the look in her eyes as she begged me…
“ Please .”
It was a degree of lust I’ve never seen before.
She sits up, still in my lap, shaking her head, trying to clear it. Then she starts crying.
“Oh, fuck! I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“No,” she says, practically sobbing into my neck. “No. You don’t understand. It felt so good. It’s never felt that good before, ever . Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
I… don’t even know what to say to that. Certainly not ‘ You’re welcome. ’ If Collin finds out I came in here and choked his baby sister into a blackout orgasm, he’s gonna shoot me on the spot.
Olive lets out a long breath and kind of collapses into my arms.
“Come here.” I lean back on the bed and bring her with me. She pulls herself together long enough so we can crawl our way up to the pillows, then once again becomes loose and heavy, resting her face on my chest.
“You’re tired,” I say. “You should get some sleep.”
She perks up, shakes her head no. “Not yet. Don’t go. It’s your turn now.” The life comes back into her eyes when she makes me this offer. And I have to wonder just what the actual fuck they did to this girl to make her act like this.
This isn’t her. It’s not. I can tell that everything happening right now is programming . It’s so fucking obvious.
“If you leave now, Shep, I’ll never forgive you.”
We don’t even know each other. Like, at all. So this shouldn’t even be something I take seriously.
But when her hand resumes its position on my dick, all rational reasons why this is a very bad idea just slip right out of my mind. A moment later she’s pumping me, gripping me hard as her hand goes up and down my shaft.
Then it’s like she wakes up and everything about her is fast. Her jeans and panties are sliding down her legs before I can process what’s happening. She kicks them off, sits up, straddles my knees, and starts jerking on my pants, pulling them down. I help her out here a little, and then the next thing I know, she’s hovering over me, her long, blonde hair hanging over her face and teasing me as it moves across my chest in a way that sends chills through my whole body.
She grips my dick, fisting it hard, and puts me inside her.
Her head falls back as her mouth opens and a moan of ecstasy flows past her lips. I grab her shirt, push it up to her chin, and grip her tits with the same force. She begins fucking me, her hips wild and her back arched as her hands slap down onto my chest. She digs her fingernails into my skin, making me moan, and then it’s just… carnal. Fucking. It’s just fucking.
Crazy, unrestrained sex performed with a frenzied passion that borders on violence.
Urges of my own begin to float to the surface and I decide to act on them. I flip her off me, turn her over, and then I push her legs open, hover over her perfect ass, and spread her cheeks as I push myself inside her dripping wet pussy.
“Yes,” she’s saying, her breath so ragged and uneven I almost can’t understand her. “Yes.”
I grab her hair, pull her head back, and fuck her from behind like an animal.
And the whole time she just says, “Yes, yes, yes,” over and over again until I pull out, spew my come all over her back, and then fall to the side with a long sigh of relief.
She claws her way onto her side, hikes a leg over mine, put her cheek on my chest, and sighs.
And then, without another word, she’s asleep.
I almost fall asleep too, but Collin Creed is outside on his porch waiting for me to report.
So instead, I come up with an alternative story to the truth.
Because while he did send me in here to get information out of her, he didn’t give me permission to fuck his little sister like a fifty-dollar whore.
I take my time, though. Try to put all the sentences together in a coherent manner. And also enjoy the woman clinging to me like I’m some kind of savior.
Her breathing evens out and her body goes heavy. And after about ten minutes or so, I force myself to slide out from under her and pull myself together.
She doesn’t wake up. Doesn’t even stir.
So I leave, softly closing the door behind me, and hope to God I do not smell like pussy when I go outside and find Collin and his dog sitting patiently on the porch steps.
He turns when he hears me, then stands up. “Well? Did you learn anything?”
I let out a long exhale as I run my fingers through my hair. “Oh, I did. I absolutely did. But before we have this conversation, Collin, I have a question.”
“Shoot.”
“Where do you boys keep the alcohol?”
Collin takes me back to the church, which is where we had our first conversation about Olive after she stormed out the door to go pack her shit. Collin tried to follow her, but I took a risk and grabbed him by the arm.
The look he shot me—yeah. I believe every story I’ve ever heard about the guy after that look. But I put up a hand and said, “Hear me out, OK? Just give me five minutes to explain what I think might be happening here.”
He and Amon exchanged a look and then Collin let out a breath and gave me his full attention. “Five minutes. Start talking.”
So I did. But I didn’t tell him everything. I needed to talk to Olive first. Not to get confirmation—I don’t care how good I am at deep cover, she’s locked up tight. I should know. I was like that once too. But I could at least carefully dig out some answers with the right questions.
Obviously, Olive and I didn’t do a lot of talking back inside the house. But questions don’t always come in the form of words. I’d already suspected her handler was using some very unorthodox methods to get inside her head, which explains the choking fetish, so that wasn’t even a big revelation.
It was the emptiness in her eyes that confirmed it for me. Well, that and the hot fucking sex. She was out of control.
But then again, so was I.
It makes sense. So this is where I’m at when Collin and I walk across the big open room inside the church and go through a door to a stairway that leads down.
Even though he flips on the lights, it doesn’t light up the stairs, only the room at the bottom, so it’s casting eerie shadows up the walls as I descend. “You’re not gonna kill me and bury my body down here, are ya?” I joke.
He doesn’t laugh. Or answer me.
But when we get to the bottom, the nerves that were creeping up my spine settle a little when I realize what I’m looking at. “Why are we at the SCIF?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Typically, this is where all the fucked-up conversations take place, so it’s where I keep the good shit.” He points to the Faraday box on the side of the door. “Phone.”
I dig mine out and drop it into the box and he does the same.
Then we go inside.
Again, I get that weird vacuum feeling when I enter and all the technology outside is blocked.
Even if we did come down here for the drink—and it’s here, so he wasn’t lying—the SCIF is the perfect place for this conversation.
He grabs two glasses from a makeshift bar cart in the corner and brings them and the bottle over to the table. We sit, he pours, we drink.
When that’s over Collin leans back in his chair and lets out a breath. “How bad is it?”
Which shouldn’t surprise me, but it kinda does. “How much do you know?”
“About her?” He points up at the ceiling. “Nothin’. I haven’t even talked to her since she was in high school. If I saw her on the street, I would maybe look twice, but for all the wrong reasons, if you get what I mean.”
“You wouldn’t have recognized her?”
He shakes his head. “Never in a million years.”
“OK, listen. I’m not trying to pry or anything, but I need to know where you thought she was all these years.”
“I… didn’t think about it. Almost never. And if I did, I pictured her with our parents.” Now he squints at me. “How much do you know about us ?”
“When I got here? Nothing, Collin. I mean, I’ve heard rumors about you and your team. There were congressional hearings, for fuck’s sake. But if you’re askin’ if someone sat me down and we actually talked about you—and by someone I specifically mean Charlie Beaufort, but also anyone else you suspect might do something like that—then the answer is no. That never happened. Everything that I know about you came right out of Olive’s mouth the last time I saw her.”
“Which was when?”
“Sunday morning.”
“How did you meet her?”
I am careful when I explain this part because things with Olive are really bad already and he just doesn’t need to know that she was gonna take money from me in exchange for sex. But he does need to know about the bar, so I tell him every detail about that place and end with meeting Olive at the Revenant Diner.
“This bar,” Collin says. “It’s a honeypot.” And it’s not a question.
“It is, and this isn’t just speculation. Olive told me, Collin.”
Collin leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “Here’s my problem, Shep. Why would she tell you that? And why would she be involved with something like that in the first place?”
“Why would she tell me?” I scoff a little. “She likes me. I guess. But she’s…” I look away, gazing off into the distance for a moment, trying to find a way to break it to Collin Creed that his baby sister is a traitor. Not that I’m any better. Hell, not that he’s any better. But it’s different when it’s someone you love and think of as an innocent.
I look at him again. “She’s a spy, Collin. She’s here for you and she was using me to do that. Or, at least, she was trying to use me. I didn’t encourage her. She came here on her own accord. I’m not part of what she’s doing, other than I wound up at that bar in the woods because I saw a flyer in a bar in Revenant.”
He waits, saying nothing. Probably to see if I’ll say anything else. But when I don’t, his question is sharp and very on point. “All right. For the sake of argument, I’m gonna believe you about all of that, Shep. But what you didn’t tell me was who she’s spying for. Do you know?”
“Well, I sort of do. But also don’t. Meaning, I can take a good guess. Mostly on account of things she said. But it’s gonna cast doubt on me, so I’ll prepare you for that right now.”
Collin smiles, then laughs. “Let me guess… you work for a secret underground city. If so, get in line, Shep. That guy’s already part of the team.”
“Really?” I’m surprised at his statement. “Who is it?”
He ignores my question. “So you’re an underground guy too?”
“No. I’m not. But it’s all related. It’s all part of a bigger organization called CORE. And I guess the shortcut through the long story I’ve been telling is this—Olive works for CORE.”
“And you know this how?” His eyebrow goes up. “Because she told you?”
“Well, as unlikely as it sounds, yes. But, that’s not all.” I take in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I work for CORE too.”
“I see.” It comes out deadpan.
“Well, I did, I mean. Charlie Beaufort really did find me in prison.”
“OK.”
“I am a veteran. But I was a deep-cover double agent.”
“Stop.” Collin puts up a hand. Then he leans in with squinty eyes. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Well, you already know they’ve got the deep underground cities. We’re sittin’ over top of one as we speak. This isn’t the only place on the planet with underground cities, Collin. They’re everywhere. Most of them are under the control of the military.” I point at him before he can ask. “No. Not the one you were a part of. The one I was a part of. Anyway, it’s a complicated game, as you can imagine. The whole us vs them thing.
“Mmmhmm. So you were a spy. And my sister is a spy. And both of you are here, in my compound… why?”
“Well, I’m under contract.”
“Contracts made in bad faith can be broken. And if all of what you’re sayin’ is true, then I highly doubt you’re gonna take me to court if I nullify it.”
“You’re right, I won’t. But I’m not here as a spy. I’m here for the same reason everyone else is. Why the hell would I tell you all this if I was deep cover? I wouldn’t tell you the part about the bar, I wouldn’t tell you that your sister was a spy. I’ll tell you lies, Collin. And that’s not what I’ve been telling you.”
“All right.” He relaxes a little. “You got anything else to add?”
“Yes.” I look him straight in those unsettling eyes of his. “Yes, there’s more. It’s a story all its own, but the most important thing is that CORE has a way of instilling loyalty. And Olive told me some very disturbing things about the guy who handles her.”
“Handles her?” His anger is back now.
“You know how it works. You’ve got the field agent and the man who runs the field agent. And from what I can tell the one who’s running her has…”
Collin leans forward in his seat, his eyes sharp like a hawk. “Has what ?” And he’s seething now.
“Manipulated her pretty bad with… sex.”
Collin rubs both hands up and down his face as he processes what I just said. He’s silent for nearly a minute, either getting himself under control or plotting twenty-five ways to kill this handler guy. When he looks up, I’m pretty sure it’s the latter. “Where can I find this man?”
I shrug. “Fuck if I know. I’ve been out of service for years.”
“Yeah,” Collin says. “About that.”
I put up a hand, already guessing where he’s going. “You don’t need to tell me. I get it. I’m here for a reason, I probably am a spy, and there’s that thing about the abnormality in my brain.”
“What now?”
“Well,”—I smile—“it’s nice to know that Penny Rider keeps her word. I will remember that forever. She told me that I passed the lie detector test, just as she told you. But she also told me that there was some unusual activity in my brain that could not be explained.”
“What’s that all mean, Shep?”
“Honestly, Collin, I can’t be sure. But obviously, I had a handler when I was in the field as well. I don’t know what program she came up in, so I can’t really compare us. But they do shit to us, Collin. To our brains. To make us comply. To make us… puppets.”
“Why are you telling me this? Are you trying to make me kick you out?”
“No. I just want you to know. And I really don’t think they’ve got any control over me. I think this brain activity is residual.”
“How could you know? I mean, if they’re all about mind-fuckin’ maybe your mind is just fucked?”
“Maybe it is. But the thing about puppets is that they need a master. And mine’s dead. So we don’t need to worry much about her, or me. But we absolutely do need to worry about Olive and the man who is pulling all her strings. Because I’m sorry to say this Collin, and I’m not gonna get into details, but that girl’s not right. She’s not right.”
“So what do I do? Kick her out and send her packin’, Shep? She’s my sister.”
“Technically, she’s not. At least that’s what she told me when she described how you killed the man who was trying to kidnap her.”
“Yeah, but… in my head she’s my sister.”
“I know. But I don’t have any answers for you.”
“How did you get away? How did you get your mind back?”
“I told you, my handler died.”
“How did she die?”
I scoff. “Take one guess, Collin. How the hell do you think she died?”
“You killed her.”
“I killed her. Not because I wanted to be free, just because it was all unraveling at that point. The brainwashing, ya know?”
“So what happened?”
“The programming started coming apart and nothin’ made sense anymore, ya know? I washed out. This programming they do, it’s complicated. The brain is a machine with many powers. And it’s got lots of backdoors. Not for those who want to manipulate it, but for us.” I point to myself. “It’s my brain, ya know? The common phrase is ‘coping mechanisms.’ A brain learns to deal with stressful situations by adapting. And there’s a lot going on in these programs. You really have to keep tight control over the push-pull dynamics. I think it’s pretty common that people break. I think CORE knew I’d be useless afterward and when I robbed that store and got arrested, I think they just figured it would be too much of a red-tape hassle to get me back just so they could kill me.”
“So they let you go to prison.”
I nod. “They did.”
“And then Charlie found you and sent you here.”
“I suppose.”
“All right. So…” He leans back in his chair and blows out a breath. “At least we’ve got a workable plan.”
“We do?”
Collin laughs. “Fuck yeah, we do. All we gotta do to free my baby sister from all this evil is kill her puppet master.”