by Julia Sykes
I recalled the years of training with him, the hits I had taken from him. He had said they would make me stronger.
His eyes gleamed. “Come on, fight me. Show me what you’ve learned.”
Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes as the last nine years of my life twisted in my mind, becoming something sick and sinister.
“Don’t do this, Frank. Just stop it.” It was a child’s plea.
“No,” he reprimanded. “Not Frank. You’ll call me Master from now on, pet.”
He came at me again, and this time the needle grazed a thin red line across my neck when I jerked away sloppily.
“Come on, now, Kathy. I taught you better than that.”
I came at him with a scream of rage. He smiled even as my fist made contact with his jaw. He moved with the punch, minimizing the damage. He would probably barely have a bruise. And I had gotten too close. His arm closed around my upper back, pulling me against him. The needle plunged into my upper arm.
My muscles weakened almost instantly, and I jerked against his hold. He cupped my cheek in his big hand, cradling my face so I was forced to look up at him.
“I’ve been waiting to see the look on your face when you realize who I really am.” Red gleamed through the amber of his eyes. How had I never seen it before? “And there it is. So beautiful.”
The visceral horror wasn’t enough to keep the darkness at bay.
“Wake up, pet. I’m getting tired of waiting.” A light slap across my cheek made my brain rattle against my skull. My head throbbed, and my entire body felt too heavy. A sense of dread stirred in my gut, but my mind couldn’t quite put together why. I opened my eyes to take stock of my situation.
My vision was black; my lids were securely shuttered by something tightly pressed against them. Panic surged, doubling the pounding in my head but clearing the cobwebs from my thoughts. I tried to rip the blindfold off, but my arms barely moved. I recognized the feel of soft cuffs ensnaring my wrists.
Rough fingertips brushed my cheekbone. “There she is.”
That voice was so familiar and yet so wrong.
“Frank,” his name stuck on my too-thick tongue. I swallowed and tried again. “Please. Why are you doing this?”
“It’s Master, not Frank.” He clucked his tongue at me. “I haven’t even explained the rules yet. I’ll answer all your questions honestly. But for each one, there’s a price. You get to choose how much you give up to me. You just lost your shirt.” He chuckled at his sick joke.
Cold steel edged beneath the lower hem of my blouse. “Don’t!” I twisted away, and sharp pain flared as the knife nicked my belly. My body went rigid, my muscles not even daring to quiver with my fear. All I was conscious of was the point of the blade against my all-too-delicate flesh. I didn’t even breathe as it scratched up my stomach, not quite breaking the skin. When it reached the first button on my shirt, the fabric tugged once before the button popped away. A high, animal whimper escaped me then.
His hand skimmed up my stomach in the wake of the blade, parting the fabric as he cut it open. “I’ve waited so long for this,” he practically cooed. I couldn’t see the expression of sick delight on his face. I was almost glad of that. At least this way, the knowledge that the man assaulting me was my father figure was an abstract thing. The Mentor couldn’t be Frank if he didn’t look like Frank. He sounded different enough that I could almost convince myself.
But then there was the way he smelled; expensive sandalwood cologne, playing over his natural salty scent. My brain remembered Frank holding me while I cried, even as I mentally revolted against the idea that the man violating me was the one I had loved like a dad.
My anguish left me on a piercing scream when the last button gave way. Frank laughed, that rich, genuine laugh I had never heard before today. How had I never realized how cold and stilted his other laugh was?
The blade sheered through my long sleeves, and cool air brushed across my exposed torso. I was still wearing my bra, but I had never felt so naked.
The cold weight of the knife settled between my breasts as he set it down on my sternum. I breathed again, but only out of necessity. Oxygen came in tiny inhales for fear that the steel would shift on a gasp and slice me open.
“You asked why I’m doing this, and I promised an honest answer,” his voice oozed over my bare skin. “I’m doing this because you’re perfect. I made sure of it. I always knew you were a clever girl, and you had the capacity for bravery. It just took a guiding hand to show you that. The first time you threw yourself into my arms and cried against me, I felt… I felt. I hadn’t felt anything since I lost Kathy. The other women were just toys. Toys to play with and break and replace. None of them satisfied me. None of them made me feel.”
His fingers stroked through my hair. I turned my head away in revulsion, but his hand fisted in my curls, pulling me back where he wanted me.
“You’ll fight me. You’ll try to outsmart me. And if you’re very good at the game – which I know you will be – you’ll actually manage to surprise me. I know you’ll be good at it because I’ve trained you for this for nine years.”
I had no words. I couldn’t even formulate thoughts. All that filled my mind was a despairing wail. After a while, I realized it filled my ears as well. I was making the agonized sound.
I forced myself to go quiet. Think, think.
But he wanted me to try to outthink him. My stubborn streak told me to defy him, but how could I do that when what he wanted was for me to try to escape him?
Reed knows where I am. He’ll come for me. I clung to that knowledge, but I wasn’t willing to just lie there and wait for rescue. I had to keep him talking. So long as he was talking, he wasn’t… raping me. I stumbled over the thought.
“They’ll find you,” I told him with a surety I didn’t feel. “Parnell won’t keep your secret. He’ll give you up to save himself.”
There was a long silence. For a few seconds, I thought I had spooked him. Then I detected the disappointment in his little sigh. The truth clicked into place.
“You framed Parnell. Just like you framed Kennedy.”
“Very good, pet. They’ll never look at me because they’ll be too busy trying to unravel the puzzle I left for them.”
I pursed my lips. I couldn’t ask him how he had done it. A question meant surrendering more clothes.
“Parnell wasn’t the shooter,” I said carefully. “You were.”
His finger tapped the center of my forehead. “So clever. But you don’t get something for nothing. I’ll tell you how I did it. All you have to do is ask.”
I hesitated. I couldn’t bare any more of my body to him. It was too sick.
But who knew what he might decide to take if I didn’t play his little game? If I made my move, I could at least guess his countermove.
“How did you do it?” The question was so shaky that it was barely coherent.
He plucked the blade from between my breasts, and I heaved in my first proper breath in what felt like hours. But my reprieve was short-lived; the knife’s edge eased under the top of my slacks.
“I’ve been dying to get a proper look at you,” his voice was husky, lustful, as he cut my pants away. “Those cameras in your apartment didn’t do you justice.”
Bile rose in the back of my throat. How long had he been watching me?
But I had already asked my question, and I was paying dearly for it. I cried silently while he stripped me down to my underwear, not daring to make a sound lest I miss one word of his response.
“Kennedy was already conveniently on the list of patrons at Dusk,” he began. “It was a simple matter of hacking into DeKalb Taylor’s and Teterboro’s flight records and swapping my jet for his on the flight that took Lydia Chase from Chicago to New York.”
“Your background in ASE&T,” I remembered his history in the beginnings of the Applied Science, Engineering, and Technology branch of the FBI before he applied to become a field agent. He would have
been trained in forensics, electronic surveillance, and biometrics. If he kept up with advances in those technologies, he would be just as highly trained as current ASE&T Professionals. “You manipulated the cameras when you when you attacked me at the hotel. And when you tried to shoot Reed.”
“And I left the casing behind with Parnell’s print. Which isn’t actually his print, by the way. The bullet was from another case. I switched the print records in the database so it would read as his. By the time the cops figure that out, they’ll have another rabbit hole to go down.”
My head spun. A background in tech, a high level of weapons training, foresight that made him seem practically omniscient; as the director of the New York unit, Kennedy Carver was the perfect scapegoat.
“This farm,” I grasped at straws, trying to find flaws in Frank’s plan. “Kennedy used to own it. They’ll come to check it out and find me here.”
“No. I lied. It never belonged to Kennedy. It’s always been mine.”
“Dex knows you brought me here. He’ll come looking for me.”
“I made him leave my office before I told you about the farm, remember? Dex doesn’t know where we are. And I’ve already redirected the GPS signal on your phone to make it look like you’re back at the safe house. They’ll think you were abducted from there.”
“Reed knows,” I flung at him. “He’s on his way here now. If you let me go, you might have time to outrun him.”
“I thought you might tell Miller.” The pleasure in his voice made my stomach tighten. “Now I’ll finally get to kill him for touching what belongs to me.” He stroked my hair again. “Watching you take pain from him when you should have been taking it from me made me… angry.” He seemed to savor the word, as though each drop of emotion I wrought from him was precious. “But it just proved to me how perfect you are. I won’t even have to train you to find pleasure in pain. It’s already ingrained in you.”
“No.” He was twisting everything Reed and I shared and making it something sick and wrong. Reed had worked so hard to help me get past my fear of wanting pain with sex. He had helped me to see that it was natural, even beautiful. Now Frank made it something loathsome.
“Yes.” He traced the upper swell of my breasts, and I gagged from the intensity of my revulsion. “You’re my perfect pet. I’ll never need another toy. I’m keeping you forever. I’m going to retire once I’ve tied off all the loose ends. I’ll be here with you, always.”
There was true tenderness in his voice. Like his laugh, this was a genuine side of him I had never seen before. This was the real Franklin Dawes, a man who was so emotionally isolated that he would commit the most heinous crimes just to feel anything at all. And now he found those emotions through terrorizing me.
Reed will come for me, Reed will come. But the hope I found in that certainty was tainted by fear. Frank might kill Reed if he came here. I had to get out of this before he arrived. I couldn’t ask another question. Another question would leave me fully naked. I didn’t want to contemplate what came after that.
Think, think.
“I told Him I loved Him.” Kathy’s words came back to me. Frank had let her go because she admitted her love for him.
“I loved you, Frank.” The words weren’t hard to say; they were true. What was more difficult was putting them in present tense and purging them of the bitterness of betrayal. “I love you.”
The blindfold was ripped from my eyes, and light flooded my vision. I blinked hard, and the world coalesced around me. As I had dreaded, I was restrained to a bed in what appeared to be a basement. There were various apparatuses for bondage scattered throughout the room, a cage in the corner, and chains hanging from the ceiling. My body went into flight mode as fear overtook all my senses, but my arms jerked uselessly at the cuffs.
“Shhh.” Strong hands cupped my cheeks, steadying me. The comfort I found in them was horribly familiar. Frank’s face appeared above mine, proving that this was all real and not some elaborate trick The Mentor was playing on me.
Frank was The Mentor. Oh, god, Frank was The Mentor.
“Shhh,” he soothed me again, brushing the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. “Don’t cry. Tell me again. Look me in the eye and tell me you love me.”
“I…” The words stuck in my throat. If I tell him I love him, he’ll let me go. “I love you,” the lie came out through chattering teeth.
His face split into a wide grin. “So clever, my little pet. That was a very good try. But I’m not letting you go this time, Kathy.”
“I’m right here, Master.” The tremulous voice floated down from above. Kathy – the real Kathy – stood at the top of the staircase that led down into the basement. “You could have had me forever, you know. You didn’t have to hurt those other women. You don’t have to hurt her.”
“Pet,” Frank said the endearment with shocked reverence. His expression was tight with yearning as he watched her begin to descend the stairs. “The others never gave me what you did. They screamed, but it wasn’t the same.”
Kathy reached the bottom of the stairs, and she paused, watching us warily. “Then why do you need her?” She gestured toward me. I was shocked to realize her voice was touched with jealousy.
“I was… empty. Lonely.” That was one emotion he didn’t seem to relish. “I was only ever my true self when I was with you.” His fist tightened in my hair possessively. “I want that again. She can give it to me. I’ve made her just for that purpose.”
Kathy took a tentative step toward him, her eyes flicking to the knife in his hand before lifting back to his face.
“But why hurt her when you could have me?” The question was colored with longing.
Frank’s expression shifted to a hard mask. “You were useless to me once you told me you loved me.” I recognized his false, cold voice that he had always used with me. “Our games would be meaningless. You would do anything I asked of you because you wanted to make me happy.”
Kathy closed the last of the distance between them. He stiffened, but she boldly touched her fingers to his cheek. Her show of tenderness to the monster who hovered above me was both horrific and fascinating.
“You’re lying,” she said quietly. “You sent me away because you loved me, too. And you couldn’t handle feeling that much. I know you, Master. I know your soul. All you want is to not be alone, but you don’t understand how to achieve intimacy without inflicting your own pain on someone else. When you took me, you didn’t know how to feel anything at all. Your love for me scared you.”
He grabbed her wrist in a white-knuckled grip, but he didn’t pull her hand away from his face. His features twisted in furious anguish, but Kathy didn’t flinch away. She stared up at him with open devotion.
“I’ve been looking for you for thirty-five years,” she whispered. “But you hid from me. You didn’t want to love me. When Katie identified the man you killed as Richard Kimbrell, I tracked down where he used to live. I knew it couldn’t have been far from you. I found this farm. I finally found you.” She pointed toward me, but she didn’t take her eyes from his. “Let her go. You don’t need her. Take me back, Master. Please. I still love you. I will always love you.”
“Stop, Kathy!” I finally broke my disturbed silence. “You can’t trade yourself for me. Everything’s going to be okay. You don’t have to stay here with him. You don’t have to suffer any more.”
She turned a small, sad smile on me. “I know I don’t have to stay. I want to. Master ruined me for anyone else. I have suffered every day since He sent me away. I’ve lived a half-life without Him.” She looked back to Frank, her eyes shining. “You sent me away, but I’ve never let you go.”
His growl was one of hunger and desperation, and his hand left my hair to fist in hers. He pulled her in for a vicious kiss, taking her mouth with such ferocity that her back arched and her head dropped back. They might have seemed romantic in their fiery passion if it weren’t for the sick nature of their relationship.
He pulled back from her and snarled against her lips. “Mine. My pet.”
Her arms twined around the back of his neck, pulling him closer. “Yes, Master. Yours.”
“Katie!” Reed’s voice broke the intense moment. His footsteps creaked above the basement. “Katie, are you here?” The question didn’t hold the panic it should. He had no idea what was happening in the basement. If he came down here unaware, Frank would kill him. But I couldn’t let him leave me here. If Frank had already manipulated the GPS signal on my phone, there would be no record that I had ever been here when Reed went to check it.
“Reed!” I screamed his name. “It’s Frank! He’s-”
Frank moved faster than I could process. His hand cracked across my cheek, the shock of the blow silencing me. Through watering eyes, I saw him grab Kathy so that her back was pinned to his front. He pressed the length of the knife against her throat.
“Come in slowly and put your gun where I can see it, or she dies,” he called out.
Reed’s running footsteps slowed. When he stepped through the door at the top of the stairs, his brows were drawn with worry and confusion. Then his gaze fell on me where I was restrained to the bed, nearly naked. I had never seen his eyes go so dark. His gun lifted.
“Ah-ah,” Frank chided, and Kathy sucked in a breath when a drop of blood bloomed against the point of the knife. Despite her situation, I was shocked to find that her eyes were devoid of fear; they held nothing but sadness.
“Put your gun down on the ground,” Frank ordered.
Reed’s entire body tensed, and his nostrils flared with his frustration and fury, but he complied.
“You touched what was mine. You hurt what was mine to hurt.” Frank’s eyes were fevered with his own anger. “Now come down here so I can kill you with my bare hands.” Reed hesitated, his hand twitching back toward where his gun lay at his feet. “If you don’t want to watch Kathy die, your only other option is to run. You can run and leave her here with me.” He nodded at me and flashed a cruel grin. “But we both know you won’t do that. Leave the gun and come down here.”