Chapter 10 #2
When the door slams shut again, I’m left trembling, soaked in sweat and blood, my body begging for another hit that isn’t coming for god knows how long. I press my forehead against the chain, focusing on the breath that unfortunately is still happening.
How many days has it been?
The lights are on, then they’re off. None of it matters. My body keeps a different clock now, one measured in pain spikes and the distance between doses. I exist in fragments.
A guitar riff plays somewhere in my head. I try to remember my fingers on strings, the calluses, the way sound used to come from my soul. My hands twitch uselessly against the restraints. I’m strapped into a chair now instead of sitting on the floor with chains. I...I don’t know when that happened.
I mumble things I don’t mean to say. Apologies. Names. I laugh for some reason. It’s a broken, startled sound that scares me. Then the door opens, and my body reacts before my mind does. My heart is pounding and my muscles lock up.
“Look at you. You're learning,” Alexei says, circling me. “Your body recognizes me now.”
I don’t answer.
He stops in front of me and lifts my chin with two fingers. The gentleness makes my stomach turn. “You associate me with relief,” he continues calmly.
He nods. Then the needle comes.
I hate the grateful sound I make when it hits. Warmth spreads through me, quieting the desperate hunger. I close my eyes despite myself. For a moment, everything stops hurting. But it’s not enough. Not even fucking close.
Alexei watches closely. “Good,” he murmurs.
“Now remember this feeling.” He doesn’t leave this time.
He lets the high fade while he’s still there.
He watches me for too long, studying when my breathing finally changes.
Watches the shaking and sweat start again.
The leather creaks as he shifts closer. He reaches into his pocket and pulls something out.
Then I see it.
My stomach drops so hard I think I might actually vomit. He’s holding something between two fingers, like it’s nothing. Like it doesn’t weigh a fucking ton.
A photo.
It's worn at the edges and creased once down the middle. The one I kept folded into my wallet. The one I stared at almost daily—on planes, in bathrooms, backstage. Before I decided to fucking kill myself that night with Micah. It was always proof that my life was once something quite beautiful.
Her face.
My breath shatters in my chest.
Alexei watches my face intensely. He hums softly, pleased. “Ah,” he says. “This one matters a lot to you.”
“Don’t,” I rasp. My body jerks forward against the straps, instinctive and useless. “Don’t fucking touch that.”
He lifts a brow. Amused. “Touch?” He chuckles. “Jude, I don’t need to touch her.” He taps the photo lightly against his palm.
My pulse spikes instantly. My skin goes ice-cold, sweat breaking out along my ribs and spine. Something in my chest starts to cave inward, like my ribs are folding around my heart.
“You carry her like some kind of talisman,” he continues conversationally, tilting his head.
He crouches in front of me again, bringing the photo into my full line of sight.
Close enough that it’s almost as if she’s sitting right there.
My hands shake violently against the restraints.
A sharp cramp rips through my gut, followed by a cold rush of nausea.
Alexei’s smile sharpens. “There it is,” he murmurs. “Every time.”
Something hits me—hard. A baton across my ribs. Pain bursts through my side, and I scream.
The photo stays up.
“Look at her,” he demands.
Wincing, I do.
Another strike. My muscles seize. My pulse races out of control.
Then the photo drops. At the same time, Alexei lifts his hand, and one of his men steps forward. I barely register the needle before it slides into my arm.
Just a little.
Not enough to entirely satisfy...just enough to quiet it. Warmth spreads again. The cramps ease a fraction. My breathing speeds up, chasing the relief like a lonely child chases a butterfly.
Alexei watches with infuriating fascination. “Alright,” he says softly. He watches me again for however long it takes for my blood to burn through the heroin.
The photo rises again.
My heart slams so hard it hurts. Sweat pours off me. The relief is replaced by panic and sickness so sharp it makes me whimper.
Another hit to my body with that fucking baton.
The photo lowers.
Alexei shifts closer.
Another micro-dose.
My body responds before I do, lungs dragging in air, shoulders sagging, a broken sound leaving my throat that I hate.
Alexei laughs quietly. “Oh,” he murmurs. “How convenient.”
I choke on something between a sob and a snarl. “She has nothing to do with this.”
He considers the photo again, watching my pulse jump. “I disagree.” A beat. “People like her are currency.”
The word snaps something inside me. “Don’t you fucking—”
He stands abruptly, the photo still in hand. The man behind me tightens his grip on my shoulder. “You remember my friend, Vlad?” he asks lightly.
My blood turns to poison. Vlad. He’s the man who made Adriana and me both very uncomfortable the other night.
Wait, how many nights ago was that now?
Alexei watches the recognition bloom on my face and grins. “He owes me,” he continues. “Favours. Space. Women.” He shrugs. “I could sell her to him. Very easily.”
He brushes the photo against my cheek, and I recoil. Pain follows immediately. My body convulses, a scream ripping out of my parched throat as another blow lands. My system spirals—withdrawal crashing down hard, my muscles locking, stomach rolling violently.
I thrash against the restraints. “I’ll fucking kill you!”
Alexei steps into my line of sight. The photo disappears, and his hand lifts.
Another tiny injection. Relief hits me like betrayal. My head drops forward.
“You won’t,” he says calmly. “Because I won’t do it if you behave.”
The realization of what he is doing is horrifying.
She equals pain.
He equals relief.
“That reaction,” he says softly. “Fear without touch. Pain without impact.” He smiles. “Your body learns very quickly, boy.”
My stomach heaves. My hands shake uncontrollably.
Alexei presses the photo against my chest. This time, right over my heart. Another striking, stinging goddamn blow to my ribs.
I sob openly now, my nervous system in full collapse.
“You see,” he says, voice low and intimate. “I don’t need to hurt her to control you. I just need you to believe that I could. Because I can.”
Tears spill down my face.
He notices everything. “I could let my men have her,” he continues casually.
“Once. Twice. Over and over and over again while you sit in this chair. She could cry and beg, but you wouldn’t be able to do anything.
She’d get used for hours...days...weeks.
Until she stops being…this.” He taps the photo.
“And starts being an obedient little slave for Vlad.”
The photo flashes up again.
Pain.
I scream again. It’s a raw, angry, animal sound, stripped of everything human.
Alexei, that fucker, glows with satisfaction. “Yes,” he breathes. “There you are.”
The photo disappears.
The needle and relief follow.
His voice hardens. “You will bow,” he says.
I shake my head violently. “No.”
Pain.
Then silence.
Then relief.
“You will bow,” he repeats, “and I will send you back to the hotel. Clean. Fed. Dosed.” A pause. “Waiting for further instruction.”
My vision doubles. My body is no longer mine—just stimulus and response, terror and relief wired directly into my nerves. “And if I don’t?” I whisper. "If I just fucking kill myself when I get there?"
Alexei leans close enough that I can smell his cologne. “Then I make a phone call,” he says gently. “And she becomes a very real option to Vlad.”
A tear slides down my face. My body trembles, but it’s not from fear alone. It’s from knowing exactly what comes next. I’m hurting, starving, and...walking the fine line of dying, it seems.
“Bow,” he says again. “Show me you understand who owns you.”
For a moment, all I can see is her face.
Pain.
Relief.
Pain.
Relief.
My arm is bleeding from how many times I’ve been stuck and injected with such a tiny amount that I want to chew through these restraints. And then...
I bend. It’s just a little, but it’s enough.
Alexei straightens, satisfied. “There,” he says warmly. “Good boy.”
The restraints release, and I collapse forward onto the cold concrete floor. My body is shaking uncontrollably. He didn’t actually have to touch her. All he had to do was teach my body that loving her hurts more than obeying him.
And it worked.