by Rae, Nikki
I shook the thoughts from what had just happened out of my mind and realized Mr. B was leading us up the stairs and back to my room—or his. I stopped, and he stopped beside me. “Is something wrong, Miss Fawn?” he asked.
My attempt to keep the images out of my head failed and all I could think about was every little detail. Had it really happened? Had Master Lyon truly meant what he’d said? Did I believe him?
Regardless of our feelings for each other—whatever they were now—deep within me, I knew I’d done the right thing in obeying up until now. If I’d fought, I would have shown them I was still dangerous. I would have disobeyed and been punished, most likely in front of the crowd.
I would have probably been able to buy myself time with Master Lyon while he adjusted my behavior and my transfer was pushed back yet again. At most, he would beat me mercilessly and hate me for delaying reuniting with his wife.
All of this made sense if I thought logically, but it was difficult to do so through the fog of anger hovering in front of me, painting everything a dull red.
“Are you cold?” he asked, a bit of his professionalism slipping.
My so-called Master enjoyed it when I obeyed him. He was against the Order yet had just taken pleasure from its symbols, its rituals, and beliefs that best fit his agenda. My Owner was a twisted, tortured man who had crafted me into whatever he needed out of the necessity of reaching his ultimate goal. This wasn't love he felt for me. I doubted now whether it was love I felt for him. We were both too tangled in the weeds of the Order to love anyone. All we could give each other were the thorns others had stuck in us. We'd been so damaged, scarred, and shattered that even if we knew how to express such a feeling, it would only seep out of the many cracks in our roots. We were too broken to hold anything for long.
I hadn't realized until now how hard I was shaking, and with my hands secured behind my back, it was impossible to make it stop. Unable to say anything, orders or not, I nodded.
His eyes searched my face in the dark and he made sure I was close enough to the wall in case I needed the support as he removed his jacket and placed it over my shoulders. He went the extra step to button it and his shoulders were big enough that the jacket completely covered all of the things I wanted to keep hidden.
“Better?” he asked.
I nodded again.
“It's all right.” Mr. B's soft voice was comforting; it showed me that someone cared enough to say those words right now.
I swallowed. “Can we go to the study?” My throat felt like it was filled with needles.
“I'm supposed to bring you to your room, Miss Fawn.” He urged me forward but I tensed and he stopped touching me.
“Are you...punished when you don't do as he says?” I asked.
I couldn't tell whether he was offended or saddened by the question. “No,” he said evenly. “I am not bound to Master Lyon by anything other than loyalty.”
Being punished for Master Lyon’s infractions made him bound to him too—whether he realized that or not. I didn't know what to say; I just knew that I didn't want to go back to my room or his. I wanted to go to his study, find something about him that connected me to the man I knew lived within him that he had to conceal—even looking at those photos again would ground me in the reality where I somehow survived this. I needed to be reminded there was some form of humanity in him; something that would redeem each dark thing he'd ever done.
“Please,” I begged with no emotion. “Don't take me to my room, Marius.”
His real name had slipped out of my mouth but I didn't regret saying it. I needed to see him as human, too. I wanted him to see me.
He seemed to need to hear his name as well. His gaze grew more intense, as if testing out the word in his mind. Finally, he turned, hand on the back of my shoulder and pivoting me so we were heading back down the few stairs we'd already taken. I was so overcome with the fact that he'd actually listened to me that I couldn't even form the words to thank him.
Marius didn't seem to need my gratitude and we were both silent as we retraced our steps back into the foyer and then down the hall to Master Lyon's study. Sooner than I had imagined, we were standing in front of the stained glass door. I had an odd new appreciation for the flowers gilded in glass, unreal and unable to grow. I wondered if I would become like these flowers one day. Would I build a shell so thick that others would only see one of the facets that made up the person I could have been?
As Marius produced a small keychain from his trouser pocket, he turned the right key in the lock and opened the door. I was happy to step into the room and have the image out of sight. Once he was sure my balance was even, he stepped away for a second to shut the door behind us. Finally, I felt like I could breathe again.
It was black in the study before Marius flicked on the lights. Even so, he dimmed them just enough to make it comfortable. I felt more concealed without the full force of the lights. Though I was completely alone with Marius, I'd never been afraid of him—he'd never given me a reason to be.
“I need to remove the jacket in order to untie you.” Something in his voice had changed. It sounded as if the armor he wore to protect himself could be shed now that I'd said his name.
He waited for my nod of approval before his fingers found the button securing the jacket and slipped it off my shoulders as if pulling back a delicate bandage covering a wound.
Marius seemed like he didn't know where to start as I stared back at him expectantly. After a moment, he said, “I think it would be best if you sit on the floor.” He busied himself, taking the pillows off one of the leather chair I’d sat in less than a few hours ago. “There we are,” he said to himself before helping kneel and then sit so I was on top of it.
Gently, he gathered my hair with one hand and tied it with something so it was no longer sticking to my skin. He sat behind me as I let my legs lay flat before me, relieved I wasn’t on my feet anymore.
“I'll have you out of these in a moment.” Marius still sounded like himself, just more serious, deeper in thought than before. Some of the rope around my wrists loosened and he had only just begun.
I sniffled, resolved not to cry until I was completely alone.
“You've done this before.” My voice was raspy.
I felt him tug on something and the rope wrapped around my left shoulder slackened. “I have.”
I gulped down the tears emerging from the depths of my stomach. “How many girls has he done this to?”
“No,” he was quick to correct. “No others. I've untied Mas—Elliot—many times.”
It was as if all of the breath had been sucked from my lungs. I was so torn over whether to hate my Owner, forgive him, condemn him, or love him that it was hard to inhale.
We were silent a long time then. He loosened each rope, and they fell away. Feeling too vulnerable, I tried to kneel so I could stand and sit on the chair, but a gentle hand urged me back down.
“You don't want to move just yet,” he said, keeping his hand in place until my muscles relaxed. “You were bound in the same position for a long time,” he continued, slowly unclamping my tensed fists that had been clenched the majority of the evening.
He gently brought life back into my fingers by massaging them, then moved on to my wrists, which were sensitive in all the areas the rope had been. “Just close your eyes and try to relax,” he said as his hands found their way up my forearms. It was only now I realized they'd cramped and what he was doing with his deceptively strong hands eased any pain. It should have made me uncomfortable, him touching me in such an intimate way while I wore basically nothing, but I found my muscles surrendering and my breath evening out.
While part of me wished it was Master Lyon soothing what he'd hurt, Marius' touch was comforting without the confusion. He had no interest in Owning or punishing me. Marius was just one more flower choked in the weeds of the Order. He had survived by caring for others when he was helpless in every other aspect of his life.
; “Everything you've endured,” he said quietly, “Elliot has as well.”
His palms smoothed my shoulders, carefully moving my arms so they lay at my sides. He paid extra attention to the back of my neck, where everything felt tightest. “It doesn't make any of this right,” he added, “but trust that he always does the best he can with what he has been given.”
He helped me sit up, placing his jacket over me again, which I held close with loose, tired fingers.
“He's a lot like you in that respect, Fawn.” Marius gave me a sad smile before standing. Part of me didn't want him to leave, but I also wanted to be alone.
“I know you're hurt,” he said, pausing by me as I crawled the few inches to the chair and lowered myself into it. “I can't imagine how much he has hurt you, but try to remember he's been hurt too.”
I snorted and his eyes zeroed in on me as if appalled I would find anything in that fact funny. “So I'm supposed to forgive him for putting me through hell because he's gone through similar things?”
He slowly shook his head as if I should have understood what he was trying to say by now. “You cannot see it, Fawn,” he said quietly. “He's had to hide every true emotion he's ever felt from a very young age. He became so good at it because it was the only way to survive this world, but it hurts him to lose you, to subject you to all of this and transfer you to that monster.”
I shook with the force of holding back furious tears. Even if it was true, that didn't make anything better.
All three of us—four if we counted the woman who would take my place—were helplessly locked in place on the game board, unable to move forward or back until our opponent took their turn.
Marius stepped towards the door, but stopped with his hand against the wooden frame. He turned to me, expression almost transparent and as sad as I'd ever seen it. “We aren't leaving you there,” he said and I had to blink a few times. “If you don't believe Elliot, I'm asking you to believe me.”
It took him what felt like a long time to open the door and silently shut it behind him.
It wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, but his promise held almost enough conviction to convince me. That I knew of, Marius could have left at any time—he wasn't tied to anyone besides my Owner, and that too seemed to be by choice. He didn't want to add one more branch to the Order's tree, but he wanted to stand by, ready to sever it from the roots when the time was right. There was no guarantee Master Lyon wouldn't forget me the second his wife was safe. I trusted Marius more when it came to such a promise. Even though my Owner always meant what he said, it didn't mean he couldn't change his mind once I was gone.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to grasp the calmness Marius had infused into my muscles. Master Lyon had no problem submitting me to the scrutiny of House Wolf and who knew how many others. He didn't mind sharing me with a woman I'd never met and making me watch them have what I never could with him.
I was replaceable. I would be replaced. I should have let the pain fade now, before I started to believe in the ridiculous idea that we were capable of love.
The black leather photo album was still there, on the table. It was in my lap before I’d fully made the decision to pick it up. The spine creaked when I opened it straight to the page I’d seen before of him and Marius. My finger grazed the full, happy cheek of my Owner’s face as a child. Then I did the same with the sullen little boy at the table. All that his Owner had done to both of them, and they still hadn’t come far from where they started, had they?
Something in the photo made me uncomfortable, as if it had been infused with everything going on outside of frame, and I had to close it. Maybe it hadn’t been the best idea to come here after all.
Master Lyon strolled into the room with a tray, setting it down on the desk without acknowledging me. I closed the album, but my fingers wouldn’t give up their grip around its edges. The sound of pouring liquid made me look up without meaning to and I watched as Master Lyon poured steaming water into a teacup from a silver teapot. Once it was full, he finally glanced in my direction as he came to where I sat and set the cup on the table in front of me.
“It's peppermint,” he explained. “It always used to help me.”
I didn't touch his flimsy peace offering and averted my eyes to the light green liquid in the cup.
“You know,” he said after a while, and I heard him sip from his own cup in the chair across from me, “if you had gone back to your room as I'd instructed Marius, you could be wearing your own clothes right now.”
He leaned forward and tried to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear but all I could see was him performing the same action on Mia not an hour ago and I flinched away.
My Owner didn't try to touch me again as he contemplated a few moments. “You do look cute wearing his though,” he added, sipping more tea.
“Glad to please you, sir.” my words were laced with venom and I wanted to strike him harder. “So grateful you could have given me an ounce of the pain you experienced. And thank Marius for explaining everything so I understand that when you hurt me, it means you love me.” By the time I'd finished the thought out loud, I'd become overly sarcastic, on the verge of laughing and crying.
I cut myself off and remained silent. It didn't matter what I said; it would change nothing.
“You're upset.” He didn't bother to frame it as a question. “Here.” He headed back to the desk to slide something else off the try. When he sat back down, a plate of pretty little square cakes were on the end table separating us. “Are you dizzy?”
I didn't want him to pretend to care. I didn't want him trying to bribe me with his pitiful excuse for an apology.
“Are you not going to look at me, Doe?” he asked.
I didn't answer, the golden Chimera and its three heads laughing at me from the closed album he hadn’t bothered to mention. He'd already dragged enough out of me for one evening. He became a child, unable to cope with the silent treatment. He went so far as to lean downward in an attempt to get me to look at him, but I wouldn't give in.
“You're allowed to speak freely now,” he said. “You can talk to me.”
What was the purpose? So I could expose more of my own weaknesses so he could exploit them whenever it suited him?
He sighed and I fought a smile at his frustration but then he had grabbed one of my shoulders. I heard him inhale as he was about to say something but I made him lose his train of thought by tossing my tea into his lap, cup and saucer spinning off the edge of the table.
Master Lyon hissed and let go, standing to brush himself off and perhaps take in what I’d done. Now I looked up at him with confidence despite the fact that I was probably going to be beaten for it. I didn't care about the pain he would cause me. He'd hurt me in worse ways. It was an extra benefit to infuriate him when he found his threats meant nothing to me anymore.
In a manner of seconds, he'd snapped his hand into my hair like a snake catching its prey in sharp teeth, tugging me painfully out of the chair and giving me no choice but to follow him the short distance to the desk. “I've tried being patient with you, Doe,” he growled as my hip slammed into the corner of the desk. I gasped but he didn't seem to care. “Hands,” he ordered and I refused to listen. I wasn't going to make things easy for him anymore. I'd done him enough favors.
He sighed again, but it sounded more guttural. He let go of my hair so he could position my arms himself. He swiftly ripped off the jacket and threw it to the floor. Then he gripped both hands in one fist as his fingers resumed digging into my scalp. He held me in such a way that it jutted my chest out and reawakened all the aches I'd forgotten. The diamonds crackled against each other as he bent me over the smooth surface, craning my neck backwards until it was hard to breathe.
“I've been far too lenient with you.”
Out of all the things I could have done in retaliation, a laugh escaped my mouth. At first, I tried to muffle it because I didn't see anything funny right now, but I couldn't stop. What had
started as a wispy sound emanating from my chest turned into fully formed, nearly hysterical laughter.
“I see nothing humorous here,” he growled before he pushed my head against the desk, still keeping his hands around my wrists so my entire backside was sticking up in the air. “You're lucky that wasn't as hot as what's in the kettle,” he said, trying his best to sound like he was unaffected by my outburst. He thought he'd tamed me; he was wrong.
My laughs had quieted down but this brought them back in full force. I imagined his facade crumbling as the foundation of his plans began to as well. I was done complying. I was done hurting. I would wall off that part of myself from now on, never to tear it down.
“Stop it,” he said through gritted teeth. If he was trying to intimidate me, he failed. Even with the threat in his voice, I wasn't afraid. He would beat me, then the beating would stop. I would heal. Other things weren't so easy to walk away from without scars.
My laugh died in my throat as his hand came down hard on my rear end. I felt the sting. I knew it should hurt, but the warmth and tingle that usually accompanied pain was outside of myself, and I watched someone else endure this instead of me. I could imagine what it felt like vividly, but it was nothing compared to the real thing. I smiled silently, unable to conceal my joy.
He didn't have to own any part of me I didn't give him, and I was done handing over pieces of myself.
Without warning, he spun me around, stealing the air from my lungs as if he’d punched me in the stomach. “Look at me,” he said, suddenly going quiet.
I refused.