Chapter Thirty-Six
Ember
Past
Ithought I knew what fear was.
I thought I understood the darkness that exists in this world.
My short time with Dagon has proven me completely, wholly, and utterly wrong.
He’s beautiful on the outside. Surrounded by fineries so rich, so rare, that it’s hard to think of him as anything other than a god. But he’s not light, kind, or merciful. He’s dark, depraved, and cruel.
The moment he brought me to his home, I was confined to a room where I’ve remained the last several weeks. The room itself isn’t the issue—it’s beautiful and holds décor more expensive than my father’s debt to Dagon. It’s the way I’ve been confined to it.
Dagon tore off the necklace I’ve spent my life attached to, and replaced it with a much crueler chain. One I quickly discovered delivers a horrifyingly painful electric shock each time I try to leave my room.
He’s come to visit me every day, and each day, he watches me like I’m a specimen to be examined.
When I say something that displeases him, I get a sharp, effective backhand across my face.
When I stay too silent or don’t answer his mundane answers quick enough, sometimes the slap turns to a punch in my stomach.
Terror keeps me complacent and docile.
The realization that there is no way for me to escape his clutches makes me horribly, hopelessly depressed.
I’ve always liked to consider myself as a strong person, but in a matter of weeks, I’ve proved to be pathetically weak. I’m not as strong as I fancy myself to be. I’m not capable. I’m pathetic and useless.
Today, he comes bearing a gift, which makes me even more wary of him than I usually am. The gift is an armful of files. When I hear the clasp to the door unlock, I sit up straighter and fold my suddenly-trembling hands into my lap.
Dagon offers me a deceptively charming smile as he steps in, nudging the door shut behind him. “How are you finding your accommodations?"
“Fine,” I say quickly. When his gaze narrows, I swiftly correct myself. “The room is beautiful, thank you.”
“That’s more like it.” He takes the papers to the dining table, where he dumps them all on the surface.
He lifts one up, flipping it open and setting it back on the table.
“I acquired you for a couple of reasons. First, you are very nice to look at. Second, you are incredibly smart, as evidenced by much of your testing in school. Now, I’d like to see if we can put your brain to good use. ”
I blink. What in hell gives this man the impression that I’d be any sort of asset to him? He runs a drug empire, as I’ve learned. I know nothing of the criminal world, nothing that could enhance his operation.
“These are files of eight people who have fucked up in the last month,” he says. “I typically make a point of killing two-thirds of the people who disappoint me.”
I suck in a sharp breath at the not-so-subtle threat. If I disappoint him, I might very well be next.
Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad…
“What do you expect me to do with those?” I mumble.
“First, check your attitude. You're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. Tones have consequences here.” Dagon glares at me for a few moments. “Second, prove you have some usefulness to me. Go through the files. They’re the full histories and backgrounds of each individual, and their transgressions. Determine which ones deserve to live—”
“What?” I cry. “No! I… I can’t sentence someone to death—”
“Shut. Your. Mouth,” Dagon hisses. He strides forward, coming for me, and I rush backwards, until I hit a wall.
“You are in a very precarious position, Ember. You owe me five hundred thousand dollars worth of work.” He leans forward, and for the first time, I notice how ugly he becomes when he’s angry.
Patches of red color his face and neck, uneven and blotchy.
A vein pulses in his forehead. “You have an opportunity to work that off as a secretary of sorts, if you will. Prove you can help me sort through my affairs.” He steps back.
“My previous full-time secretary was paid a salary of eighty thousand dollars a year, with bonuses that made his eyes bulge—when he earned them.”
Eighty thousand dollars a year. That’s about six years worth of work.
If I’m understanding Dagon, and he’s offering me a role as his secretary… then I’ll be in his service until I’m twenty-four. And being in his service includes passing out death sentences.
“I—I can do other things,” I stutter. “Keep your calendar. Organize—”
“Please,” he scoffs. “Don’t insult me. If I wanted you doing those things, you’d already be doing them. What I want is for you to do this.”
I blink, shrinking back into the wall, wishing I could melt into it. “Why?”
“Because,” he says slowly, “you’re too… pure. Na?ve. Fucking ignorant. If you want to survive me, you better toughen up, fast.” He takes a step back. The jacket of the suit he’s wearing flutters open, and I catch a glimpse of something metallic.
A gun. He’s wearing a gun holstered beneath his arm.
This man who has put me in a shock collar like a dog, and now expects me to assume the role of judge, jury, and executioner—after he beat my father to within an inch of his life and stole me like livestock—came in here with a weapon.
Something terribly dark unfurls in my mind. Six years with Dagon is unconscionable if this is what the first few weeks have been like. I won’t survive them. I’ll disappoint him sooner or later, and then, it’ll be my file he’s sorting through to determine whether or not I’m worthy of living.
I won’t let it get to that point. I refuse.
I make an effort to relax my face, and my body. I lower my head in the way Dagon enjoys. “I understand,” I say quietly. “I’ll do what needs to be done.”
Dagon roughly grasps my chin, jerking my head up so quickly my neck nearly snaps, and digs his fingers into my flesh until I whimper.
This is what I’d be in for. Pain. But it’s more than the promise of physical pain that does me in. I’ll be subject to constant degradation, humiliation, belittling. And, eventually, the physical pain may turn sexual.
All the while, I’ll be expected to choose who lives and who dies.
No.
I can’t do it. I can’t put myself through that, I can’t become that person.
I. Fucking. Won’t.
Dagon lowers his hold to my wrist, nails digging painfully into my skin, and begins dragging me towards the table. His jacket flutters again, and this time, I’m prepared. My next movements are swift enough to surprise even me.
I reach into his jacket. Curl my fingers around the gun, and pull it out.
Dagon freezes. He turns to look at me, slowly, his eyes narrowed and lips thinned.
“I would be very careful with what you do next, Ember. Put down that weapon before you do something stupid—it isn’t a toy.”
Full-body trembles wrack me as I stumble back, pointing the gun at him, holding it with two shaky hands.
I take a beat to remember my father. To remember the state of him—barely breathing, abused to the brink of death. Dagon loaned him money to gamble with, knowing that he couldn’t pay it back. Dagon wanted to have a reason to hurt him… and then he took me.
I squeeze my eyes shut and pull the trigger.
Nothing. Happens. Not a loud bang, like I’m expecting. Only an empty, slow click.
My entire body runs cold. My heart drops to my stomach. The world seems to cease spinning.
In a flash, Dagon snatches the weapon for me. I expect his features to be seeped in fury and murderous intent. I expect a backhand, or a beating that I may not wake up from. I brace myself for the pain.
What I don’t brace myself for is the mixture of curiosity and resentment in his gaze as he looks me over.
“Before you try to shoot someone, I’d recommend taking the safety off.” He makes an elaborate show of pushing one of the pins on the gun to the side. “Maybe you aren’t quite so useless after all, hmm? I may find suitable work for you yet.”
Then, he shoots me in the thigh.
The bang! is deafening. The pain is much, much worse. Searing-hot liquid lava detonates from the wound, and I crash to the ground. Nausea takes over my entire being, intermingling with the impossible pain, rising up my esophagus until I vomit the contents of my stomach all over the floor.
I am the embodiment of agony. Everything—everything hurts.
Dagon tosses the gun aside and snatches a fistful of my hair. “But, before I make use of you, let’s see if you survive the lesson that follows an assassination attempt. I may pity you if I had the capacity for it—others get much swifter deaths.”
My body and mind scream at the same time, and finally, a raw noise of animalistic pain rips free from my lips, scraping my throat with its intensity. My vision swims and blurs. I feel a puddle forming beneath me on the floor—I’m not sure if it’s blood or urine.
Dagon shoves me down. My head smacks off the floor, and I curl into a ball of pure, unadulterated agony.
He cracks open the opaque window that prevented me from seeing the outside world. Opens it wide.
And then, he picks me up by the collar, and throws me out of it.