by Klara Raškaj
"He's only like this because he was raised by the overseers," she added. "Regardless of what he was born as, he's still a person. I've met that person, and there is honesty and innocence in him the likes I haven't seen in a long time." She walked over to the door and turned her head. "Behaving as everyone else doesn't make you normal. Any old wolf can put on white fleece and pretend to graze. Showbusiness is a breeding ground for eccentrics, and when you've worked in it for as long as I have, you come to realize that the most normal-seeming person acts that way because he has the most to hide." She opened the door and gave him a light smile. "I'm grateful you're trying to look out for me, darling. Really, I am."
"Nobody would fault you for abandoning him," said Edward. "Not even Moria. You don't have to do this."
"I know," she added with a sigh. "But I want to."
CHAPTER TWENTY
Come Play with Us
IT WAS TIME for the second test. Justine was standing in another one of the fortress's dark-lit rooms with four overseers, including Claude and Sombra.
"Where's Eddie?" asked Justine as she looked around with a soft smile.
Claude gave her a wide grin and strolled over to a darkened part of the room, then switches on the light, revealing an unconscious Moria strapped to an electric chair.
Though Justine's heart stopped for a moment, she tried her best not to show any signs of fear of uncertainty.
"This time, your task is to simply answer my questions," Claude explained. "If you answer truthfully, nothing happens. If you lie or refuse to answer, Moria gets electrocuted. Fairly simple to understand."
"Is that all?" Justine scoffed through a chuckle. "There must be something you're not telling me."
He then strolled over to her and gently rose her hand up as he placed his fingers onto the underside of her wrist. "Sombra will be doing the questioning while I monitor your pulse. You will be given six questions to answer, and regardless of how you do, the voltage will increase with each question. While vampires can't be killed this way, being exposed to electricity still leaves some...undesired consequences after a certain point."
Claude was incredibly proud of his restraint when it came to his sexual urges, but he seemed to have slipped up when she flirted with him during the first test. Justine was certain that she'd be able to break him and throw him off his guard if she persisted and got him suspecting she might actually see something in him. They may have been immortal vampires, but they were not gods. It was still possible to bring him to a breaking point. She just needed to figure out which buttons to push.
She turned her head and smiled at him. "You don't have to be so gentle with me, darling. I like it a little rough."
He raised an eyebrow as he gazed into her eyes. Then, he glanced back at Sombra.
"Let's begin, shall we?" said Sombra as the other two overseers gathered around Moria, one of their hands firmly placed on the lever on the wall beside the chair. "Question one: Do you have feelings for Moria?"
"Now that I think about it...maybe I do," she said. "It's all a little hazy right now."
"Would it be correct to say that your emotions forced you to come here against your will?" asked Claude.
Justine smirked. "Have you ever been in love, darling?"
He chuckled. "Yes, and it was absolutely dreadful."
"Well...maybe you just haven't found the right one," she told him. "If circumstances were different, I think I would have loved to explore quite a few things with you. You seem like the kind of man who would enjoy experimenting."
"Sombra, would you mind if I took it over from here?" asked Claude.
The other overseer bowed his head in compliance.
He then turned back to Justine with a sly grin. "You seem to be very fond of games," he said.
She shrugged. "Guilty as charged, darling."
He stepped behind her, then glided his free hand down her thigh and between her legs.
She looked down with an anxious gaze, squeezing her legs tighter together.
He let go of her wrist and instead wrapped his arm around her neck while his other hand continued to push its way through to her crotch.
She turned to him with a confused and worried gaze.
"Don't make faces like that," he said, pulling her closer by squeezing his arm tighter around her neck. "I thought you wanted to play. So, let's play."
She gulped as her face slowly sunk, reluctantly spreading her legs.
She had no idea her plan was going to backfire so horribly. She just wished she could have taken back everything she said.
Claude slipped his fingers between her thighs and massaged her pussy lips.
Though she refused to show she'd gotten any pleasure out of it, she couldn't stop her lips from swelling and her slit from getting wetter and wetter from his touches.
"Are you enjoying yourself?" asked Claude with a chuckle.
"No," she growled.
"Liar," he cooed.
One of the other overseers pulled the lever on the wall.
"N-no!" Justine shouted, panic rushing through her veins. "Wait!"
Buzzing echoed through the room as Moria's limp body trembled and jerked until falling limp again.
Claude chuckled. "Honestly, I'm offended that you would underestimate me this much."
"All right--you got what you wanted," she added. "Let go of me."
"Do you want me to stop?" he asked, pinching her swollen lips.
Justine turned away and closed her eyes shut, trying to force herself to think of something disgusting so she would stop getting so aroused. "Yes!"
Claude shook his head. "Wrong answer."
The hooded overseer turned up the voltage and pulled the lever again.
Blue sparks danced around Moria's trembling body. The buzzing rang through her ears.
She couldn't believe she'd made the same mistake again. Her heart could burst from seeing them hurt Moria again.
"I'm a little uncomfortable like this," Claude admitted. He pulled up a wooden chair and sat down with Justine in his lap. He pushed three of his fingers into her slit and glided them in and out.
She kept her head turned away from him, grunting from discomfort as he spread her lips when he pushed in a fourth finger.
No matter how much she tried to fight it, she couldn't stop her heart from beating faster and her chest from heaving. She despised both him and herself for it, but there was no denying how much her body was enjoying it. At this point, she was just hoping he wouldn't go any further than that.
"Do you want me to keep going?" he asked, rubbing her clitoris with his thumb.
She had no choice. She had to answer honestly or there was no telling what the amount of voltage they would have used on Moria now would do to him. "Y-yes..." she replied in a defeated tone.
"Smart choice," he told her with a chuckle. He leaned her head against his chest as he hunched over her and tried pushing his entire hand inside as he continued to thrust. "I'm glad you've finally decided to yield to reason."
She moaned and grunted through her teeth from the intense mixture of pain and pleasure that forced her inner walls to convulse. Once he managed to push his entire hand in, she screamed and grabbed a hold of his arm, digging her fingernails into his skin as she leaned her head back and he kept on thrusting.
"You're such a naughty little vixen, Justine," he cooed. "What would Moria think if he were to see you like this?"
She panted while moaning as pleasure slowly washed over her. "H-he'd kill you..."
"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that," said Claude with a chuckle.
She looked back at him with a wide smile, panting. "I said...he'd kill you."
He raised an eyebrow and pumped his hand into her, slowly but harshly.
She curled up and spread her legs further, her moans getting louder and louder as she closed her eyes shut. She was losing feeling in her limbs as her pleasure was reaching a crescendo.
"Oh, you poor girl," he said with a sigh. "I can
hear your heart...screaming. Are you going to come?"
She didn't want to. She tried her best to stop herself, but it was becoming far too difficult. He wasn't going to stop, and she was just barely holding on. She was almost there. Her chest was going to burst with heat. She couldn't. She shouldn't have. It was going to happen sooner or later, but she had to hold on. "Stop!" she shouted.
"Answer the question," he said.
"Stop it! Please!" she begged.
"Answer me!" he growled as he pressed his face against hers, their lips almost touching.
"Oh, has it been six questions already?" Sombra added with a smirk.
Suddenly, Claude stopped and turned to him, glaring at him while still keeping on a smile. "What did you say?"
"I'm afraid she's already answered six questions, dear brother," Sombra replied. "The test is over. She passed."
Claude paused for a moment, then slowly pulled out his hand and released Justine as he maintained eye contact with Sombra.
As he was standing up, Justine fell to the floor, panting and staring at the two with a confused gaze.
"What do you mean she's answered six questions?" Claude asked as he approached Sombra.
"I asked the first question, then you asked whether it would be correct to say that her emotions forced her to come here against her will, whether she was enjoying herself, whether she wanted you to stop, whether she wanted you to keep going, and what would Moria have thought if he were to see her like this. Those were six questions already. This would have been the seventh."
Claude's smirk widened. "So it would seem..."
Sombra walked over to Justine and helped her up. "Congratulations. You've passed the second test."
"T-thank you," she replied with a puzzled gaze.
Sombra then turned back to Claude. "I'll escort Miss Dietrich to the dining hall for a drink. I'm sure she's quite parched after you've given her such a difficult task."
"Yes, of course," said Claude with a slow nod. "I'll return Moria to his room, then."
Sombra offered his arm to Justine. "Shall we?"
She reluctantly wrapped hers around it and left the room with him.
"You'll have to excuse my brother," Sombra told her as they walked down the dark hallway. "He doesn't part with his favorite student lightly. However, it would seem that he's grown quite a strange fondness for you, nevertheless." He chuckled. "He never would have allowed himself to touch you in such a way if there wasn't a secret attraction for you lingering inside of him."
"Well, he can go to hell," said Justine in a stern tone. "He can do what he wants to me, but I'm not leaving here without Moria."
"I can't imagine what must be going through your mind right now. For a person of your status and lifestyle to be thrown into depravity such as this... It must be quite difficult. Yet...it doesn't seem to have broken you. Not yet, at least. I can see why Claude's become so fascinated with you."
"I don't care what happens to me as long as Moria's all right."
Sombra glanced at her with a smirk. "He's very lucky to have someone care for him with such passion. His mother died while giving birth to him, you see. He's never truly experienced a love so...dare I say...unconditional. You said your emotions for him hadn't settled yet, but... I think you've merely confused uncertainty with fear. But fear is a perfectly normal and rational response. Committing yourself to one person for the rest of eternity...a man you've known for only a few days, no less... And Moria...truly does instill fear into the hearts of both humans and vampires alike."
"I'm not afraid of Moria," Justine argued. "And he's no different than any of us."
Sombra sighed. "You know...Claude likes to talk about how the boys are his diamonds. He cuts and pressures them until they become beautiful and all the same...so that they may be worm with any kind of robe, no matter its colors. Diamonds must enhance what they are worn with, and they can only do so if they have nothing that makes them stand out. But...Claude has made one fatal oversight in this matter. Even if you cut every diamond the same way, there is one thing that will always make each one of them unique. Their luster..."
Justine stared at him in utter confusion.
"Though you may not have understood it until now, I believe it was exactly that which drew you to Moria. Humanity in us shines a gentle, comforting glow. But Moria's light is...blinding. I dare even say...as if it's not of this world. Behind closed doors, all those boys behave like regular young men. They talk normal, they act normal, and they try to do the best they can to cope with the life they were born into. Moria was always Claude's absolute favorite. The others were perfectly normal young men when they took off their masks. Moria... He is a mask. An exaggerated, grinning caricature of a face. We thought he didn't know the meaning of fear or individual thought. He obeyed without question. He was able to learn what his overseers wanted and how they wanted it done better than they themselves."
"When I found out what you actually did here, I thought all of the servants would be like him," said Justine. "I didn't think they would act like regular people when the overseers weren't around."
"If we'd have conditioned them to be like Moria, the majority would have snapped at one point...either by taking their own lives...or ours. By showing mercy amongst all our cruelty, it gives them a sense of relief and gratitude. When we are in danger, we seek out a place where we feel we can be safe. If we did not provide a sanctuary within our own walls, they would have sought it somewhere else."
"So, am I to assume you agree with Claude's insane philosophy?" she asked. "That men are better off with having no desires?"
"I used to...until I saw what it turned Moria into," Sombra confessed. "But...I am unable to be as strict with the boys as Claude, so, I play the role of a man they can trust to compensate for his lack of compassion." He looked at her from the corner of his eye. "Once again, providing safety within our own walls. We've never had a single servant ask to leave."
"Speaking of leaving... Moria sounded like he'd been my fan for years when I met him," Justine added and turned to him. "Claude doesn't seem like the type of person who would allow his prized creation to be exposed to mindless entertainment."
Sombra chuckled. "I...sometimes take the boys to the movies when Claude is out of town for errands," he admitted. "We were...actually there for one of your movie premieres."
Justine cocked her head back. "Really?"
He nodded. "Oh, yes." But then, his head sunk, though his smile remained intact as they continued to stroll through the vast network of hallways. "As expected, Moria was born with senses superior to those of his peers...but there was something else that made him even more special. We thought he was also born without desires, and that that was the reason for his odd behavior--why he always did whatever he was told, no matter how difficult of a request it was." He turned to Justine. "You see, a man develops many desires over the course of his life. Some bigger, and some smaller. But Moria wasn't born without them like we assumed...it's just that he had a single one...greater than any other." He sighed and continued to face forward. "Tell me...what would you have thought when you told a boy to put his hand on an open flame, and he kept holding it there with a grin from ear to ear even when tears ran down his cheeks and you could already smell the burning flesh?"
Justine's heart ached inside of her chest as she stared at the floor while walking. "I...would have thought that he was the perfect servant. He obeyed without question. Without regard for his own wants, needs, fears, or pain..."
Sombra nodded. "We thought the exact same thing... But, alas...we were wrong. In reality, that one desire of his was so great, it transcended fear itself. There was nothing he wouldn't have done for it. To be...noticed..."
Justine gazed at him with worry.
Sombra's smirk widened a bit. "What's strange is that... I completely understand him. He spent his whole life being taught to dress and behave like all the other trainees. It was only if they passed a certain level that they would have even receiv
ed a name. And when they'd graduate, we would allow them to have one possession they could own all to themselves. When you think about it...it was only a matter of time someone like him would come along. He was so desperate to be noticed in that sea of people that looked identical to him...that when he graduated...he chose that silly hat with batwings out of all the things we offered him...just so he could stand out." He smiled at Justine. "When the press speaks of you, they always mention your strangeness and charm. I believe that...he's become infatuated with you because you represent that one thing he desires most. When you walk into a room, everyone notices you. Everyone remembers you even if they've never met you. You're everything he wishes to be. But...I also believe it's because of your caring nature. You would make a wonderful mother. A mother he never had."
She rubbed her arms as she averted her sorrowful gaze. "I'm not as good of a person as you make me out to be. I want to help people, but the truth is...I only do it if I can do it from the comfort of my own home. I'm either too selfish or too much of a coward to spare some time and actually go help them in person."
"Justine..." he said with a chuckle. "Your problem is that you believe that doing anything less than changing the world is like doing nothing at all, so you don't even bother trying and only do that which is easiest. But you can't, and you don't have to change the world. You just need to change someone's world. And you have changed someone's world. Moria's."
Justine looked back at him with a light smile as her eyes were tearing up.
Sombra chuckled, approaching one of the wooden doors with her. "I am curious, though... What do you see in him that all the other women seem to have missed?"
Justine averted her gaze as she wiped her tears away. "He makes me laugh..." she replied and turned back to face him. "Why do you ask?"
Sombra smiled back at her as he opened the door to the dining hall. "Because he's my son."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
May I?
AFTER HAVING DRUNK some human blood in the dining hall with Sombra to quench her thirst, Sombra pointed her in the direction where the third trial would take place.