by Box Set
“Kick back?” he asks with a tilt of his head to me.
“It’s the backward recoil of the gun from the forward momentum of the bullet. So when the bullet comes out, the gun will push back toward you.”
“I understand.” He nods and focuses all his attention back onto the weapon in his hands.
“When you’re ready, press down on the trigger and let’s see what happens.”
I step back, but not too far. I want to be ready to catch him and deflect the gun should he lose his grip on it. It’s always a risk, but better I get shot than he ends up accidentally shooting the Pakhan. I pause on that thought. My foot itches to take another step away from the boy who is about to fire his first weapon, but then commonsense takes over, and I remain in my position.
I wait – silence fills the range as the other soldiers watch, and the Pakhan sits on the edge of his seat.
Bang.
The gun goes off. The boy is thrust backward but maintains his footing, so I don’t have to catch him. I follow the path of the bullet as it shatters the board close to mine.
Shit!
The boy’s a natural.
He flicks the safety back on the gun, and keeping it pointed at the targets, he offers it back to me. I take it and return it to the table.
“Was that good?” he asks, his face expectant with a need for praise.
“It was perfect for a first attempt.” I turn to the Pakhan. “A natural.”
“His father is one of my best marksmen. I’m not surprised. He has an eye for it.”
“I’ll get him started on the training plan,” I inform my boss and bow to him, so I can take the boy away to the dorms.
“Wait,” the Pakhan orders, and I stop.
“Sir?” I question.
“I want one more test first.”
The blood in my body runs cold. One more test. I fear those words. The Pakhan waves his fingers in the air, and two soldiers drag a man from out of a wooden shelter. He’s struggling against them. My stomach drops, for I know what comes next. My father’s eyes pop into my head. The recollection of him telling me to do as I was told. I feel as though I can’t breathe – my chest is tight.
“Pakhan, sir.” The boy’s trembling voice penetrates the panic attack I’m gripped in.
“I think Oliver will be best to explain. He was in exactly the same position when he came here. I know he’ll be able to help you show your loyalty to me.”
The man being dragged by the soldiers is thrown to his knees in front of us.
“Please, Pakhan, I didn’t do what they’re accusing me off. I promise you. I’m loyal. I would never want to see anyone from your family hurt,” the man whimpers. His eyes red, raw from where he’s obviously been crying.
“Do you know who this is?” the Pakhan asks the boy.
“No, sir,” he replies.
“This man told the person who did those wicked things to your sister where to find her.”
“No, I promise you. I swear at your feet it wasn’t me,” the man pleads and tries to reach for the Pakhan’s leather shoes to no doubt kiss and worship them. I’m just trying not to empty the contents of my stomach in front of everyone as I’m engulfed by the memory of the day my parents died.
The boy’s eyes flick back to the gun he just fired, on the table.
“You want to kill him,” the Pakhan sneers.
“My sister was badly hurt. She sits in her room crying all the time. She’s covered in bruises. I couldn’t protect her.” The boy’s voice has changed now. It seems deeper than before – the innocence of youth has gone.
“But you can avenge what was done to her?”
“I can?”
“Yes.”
I pick the Glock 19 back up off the table and hand it to the boy. I’m robotic in nature, at this point. My mind and body are at odds with what is happening. The loss of another childhood to the menace of the Russian mafia. I don’t need to prime the weapon this time. The boy learns fast and does it himself.
“My sister was hurt because he told someone where she was?” the boy questions one final time to make sure he has the facts set out correctly in his mind.
“Yes,” the Pakhan replies in a voice so cold and calculating I can’t help my feet from turning and walking away. I need to be anywhere but here. It’s only when I reach the edge of the training field and the sound of the pistol echoes through the still air that I allow the contents of my stomach to spill from my mouth.
10
AMAYA
“Get off her.” I scratch my nails down the face of the guard who is dragging Rea from her bed. He turns around and sends a punch into my face, knocking me off my feet and onto my ass on the marbled floor.
“Amaya, help me,” Rea screams as the men continue to try and detach her from the bed. Her hands are gripped tightly to the post – the whites of her knuckles show as her fingers curl around the brass pole.
“Come on. You know this is happening whether you like it or not. Can’t have you getting fat and wasting precious time when the Pakhan could be sticking his dick in your pretty little cunt,” one of the guards says, and she bites down on his hand when he puts it near her face. “Bitch,” he yells and backhands her.
I launch at the other guard and try to wrestle him to the ground, but I’m nowhere near strong enough.
“Stop.” The commanding order comes from the door, and we all stop what we are doing, which in my case is thumping the back of the man mountain guard whose back I’m on top of. The Pakhan stands at the entrance to the room with his face full of fury. His eyes are black as coal, and his lips are pursed so tightly together you’d need a crowbar to open them. “Rea, go with the guards.”
“Please,” she whimpers. “Please. I’ll do anything you want.”
“This is what I want.”
“No. Not this, anything but this.”
The Pakhan strides purposefully across the room, his eyes narrowing in on Rea. He grabs her face in a bruising grip.
“You do as I say, or I’ll have no further use for you. You’re nothing but a place for me to stick my dick. You don’t need a womb. You won’t ever have children, so we’ll get rid of the problem. Of course, if you don’t want that to happen, I could always hand you over to all the soldiers in the mess tonight and let them fuck you so hard that the baby has no chance of surviving. I doubt you’ll live through the night, either.” He pushes her back against the bed, and she loosens her grip on the posts. I drop down from the back of the guard.
“Please, it’s a part of you.”
“A part I don’t want, if it’s mine.” He spits in her face, and I see the hope she had, previously, die behind her eyes. “Take her,” the Pakhan orders, and this time she doesn’t protest.
“Please, sir,” I try to plead with him as well. “Rea will make a good mother. She will nurture a part of you to be a great solider for your cause.”
He stalks toward me and wraps his strong hands around my shoulders and pins me to the wall.
“Don’t you ever question my authority again. There’s a reason you whores don’t have children and only my wife does. The kids you lot would put out there in the world are inferior, having none of the breeding of my proper children. They’ll cause problems. You’re nothing but toys to me.” He moves one of his hands down my body toward my clit and starts to stroke it. “A play thing to my needs. If I want my dick sucked, you open your mouth wide and take it. If I need an asshole to rip, you’ll scream loudly for me. And if I need a pussy for all my friends to pound, then you open your fucking legs and pray that the agony will end soon.” His stroking is getting harder and faster. My traitorous body reacts to the stimulation, and I can feel the heat building at my core. I’m trying to stop it, but I can’t. He’s playing my body like it doesn’t even belong to me anymore. I’m going to come, and I can’t do anything to stop it. He pushes hard again, and I come with a scream of disgust. I break in that moment. I’ve been strong for so long, but I can’t do this anymo
re. I finally understand why my friend Filipa took her own life. It was the only option left to her to end the suffering.
He lets go of me, and I drop to the floor because my legs will no longer hold me. Tears stream down my cheeks
“You think that is humiliation? Then, think again. I have a party next week for ten close associates, all looking to gain favor with me. But first, they’ll want to sample the delights I have to offer, and you’ll be the star attraction. One after the other, they will have their turn with you while we all look on. You’ll be left bleeding and raw. Your views of being better than you are, destroyed.”
He kicks me in the stomach to hammer his words home, and then he punches me in the face before wrapping his hands around my hair and dragging me along the floor back to my room. More punches follow, and I’m on the verge of blacking out. My head is spinning. I can taste the blood in my mouth. The Pakhan steps back and pulls a cigarette out of his pocket. He lights it up and places it between his lips before he rips open the front of my dress.
“You’re the lowest of the low. If you ever question my authority again, I’ll feed you to my dogs.”
He pulls the cigarette from his mouth and stubs it out on the flesh of my naked breast just as the darkness claims me.
“Amaya.” A deep masculine voice enters my head a short time later. Before I open my eyes, I feel myself being picked up and carried. I want to struggle, but my body aches. Every muscle screams, sending waves of agony to my very soul. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way before. “It’s alright. I’ve got you,” the voice speaks again, and I feel myself being lowered onto a bed. It envelopes me in its comfort, and I let out a moan of contentment as my pain is cradled away in the arms of a soft mattress. Lips press against my forehead, and I instantly recognize the warmth of them. My eyelids flutter open, and I see Oliver leaning over me. Concern mars his handsome features.
“What happened?”
“The Pakhan,” I reply weakly. “He came for Rea.” I remember my friend and try to scramble from the bed, intending to seek her out and check that she’s alright.
“She’s not back yet.”
“You knew what they were going to do to her?” I freeze and stare at him. The memories of the last time he was in this room, marking me as his, jolt inside my head. The argument that followed leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I promise you. I had suspicions of what might happen, but I’ve not been involved in this. The Pakhan had another task for me.” He runs his hand tenderly over my face and down to my breast. I look to see where the skin is inflamed and red from the burn. “He did this?”
I nod. “I tried to stop them taking her. She was so terrified. They’re going to stop her from being able to fall pregnant again.”
“It’s for the best.” I try to protest, but he puts his fingers to my mouth. “This is no world for a child.”
I can’t argue with him on that score. I fully take in his appearance for the first time since I woke up. He looks tired – there are dark shadows under his eyes, and his jaw is displaying the start of a beard.
“What did the Pakhan make you do?” I’m not sure where the question comes from. I just have a feeling, looking at him, he’s been defeated. He’s was so proud and confident before, but now…now he looks like a child trying to fit in with the big boys.
“You don’t want to…” He starts to distract me, but I place my hand on his square jaw and will him to be honest with me.
“Please. Give me the thoughts in your head.”
“Amaya, you’ve just been beaten. I should be looking after you.”
“This is nothing,” I lie. Apart from the permanent burn scar on my breast, the other physical wounds will heal, but mentally, I know my life is over.
He leans forward and presses his lips to my forehead, again. I allow him to take comfort from me while I can give it. Now, I understand where he is coming from. He doesn’t know anything different from this life. It’s been beaten and inducted into him since he was a child. He’s a programmed killer. A robot controlled by the Pakhan. His emotions are buried so far beneath the surface he’s forgotten that he’s allowed to have them. Even love can no longer rescue him. That’s his curse to face for eternity.
“He brought his nephew here. He’s eight, the same age I was. I thought he looked so similar with the nerves, and the worry behind the eyes, but he wasn’t. Having showed him how to shoot, they brought a grass out. The man had told the rapist of the boy’s sister where to find her.” He drops his head so that it rests in my hand. “The boy shot him. Right in the center of the forehead. He didn’t miss.”
“He’s one of them even at that young age. He’ll be a monster before adulthood.”
“He became the monster, today. The moment you take another’s life, all humanity within you dies.”
“Oliver,” I breathlessly utter his name. It sounds heavenly in this world full of pain and suffering. He looks up at me. Tears fill his eyes – they make me gasp. The man in front of me is breaking down. I want to reach out to comfort him further, but I know that the second I do he’ll push back against me, and I’ll lose him as he retreats into the darkness of his mind.
“I want you to take the bad memories away from me.”
“What?”
I compose myself with a slow intake of air.
“Make love to me. Be my first. Don’t fuck me. Show me how good it can be. Show me that there is some goodness in this world.” Tears start to stream down my cheeks.
“Amaya, I don’t know if I can.”
“Please, show me love before I leave.”
“Leave?”
I place my hand over my heart where the burn marks lies on my breast.
“I’m to be handed over to the Pakhan’s gathering next week. Ten men. I can’t do it. This has to end tonight. Give me a good memory to leave this world with.”
11
OLIVER
Amaya’s words have me stumbling over what to think, what to feel, or what to say. There’s nothing I can say to her. Not when I know she won’t suffer any more if she chooses this path. I want to help her, to take her from this place, but I can’t. I can’t see anything beyond these walls. I’m not able to believe there is any other life than this one. I dreamed of escaping for so many years when I first came here, but I know that can never be. The thought of what would happen to Amaya if we are captured is stopping me. Death is preferable to life. In the world we live, death is the only way out.
The beautiful angel in front of me is crying, pleading with me to show her how love can be. I shut my eyes, remembering my parents. The love my mother had for me, the songs she sang to me at bedtime, and the crazy antics of us baking together. My father playing football with me – both of us kicking the ball and chasing it around the park on a Sunday morning. The aspirations they had for my future. The affection between them. The way my father would look at my mother, frequently kissing her on the lips, just to reassure her he was there. My mother’s little gifts for my father – small things such as notes with promises to love him forever. That is love – love for a partner and love for a child. That’s what I need to give Amaya right now. I open my eyes and press my lips against hers. I’ll take this slowly, tenderly. This will not be fucking her – this will be worshiping her. Showing her that she’s worth everything I could give her in the world.
I push her back against the bed being careful not to hurt her.
“Lay down,” I order, and she obeys. Her eyes soften at the edges.
I kiss her lips and work my way across her jawline and down the slender column of her neck. I’m not using my teeth like I would normally. I’m just tasting the saltiness of her flesh, savoring the smell of the perfume, and denying my brain the power of retribution every time the metallic taste of blood enters my senses. Now isn’t the time for that. Before I leave this life, I will end the Pakhan for what he has perpetrated here, but it’ll not be today. I need to ensure Amaya is safe
in heaven before that happens. I blow a warm breath of air over her injured left breast, I don’t want to touch the burned flesh for fear of hurting her further, but the right breast I draw into my mouth and suck on her nipple until it pebbles.
She lets out a breathy moan that has my dick hardening in my track pants. I circle my hips against her leg, letting her know how much I want to be between her thighs. Reaching up, she places her hands around my face, and brings it toward hers.
“Taste me,” she whispers and looking down between us, I know she means her pussy. I press a kiss to her lips, and she releases my head. I trail a path to her pussy, which is still covered by her panties, and I lower them down her body. She lifts a leg to allow me to slip them off and drop them to the floor. Her arms are still in the dress she wears, but it’s been ripped open at the front, allowing me to see all of her.
“Take away what he did to me. Make me want to come. Don’t rip it from my body. Allow me to give you my special gift – the sound of my moans, and the taste of me.”
A growl of anger slips from my throat. I dip my head between her open thighs to clean every inch of his touch away from her body. My tongue parts her folds, and I find the bundle of nerves he dared to violate. They are mine. I flick my tongue over them, and Amaya allows another encouraging moan to flow from her lips. Her little noises are all the encouragement I need, and I savor everything her feminine form has to offer – the sweetness of her essence as it flows in desire from her. I slide one finger into her, purposefully, but not with enough force to leave her burning in pain, and I stroke her velvety insides. Another finger joins the first and Amaya clamps down on me when I flick my tongue over he clit again.
“I’m not going to take this from you, Amaya. You have to want to give it to me. I’ll help you get there, but only if it’s what you want.”