Everyone’s Favorite Girl
Book Three in the YFG Series
Kindle Edition
by
Steph Sweeney
This is a work of fiction. All names, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author.
Copyright © Steph Sweeney, 2013
The author can be contacted at
[email protected]
Stay updated with Steph and her ramblings at
www.stephsweeney.com
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Twitter Handle: @StephErotica
THIS BOOK CONTAINS EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT
IT IS INTENDED FOR ADULTS ONLY
Please store adult content where it cannot be accessed by minors.
Everyone’s Favorite Girl
-A Memo—
TO: Shriver, Patton
Shriver, Sean
FROM: Shriver, Gene
DATE: 09/22/2013
SUBJECT: New directives, effective immediately.
The following orders are to be carried out immediately upon receipt of this memo:
i. All pre-production Favorite Girls age ten or older will be escorted to the Level A warehouse at eight a.m. Monday through Friday for training in assembly, packing, and shipping, and work thereafter. This excludes all Doll Girls.
ii. Melissa Reed is hereby confined to her room until the completion of her training as production manager. No staff members are permitted to enter the room, and her telephone access remains limited to the service number for ordering food, toiletries, and other common necessities.
iii. Patton Shriver is hereby confined to Level D, where he will care for the pre-production Favorite Girls not approved for work. He is not permitted to contact Melissa Reed at any time, with the exception of his participation in Ms. Reed’s training.
Signed,
Mr. Shriver
-Whispers in My HeadI AWOKE to the sound of the door opening and shot up out of bed like a weed to find Sean leading Kate into the room.
“Hi Melissa!” Kate said, dangerously cheerful. She wore a loose-fitted hospital gown, a ghostly image in the dark. Her muscles must have atrophied because she shuffled like an old woman as Sean led her slowly to the kitchen table, where she struggled to sit.
Sean left without so much as looking at me.
I could see Kate’s hands shaking as she held onto the back of the chair to shift herself around to face me.
“So … how are things?”
Atrophy or no, she still had enough energy to be a snarky bitch. My worst nightmare, back from the dead.
I climbed out of bed and wandered over to the table, exhausted from dreams of Brian cackling at me with a knife stuck in his bloody, puss-filled eye socket. I didn’t want to talk to her, but I hoped sitting close would inspire her to keep her voice down. Flora was still sleeping.
“Looks like you made it,” I said dryly. The seat was cold on my bare legs. I should have grabbed a robe.
Kate gave me a big smile. “I’m sure you were hoping for a different outcome.”
I nodded.
Her smile faded instantly and she sat staring at me with a detached look about her. Scraggly, greasy hair, dark bags under her eyes, a shiny red pimple on her left cheek. She’d lost a significant amount of weight for having gone into her coma a size zero. She looked like complete and utter shit.
You have to take pleasure in the small things.
“So what now?”
Kate shrugged. “I heard what happened. Sean told me everything. I won’t lie—the second I woke up I did everything I could to talk them into killing you.” She rolled her eyes. “But I guess they have other plans. So here we are!”
Lucky for me, the person who would have argued in Kate’s favor was now dead.
Brian.
And now that I was confined to my room, unable to leave, unable to work, unable to communicate with anyone, my fate was pretty much sealed. They were going to hold me here until they’d leeched every dime from Ted’s bank account, and then they were going to kill Flora and me both.
So what did it matter now? My life was already over, this room just a fancy cell on death row.
“Here we are,” I repeated with a long sigh. “Roommates once again.”
“Uh-uh, nope.”
She was grinning, and in that grin I could see she was about to share something devastating.
“You’re kicking me out?”
Kate shook her head. “I’m only here to pack up my things.”
“Where are you going?”
She shrugged playfully, still sporting that shit-eating grin.
My heart sank.
“Patton needs a new assistant,” Kate said, “and Mr. Shriver thinks it’ll be easier for everybody if I move into Patton’s apartment. I can’t very well work with Patton and live with you. That makes me a contact between the two of you. Mr. Shriver made it perfectly clear you and Patton are never to speak to each other again.”
She reveled in her words, knowing how much they were hurting me. I burst into tears, covering my face both in shame and so I didn’t have to look at her.
“Look at the little baby crying,” Kate said.
Normally a mocking comment like that would send a healthy shot of adrenaline through my system and I would attack—verbally, if the bitch was lucky, though most likely physically—but something was wrong. I felt paralyzed. No, more like tied down to the chair.
“Don’t throw a hissy fit,” Kate said. “That was supposed to be my job anyway. I’ve been in love with Patton for years, Melissa. When you came here, I did everything I could to help you, and look how you repay me. You steal the promotion I was next in line for, then you try to kill me so you can take Patton, too?”
Lies. I never chose that job, and I never tried to kill her—consciously, at least.
I shook my head slowly, locking eyes with her and fighting to speak through the tears. I still couldn’t move. “He never loved you, and he never will.”
Kate stuck her hand in the big pocket of her hospital gown and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She tried to hand it to me, but I couldn’t lift my arm.
“Oh well,” she said, snatching it back.
“What does it say?”
She put her hands on the table and pushed herself out of the chair. I was certain when she let go she would fall over, but she didn’t—at least not at first. Somehow she managed to hobble halfway across the room. The suspense of anticipating her fall distracted me from realizing she was headed to the bed, where Flora was still asleep.
Then suddenly she fell slowly and softly to the floor and cried out so loud Flora sat up in bed. She was faking.
I started to feel panic welling inside me. I really couldn’t move. At all.
Flora jumped out of bed and came over to help Kate.
“Flora, don’t,” I said.
I couldn’t tell if Flora was ignoring me or couldn’t hear me over Kate’s crying. She helped Kate to the bed and sat down next to her, rubbing her back and holding her hand. Only then did she look at me, her brow curled, clearly upset that I didn’t offer Kate any help.
“Flora, come over here,” I said.
Kate leaned over and whispered something to Flora. I couldn’t make it out, but for the first time ever Flora cast me a cold glare.
“She doesn�
�t like me,” Kate said aloud. “I don’t know why. She was so nice for the longest time, and all of a sudden she turned against me.”
“Bullshit!” I screamed. “Flora, don’t listen to her!”
But Flora’s glare persisted, and she began to shake her head. “I thought you were a nice person, Melissa. Why didn’t you help her? Even if you don’t like her. If someone falls, you help them up. You don’t just sit there in a chair.”
“I can’t get up,” I said, trying once again, to no avail.
Did she drug me? But how?
Flora rolled her eyes, and a lump formed in my throat. Her sudden change in personality was so surreal, so unexpected. It was like having the ground cave in under you, something so reliable you take it for granted.
“You have to get away from her, Flora,” Kate said. “She’s so manipulative. She’ll make you do things you don’t want to do.”
Now Flora looked frightened. She spoke with a trembling voice, looking to Kate for comfort. “But she owns me.”
Kate smiled. “Not anymore.”
She produced the note again, and this time she unfolded it and handed it to Flora.
“Read it out loud,” Kate said.
Flora held up the note and recited:
To: Kate
From: Patton
I visited you every day while you were in your coma. Melissa never knew. She was always too consumed with herself to notice, anyway.
I just wanted to tell you two things: first, last night was the most incredible night of my life, and second, I spoke with Mr. Shriver earlier and he has decided to give us a most excellent wedding gift.
It turns out Ted’s money finally ran out this morning, and now you and I are going to have Flora all to ourselves. I can’t wait to see you with her.
Forever Yours,
Patton
Flora lowered the note and I could see joy in her pretty blue eyes as she read over it again quietly to herself, the corners of her mouth turning up in a smile.
“It’s his handwriting,” she said, looking up at me.
This isn’t happening.
Kate touched Flora’s cheek and turned her face, kissing her softly. Flora closed her eyes, ran her hand up her arm to the little scar, and pressed. I could hear the click from across the room, and then they fell back on the bed. Down here on the lower level of the kitchen, I could only make out an occasional limb, but their moans grew louder and louder and I sat there, completely immobile, completely powerless, and cried until the corners of my eyes started burning.
Look at the little baby crying.
Kate began to giggle—a maniacal sound if I’ve ever heard one. Immediately following was the sound of men’s laughter. Two men.
When I finally opened my eyes, I screamed.
I wasn’t in my room.
This was an operating room—the same one I’d woken up in my first day here, naked, cold, and strapped to a table.
This time I wasn’t naked, but I was strapped to a chair.
“Stupid bitch.” Kate’s voice, loud and abrasive and right in my ear.
She stepped around to face me, not gaunt and sickly in a hospital gown but completely back to normal: tan, figure, slutty outfit, hair—everything. She looked even better than before. More confident. More aware of herself.
Behind her stood Mr. Shriver, Sean, Patton, and, to the left, with her eyes glued to a clipboard, Judy.
“What’s happening?” I asked drunkenly.
Kate turned to the others. “She’s awake.”
“That’s all I need for the day,” Judy said, clamping her pencil in the slot on the clipboard and walking away.
Mr. Shriver was shaking his head, arms crossed, staring at me. “Goddamn fascinating.”
I made eye contact with Patton briefly, but he turned away and stormed out of the room.
“Take her back,” Mr. Shriver said, and then Sean came and stood overtop me. He unbuckled all the belts strapping me down and then scooped me up, sending an acute wave of nausea throughout my body.
My vision blurred, and the trip, which included a stomach-churning elevator ride, seemed to last an hour. The whole time I fought the urge to vomit.
When Sean slammed me down on the bed, bile spewed out of my mouth and shot across the white comforter. He laughed to the tune of his own footsteps, and then the door slammed shut.
I lay there crying with my eyes clenched shut, overwhelmed by the silence, afraid to look around the room. Afraid if I did, I would find myself alone.
“Melissa.”
Flora’s voice. A whisper in my head? Was this still a dream?
I felt the mattress sinking and a moment later a warm towel wiping the puke off my face. Surprised by the soothing heat, I opened my eyes. Flora sat on her knees before me, calm, collected, and smiling.
“They’ve been experimenting on you,” she said softly. “It’s okay. None of what just happened to you is real.”
I sat up and hugged her, just to make sure she was really there.
“Ahem.”
I stopped, glanced back over my shoulder.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Mr. Shriver asked.
I turned around, looking about the room, confused. Sean had freed himself from underneath Patton and now they were rolling again, leaving behind a thick trail of smeared blood.
Brian snarled at me like a pit bull who knows it’s at the end of its chain.
Mr. Shriver was pointing at him.
I stepped along the edge of the platform, coming around to face Brian, still gripping the knife.
“Bitch,” he rasped.
“Melissa!” It was Patton. I looked over and saw him trying to lunge at me, Sean fighting to keep him on the ground. “Melissa don’t! Please!”
He made himself vulnerable, and now Sean was on top of him, delivering blows to the back of his head.
“My patience is running thin,” Mr. Shriver said.
I turned back to Brian quickly.
“Where do I stab you where it will hurt the least?”
He laughed open-mouthed, blood oozing out of the corner. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. Where? Hurry up!”
“The fuh … the fucking eyeball, I guess. You have to do it hard so it sinks all the way into the brain. But I mean damn …”
I grabbed him by the hair, yanked his head back, raised the knife, and brought it down as hard as I could into the deep beautiful cosmos of his eye.
According to Flora, this was the third “round of testing” I’d been put through. Each time I was gone about an hour. How much of that hour I spent under whatever delusion-inspiring drug they were pumping into me, I didn’t know, but my muscles must have been tense as hell throughout the ordeal. I couldn’t walk.
I wasnât wearing underwear or a bra. Sean had taken me for testing in the clothes Iâd been wearing: a tank top and pajama pants, both now clinging to my sweat-glazed skin.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Flora asked.
Good question. I could tell by the look on her face she knew the answer before I did.
Kicking a hole in the wall, with Clifton lying dead behind me and Judy sobbing. That was the last thing I remembered.
“Last night,” I said.
Flora curled her brow. “Be specific. Describe what happened last night.”
“You remember, right? They almost killed you. I killed Brian.”
She was shaking her head. “Melissa, that was three weeks ago.” She explained further, “The drug they’re using on you is causing memory loss. The good news is it seems to taper off a little each day, and you start to remember things. The bad news is every time you’re almost back to normal, they take you away again.”
She was holding herself together well, but I could tell this was tearing her apart. Still, she’d been prepared, at the ready with a hot towel when Sean carried me into the room and slammed me down on the bed. She’d expected me to puke.
“Here, take thi
s.”
She handed me two tiny oblong capsules, both red on one side and white on the other.
“Benadryl?”
“So you’ll fall asleep.”
“Why?”
“You have a massive headache coming in a little while. It’s best if you nap through it.”
She was right. I could feel the pressure building up. Without another word, I popped the pills in my mouth and gulped down the glass of water Flora handed me. Then I tried to sit up, but she easily pushed me back down, leaned over me, and grabbed a pillow to stuff under my head.
“When you wake up, you’ll be sore,” she said, “but we’ll have to get you up anyway. You’ll have a hard time walking, but the Jacuzzi will make you feel better.”
“I could go for a glass of wine,” I said.
Flora giggled, then pursed her lips. “You say that every time. They took all the alcohol, Melissa.”
So that part of the hypnosis had been real.
Shit.
I sat up quickly this time, before Flora could intercept. I was too weak to fight her, but I managed to be quick.
“What else did they take?”
“You should lie back,” she said.
“Flora, tell me.”
She took a deep breath. “Promise you won’t yell at me this time.”
“I yelled at you?”
“A lot.”
“When?”
“Almost every day for the past three weeks.” She looked up at me then. “I know it’s not your fault. They’re doing this to you—changing you. It—it scares me.”
I could tell she was scared—not of the circumstances per se, but of me. Terrified to the point that she hesitated to even express her fear.
She had every reason to be scared. I could feel myself getting irritated with her, a surprising yet overwhelming sensation. It came with a surge of guilt, and I tried to fight it, but the more my irritation grew, the more lazily I tried to suppress it.
Until finally I was just pissed.
Why the hell was she so scared, anyway? This was happening to me. I was the one being brainwashed. All she had to do was play nurse.
Flora climbed off the bed.
“Where are you going?”
“You need sleep,” she said timidly.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
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