Chapter 32 - Azrael #3
“One last question tonight,” I said, finding her face again. “Do you know of Absolution?”
There was a slight hitch in her breath, and when she tapped her finger, I could see the slight tremble.
“Don’t worry, little sinner, you have not earned your way there. I’m just curious to know where it might be. It’s difficult to track, despite the information I have received. Do you know where it is located?”
She was as still as stone.
I didn’t think she would. Absolution was more of an idea to those who hadn’t visited. A story told in the dark to make sure the Favorites kept in line. “Do you know what happens there?”
She was still for a long time, but I could see a muscle in her neck twitching, as if she were thinking words she couldn’t speak.
After a few more seconds, I decided it was a no. Until I could push her to communicate more effectively, this would have to be what it was. “Do you know who transports the people there? Is there someone in each church?”
She was still.
My eyes narrowed. “Is it one person?”
She remained still.
“Do you know?”
She tapped her finger, and I straightened. I just wasn’t asking the right question yet.
I thought long and hard about it, considering the options I had at wording the question I needed to ask. “How many transporters to Absolution are there?”
She placed three fingers on the table before relaxing her hand again.
“Do they come once a week?”
Silence.
“Once a month?”
Silence.
I studied her carefully. “Do they come when they are called?”
A single tap.
Of course, because they couldn’t schedule when a Favorite disobeyed or wasn’t wanted anymore.
“Is it your belief that it is here in Washington?”
She angled her chin ever so slightly before tapping her finger.
That answer had given me something. They thought of her as nothing more than a beaten kitten but forgot that she still had a working mind in that skull of hers. She could still listen, she still cataloged, she just did it in a way they would never know. It worked well for me.
“Thank you, little sinner,” I said, pushing myself to a stand. “You have given me exactly what I needed.”
She stood abruptly, causing me to slow.
I looked her over, my eyes lingering on the racing pulse in her neck, my curiosity growing. “Yes?”
She gestured with a shaking hand towards her bedroom, her delicate throat bobbing, a few muscles in her face shifting to show the fear she was trying desperately to hide.
I glanced towards the dark room and back. “Go.” It was progress, I admitted to myself, watching as she quickly headed for her bedroom. She was trying to force herself to become more…herself. Finding her voice, the mouse would say. Breaking through the bars with her feeble arms.
Perhaps, one day, she would actually speak.
I wouldn’t hold my breath, but I couldn’t deny that I was pleased with this sudden outburst after only a few sessions with her.
I was curious about what she would be after several weeks of just her and I.
No church, no rules, just me pouring acid on the bars they had used to cage her in.
A few moments later, she came out holding more paintings.
“You did a lot in the last three weeks, haven’t you?” I hummed, watching as she set them out on the table.
Three paintings she had brought out. All three beautiful. One of a shining yellow daffodil, blooming under the sun. One of a little gray mouse enjoying a crumb of cheese, and the last of a blooming blood red rose, surrounded by vines of thorns.
More proof that she was always listening. Always watching without actually seeing a thing.
“They aren’t my Favorites,” I told her, knowing exactly what she needed confirmation about. Did she know that she was jealous? Because now I did, and it did something to me. “But I assume you might have already come to that conclusion.” I looked over just in time to see her tap.
“Jealous of people who spend their time with me, little sinner?” Most would be scrambling to get away as soon as they possibly could, but here she was, jealous of those I mentioned.
It only encouraged my raging thoughts. “I spoke of my family three weeks ago, of how I had too many people in my world. They are the most recent additions.” I studied the pictures, studied the delicate curve of the petals, the soft fur of the mouse.
They looked as if they could come right off the page.
After a moment, I gestured to the mouse. “Emily Navarro.” I pointed at the daffodil. “Rae Ashrin.” And finally the rose. “Olivia Kingsmen.”
I could feel the tension in the air before she finally stepped up, so close, I could smell the cheap soap they had filled her shower with. She had been so happy with the citrus I had picked out for her, perhaps I would stock her bathroom before I saw her again. She placed a finger on the rose.
“She was the most recent to join. The one we saved from the compound.”
Her body tensed and she tapped it again, this time with more vigor.
I looked over, finding her so close that I had to look down.
She was inches from my chest, and so much shorter than I.
I would have to guess a mere 5’5” to my 6’ 3”.
“They kept her there for two months and 7 days. I believe she has told her husband what happened while she was there, but not in detail. Alascer was scheduled to pick her up the day we found her. She has a loyal dog who goes by Lucy, and a little mouse whom she met while she was there. His name is Merlin. He stays behind to be protected by a little girl named Baily, whose mother is now in a relationship with one of my other brother’s friends. ”
It was important to know everyone in the lives of those in my world.
Her hands clenched into fists, the muscles around her mouth twitching, but if she had any other reaction, I couldn’t see it through the curtain of her long, beautiful hair.
“Angry, little sinner?” I asked softly, feeling that darkness within me start to bloom and grow.
She immediately forced her hands out of their fists and stepped back, doing her best to ease the tension from her muscles without actually moving.
I felt my own smile grow. “You want blood,” I purred, watching her chin angle ever so slightly as if she were suddenly paying more attention.
“You seemed so passive at the auction that night, so unemotional on the day they baptized more children, yet this is the truth,” I went on, slowly walking around her.
“Deep down, underneath the grooming, the beatings, the rules, you know how wrong all of this is. All of those children being shipped off to other churches, to your church, being beat and groomed just like you.” I stopped behind her, close enough to hear the shift in her breathing.
“Do you know what a queen does when she is returned to her true kingdom?”
She remained still.
I leaned in, close enough to disrupt her hair with my breath.
“They kill all those who ever laid a hand on her. How would you like that, little sinning doll?” I asked, walking back around so I could see her face.
“You wouldn’t just be standing back and watching me spill all the blood, you’d be driving the blade into their hearts themselves, blood pouring from the wound onto your own hands. ”
Her breathing hitched, her heart racing, her legs pressing together, her hands clenching.
My own cock throbbed painfully at the idea. At the image of her driving a knife into the heart of Thomas, his blood covering her hands as she pulled it out and stabbed him over and over again. The wild look she would have in her eyes, the smile she would wear.
I would walk up behind him, sliding my own blade along his throat, decapitating him as she plunged the knife into his chest one last time, blood splattering over our faces.
My cock ached painfully, suddenly as hard as my own cane.
Her lips had parted ever so slightly, her fingers working at her sides, and I half wondered if perhaps she could see the same vision I saw.
“Is that what you want, little sinner?” I asked, my eyes locked on her face. “Do you want them all to pay for what they’ve done to you? Do you want to steal from them the life they took from you?”
Her tongue darted out across those pretty pink lips, and it was all the answer I needed.
I straightened, my own heart pounding, my cock painful against my thigh.
“Then that is what you shall have in my world. My Wonderland.” I needed to leave before I did something as stupid as act on my own sadistic primal urges.
Fucking what little sanity she had left within her would be the opposite of what I needed.
The only way I could take her was if she were truly and honestly willing.
If I took her now, she would willingly be taken, perhaps she would even find herself enjoying it, but when the high wore off, she would be lost forever, useless in my endeavors, and then what?
I couldn’t ruin a near five-year assignment simply because I found someone I needed to fuck.
First the assignment, and then ownership.
I picked up the book from the table. “Take your paintings and hide them again. The cameras will go back as they were three minutes after I leave.”
In response, she stepped up to the table and gathered her artwork, walking in such a way that told me even she was in pain.
I glanced up towards one of the cameras, knowing there were more in her room. None in her closet though, which was where I was sure she would return to.
“Sexual healing is still healing,” that voice whispered manically inside of me. “Make her touch herself. Make her see what they’ve stolen, and then you can both bathe in blood.”
As soon as she turned around, I slid the cane in her pathway, my neck tight, my knuckles white.
“Make her pop her pretty little cherry with her own fingers, picture her doing it. Picture what you would do if you were still standing above her, watching her stick her beautiful fingers inside herself knowing that it was to the image of killing her former betrothed.”
My cock was aching, but the voice was right. This was about regaining power, and what they had taken from her was her bodily autonomy. She needed that back.
But I also knew that my selfishness was showing, and I didn’t care.
“Tonight is the night you will learn about yourself,” I told her, finding her face.
“There are no cameras in that closet, so here is what I want you to do now that you have a night undisturbed. Touch yourself,” I told her carefully.
“Wherever it feels good. Your tits, your stomach, your neck, your pussy,” I explained, my own voice growing more feral with each passing word.
“It’ll feel tingly at first, but don’t shy away from that feeling, let your instincts guide you, not your fear, not your habits, but the piece of you that craves to feel good.
Do you understand me?” It wasn’t a lie. People in many different versions of situations like this found their healing sexually.
It was a completely healthy way to recover from trauma.
Opening her eyes to the truth could help open her up to revealing more information.
Things I might not have even considered.
And then there was the completely selfish side of it. Perhaps if she got a taste of what they took from her, she would seek it out in the one person she was learning to trust.
Her throat bobbed, but I heard the tap of her finger on her paper.
“You are only to do this in the closet, Scarlett, do you understand me?” I couldn’t take the risk that Thomas or anyone else would see it.
They’d send her away, kill her even. They might very well blame me, which would lead to them demoting me.
I had to make sure she knew never to do this anywhere else but in that closet.
Another tap.
My eyes found her lips before lifting to her eyes. “Go, I’ll see you soon, but don’t forget, I am always watching. Our Wonderland awaits, my enslaved queen.” I lifted the cane and turned for the door without another word or look back, wondering what she would find in that closet of hers.