37. Nim
They don’t give me back my clothes. All I’m allowed to wear as they lead me through the parking lot and back into Cinderhart Academy is Mason’s letterman’s jacket. It’s a message. A blatant declaration that I’m theirs. That they own me.
The jacket’s so big, my hands get lost inside the sleeves, but it might as well have been transparent because I feel naked as the day I was born when they parade me through the courtyard that bleak Saturday afternoon. There aren’t a lot of students around, and I couldn’t be more thankful, but ultimately it doesn’t matter.
Word of this will spread. Maybe, in some versions, I’ll be naked anyway. Or just in my underwear. Maybe I’ll be collared.
I can still feel that strip of leather around my neck. I thought Knox was going to strangle me with it. That they all would. Choking me with their cum, cutting off my breath with that choke chain. Maybe finishing me off with their hands around my fucking throat.
And then they’d bury me in that soft, gray sand.
It would have been a mercy.
In the days and weeks to come, I’ll probably be begging for such a swift, merciful death. Like the one they gave that guy in the woods. Three strikes. Brutal, but efficient.
But I’m their toy now.
Everyone knows it.
Romi knows it when we cross paths in the courtyard. She opens her mouth as if she wants to say something, perhaps ask if I’m okay...but she doesn’t.
Because she knows.
Dean Rigby knows it when a flare of light brings my eyes to his office window on the third floor of the east wing. He watches the Serpents take me across school property like the slave that I am...and he does nothing.
Because he knows.
Eliza Jackson knows it when we reach the girls’ dorm. The simpering look she gives Mason instantly transforms into a spiteful glare when she notices me at his side. But she does nothing.
Because she knows.
I assume they’re taking me to my dorm room, abandoning me there until they need their toy again. But they take the keycard they found in my jacket pocket and open my room and pack up all my things.
An awful flicker of hope pulses through me.
They’re getting rid of me. Tossing me to the curb. Throwing me out of their Academy so I have no choice but to fuck off and leave them to their bullying and murdering.
But instead of leading me to Cinderhart Academy’s massive pewter doors, they head for the boys’ dorm.
Fuck hope.
They were packing my things because this isn’t my room anymore. I’ve been upgraded. Slaves of the Serpents don’t spend their free time, their bath time, their nap time in a twin room like the one I shared with Romi.
Slaves bunk with their masters , and this slave has three to choose from.
Ha. As if I ever had a choice.