by T. L. Martin
“Look at me, little bitch.”
With a quivering breath, I open my eyes, immediately wishing I could close them again.
Red splotches climb up his throat and color his cheeks. His beady eyes are endless black holes, the way I’ve seen them once before. Only this time, Adam isn’t here to save me.
He’s naked, fisting his cock as he stares at me, and bile rises in my chest. White marks pull my gaze to his stomach, where scars upon scars line his torso.
“I’m going to fuck you, Katerina,” he rasps, “and it will hurt so much worse than the way you fucked me.”
Katerina.
Katerina.
Katerina.
Why do they keep saying that name? My head hurts, and I just want them to stop. Stop talking, stop looking at me, touching me—just stop.
A shiver makes my teeth chatter as Griff reaches for the scalpel. I shake my head, try to back away, but the ties around my ankles keep me in place. Adam’s warning resurfaces in my head. Be careful where you step, little mouse. There are some holes too deep to dig your way out of.
“Wh-where’s Adam?” I stammer, wishing he wasn’t so right. “I want to see him.”
Raife’s cold voice makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “Are you really so loyal to someone who can’t stand you?”
I swallow hard at his words, wishing they didn’t hit so close to home. I know it’s not true—not when Adam looks at me, touches me, the way he does. But no one has been able to stand me for long, not even my sister. I can’t stop his words from digging into my chest.
Walking on his knees, Griff slowly approaches my face. He continues to fist his cock with his left hand, and when he tries slapping my lips with it, I snap my head to the side. He releases his length to clutch my jaw, keeping me still. A growl finds its way to my throat, but it gets stuck when he sits on my chest and forces my jaw wide open. I watch with wide eyes as he brings his right hand behind him, then a sharp blade presses lightly into my stomach. He rubs himself against my chest as he devours my expression.
It cuts skin, and pain slices through me, my stomach burning against the blade. The same moment a scream leaves my mouth, he jams his cock down my throat.
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for
dealing with the darkness of other people.”
—Carl Jung
“Bullshit.” Pulling out my phone, I check for missed texts, but there’s nothing.
Felix shrugs. “I called Aubrey. She said you’re the one who sent her out.”
Glaring at the screen in my hand, I flick open the text thread between me and Aubrey.
What the fuck?
Me: I need you to make a supply run. Stella has a list for you. I’ll deal with Emmy. We’re not to be disturbed under any circumstances.
I squeeze the phone as I pace around Felix’s desk. “Pull up the cameras. Emmy’s room first.” He clicks his mouse, then her bedroom fills the screen.
Her empty bedroom.
“Do a quick run of the rest of the house.”
A minute later, Felix glances at me. He shakes his head, then blows out a breath because we both know which are the only rooms without cameras. I’m already charging out of his office when I hear his seat roll back and his footfalls as he chases after me.
My gaze is locked straight ahead, but the only thing I see is my grip crushing Raife’s neck, his eyes bulging out of his fucking head.
“Chill out, man,” Felix says, jogging behind me. “You need to cool the fuck off, then strangle him. Otherwise you’re gonna kill him.”
My eyes narrow as I think his words over. Killing Raife sounds remarkably appealing.
My phone vibrates in my death grip. Blinded by rage, I almost don’t bother to check it, but then it goes off again.
Raife: She’s a trooper, this one. And hey, at least someone’s finally fucking her. Amirite?
A two-second video clip below his text plays automatically, on a constant loop, and my perception goes red.
It’s Griff.
Shoving his dick in Emmy’s wide open mouth.
Over. And over. And over.
“Well, shit.” Felix’s grumble over my shoulder is underwater, my ears drowning under the frantic beat of my heart.
We reach Raife’s room, and I shove the door open, storming inside with enough fire in my veins to burn the fucking room down.
“Oh, look who finally came to join—”
Raife’s words die on his tongue as I grab him by the throat and yank him off the foot of the bed. Even with his neck turning red, the asshole smirks.
A rough grunt pulls my attention back to the bed. All my blood rushes to my head, spotting my vision. Griff sits over Emmy’s face, thrusting even now, with his grip forcing her jaw open. Her little body writhes against the mattress, her long hair tangled around her torso, but the fuckers have her tied down.
Slamming Raife’s face into the dresser, I stalk across the room and onto the bed, curl one arm around Griff’s neck, and press the tip of my knife to his gut with the other. He freezes—which is lucky for him because if he so much as breathes too hard, he’s losing blood tonight.
Emmy’s panting fills the air, and I feel her stare on my skin. But I don’t allow myself to look at her. I’m barely seeing clearly as it is.
“You have four seconds to untie her.”
“Fuck yo—”
I dig my knife into his stomach, and he snarls. Griff is no stranger to pain. He was Katerina’s only subject who wasn’t given the luxury of death before she began her work. But I know his scars like I know my own, and I just intentionally tore one of his open.
“Three seconds.”
He growls, his arms flexing like he’s bracing to fight me, so I tear another scar open, pulling a grimace from him. He may be bigger, but I’m both faster and more resourceful. After a minute, he shifts, moving off her, and my lungs expand as I release him, finally able to take a damn breath.
I keep my glare fixed on him until both her wrists and ankles come loose, then I flick my eyes to Raife when he strolls toward me. His suit shirt is partially untucked, and a red mark highlights his forehead from when he hit the edge of the dresser.
His steps are slow and carefree, making my blood boil beneath my skin. I grip my knife and envision slashing his fucking throat. Griff might have been the one on top of her, but he was the puppet. This was strategic. Meticulously planned to make Griff go off like the ticking time bomb he is. It’s the reason Raife is so easily able to pull his strings—Raife sees Griff’s weakness ignite before his eyes and soaks those flames in gasoline. I see mine and crush the flame between the tips of my fingers before it has the chance to take me down with it.
At least I did.
Before her.
A soft, feminine groan sounds beside me as Emmy pulls herself up, close enough the tips of her hair brush my fingers, and it takes all my goddamn willpower to keep from looking, touching, breathing her in.
When Raife reaches me, I lunge.
My forearm crushes his neck against the wall, my chest heaving as we stare each other down. The knife burns my palm, begging to be put to use. Raife sure as shit deserves it. In all the years we’ve known each other, all the bullshit we’ve been through, it’s never come down to this. I never thought it would.
But he crossed a motherfucking line today.
He doesn’t fight me. Of course not, this is what the asshole wanted. His brown eyes brim with life as he darts them between me and my knife. “That’s it, brother,” he croaks. “Don’t hold back.”
“So this is it?” My voice drips of the red hot ire burning inside me. “Your big fucking plan?”
He grunts against the pressure of my arm, then his lips curve. “We both know it’s already working. Don’t pretend you don’t think about it, hurting her. Just wait till,” he chokes, then tries again, “just wait till you see her now. She’s even more of a doppelganger when she’s marked in red.”
; A snarl works its way up my throat, my fingers coiling around my knife. I’ve had enough of his manipulations for one night.
“Adam . . .” My body stills at her soft voice rasping my name behind me. When she does it again, my shoulders constrict. “Please, Adam. Don’t listen to him.”
My chin jerks halfway toward her on its own, like she has some power over me I don’t fucking recall granting. Raife’s low chuckle pisses me off, so I drop my arm from his neck to elbow him deep in the gut. He curls forward, clutching his stomach and choking through coughs. I finally turn around to face her.
She’s still on the bed, but she’s scooted toward me. She sits on her knees, her ass on her heels, blue eyes wide and set on me with her arms wrapped around her stomach. Her hair is spilling over both shoulders, hiding her upper body in a wild mess of thick, black strands, and fuck my chest for lurching at the sight of her.
I grit my teeth. My pulse thrashes against my throat at the restraint it takes to keep from hauling her against me. But if I do, if I give in to the temptation—it will all be over. Once I turn it on, letting myself go, I don’t know if I’ll be able to turn it off again.
When she unbinds her arms from around her stomach to crawl toward me, slivers of crimson flash through her curtain of hair.
My jaw ticks, then I’m right in front her, wrapping her hair around my fist to reveal her body. She gasps and jerks back, and my gaze narrows on her bare stomach. My lungs compress.
One, two, three slashes, ranging from the size of my thumb to my middle finger.
Crimson rivulets dance from her waist past her belly button, some smeared across her hip bone.
Her pale skin blurs to a cloudy black and back again as my adrenaline pumps too fast to see straight. Temptation flares to life inside me, my muscles clenching with the compulsion to touch, to taste, to bite. I want it all. But something else stirs deeper, too. Something I’m far more accustomed to than temptation.
I thought I’d felt rage before. Now an inferno eats me alive.
With my shoulders heaving, I turn to Raife.
Still with his back against the wall, a grin stretches across his face. “There you are,” he whispers.
The edge of my knife is pressed against his neck before he can blink.
He made his choice. Now I’m making mine.
Before I can act, soft fingers run down my cheek, cup my jaw. My glare still leveled on Raife, a low growl rumbles through me as I try to process the warmth on my face. Raife’s eyes dance with amusement, and the inferno beneath my skin tries to crawl its way out.
“Adam . . .” The sound of my name rolling off her tongue slides past my eardrums, heavy like syrup. “He doesn’t have to win.”
When the fingers on my jaw tug downward, I snarl, reluctantly tearing my gaze from Raife to find that Emmy has slithered between us.
Her chin is angled up, her large eyes round and desperate. “Adam.” She lifts to the tips of her toes, forcing herself in my line of vision, and caresses my stubble. I close my eyes to ease the tension coursing through me, but that only makes her soft skin feel ten times heavier on my own.
Her palms slip to my neck, curling around me, then she’s climbing onto me like she did once before. She winces through the movement, but doesn’t stop. My breaths are hard, my jaw twitching as she wraps her legs around me and latches on.
Her lips reach my ear, and she whispers, “Master. Take me away with you.”
For a minute, I don’t move. The rage radiating inside me is suffocating. But when her voice rings in my ears long after she quiets, her disobedience echoing all around me—Master. Master. Master—my hand eases away from Raife’s neck.
He smirks the same moment I slice the knife across his cheek, from his ear to his lips. In a matter of seconds his face twists from pain to anger to betrayal. Then eventually, satisfaction.
Son of a bitch.
I wipe the look off his face by slamming his head back against the wall, and he groans.
Emmy’s arms squeeze my neck tighter, her short breaths on my skin and her thighs clenching around my hips, warmth rubbing my cock. My muscles contract painfully. I grit my teeth as I shut my knife and slip it back into my pocket, then wrap my arms around her. I have to force her higher to stop the friction before I lose my fucking mind, I’m wound so tight.
I pin Raife with a final glare. “This isn’t finished.”
His lips twitch, fresh blood from his cut dripping toward them, and he rubs the back of his head. “I’ll be waiting.”
After swiping the recorder off his dresser on my way out, I grip Emmy tight and pace toward my room.
Every fiber of my being burns with the weight of these past weeks, and every bit of it revolves around the mouse latched onto me. My body is so tight with tension I’m fucking shaking against hers.
As we’re swallowed into the depths of black halls, it all hits me at once like a train on full speed crashing into a brick wall.
I may be her master, but she owns me, too.
And if I don’t make it stop, it’s going to fuck us both.
“You are terrifying and strange and beautiful.
Something not everyone knows how to love.”
—Warsan Shire
My body slumps against Adam as he holds me. I mold into his hard form like he’s the canvas and I’m the paint. Resting my face in the curve of his warm neck, I can’t keep my eyes from fluttering shut.
Everything aches. Both sides of my jaw throb as they swell, and my stomach is raw. Adam shifts my weight in his arms to shove open his door. He strides into the room, lowers me on the bed, and drapes a blanket over me. My eyes drift open when he stalks to the dresser, tossing the recorder on it. He grabs his phone from his pocket, punching keys.
I watch him closely through heavy eyes. The way he clenches his jaw, his thumb darting across the screen. A vein in his forehead looks like it might burst.
He won’t look at me.
After a second, he slides the phone across the dresser and works the buttons of his shirt. His movements are stiff, like he’s refraining from tearing the material apart.
“Adam,” I say faintly, exhaustion draining me.
He tenses, the muscles in his shoulders constricting.
“I just . . . I wanted to thank—”
The door opens, dragging my gaze to Aubrey. When I look back, Adam’s already in the bathroom, the lock clicking behind him. My chest deflates as I stare at the closed door.
When Aubrey removes the blanket and starts slipping off my shoes and scarf a few moments later, she’s nonchalant to the point I wonder how often she deals with stuff like this. I wince when she cleans and dresses the open wounds. But I’m glad she works in silence. My body sinks into the mattress, and my eyelids lower.
Soon, she covers my naked body again, and I find someplace between restlessness and sleep.
I drift in and out for a while, my mind wavering from clarity to fuzzy clouds, then back again. Somewhere along the line I faintly register movement in the air as Adam paces from one spot to another. I don’t know how much time has passed before I feel, then see, him watching me, but sleep tugs at my consciousness and pulls me back under its spell.
When a crash whips me from my subconscious, my eyes flutter open to find a room cloaked in darkness. It’s not long before I spot Adam’s broad, shadowed form sitting on the ground—his back against the wall, elbows resting on his knees and hands gripping his hair.
The video recorder is in shambles on the floor beside him.
After a moment, I realize he’s shaking. It’s not a small, illusive shake. In fact, I don’t think ‘shake’ does it justice at all. Waves of intensity radiate off him, tension rolling through his muscles like thunder roaring beneath his skin. I swallow as I watch him in utter silence, not daring to make a move.
Not because I’m scared.
Because I’m captivated.
A violent war wages inside his head, and it shows with every twitch, every clench, ev
ery ripple overtaking him. He doesn’t just blend in with the darkness surrounding us. He sucks it dry with every inhale then feeds it with each exhale.
It’s madness begging to be released. It’s pain so forbidden you can’t cry. It’s an explosion of everything I am when I reach my darkest days.
And I’ve never seen it look so beautiful.
Peeling the covers off my naked body, I slip from the bed and drift toward him like an invisible rope is tied around my chest. His energy is the grip tugging me closer. I carefully guide his hands to his sides and crawl into his lap. He doesn’t look at me, but his knuckles curl and his breathing picks up. For a long moment, I just stare into his shadowy eyes in admiration.
I reach up, bringing my hands to both sides of his face, and lazily trail my nails from his temples to the bottom of his chin. A tremor slides over him, vibrating against me. When I cup his cheeks with my palms, he finally looks at me.
“Does it hurt?” I whisper.
He narrows his eyes, a swallow passing through his throat.
“When you lock yourself away like that, does it hurt?” I drag my fingers to his thick strands of hair. “Can you tell me . . . can you tell me what it’s like when you let it out? Is it everything I imagine?”
His gaze flicks between my eyes, and I wonder how much of me he sees. Here I am, completely naked, yet I feel so deep in layers I can hardly breathe.
“I want you to show me. I’m not afraid.”
A low rumble escapes his throat as he allows his gaze to wander lower, his lips twisting as though he’s in physical pain. “You should be. I would tell you to run”—his strong hand clutches my throat, and I gasp as somersaults go off in my stomach—“but I’d only catch you. And then I’d crush you.”
“So crush me,” I breathe, my chest pounding to a new beat. “I don’t want to be whole anymore. I want you to see my pieces.”
It’s in the moment his pupils expand so wide they’re completely black that I know.
There’s no going back.
“Love me like the moon intended.