Kill Switch

by Penelope Douglas

  I gestured to where I’d heard my sister chatting. “I know why she’d do this, but you’re supposed to protect me,” I told my mom. “He raped me!”

  “He didn’t rape you,” my sister snapped back, pushing out of her chair. “We all saw the video. The whole world saw the video! You wanted him. You were in love with him.”

  I shook my head. “Not him.”

  I had never been in love with him. Not with Damon.

  That damn video.

  Tears spilled, and I couldn’t stop them. I folded my lips between my teeth to keep from sobbing. A video of us was leaked, he was sent to jail for statutory rape, because he was nineteen, and I was still a minor, but nearly everyone in this town took his side. He was a little richer, a lot more popular, and two of his friends went with him for their own misdeeds leaked on other videos, as well.

  But he got the most time.

  He was the only one convicted of a sex crime, and in everyone’s eyes this was a grave injustice, because their basketball star, golden boy only had sex with a willing girl who just happened to be a couple years shy of the legal age of consent. Big deal.

  Hey, in some other states sixteen is old enough, isn’t it?

  This is a technicality.

  Did he even do anything wrong? How many of us were having sex at that age?

  Don’t ruin his life. It’s not like he hurt her.

  Hey, she seemed to love it well enough.

  The backlash was sickening, and while other girls claimed he’d taken advantage of them, too, by the end of it, they’d all folded, and it ended up just becoming an example of how warped our justice system was when there were “actual” predators out there. I’d ruined a young man’s life. To-may-toes, to-mah-toes.

  All they saw in that video was me willingly kissing him.

  Touching him.

  Holding him.

  In their eyes, I’d wanted it, and he was ‘the man’. But they didn’t know what was really going on in that video. They didn’t know what he’d done to me to get what he wanted from me.

  Footsteps approached, and I smelled my mother’s Chanel No. 5.

  “Winter,” she said calmly. “Do you really think he needed to marry into this family to get anything he wanted? He could’ve easily threatened Ethan anyway to keep you in Thunder Bay and under his thumb. Or threatened us, your grandparents, or any other friends. No matter what, this was going to play out how they wanted, because they have the money and we have nothing anymore. Nothing.”

  ‘Because of my father’, I finished for her.

  Yes, I knew. She wasn’t entirely wrong.

  And in that moment, I hated my father, too. His crimes didn’t put us in this mess, because Damon would’ve eventually found another door if that one had been closed. I only hated him for leaving. Gabriel and Damon Torrance could do anything they wanted with us now. And given their reputations, I tried not to think about how bad this could get or I’d be sick.

  “At least now,” my mother continued. “We have something to work for. A light at the end of the tunnel.”

  The divorce settlement? Was she actually that stupid? Damon would get Ari pregnant, and there would be no way out after that!

  “And what were you planning for us to do in the meantime?” I challenged. “As we wait for this year to pass?”

  What would I do as she tried to wait this out, day after day, week after week?

  “We survive,” she finally answered.

  Survive.

  Submit, you mean?

  After a few moments, I left the room and made my way upstairs, shutting myself in my bedroom for the rest of the night with Mikhail. I fed him but forwent dinner myself, not hungry anyway, and I only left briefly to shower.

  I couldn’t make my mother’s decisions for her, but she also couldn’t make my choices for me, and there was no way I’d do whatever it took to survive. I had my limits, and I wasn’t going back to that place with him.

  If it even came to that.

  But hopefully I’d find a way out of here before it did.

  I blinked my eyes open in my bedroom hours later, my lids still way too heavy, but the air was chillier than usual.

  Was it six yet? My alarm hadn’t gone off.

  I reached over and hit the button on my bedside table, the male voice in the machine saying loud and clear, “Two-thirteen a.m.”

  “Two-thirteen?” I breathed out, painfully awake now.

  I closed my eyes again, hoping to fall back asleep, but my brain was already working and assessing. The night was silent outside. No rain or wind, but we would probably get snow in the next month. I allowed myself a moment to feel wistful for it, but the weight of all our troubles descended again, and I wanted time to slow down, not speed up.

  I loved wintertime, though. And not because of my name. It was just a festive period, and happy things made me happy. I always decorated my room, because I could still feel the lights and the garland, hear the music from the snow globes, and smell the scent of pine. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to decorate this year. My pride was planted firmly, and I refused to make the best of this. Hopefully I wouldn’t be around for it anyway.

  Turning on my side, I adjusted the pillow under my head and stretched my legs out under the sheets, feeling the space, smooth and cold.

  Not warm.

  Wait. Where’s…

  “Mikhail?” I called out, popping my eyes open and my head up.

  The dog slept at my feet, but he wasn’t on the bed. I listened for the jingle of his collar as it did when he rose to answer me, but there was nothing.

  “Here, boy.” And I clicked my tongue a few times, calling him.

  He couldn’t have gotten out. I locked the door.

  Then I noticed the scent of something buttery and sweet, and I sat up, throwing the covers off. My heart picked up pace. She didn’t, I groaned to myself.

  I made my way over to my desk, my fingers grazing a ceramic pot with what smelled like tea and a small dish with a flaky croissant. My mother had broken in to leave me food.

  Christ.

  I walked over, finding my door open, thanks to her. Really, it was probably useless to lock it. If Damon lost the master key to all the rooms, he could, you know, just kick it down, but still… I couldn’t not lock it, so...

  I stuck my head into the hallway. “Mikhail?” I whispered.

  Nothing.

  I pinched my brows together. It wasn’t like him not to respond, and there was no way to get outside without someone to open the door for him.

  “Mikhail?” I whisper-yelled a little louder.

  I stepped out of the room and slipped quietly into the hallway, the floorboards creaking just a little under my weight.

  I rested my left hand on the bannister as I followed it around, the only sound being the tinkling of the crystals on the chandelier above as the draft seeped through the old house. Carpets laid softly under my feet, and the grandfather clock ahead of me and at the top of the stairs ticked steadily, the small noise amplifying how eerily quiet the house was in the middle of the night.

  I would’ve heard him bark or growl or felt his sudden movement in bed at least if something made him nervous, right? He was always alert. No one was here now except my mother, sister, and me.

  Trailing down the stairs, I held onto the railing with both hands as I took each step, and then I let go, walking carefully to the front door. I checked all the locks, making sure they were twisted into position.

  And then I heard a little whine to my right.

  “Mikhail?” I turned my head toward the sitting room.

  Walking over, I took small steps and reached the rug, feeling him rush up to me, his wet nose hitting my knee.

  “Hey, where did you go?” I teased, reaching down to pet him. “What…”

  The scent of a cigarette hit me, and I trailed off, my face falling.

  My stomach sank, and I stood up straight, my chest rising and falling, steady but quick.

 
; He’d had my dog.

  “Don’t touch him again,” I bit out.

  “He came to me.”

  Damon’s voice came from somewhere deep in the room, and I guessed he was probably in the high-back cushioned chair in the corner by the window. I pictured him sitting in the dark, the only light the small embers from the tip of his cigarette.

  I reached down to take hold of Mikhail’s collar.

  “You gave your dog a Russian name,” Damon mused.

  “I gave him a dancer’s name.”

  Mikhail Baryshnikov. I couldn’t help the fact that most of the revered ballet dancers were Russian. It had nothing to do with it being a fucking nod to Damon’s heritage.

  Just about to turn around and take my dog, I sensed him rise from his chair as the last of the cigarette smoke dissipated into the air. Keeping my dog close to me, I stepped back to the table against the wall and swiped the pen I knew sat there with a pad of paper for messages. I kept it in my hand, hidden behind my thigh.

  There was a time when he scared me, and I liked it. I didn’t like it anymore.

  “I don’t want to be here,” I told him. “I’ll find a way out. You know that.”

  I faltered for a moment, realizing this was the first time Damon and I had had any semblance of a conversation—albeit reluctant—since he went to prison five years ago. Any other interactions we’ve had have either been brief attacks or bitter threats in passing.

  “You have nothing to say?” I prodded.

  “No, I just don’t feel a need to respond.” His voice grew closer, and he took a drink of something, the ice in his glass clinking before he set it down on a table. “You can say and make whatever declarations you like, Winter, but ultimately you’ll do what you’re told. You, your mother, and your sister,” he pointed out. “You don’t run this house anymore.”

  “I’m an adult. I can go where I like and leave when I wish.”

  “Then why are you still here?”

  My lip twitched in a snarl, but I hid it quickly. His meaning was clear. Yeah, I could’ve tried to leave the other night. If I were willing to see my friend get arrested for something he didn’t do. He and his father had advanced on me, and I’d retreated, so the truth was, I couldn’t go and do as I pleased, could I? Not without consequences.

  “I do love your anger,” he said. “I’m glad it’s still there.”

  Yes, it is. My anger seemed to be all I had anymore, and I missed laughing and smiling and the freedom of who I used to be. Before he happened, and the threat of his inevitable return didn’t always linger. Would I have things of my own again? Could I even fall in love anymore? After him?

  “Ethan Belmont is the mediocre third son of a CEO of a failing coffee shop chain and a second-grade school teacher,” Damon said. “He spends his entire day locked in his parents’ house playing video games—”

  “Designing them, you mean—”

  “And sucking on an inhaler, because of pollen, or clutching an EpiPen, because peanut butter touched his bagel,” he went on. “He wouldn’t be able to haul his own body weight out of a burning car, let alone save his wife and kid.”

  And you would? Please.

  Damon Torrance didn’t save anyone but himself. Not that Ethan and I were seeing each other, but I’d choose him any day over Damon.

  “You need a proper man,” Damon taunted, his voice getting slowly closer. “Someone who walks upright and can run a tight ship. Someone who’s a team player in Thunder Bay. Someone who can make you listen. And someone,” his tone turned darker as he stopped right in front of me, “who’s not going to question too hard when not all of his children look like him.”

  I exhaled, hoping he didn’t see how my breath was shaking.

  I tightened my lips, now aware of his intentions. He intended to marry me off at some point like this was the nineteenth century.

  But he still intended to have his fun.

  “So, let’s go, then,” I challenged him. “What are you waiting for?”

  He leaned into my body, reached behind me, and wrestled the pen out of my hand. “For you to bring bigger dogs to this fight,” he gritted out through his teeth. “You can do better.”

  My face flushed hot, and my legs went weak. He tore the pen away from me and retreated. A moment later, I heard him light another cigarette as I fought to tighten every muscle in my body.

  “I will,” I told him. “And no matter what you do, I will never obey you.”

  “Please don’t,” he shot back, dropping the lighter on the table and blowing out smoke. “I have Arion for that.”

  His footsteps approached again, and I braced myself.

  “She’ll be useful,” he said. “On mornings when I wake up, and I’m hard, and I just need to get inside something tight and hot.”

  My jaw clenched just a little more. The image of him and my bed and one morning so long ago…

  I ignored the sting in my eyes. God, I hated him.

  “But at night,” he said, dropping his voice low and stopping right in front of me again, “when I always have too much energy, like you know I do, and I remember my mouth on a stomach, damp with sweat, and my fingers stroking a bare little cunt…”

  My heart thumped against my chest, the memory of how he felt making me pause.

  “Maybe I’ll find my way three doors down the hallway to her little sister’s room again,” he continued. “Slip her panties down her legs and start eating…”

  I shook my head, fighting the memories that raced through my mind. “I won’t let you have anything else from me,” I told him. “You raped me. And it wasn’t statutory rape. It was rape.”

  “I can see why you might want to believe that. Maybe you feel ashamed or guilty because you liked it.” He paused and then continued. “But be careful, Winter. I can still put you through quite a lot.”

  “Oh, I’m scared,” I shot back.

  There was nothing else for him to take.

  He stood there for a moment, quiet and still, but then his hard voice pierced the silence.

  “Mikhail?” he called.

  And I jumped.

  “Ke nighg-ya,” he said.

  What?

  My dog yanked out of my grasp and trotted away on the command.

  “What are you doing?” I darted forward. “Give me my dog.” And then I called, “Mikhail!”

  But I didn’t feel either of them near me now. Where did they go? What was that he said? Was that Russian? Mikhail didn’t know any commands in Russian.

  I heard the dog’s collar and tags jingle from a few feet away, and a lump filled my throat.

  “That’s a good boy,” I heard Damon coo to him. “He’s smart. He knows who his master is.”

  Mikhail went to him?

  “Mikhail,” I said. “Mikhail, come here.”

  “Now the question is…” Damon continued, and I heard him approach again. “Do I keep him or give him to my father. I haven’t kept a dog as a pet in years. Not sure I have the knack for it.”

  My nerves fired. “Give me my dog.”

  “You want him back?” he asked, getting closer. “Then beg me.”

  “Fuck you!”

  He grabbed the back of my neck, fisting my hair. “A dog is a dog and a bitch is a bitch,” he bit out. “Neither of you is very much use to the world, so I don’t care either way.”

  I planted my hands on his chest, trying to pull away.

  Mikhail.

  No.

  “Beg me,” Damon taunted. “Beg. Just whisper it. Just say please.”

  He couldn’t take my dog from me. What was he going to do to him?

  My face started to crack as I thought about Mikhail, and I wouldn’t know where he was or if he was okay. If he was hungry… Would Damon take him away?

  Damon kneaded my scalp, still gripping my hair. “Whisper it,” he said, his breathing turning ragged. “Whisper it like I did your name the morning they found me in your bed and arrested me, Winter. That’s all I want to h
ear. A little whisper.”

  His hand shook where he held me, and my stomach knotted so hard, I was in pain. Please stop. Don’t do this.

  “Killing him would probably be more merciful than giving him to my father,” Damon added. “He’s not good with dogs—”

  “Please,” I burst out, a tear falling. “Please just give me the dog back.”

  “On your knees,” he ordered.

  I closed my eyes.

  Goddamn him. He knew exactly what to do. Every time.

  I wanted to rip him apart.

  I hate him.

  But slowly, I lowered.

  I fell to my knees, my teeth clenched but still shaking as his hand stayed in my hair.

  “Please,” I whispered, closing my eyes in disgust at myself. “Please.”

  “Again.”

  “Please,” I begged.

  I waited for him to say something—to say I could have my dog back—but he just stood there, holding me by my hair.

  He just stood there.

  Was this what he wanted to see? Me degraded? Me scared?

  He loved me scared. It got him excited.

  I actually thought I liked it, too, once.

  And as the seconds passed, and he held me there as my heart thumped in my chest, it was like we were teenagers again for a moment.

  When I liked the games he played with me. Before I realized I was the toy.

  The terror and the dread. But the exhilaration and the safety I felt in his arms.

  How I’d never hated anyone as much as I hated him, but how I loved what I felt with him more than I loved anything I felt with anyone else, either. I was so stupid.

  His fingers started to move, caressing me so softly as his breathing turned heavy and strained. “Winter…”

  My clit throbbed once, and I broke, silently crying as shame heated my cheeks.

  What the hell had he done to me?

  He pulled me up, pushing my hair behind my shoulder and his voice suddenly normal.

  “Good girl,” he told me. “Of course, you can have your dog. Did you think I was a monster?

  I jerked away from his hands. “It hardly matters. You already ruined my life. Long ago.”

  “In the treehouse when you were eight,” he finished my thought for me. “I remember that party. It’s funny, though. That’s all you do remember, isn’t it?”