Chapter 43 Scarlett
Scarlett
Everything was sore and there were places on my body that felt as if they were on fire.
I rolled over in bed, feeling the soft sheets beneath me. Despite the pain, this bed had to be the most comfortable bed in the world.
I curled into the bed a little more, laying there for a while longer before I finally squeezed my eyes shut and allowed them to flutter open, the dark ceiling above me coming into view.
No, not a ceiling. It was the top of the bed.
My head rolled to one side, and I saw a post, intricate designs lining it all the way up where the black tulle curtains were pulled back and tied off.
I released a breath, sliding my hand over my stomach, the pain throbbing everywhere.
Everything hurt. My thighs, my chest, my pussy. I could barely breathe, it hurt so much.
“Good morning, Ms. Harris.”
I gasped, jerking the blankets up, my head whipping around to find a man with a rolling cart standing on the far side of my bed.
“Mr. Thorin wanted me to leave this here for you,” he went on, not giving me even a glance of attention.
“Meet him in the offices the moment you are ready. Everything you need is in the shower, your clothes are just through there,” he gestured towards a door across the room. “Take this, he’ll be waiting.”
I watched unblinking as he made his way back out the door, shutting it behind him.
Was that…was that normal? Would it be an everyday thing? Could I get used to it if it was? I was used to people seeing me in almost nothing. This should be no different. The man was just doing what Azrael asked.
Even so, I watched the door for a long time before finally turning back to what he had left me.
It was an effort scooting to the other side of the massive bed. There was a metal tray there with a note that said, ‘Swallow Me’. Beside it were two pills with a label underneath them. ‘Tylenol (it eases the pain) – A’.
My heart skipped.
Last night, after he pulled out of me, I collapsed, my body so weak, I couldn’t even force myself to take a real breath.
I remembered feeling him unclasp my cuffs and pick me up. I remembered curling into his chest, feeling his heart beat solidly against me, his body warm, unrelenting.
I had never felt so safe.
I also remembered crying.
A lot.
I couldn’t stop myself. I had curled into him, feeling exactly like the doll he called me, and I had sobbed silently into his chest. That’s the last thing I remembered.
I swallowed, my throat raw. A hot shower sounded like exactly what I needed.
~ ~ ~
An hour later, I was headed down the hall, wearing a beautiful black dress that fell to mid-thigh.
The shower had burned. I had forgotten about him carving into my chest. The upside down cross went across my breasts, down towards my belly button and up to the hollow of my throat.
It was deep and unforgiving, but a clear sign to the world that I now belonged to Azrael.
It was a physical claim on me, just as the bitemarks on my thighs were.
Proof that I was no longer a prisoner of the church but a prisoner of him.
It only made my sore cunt throb.
The dress I had covered very little of the marks he left on my thighs, and the gauze on my chest was there for all to see. He was right, I would have to keep wearing collared clothes when we returned to church to continue on our mission.
Our.
He had called it our mission.
I padded barefoot down the hall, and it felt emptier than it had yesterday. Today there was no one.
I was all alone, but…
Not really. Azrael had said that I was never alone. My eyes lifted to the ceiling, scanning everywhere I could think of in search of the cameras.
My whole life I had been on a camera, but this was the first time I didn’t really mind.
Was he watching me right now? I hoped I looked as pretty as he wanted me to look.
I cleaned up, I put on a little mascara and some pink, glittery lip gloss.
I watched Thomas enough to know the basics of makeup and what I didn’t like.
I knew I had bruises on my neck, my hips, and my thighs.
Everywhere he had touched, he had left a bruise, but he seemed like the kind of man who would see them and feel pride.
I wanted him to see them and feel pride.
I wanted him to want to leave more, despite the sense of nervousness I felt at seeing him after yesterday.
Married, and I still wanted him drunk on me. I wondered if I could make him more obsessed than he already was.
I never made it to the office yesterday, and I certainly had no idea where the room I had woken up in was, but I knew I was on the third floor which was a start.
Still, it took me a half an hour to finally open the right door.
My heart immediately thudded when I caught sight of Azrael sitting behind a beautiful, large oak desk.
His sleeves were pushed up on his arms, no tie to be seen, the top button of his shirt undone.
His eyes had already been up when I walked in, telling me that he had, in fact, been watching me roam the halls.
I quickly looked around as I stepped in. It was a large, circular room, floor to ceiling windows lining half the room on the far side.
There were four large desks set up, although two of them were empty, along with bookcases filled with books, plants, and even couches.
My eyes lingered on the view out the windows as I slowly walked towards his desk, feeling his and Havoc’s eyes on me.
It was another endless sea of trees.
Besides the driveway, it didn’t seem to matter what window I looked out, there were just trees. No city in sight, no other soul except for us.
“Sit,” he told me.
I found his eyes again, getting lost in the ocean of his gaze. The gaze that watched me in my own reflection with a kind of lust I had never seen before, had never felt.
I swallowed, my cheeks burning red as I took my seat in the chair across from him.
“Embarrassed, Scarlett?”
I clasped my hands together tightly and refused to answer.
I wasn’t embarrassed, I was…something else.
I couldn’t put a name to it. Nervous of what he would think of me now.
Scared that I wasn’t enough. He had probably been doing that with people for years.
How could I compare to that? I wanted him to be more obsessed with me, but how could I accomplish that when I felt like this?
All of this was far more difficult when I actually cared about the person who took my purity.
Antlers slid around my jaw, tilting my head up until my eyes found his again. “You did great,” he told me, causing my skin to warm.
He released my jaw and set his cane to the side, straightening in his chair.
“We have a guest in the basement,” he went on, his entire demeanor shifting back to the man I knew well, “and while her information will be greatly appreciated once she gives it to us, you still have information locked in that pretty little brain of yours that will help us. You don’t know anything about Absolution other than the fact that it’s located in Washington.
What do you know about the non-profits the church opens? ”
My brows furrowed. Non-profits? “Isn’t the church a non-profit by definition?”
He nodded. “Yes, but this is different. Thomas is going to Judge Manuel Ruiz, a Superior Court Judge, to open up a non-profit on behalf of the church.”
He was the one Azrael was asking about two weeks ago.
I searched his eyes before looking down. A non-profit? Why would Thomas want to…
I looked up, finding his eyes. “He was angry that they gave the…” My face scrunched. “J.O.B. to you,” I signed.
He showed me the correct sign for ‘job’. “So, Thomas wanted to be the transporter,” he pondered, turning to his screen. “Interesting.”
I glanced at the screen and back, only seeing the back of it, which was nothing but black. I leaned forward, trying to see what he was seeing. I couldn’t imagine that he was enjoying looking at blue grainy images.
But when I caught sight of the screen, it wasn’t blue and grainy at all, it was clear. Pictures of documents and a woman—
I heard a click and the picture of the woman in the scarf disappeared. My brows pulled together, my eyes falling to the bottom of the screen.
“It’s a computer screen, little sinner, I control what you see. It only moves when I want to move it.”
I frowned, sitting back in the chair. “I thought it was blue and G.R.A.I.N.Y?”
“Sonograms are blue and grainy. Computers have the same screens that televisions do. When we watch the Alice in Wonderland movie, it will be on a much bigger screen than this.”
My eyes widened. I had forgotten. “When?”
“When I am ready,” he answered. “How long has Thomas wanted this job?”
I thought back, feeling the buzz of excitement under my skin at the thought of actually watching a movie. “He asked his…F.A.T.H.E.R. about it in the past,” I answered. “He wanted to make sure the kids were safe.”
Azrael studied me carefully, the gears ticking in his head, but I had thoughts ticking through my own mind.
“This is your…M.I.S.S.I.O.N. and you are trying to fill the halls with blood, but what about them? The people you transport.”
His eyes hardened. “I can’t save them all, Scarlett. I take them where I am told. Daycares, houses, other churches.”
“Was that why you were gone so often?”
“Partially,” he answered cryptically.
Azrael was quiet for a long time, and I remained silent, patiently waiting.
When he went silent, it wasn’t just because he was afraid nobody would hear him, it was because he was on a trail no one could see.
I would give anything in the world to see it so that I could walk alongside him, but maybe that wasn’t a part of my purpose yet.
After a minute or two, he leaned forward and pressed a button at the bottom of his screen before he pushed his chair back and stood. “Come here.”