25. I am nothing like you
I AM NOTHING LIKE YOU
“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” I asked when Shaw came through the doors, they kept me chained up like an animal.
Barely able to move two feet to take a piss or shit and slide food on a metal tray without silverware.
Of course, had I had the silverware, I would have stabbed myself to suffer less.
They didn’t risk it. I sat slumped against the wall, head craning up to watch Shaw walking towards me.
It had been a few weeks since Melody or April showed up, and I was beginning to wonder if she’d actually become bred.
“I can’t,” he ground out as he plopped the tray of porridge in front of me.
That was my latest diet. Last time they gave me an orange, and I stuffed so much in my mouth at once that I started to choke.
Too bad the bastards had a fucking camera and made me cough it up.
Now every meal was supervised, and every bite was measured.
More surveillance than a toddler with a pair of kitchen scissors.
If I had had the scissors, they would have gone into my neck and saved me from this life.
There was no point in living a life that was not my own, so I kept thinking of ways to end it sooner.
“It’s not as hard as it seems, just take a knife and plunge it into my heart,” I goaded.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t rise to the bait like he would have the first time.
If we had been born into different roles, I would consider him the most loyal friend ever.
The way he goes with the orders must have been torturous.
He didn’t wait for Melody to even move before he was halfway out the door.
I chopped it up to karma biting him in the ass.
He forced Cole to participate in the rape of Summer and forced me to watch, well until I got punched so hard I blacked out.
After that day, she didn’t want anything to do with me.
Stopped talking to me as if it were my fault.
It had been my fault for not lying better in the first place.
I was too weak to stomach it. I didn’t kill for sport, I didn’t murder and rape innocent people, I wasn’t cut out for this world.
“If you aren’t going to eat than stop wasting my time,”Shaw said in a tired voice, like he was struggling to remember the reasons for my captivity.
There were fewer guards than usual; instead of a grunt giving me food, it had been all Shaw these past few days.
I slid the metal tray over; it scraped against the concrete in a high-pitched whine.
Shoveling the slop into my mouth, I forced myself to swallow.
It had been months since I had been outside of their rooms, and yet I kept hoping for change, like any second Summer and Cole would be blasting through the door.
I looked up towards the door expecting it to be the case, but there was nothing.
I tried to escape. The first night they strapped me to the table, managed to disable a few guards and rush out into the snow.
It’s how I knew it was winter here. They’d kept me for over three months, enough time for the early fall to give way to a harsh, brutal winter.
The last time I saw Summer it was August, so that meant it was closer to November or December.
“Listen to me!” he screamed. “You and I have to be smart about this if we all want to survive, there’s no getting Summer without first ridding ourselves of Midas…
We have to be smart about this.” Cole’s words echoed through my mind like a pendulum.
Bouncing back and forth like a taunting tick of the clock.
Did I kill him? He was right anyway. There was a better chance of facing Midas with him; I should have listened to him when I had the chance.
I bet they moved on without me. Summer, Cole, Reyna and those kids, it would be the perfect life.
A big family and lots of joy and laughter.
I closed my eyes, picturing her blonde hair against the snow as she made snow angels with the kids.
She was my angel; she’d always be my angel.
I couldn’t stop wanting for her, no matter how many times they strapped me to the table.
It was never the pleasure that made me come for them; no, it was always Summer.
“Get up,” he kicked my leg. I groaned, snapping out of my self-pity, and rose up.
“What can’t get it up this time?” I mocked. He shoved me forward; my knee scraped against the concrete, and I hissed as I stood back up. He didn’t even say anything else; he just watched as I stood face to face with him.
“Come on, shower.” he ordered, un-cuffing my feet and pulling me along. I thought about biting back again, but it was expending energy I no longer had. At least when he argued back it was entertaining; now it was depressing.
We walked through the large doors of what I had come to know as a warehouse and through several halls into a shower room. I stood there letting the warm water cascade down my head while Shaw waited by the door.
There were bruises all over my body, some of them fresh, others faded. Like it wasn’t enough, they had to rape me for sperm that was likely dead, anyway. I leaned into the hot stream, eyes pinched tight in anticipation. Shower days were reserved; they meant — clean, I am clean.
It became harder to see anything bright in what they were doing.
Sure, if I did manage to impregnate the bitch, I'd finally be able to die.
I just felt sorry for the poor kid who had to grow up to be a mafia heir.
April was a dying old bitch stuck in her ways.
Why would you force two people to have sex for a kid when this world could simply make a kid in a Petrie dish?
The whole idea was barbaric, and if I ever got out of here, I would cleave her head from her body like a barbarian.
The thought made me laugh, as if I were ever actually getting out of here.
The bar of soap slipped out of my hand. I bent over to retrieve it, glancing back at Shaw.
He looked to be ten times his age, as if the stress of what he was doing was catching up to him.
There would be one day I could break through his walls and make him see the reality, or he would die of heartbreak.
It didn’t take long to see how he looked at Melody every time she wasn’t looking.
He loved her; I understood it now. So, as much as it pained me, I knew that Shaw was being tortured along with me.
Coldness seeped into my body as soon as I saw the table.
My feet stumbled in hesitation as I backed into the hard mass behind me.
Shaw’s chest stopped me from retreating any further.
He didn’t immediately pull me towards the steel table.
Orders, they’d said the first night, I still hadn’t any idea why they both went through this time and time again. I wouldn’t ever understand it.
“Come on,” he grunted as my legs became lead weights. I couldn’t do this.
“You don’t have to listen to her, you don’t have to go through with this, I see the way you look at Mel—”
The slap came across my face too quickly for me to register; my face was sideways before the pain caught up in my mind. Everything swung sideways as the concrete bit at my backside. I blinked once, then twice. Everything sped up, and the scream ripped through my lungs.
He hauled me up onto the table a moment later, the straps in place before I could fight him, and the deadened look in his eyes as he shoved a gag in my mouth felt familiar.
Shaw stepped back to his overwatch position as if he couldn’t be bothered to do anything else. Tears fell from my eyes as I blinked towards him; they always fell. No matter how much I wanted to stop crying, be stronger in the moment. It didn’t matter if I cried or if I screamed.
The door opened a moment later, and on slow, even steps Melody walked in, syringe in hand and a cold, vacant stare in her eyes. She didn’t glance towards Shaw; if anything, Melody was avoiding his gaze. I hissed when she injected me with the vile concoction, but they just stood back and waited.
Karter must have laughed when he gave those syringes to her because his little bag of tricks didn’t last long.
The nail file ended up in the neck of a guard, and the one lasting taste of freedom I had was snuffed out when they dragged me back to this hellhole.
He made good on his word, though he didn’t show up again.
Whatever debt he had truly been paid the moment he walked out of those doors.
I felt my blood pumping harder and my heart slammed against my chest. There was no real reason for them to continue; if she couldn’t be bred in two months, it meant I was sterile.
This seemed to be an attempt to please the dying bitch April.
At least I did something right when I stabbed myself.
All self-preservation went out the window, and I was ready to die; it was the fucking doctor who couldn’t let me die.
Karter had been a source of both pain and gratitude.
I wondered if he thought about the choices he made and if they haunted him like they haunted me.
I held my breath as Melody’s hand clasped around my cock; any other thoughts died. She stroked it once, maybe twice. I tried not to consider how fucking much I wanted any semblance of pleasure in this painful existence. My body is already ready to betray my fractured mind in a moment’s notice.
“Ready,” she murmured. I learned it wasn’t for me, it was for her, so I just stared ahead and waited. The cold gel came a moment later—
“Get down!” Shaw yelled, and the whole table flipped sideways as smoke filled the room. Red clouded my vision as a pool of blood formed before my eyes. I blinked, trying to clear my eyes as I screamed into the gag.
Melody crouched beside me. A look of fear crossed her face as she covered my mouth with her hand to silence me further. She pulled a pocketknife from her robe; the tiny blade gleamed through the dust. Gunfire echoed through the hallway outside. Then, silenced a moment later.
I looked at Melody as it registered we were under attack; she took the blade and mouthed to be quiet.
Her blade slipped under the binds and cut my legs free.
Another set of boots echoed on the floor, coming closer than before.
She’d just cut the second leg free when I saw Shaw’s shadow sneak towards the door.
Waiting was the worst part; as soon as she freed my right hand, I clutched her throat tightly.
Panic reared in her eyes as another two gunshots echoed in the distance.
The knife clattered to the ground as she pried at my hands.
“P-please,” she pulled at my hands as she began to choke.
Her face morphed into a bright red the longer I held on; her fingers searched for the knife, but it was out of her reach.
Melody’s eyes rolled back in her head as she fainted.
I contemplated how her death would satisfy me.
How much I would enjoy killing her for her lies, but a part of me couldn’t continue.
I released my hold and let her clatter to the floor.
I stretched the knife with my foot, pulling it to me as I cut free the rest of my binds.
Her limp body lay there so still; for a moment I thought I had actually killed her, but her pulse fluttered under my fingertips. She didn’t deserve the mercy, but as I crept towards the open door, I didn’t look back.
There was fighting and grunting in the left hallway as I continued on bare feet.
Stepping over a dead guard who had died from a headshot, I paused and unlaced his boots, stripping him of his pants and pulling them on.
It felt nice having a layer of protection against the snowy wind that filled the place.
I contemplated running towards the hole in the wall, out onto the snowy ground, but there was one thing I had to do before I could.
The guard had a small blade secured to the pants, and I pulled it out, holding it close as I continued down the well-worn path. Three turns right and then left again, I was met with the large oak doors that housed the main house. The same kind of doors I had walked through willingly months ago.
My fingers shook as I gripped the blade tighter.
The door opened on silent hinges as I walked down the hall.
She sat there in her desk chair, looking neither surprised nor disappointed.
A cigar perched on her lips as I came to face with April.
She looked frail in the low lighting, almost elderly in the way that elderly people generally were. Harmless. It was all a lie, though.
“So you’ve finally decided to grow a set of balls.” She coughed, setting her cigar down.
I walked towards her, more determined than before, as the knife gleamed in the dim light.
“Why did you do it?” I asked as I was a foot away from her.
“In our line of work, we can’t afford to be soft.
There’s no place for pussies…” she drew in a ragged breath, bent over, and began coughing again.
Something flashed in the light, and I heard the click at the last second.
The bullet grazed my upper arm, landing in the wood behind me.
The look of shock that crossed her face was all she could manage as I stabbed her in the side of the neck.
Blood splattered across my face as I hissed, “I am nothing like you.”
I ripped the knife forward, further severing the front half of her head. Blood gurgled and gushed as her body slumped forward.
I stood there, breathing heavily; it was finally over. April is dead.