Chapter 6 #3
Solomon laughed, “I bet you would want to know. You do know finding out about her parents is going to put on her a straight path to what really happened to her dad. I kinda think she needs someone in her corner to steer her in the right direction and clearly little bro… that might not be you. You’re not capable of telling her what she needs to know, but I just might be cause I’d hate for things to have to go a different way for her. ”
I didn’t respond, I just looked at him because if I responded Solomon would’ve known that he was getting to me and I refused to give him that hard on. I didn’t like what he was implying and if he thought I was going to let him get to Noa before I had the chance to, he had me completely fucked up.
Solomon walked over to the door, but before he opened it, he turned to me with a sly smirk and said, “My guess is she’s going to ask the million dollar question her father did.”
“Which is?”
“Who really benefited from our aunt’s death. And well, if she does that then you already know what’s gon’ have to happen.”
I knew exactly what Solomon was implying and I also knew he was only the messenger and that Bishop had sent him to remind me of what it was I needed to stay on top of.
When Solomon left, I gathered my things and headed to the marsh.
I had pent up frustrations that needed tending to in the worst way.
“I’m here to serve you, Secret Graves?” Jemma answered, picking up on the first ring, calling me by the only name she knew me as.
“Black and red room in ten.” I ordered then hung up.
My thirst for pain heightened as soon as I heard Jemma’s voice.
The anticipation of what was to come was so overwhelming that I hit the curves on the backroad doing 80 cutting my two-hour commute down to an hour and thirty.
The first room I hit when I made it to the marsh was my master bath.
I needed to wash of today’s death that lingered far too long on my pores.
Then I covered my face with one of my handcrafted, leather obsidian hoods, and walked to the black and red room with nothing else on.
Jemma was the only choice for tonight because she had a meticulous way of delivering pain that sent blood curling impulses straight to every nerve in my body.
I approached the room then slowly opened the heavy door.
The first thing I noticed was the silence, not the kind of silence that lingered from every wall and swallowed every breath before it could escape your lungs.
It was the kind of silence that demanded obedience just the way I craved.
The second thing I noticed was Jemma crouched in the far corner on her knees facing the wall completely naked, her long black hair in a tight long ponytail that resembled a horse’s mane, but it was naturally all hers.
When I stepped into the room, the door slowly closed behind me, no lock but a single click was all that could be heard. She knew not to turn around until I was in position and gave her my command.
“One doesn’t kneel because they're forced too." My voice echoed throughout the room.
“I kneel because I choose to, Secret Graves.” Jemma responded with the only answer she knew to give.
Our words settled into the room as I walked over to the St. Andrew’s Cross that was positioned in the middle of the room and placed my hands where they were supposed to go and took my stance with my legs spread just enough so that my body would mimic a X.
Tonight I chose to have my back against the cross instead of facing it.
"Ready."
Was all I said and Jemma knew what to do next. Although I knew every single step she had to take because I taught her with great precision exactly what she needed to do, I watched her like a hawk. The only part of my face she could see were my eyes, but she knew to never make eye contact.
Once she reached the cross, she strapped my wrists and ankles to it. Then she walked over to the wall of pain.
“Intensity level, Secret Graves?”
“The max.” I responded as I watched her grab the red riding crop then walk toward me. Instead of closing my eyes, I watched her raise her arm then swing like a batter ready to hit a home run out of the park.
She hit my chest first delivering the first intense blow as I held my breath. The second hit and third hit was to my mid thighs, and the burn reminded me of the beating August would always grace me with whenever I showed him any defiance.
His beating whenever I tried to refuse any of his criminal demands came often as a child until I learned how to numb the pain in my mind and just do whatever he demanded.
Most times, I helped lure in victims to be murdered; those were the easy ones.
Other times, I had to help with the murders and those were the hardest to get adjusted too.
As Jemma continued to assault my body with the crop, my mind drifted to one of the beating I got from my father. This beating wasn’t because of a job he needed me to do at a young age, it was to save my sister Seraphine from a beating.
She was a nosey little girl, but she didn’t have the heart to follow through with the type of things our family was involved in, hence why she owns the coffee shop and doesn’t work in the family business at the church.
This particular night, she witnessed Bishop and August punish someone simply because they owned land that my father wanted to possess.
They didn’t want to give up the land willingly, so in true Dubois fashion, they took it by means of how they demanded control any other time… in blood.
I stood in front of my father as he positioned himself to ‘teach her a lesson’ and took her lesson on the chin.
Just as I thought about what his first blow felt like, Jemma stuck me in my groin.
The pain was so intense my eyes rolled to the back of my head.
I wanted to scream, holler out and cry like a bitch but I’d trained myself on containing that pain.
She struck me a few more times in my groin until my head dropped; my chin hit my chest.
I couldn’t speak if I wanted too. The head drop was her cue that her job was done. She unstrapped my wrist and ankles and before she could reach the door to walk out of the room, my body dropped to the floor. For the next couple of hours, I laid there relishing in the pain that I loved to hate.