by Kitty Thomas
Twisted Fates
Digital Edition
Copyright 2019 © Kitty Thomas
All rights reserved.
Digital Edition License Notes
V.2
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or shared. If you did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Respecting the hard work of this author makes new books possible.
Publisher’s Note:
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Neither the publisher nor the author endorses any behavior carried out by any character in this work of fiction or any other.
Twisted Fates
Table of Contents:
Front matter
Twisted Fates
Chapter One
A dark, twisted growl next to her ear: “You were a very bad girl.”
“No!” Shannon struggled in the ropes, but they were too tight. How could this be happening? Only minutes ago she'd been playing in the pool. Happy. Not a care in the world. To go from the bright afternoon sun to the darkness of the dungeon so quickly made her head spin.
Brian had made quick work of stripping off her bikini and tying her to the St. Andrew's cross. She cringed as he dragged the tip of the knife along the stone wall. Grating. Like fingernails on a chalkboard. Worse.
Annette screamed incessantly outside the cell. Banging on the door. Yelling at Brian to stop. But he wouldn't. He'd locked them in, and he had the only keys.
Nothing could stop him, except maybe God. And Shannon had given up that belief long before she'd come to the house. The only ridiculous belief she'd carried into adulthood, was the shockingly naïve idea that somehow she would get a happy ending.
This ending was anything but happy.
Brian made a full lap around the cell, dragging the knife blade against the stone like some demented horror movie villain. He finally stopped next to her and bent close to her ear again. “You shouldn't have embarrassed me up there,” he whispered. “Now I get to make you bleed. It's the rules.”
“Please. Please, I'm sorry.” She made one final attempt to struggle free, knowing it was pointless but equally knowing if she didn't at least try she'd only blame herself more for the things he was about to do to her.
“Too late.”
Shannon jolted from sleep, her heart pounding in her chest so fast she was sure it would break free. She'd somehow gotten herself bound up in the blankets in her sleep. She kicked and struggled to free herself, then shoved them off the bed when she finally managed to untangle the sweat-soaked fabric from her body.
A fine sheen of clammy sweat still clung to her skin, chilling her. She'd woken in time at least—before it got too bad. Before the cutting had started. But it wasn't enough because that night still lived in her mind, fresh and new as if it were yesterday. In reality, eight years had passed since that awful day, but the dreams kept her trapped in the past, in a place now definable only by her nightmares.
Sometimes she could go days, even weeks at a time, without having the dreams. But they would never fully leave her. They were a part of her now—as physically real and solid as the scars.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed until her feet touched the cold floor and dragged herself to her private bathroom. She had one of the nicer suites and a larger bathroom now. The men at the house upgraded her after that day. As if it could make up for anything. Like a room upgrade was an apology for the unforgivable.
Shannon flipped the secondary low light on and splashed water on her face.
Then she looked in the mirror. She always looked. Every time she had the dream she looked in the mirror as if by some magic the scars would be gone, and she could reassure herself it really had been only a bad dream after all.
The worst of it was her back. She never looked at those. She just... couldn't. But she felt them. Every day when she showered, her fingertips brushed against those awful scars. They'd been made alternately by bullwhip and... that knife. She couldn't look at them.
But she could never seem to stop herself from looking at the ones that had whipped around to touch the top of her chest. It looked to her as though the devil's claws were digging into her shoulders, the way the scars had whipped and curled around. It was as though she were always in the clutches of something evil.
That evil thing still slept on the lower level of the house, free and untroubled by guilt for anything he did to anyone else. Brian hadn't touched her again after that day, but he didn't need to. He'd done his damage.
There were a few on her neck, but they were mostly covered now by her long dark hair. A few grazed her upper arms, and there was one mark on her cheek. It was small and had faded some over the years. And with artful makeup she'd learned how to mostly cover it.
Tears trailed down her cheeks. She wiped her face with the back of her hand because this was the point where she always thought about Mina. Mina had come to the house a few years ago. She was damaged and scarred—like Shannon—and yet Brian was kind to her. He loved her. Somehow that monster that had seen Shannon as some kind of garbage had the complete opposite reaction to Mina.
Why? Why her and not me? What's wrong with me?
How was it that the scars on Mina had guaranteed her happy ending, while the scars on Shannon made hers now impossible?
On most days the house was a polite criminal enterprise. The guys that ran it sought out kinky women with deeper needs to bring back to the house and train to sell to wealthy men with similar and complimentary kinks. All the women were there more or less of their own free will and knew the rules and the outcome before climbing on board this demented train. They'd signed on to play this game. But even so, the house was illicit.
Nobody left this place a free woman. You walked through those doors, and the next time you walked out was in a rich man's chains. There was no true out. There was no changing one's mind. There was no safeword.
Because of the nature of the house, the choice was once, and it was forever.
Choose wisely.
When Shannon had become too damaged to sell, she'd been lucky they'd let her live. She'd become a kind of indentured servant, running the on-site spa. Brian had left her alone after that. The other guys had continued to play with her—for awhile.
Except Lindsay, the doctor. He avoided her even more than Brian.
Shannon hated Brian, but she loathed Lindsay. There was something broken inside Brian that made him dangerous like a wild animal. On some level you couldn't really blame the wolf for eating the lamb. But Lindsay was different. He wasn't broken or sick. All of this was his fault. He'd been the one who'd lured her to the house. He'd made all the promises that hadn't been kept.
He'd saved her life that day, the day Brian broke everything. But it wasn't enough to make up for bringing her here. He'd made further attempts to help her, but the guilt shining out from his eyes every time he looked at her was too much to deal with on top of everything else. She didn't want his guilt. She wanted to be free.
She wanted to reverse the foolish decision that had brought her here.
But it wasn't just the house. There was no free. Even if they decided to let her go, Brian would follow her into her dreams. Even death might not free her mind from him entirely. That was how deeply he'd dug into her soul that day, tying the worst parts of himself to her indefinitely. A shadow, permanently attached.
Her fingertips found the edge of the longest, most
brutal scar, and traced it across her back until she could reach no further. When Brian had finished, he'd untied her and left the cell without a word. Just another day to him.
She'd made it somehow to the ground before she'd lost consciousness. The next thing she knew, she was in bed, her entire torso bandaged with the doctor looking down at her.
He should have let her bleed out on the dungeon floor. It would have been a far kinder fate.
Shannon went back into the bedroom and slipped into a robe. The clock on the wall read 1:30. She hated when the dream came this early. It was impossible to get back to sleep. She couldn't stop seeing it. All that blood. All her blood. How had there been enough blood left inside her to keep going?
How had there been enough of anything inside her to keep going?
How long was she going to lie to herself and pretend anything would ever get better for her? It was only getting worse. The men at the house hardly played with her anymore. They'd adored her before that day. And after, for a few years they'd made a good show of not being bothered by the marks that marred her.
But she wasn't in her twenties anymore. And the girls who came to the house just seemed younger and younger next to her. She kept getting older, and they kept being twenty. What charms she may have had in spite of Brian, were slowly but surely fading. And every day the lie that somehow things would work out... somehow she would be loved, died a little more.
She was fading into the background. Nobody noticed or wanted her. There was no escape from any of this. Except one.
She'd thought about it over the years, but it had always been a passing thought. Nothing more serious. Shannon wasn't sure what was different now except that she had hit a moment of absolute realization. Before she'd somehow always been able to convince herself that things could get better. She'd held out hope that maybe there was still someone out there for her. Somehow. In her mind, Mina had stood out like a beacon of what was possible. But unlike Mina, Shannon's rescue never came.
The fantasy was getting harder to hold together. She'd known for years. Somehow she'd managed to put off dealing with the truth until now.
But she'd decided. She was leaving this house. Tonight. No, she couldn't go out the normal way. Although she'd figured out the security codes long ago, a metal security bracelet was locked around her wrist. It kept her inside the perimeter and would deliver a nasty shock if she stepped outside it. And it wouldn't stop until she either stepped back inside the perimeter or passed out.
But there was more than one way to leave this place.
Shannon crept down the stairs to the main floor. She stopped inside the kitchen. Phyllis had made her famous chocolate cake. Every bit of the recipe, including the frosting, was from scratch.
Shannon took a fat slice, poured a tall glass of milk, and sat on a stool at the counter and ate. When she was done, she left the plate and glass on the counter. She dragged her finger through the remaining frosting on her plate and smeared it on the shiny stainless steel.
Her last act of defiance, and neither Brian nor anyone else in this house would be able to punish her for it.
As she made her way down the hall to the spa, she passed the fitness room and heard the treadmill whirring away. Shannon tensed. Brian.
Sometimes he ran in the middle of the night. Whatever demons haunted him, it wasn't about anything he'd done to anyone else. That part of him was dead inside. But there must have been a moment when he was innocent and someone had broken him. That moment, whatever it was, kept him running on the treadmill in a futile attempt to escape his own demons. Shannon couldn't be bothered to give the first beginnings of a damn about anything that haunted him.
Whenever she thought of Brian's pain, all she could think was: Good.
She scurried past the open door of the fitness room and continued on.
When she reached the spa, she went into the room she'd set up as an office. She took a key from the bottom of a planter and unlocked the bottom desk drawer and pulled out a pill bottle.
Lindsay gave out sedatives like candy—some he'd given to her. Instead of taking them, she'd slipped them into an empty pill bottle she'd found in Lindsay's office trash can one day. She'd been collecting them for a while. Sometimes if he left his office unlocked and she could get to them, she'd sneak one or two extra but not enough that he might notice. Sometimes she feigned an inability to sleep and got them from him that way.
But even when the inability was real, she resisted the urge to take them. They were too important to squander.
She wasn't sure how long they were potent, but in that bottle full of pills there had to be enough that still worked. She was finally ready to sleep—a dreamless peaceful sleep that Brian wouldn't intrude on.
Wherever she woke—if there was an afterlife—she'd be free.
She took the bottle to one of the massage rooms and turned on soothing spa music and a burbling fountain. She lit all the candles on the long counter running the length of the wall.
Let the fucking house burn to the ground for all she cared. Not her problem.
She took a water bottle from the mini fridge and started to swallow the pills one by one. When the bottle was empty, she lay on the massage table, pulled the blanket over herself, and went to sleep for the last time.
***
It was well into the night when Lindsay got back to the house. He'd considered staying in the city, but he'd already bought more flowers for the spa. If he didn't get them into vases tonight, they wouldn't be as fresh or last as long.
Plants had been his one lasting love affair. His commitment to their proper care and feeding had been absolute.
He stopped in the kitchen for a cup of tea, but was distracted from that mission by the dirty plate and glass left sitting out. A long fat smear of chocolate frosting trailed halfway down the counter. It looked quite intentional.
Strange.
One of the new girls? Testing boundaries perhaps? None of them were allowed in the kitchen at all after it closed for the night, so that was already one rule broken—even before considering this one. He left the mess for someone else to discover and deal with, deciding against bothering with tea so late.
When he reached the spa, he laid the two large bouquets of flowers on the counter. He was about to empty one of the vases and put in fresh water but was stopped by music coming from one of the spa rooms.
Shannon never left the music on. She ran the spa like a pro and closed everything down in the evenings. As he got closer, he saw the door was open a few inches. A warm glow of light flickered inside.
She wouldn't leave candles burning. Maybe someone else...
But when he pushed the door open, he found her asleep on the massage table, a blanket pulled snugly over her lithe form. He'd always thought she looked like she could be a dancer. With those legs that seemed to go forever.
He never got to see her like this—unguarded. He couldn't stand to be in the same room with her when she was conscious. She blamed him for everything. Every disgusted look she aimed his way said it. For years it had been this way between them to the point where he'd learned her schedule and avoided their paths crossing whenever he could. She would never forgive him, and that made two of them.
She was only one of many mistakes he'd made in this house. But she was the first, the biggest, and possibly the most unforgivable. No, she wasn't the mistake. He'd made the mistake. He'd brought her into the house and failed to warn her about Brian. She'd been the one to pay for his mistake, almost with her life.
Shannon looked so uncharacteristically peaceful in sleep. Lindsay's gaze drifted to her hand hanging off the edge, and then something orange on the ground caught his eye.
He was sure for a moment his heart stopped.
An empty pill bottle laid on its side at his feet.
No. No no no no no no. NO. Not this way.
He felt for a pulse. It was there, but just barely. Respiration had slowed.
He scooped her off the table and raced up t
he stairs to his room. He put her in the giant tub, robe and all, and turned on cool water. He got in with her, not even bothering to take his shoes off. There was no time. He opened her mouth and shoved two fingers down her throat until she vomited up the pills. He aimed her over the rim, so she didn't get sick on the two of them.
She coughed and spluttered. Already he was rearranging his schedule in his head. He had to stay up with her all night. All his appointments would have to be shifted. He couldn't sleep until someone else could take over watching her to make sure she was okay... and to ensure she wouldn't do it again.
She started shivering—a good sign, all things considered. She was disoriented, those doe-brown eyes blinking innocently as if looking on the world for the first time.
And then she saw him, realized it was him, and her face closed off.
“You fucking bastard,” she muttered. “Always riding in to save me. Did you ever stop to think maybe I don't want to be saved?”
It didn't matter to him what she wanted. He couldn't be responsible for her death on top of everything else. So as long as he was in this world, he was determined she would be as well.
He stood and got out of the tub and kicked his ruined shoes off. Then he helped her out. He led her to the shower at the other end of the suite's bathroom.
“Clean yourself.” It wasn't a request.
She pulled the cotton robe more tightly around her body, her teeth chattering from the cold wet fabric clinging to her slight frame.
Now that she was conscious, his gaze dropped to her erect nipples protruding through the fabric. He tried to focus on her face instead. She'd been moments away from death and this was what he was thinking about?
Oh, yes.
His mind was consumed suddenly with thoughts of ripping that robe off and shoving her against the tile wall and fucking her until she stopped seeing death as an old lover she wanted to go back to.
He pushed the images away. “I said take a shower.” He said it with every ounce of firm command he could muster under the circumstances.