"You look like a lady, but there's nothing noble about you. You don't deserve a place in GRIT, and you've banished my son as a result."
"Ruby!" I cried, remembering the law of GRIT. "I demand to see Ruby."
"Oh, Trixiebelle," he sighed, dragging a bloody hand through white hair. "We're so far beyond that. You've lost all right to make demands. You'll remain here until I find a use for you. Plans are in place, harlot. You should enjoy what's left of your life before I take it."
"Let her go," Elias growled, grunting on an exhale and shifting to sit up straight. "Your war is with me, Father. Let her go."
"Did I let her mother go?" he asked, turning to his son. "Did I listen to her pleas, or did they fall on deaf ears?"
What did my mother have to do with it?
"Trixie isn't her mother. You've lost yourself to fantasy and you have no power to do this."
"Are you challenging me, son?"
"I'm promising you." Elias took a strained breath, clawing at the ground as he tried to reach for his leg. It was no good. Had I damaged the nerves? What had I done? "If you touch her, you'll regret ever being born."
"I don't think so."
Ambrose took a step towards me and I flinched when he squatted next to me and took a fistful of my hair to pull my head back. I cried out as he yanked harder, exposing my neck and dipping his head to lick the vein that pumped with disgust. Elias growled, but couldn’t move to stop his father. Ambrose gripped the back of my head and dragged his nose up and down my neck, shoving the cuff upwards. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t swallow. I was paralysed, staring at Elias, who stared back as his father licked me.
“How are you going to make me regret doing this, son?” he hummed. “You were right. She’s divine. I love the smell of frayed edges and deviance. You said her blood poured like velvet…shall we test the theory?”
“No. Father, stop this.”
“You’re wasting your energy, Elias, and you’re going to need it to fight the infection.”
“How long has he been sick?” I asked.
“That’s none of your concern.”
“Of course it’s my concern!” Ambrose struck my face and I fell towards the ground, held above it by the chain. I needed to break free. “He’s dying.”
“I know. His blood is poisoned by toxins. He might not make it.”
“You’re sick.” I felt another tear pool as Ambrose loosened his hold on the chain and my body sagged forward. “Why?”
“Because the city isn’t supposed to heal. We’re supposed to evolve and the extinction of GRIT isn’t in the plan.”
“We don’t want to get rid of GRIT.”
Another smack. I was drowning in his fury. I couldn’t even feel the pain in my face, the ache in my soul too profound. How were we ever going to get out of here?
“I don’t care to listen to your excuses.” Ambrose clicked his fingers in front of my face and I had no choice but to look. I’d never been submissive in my life, but right now I needed to obey this monster if I ever wanted to see daylight again. “I fucked your mother, you know.”
No! I tore into my hair and squeezed my eyes closed. I’d known there was a story; I’d known there was a secret and something I needed to discover, but I didn’t want to hear it from him. I couldn’t have the only knowledge I had of her tarnished by him.
“She was a good little pet.”
“Trixie, she didn’t want it,” Elias said. “She was loyal to your father and she didn’t feel the same way as Ambrose.”
“That’s what she said. She asked me to stop, but she didn’t mean it. Just like you don’t.” He laughed. “You think I don’t know my son? You think I don’t know all the things he likes? You’ve just been too stupid to see you’re not enough. But your mother…she was enough. She was…”
“Stop it!” I covered my ears with my hands and shook my head.
Fingers threaded into my hair and dug into my scalp; Ambrose eased me forward, lowering my head towards the ground. I was sitting on my heels, my dress trapped beneath me, and the further he pushed, the sharper the pull on the stitches in my back. I felt the threading slice into me, the thin unforgiving stitching tear my skin.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to acknowledge that your mother was a harlot, and you follow the same path. I want you to admit you plan on hurting my son like your mother…”
“She hurt you,” I whispered.
My breath surged from my lungs when Ambrose’s foot connected with my ribs. I laid on the floor, gasping for air, as Elias pulled on the chains and roared.
“Just breathe, Trixie,” he said, trying to get to his feet.
“Don’t move,” I choked. “I can handle him.”
It hurt. God, did it hurt, but no amount of physical pain could outweigh the guilt I felt when I looked at my husband. I should never have left the table. I should have stayed and watched. I should have left Mae when I realised what she was trying to do, and refused to listen to a story if it wasn’t Elias telling it. There were so many things I should have done, but now Mae was dead and Elias…
Another kick. I cried and gripped my stomach, trying to escape my own body as my sternum bruised, my diaphragm heaved with desperation to breathe, and my back trickled warm blood.
“I won’t hurt him. I can’t admit that because I’d sooner die than be a reason for his pain.” It was the truth. I wouldn’t bow to Ambrose’s will. I would physically obey him, to save my life, but my mind was mine, and I wouldn’t devastate Elias with it.
“You will.”
“What did my mother do to you?” I met his gaze with strength in mine. I wouldn’t break for him. I kept my back on the palace and refused to escape to numbness and vulnerability.
“Wrong question,” he growled, gripping my hair and throwing me onto my stomach. My cheek hit a wet stone, my back bowed and I cried; the chain forced my head back and I gasped for a full breath. “It’s about what I did to her.”
The monster who had stolen me, and my mother’s virtue, grabbed my ankles and tore my legs apart, scraping me over the cobbled ground of the cell until I felt the skin on my knees tear.
“No,” I sobbed, as he grabbed the hem of the dress and forced it up over my legs to bunch at my waist. “Please, no.”
I was trapped. I was suddenly back in the cardboard box, buried in the ground for throwing my dinner plate to the ground in a fit of hormonal rage. I was back at Sandhurst, when the rest of my friends were out playing on the field, while I was strung up from a chain fixed to the ceiling, to undergo training. I was lying on a wooden bed, wave after wave of water gushing over my face, into my mouth, and down my throat, being interrogated. They wanted to know what blue and red made, but I wasn’t supposed to tell them. It was a secret. They wanted to know what came after F in the alphabet, what came before W, what was between S and U, but I had to keep it a secret. They wanted to know what GRIT meant, they wanted me to separate the word; I refused. Simple questions. Ones I could answer in my sleep. I was supposed to protect them with my life.
That’s where I was now, watching on helplessly as my father stood behind Trixie, holding her lead and looking down at her bare ass with disgust, as if she were nothing more than a dog waiting to be kicked into shape.
Why? Because he was a sick fuck, with fantasies that would make mine look like candyfloss at a fairground.
How? He had help. I knew Beckett was behind this with him—I just had to figure out who else was corrupted.
When? All my life? Since Trixie had moved onto the estate? Since he’d seen how happy I was—how happy he’d wanted to be with the woman who was an almost exact replica of the woman he used to know?
All of the answers were simple. I knew I’d screwed up. I knew I’d become complacent, docile, lazy; I’d spent far too long consumed by what I felt for Trixie instead of remembering I had a job to do that needed my undivided attention…I’d done this. Everything that was about to happen was my fault.
I was panicking. I was desperate. I was out of control and I couldn’t stop the worst from happening. Why had I spent my life worrying about where the newspaper was folded before I picked it up? Why had I insisted on an even number of berries in my ramekin, and for my shoes to be at a certain angle when they were put away after I’d removed them? Why had I lived to such a strict routine, if I couldn’t even get my leg to work when I relied on it just to stay alive?
“You know, Trixie,” Ambrose said, ignoring my plea. Bending, he stroked his hand through Trixie’s hair. “I loved your mother. I loved her so very much.”
No, he didn’t. He’d been consumed by need for her because she didn’t want him back. The hunt became his obsession. I’d heard the story, of course I had. I knew that he wanted her and she refused him because she loved Trixie’s father. I knew he’d offered her a place next to him in GRIT, against our grandmother’s wishes. I knew he’d begged to marry her; to separate her from Cecil and take her as his own. Ruby refused, for reasons always kept out of the stories, and Ambrose hadn’t been allowed to force Abigail’s hand.
His large paw scraped Trixie’s face, smearing tears and smudging mascara, and then he threw her head forward. Her elbows buckled and she fell to her forearms, choking on an inhale as he pulled the chain.
I couldn’t do it.
How could I just sit here and watch him touch her?
I tried to stand again, but the room spun around me until I couldn’t tell the floor from the ceiling. My leg felt like it was on fire—searing electric fire. It felt so hot and swollen, I thought it would explode, but I kept fighting. I ignored the strangling hold of the cuff and fought to stand, only taking a breath once my good foot was on the ground and the now-clubbed foot hung above it.
“Sit down, son. I’m not going to hurt her…she’ll like it.”
“Don’t touch her!”
My voice was weak as my body began to fail me, and I stumbled back against the wall hunched over.
“No? Shall we give her the choice?” He smacked Trixie’s cheek. “Do you want me to touch you, harlot?” Trixie shook her head, remaining strong while I tried to decide whether it was strength or compliance that would keep her alive. “Not even to take the dress off?”
“You’ll take the stitching out?” she asked, mewling with premature relief at the thought of freedom.
“Sure.”
I shook my head as I watched my father kneel behind my wife and stroke the hard mass in his pants. I tried to get Trixie’s attention, to signal to her to stay in the dress. If she chose material imprisonment, she might just be safe. I could see by the wild, animalistic flash in my father’s eyes, that he had plans for my Ashford if she was out of the dress.
My heart hammered in my chest as I continued to shake my head and silently plea for Trixie to look at me. She kept her eyes closed, head bowed, trying to hide her pain from me, but she couldn’t. Our souls were tethered together and I felt her agony like it was my own.
“Please,” Trixie whispered. “Please take them out.”
No!
“Trixie, no. Baby, take it back.”
Ambrose threw his head back and laughed. I didn’t want him to know I’d figured him out, but he took great pleasure in my powerlessness as I pulled on the chain again.
“She can’t take it back,” he sneered. “The Queen has spoken.”
Trixie threw her head back and screamed until her lungs rattled as Ambrose tore the first few strings from her back, flaying her open as punishment for existing. I roared with her and continued to pull, having to stand on one fucking leg because the lava one was useless. May as well cut it off. I looked around me for something sharp to hack at my own limb. I had no doubt I’d be more useful bleeding out all over the place than I was holding the deadweight.
“Baby, your mother didn’t have a choice,” I said, looking at Ambrose as he grinned with sadistic pride. “He took from her and then had the audacity to expect her to bow to him. You can’t let him break you, too.”
“Oh, I don’t plan on breaking her,” he said, and I snarled as he squeezed her ass in both hands. “I’m going to use her.”
The demon inside me roared; the scared man who never felt like he was enough cried like a fucking baby, as Ambrose lowered his body to kiss the bottom of Trixie’s back. She kicked out, but it wasn’t enough. She was sweating from the pain, shivering from the shock; she was slipping away and she needed to be present to survive this. I heard the sound of his belt and zipper, but I was lost in the haze of the room spinning around me, my wife centre-stage, destroyed and decimated.
“How will the underground be able to resist someone who calls so strongly to their base needs for destruction?”
“What?”
“You think I’ve got her here to re-enact this fantasy?” He laughed again. I was completely clueless. “No. I’m going to fuck her because I can—because I know you’ll never want to touch her again once I have…but I have big plans for Trixie Blackwood.”
“Plans for what?”
I refused to think about the effects my father fucking my wife would have on the future.
“She’s going to play bait.”
No! He was going to use her, dangle her to the wolves of criminality and I knew he wouldn’t bother to save her if they got her.
“Ruby will find you.”
“Do you think Ruby will care? She’s already found a replacement.”
“You know that’s not true.”
Trixie cried out and my eyes connected with hers. She was wide-eyed and lost, and I realised my father had touched her. He’d touched her beyond all possibilities for forgiveness.
“Just breathe, baby. It’ll be over soon.”
“Every time you challenge me, Trixie will pay the price. You’ve tallied up quite a few punishments. Let me carry those out first, in case she can’t bear it.”
What could I say? Fucking nothing. I could say nothing. I could do nothing. All I could do was watch on.
“No, no, no!” Trixie screamed and tried to fold her body in on itself.
It was no good. She was a pet, tied up and ready to take a fucking.
Pain ripped me in two. I no longer felt human. I felt as insignificant as a sheet of torn paper, and I felt as hot as the fucking sun as agony charged through me. It made my toes curl in desperation to run. It made my calves tense in desperation to fight. I clawed at the floor of the cell, and my hips dragged my body forward to try and escape.
It was no good.
Ambrose Blackwood had torn through all my defences and ruined me. He was inside me. He held the chain wrapped tightly around his fist and dug it into my skin as he pulled me back onto him and filled my ass.
“Elias,” I sobbed, trying to hit behind me to strike my father-in-law. It earned me a spank that led to a retch, and I wouldn’t do it again. I wanted to be sick. Dry heaves rippled through my body with the agony of his penetration. “Look away. Don’t look. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, baby. I’m s-so s-sorry.”
I couldn’t breathe. My breath hitched as my lungs hiccupped and my soul banged on the palace door to let me in and be free. Nothing. I’d been banished from my sanctuary too, and now all I could do was allow the pain to consume me. Ambrose drove into me again and again. I tried to keep count so I could stab him for every time he rammed into me, but I lost count. He was a monster, going and going and going, until the palace locked itself, erected its own walls and then set them on fire so I had no hope of getting through.
“Trixie, breathe.”
Elias was with me. He was sitting on the other side of the room watching his father rape me. Ignoring the pain inside my body, and the tears on the outside, I twisted myself round and fought against his hold. I didn’t care about the cuff; if it snapped my neck, it would be over and he’d lose anyway. I held my brea
th and kicked, colliding with his chest and screaming as he wrenched me back with him, dislodging more stitching from my back. He fell backwards, but so did I, and his hand found my neck.
“You can’t win, harlot, but I love the fight.” He rasped in my ear, his voice lust-heavy and perverted. “Your mother was such a good fighter.”
I elbowed him in the ribs and he grunted, instinctually throwing me away as he clutched his stomach.
“Trixie, stop!”
Elias pleaded with me not to fight back, but I wouldn’t take it. I wouldn’t accept his abuse and I wouldn’t let him talk about my mother without receiving punishment of his own. My body bellowed with agony and throbbed with wild heat of injury and adrenaline. My head grew light, my fingers lost sensation, and the fog tried to take me away from the present. I couldn’t leave Elias. His father may have just ruined the future for us, but I wouldn’t let my husband suffer. I kicked again as Ambrose got to his feet, but he grabbed my ankle. His trousers fell to his ankles as he stood over me and hooked my knee around his waist. I howled when more stiches ripped through my skin, exposing my breasts, as I curled my free leg up into my body and prepared to attack. I hit him in the leg, so close to the disgusting erection I’d been aiming for, and he bent me over to capture my other ankle.
“No!”
I writhed and wriggled, I fought and smacked and tried to claw at him, but he laughed and held my legs extended. I screamed until my lungs bled when he dragged me backwards, until the chain pulled tight, offering no mercy from his force. I wanted to beg him to stop. I wanted to plead with him, to offer him anything to make him stop, but I couldn’t breathe.
“This might hurt a little, harlot.”
He raised his fist and sprung it free.
The world disappeared.
When I woke, I was no longer human. I was a pile of blood and material, and anguish. I groaned, spitting out blood and rolling onto bruised ribs. I was no longer clothed; the dress was in scraps beneath me, and all I had left was the capped sleeve and some lace around my waist.
The Uprising (GRIT Sector 1 Book 2) Page 32