When the first sound of the speaker had died and we looked at each other, I’d glimpsed something unknown in Pieter’s eyes. A worm of fear perhaps, or doubt, or anger. One moment he was all powerful, the next he was mute and a victim like me.
I strained to see the movements at the door from the corner of my eye.
Gregor walked over with precise strides, stick resting on his shoulder like a soldier’s rifle. If ever a man could be called a shark, it would be him. He probably drank blood and ate the livers of his victims.
The gag was still in my mouth. Nothing more had been removed. I was cocooned here in the middle of the room, my arms strapped to my sides, surrounded by men who didn’t much care if I lived or died. The chains above me clinked.
My nemesis paced around me, his stick tapping on his leg or resting on my skin when he stopped to examine a spot. I sucked in pain-laden breaths. My eyes watered. Poking made the throbs from the whip marks turn vividly hot.
“Ahh. He has done well. I had thought perhaps I’d have reasons to hit you but no. The client is happy. I am happy. You are lucky, you know?” He undid the gag and pulled it down. “I would have made you bleed much more than this.”
Thank god. I sagged.
“And such wonderful fucking too.” His voice rose up at the end in that weird, amazed tone he used. “Next time, whatever can we get him to do that will be better? Hmm?”
He raised his eyebrows and leaned down to kiss my cheek.
My shudder was small but I’m sure he saw it. How could Pieter do worse than this and not maim me?
The march back to my room was an exercise in staggering into walls as Gregor decided to pull me along by a leash. Without sight, I made errors. Though I sobbed after a few of the bumps, I managed to mostly be silent. Being naked was nothing in comparison.
I sat on the bed shivering, hugging myself.
The room temperature would be hot enough to keep a python happy but I was cold. Gregor hadn’t stayed to apply ointment. For that I was grateful. When I finally wriggled around, ever so cautiously, to lie on my side, still naked, I fell into sleep.
Every five minutes...
I jerked awake...
Screaming...
By the next morning, I was stiff. My head seemed stuffed with knives. My muscles ached so much I wasn’t sure I could sit up let alone stand. But I managed. Naked, I padded over to look in the mirror. There were bruises galore on the backs of my thighs and butt, only a couple on the front of my thighs, and my breasts were unmarked except for one bite mark. Fascinated by this, I stared at it and poked it. His mouth had made that mark.
Most of the bruises higher on my back were thin red and blue lines. Surprisingly, only three or four were cuts. I drank some water and returned to bed, wrapped myself in the sheet. The light faded.
A shuffling awoke me.
The cleaning lady arrived, carrying a tray with breakfast. I saw her through blurry eyes. She came closer and whispered something. Before I could get my fuzzed-out brain to check in, she went over and yelled something through the door. A young guard I’d not seen before hustled in.
A brilliant idea arrived. Pretend to be badly injured. I might get special treatment, even delay the next scene. Anything that might achieve that was worth trying.
I lay there unmoving.
The sheet had stuck to the wounds on my back. A little later, someone sat next to me, peeled the sheets off me, then turned me onto my stomach and cleaned my skin. Gregor, I was sure. The heaviness of their body, the scent, the overzealous cleaning as if every welt had to be swabbed – it all said him.
I kept my eyes closed, only wincing at the worst pain.
“I don’t believe you to be as bad as you are pretending, little Jazmine.” He lifted my shoulder then rearranged me so I lay on my side.
Fuck. I kept my eyes squeezed shut. Yes, it was Gregor. My stomach churned with horror. If he punished me...
“But, I will do as our client wishes. You will have a roommate from now on unless they stipulate otherwise. Now, open your eyes and look at me.”
I edged them open, a little, then wider.
Though his square face and shaven scalp repelled me, his eyes were as blue as a beautiful ocean. Disturbing, that anything about him could be pretty.
His lips curved up. “Very good. Your roommate will be in charge of tending to your back. If you get sick it will go badly for both of you. In a week, we have another scene.”
I swallowed, afraid to blink, but I had to ask. I dredged the words from my throat. “What will be done, next time?”
“Ohhh, you will see.” He tapped my nose as if a birthday present was coming. “It will be a surprise.”
The word evil sprang up in my mind, and kept repeating like a mantra, even after the door closed. I shook my head and bit my finger, hard. Then I clawed my hand into my hair and pulled until the sting made the word stop going round and round, and the awful sick feeling lessen. Despite all the leftover pains, I was tempted to sit digging my nails into my bruises. I wanted to hurt to forget. If that was possible.
I didn’t do it. I hadn’t had such thoughts since high school when an accident with a steak knife had alarmed me. I still had the scar on my leg from that.
Who would be this roommate? Another captive? I hoped so. It must be or he’d not have threatened us both.
He’d left me a new dress. A pale pink one. Plain cotton. No underwear. I pulled it on and found it the same length as the last one – it hit the top of my thighs and barely concealed anything. Bending over, even a little, was going to show off everything I had down there. I tweaked up one side of my mouth. What did it matter here? Zero.
An hour later, the familiar clink of chain and loud footsteps of several people outside made me suspect who my roommate might be. They never bothered with more than one guard plus Gregor when it was me.
Pieter came through the door. My guess was correct. I had no idea how to react.
I was sitting on the bed and I pressed my legs together. The dress was so skimpy. The bruises on my legs and butt ached, reminding me of what he’d done.
When the guards went to leave, I blurted out, “We’ll need another bed.”
They laughed.
Once freed, Pieter stood in the middle, waiting, looking at me.
Shit, shit, shit. I bit a nail or two then lowered my arm when he arched his brow. Bugger this. I wasn’t going to be a wilting flower. What he did to me in that room could stay in there.
Then I had second thoughts, and third ones. Who was I kidding? That would be like ignoring Armageddon.
“They told me your back needed attention?” His question was soft, as if he was trying not to alarm me.
Too late. A whole mess of emotions had tumbled down on me – anger, dismay, shame, fear. These feelings, it was all him, all his doing. Yet he looked so normal. I hated that.
He’d raped me. At their demand, but he had. The first time, I’d understood. This last time, he’d gotten inside my head and fucked around with it too. But I wasn’t showing him, this stranger, any of that turmoil.
Stonewall him. Make it a yesterday thing, or a future thing. It wasn’t now.
I grunted, got halfway through a shrug, then winced and thought better of it. “I’m okay.”
“Show me.”
Fuckitty. I frowned. Admitting anything to him might be a mistake, but I couldn’t be completely silent.
I repeated my idea, hoping to convince him. “What happened yesterday stays in that room. Here, now, it’s gone.”
“Yes. Now show me your back.”
“Gregor looked already.” I figured I’d let him look tomorrow. Or never. Now was definitely too soon to let him near me. My skin crawled at the idea.
“Do I have to go through this again? I need to know what it’s like so I can tell if it gets worse. If you don’t let me see it, Gregor may hurt you. I’m not having that on my conscience.”
I scoffed, laughing. “You have one?”
; His stare was direct.
He’d agreed with me, though, and smoothly. He’d said yes. Like the room had meant nothing to him. How could anyone think of what we’d done as nothing? Like raping me was nothing? Emotions pecked and pecked at me. I felt bloody and ragged and raw.
Why should I care what he thought of me?
Forget it. Forget. It was yesterday, remember?
I was being irrational. Tears threatened to squeeze from my eyes.
“I can see you’re a bit scared of me. That’s sensible. But I still need to see your back.”
“Scared?” I snort-laughed, dismissing that notion, but when he took a step nearer, I flinched. My body knew what his hands could do.
He held out his palms. “You know I want to help you. Please.”
Obviously he thought he was still on high moral ground. Just because they’d told him to do it. I wasn’t sure of that anymore. He’d liked what he did to me too much.
My body was so tight; the slightest breeze might crack me. “How...can you be so fucking calm?”
Don’t swear. It made me look stupid. Fragile.
His brow wrinkled. “Training. Experience. You had a severely traumatic day. You see me as the person who did it, but I’m not guilty. Think it through.”
I had. I’d seen a fire blazing in his eyes when he beat me. He’d taken off that blindfold just to say he liked it. He’d fucking told me that.
Swearing in my head was okay, I decided. Just not at him.
He’d liked mind fucking me as well as fucking me, but I wasn’t telling him I’d noticed that. He might use it as ammunition...next time.
Calm down. Be like him. Visible unhappiness is a weakness. Assume he’s an enemy but act nice. I could do that because, after all, that was the sum of my whole life. Laugh, smile, and inside be like a prison guarded by walls topped with spikes with the heads of your enemies stuck on them.
I glowered then I smoothed that away. Firm but nice.
“You’re not seeing my back.”
“I’ve seen all of you, girl.”
Girl, again. I hated that. Gregor said it enough.
“Woman. Woman is the correct term.”
“Woman.” His smile was patronizing. “I’ll wait then.”
“Yeah, like maybe forever.”
At his movement, as if to come for me, my nipples tightened. I flashed into that state where I was bound and waiting for him...
Then he halted and gestured at the floor. “I’ll sit there. Okay?”
I blinked. “Okay.”
The floor looked so uncomfortable and when, after a few minutes, he shifted his backside, I threw him one of my two pillows.
Awkward. I sat with my hands in my lap. If I lay down I’d feel vulnerable. Just having him in the room was horrible.
I was worse than I’d ever been. Normally I could sit with people, shake hands, and be moderately normal. I eyed him, cross-legged and looking almost as awkward as me. Yesterday, for a strange hyper-crazy moment, I’d craved his touch. I’d wanted him.
I shuddered. Hypnotism or something. Being beaten had upset who I was. Of course. This was the backlash.
“I’m going to say a few things.” He glanced at me from under those dark, shaggy brows. If ever a man plucked, he was a candidate. He wasn’t Neanderthal or anything – kinda cute really, in a disheveled muscly...way.
“Jazmine?”
I jerked my gaze to his face. “Go ahead. I’m not stopping you.” Him saying my name made my stomach do evil flips. Names were possessions. He hadn’t earned the right.
“I’ve seen a lot of victims in my previous line of work. You’re demonizing me. I understand. You’re still in shock and processing it all. You don’t want me to touch you. Also understandable. But you need to try to work past that. If we’re to get away. We have to trust each other. If you won’t even let me look at your back...” He shook his head. “That’s square one. For trust. Plus it’s essential. You have to let me.”
Then he waited.
I dug under my nails.
With my hands, I pinched the sensitive area around my forefinger nail. The pain helped. I breathed and took the pain from all the bruises into account. If I shifted, my back skin did too. The small lancing pains all helped to distract me from the prickling tension that took over my head whenever I thought of him coming near me.
“Don’t you have something to say?”
Damn him for sounding so rational.
I dragged in a breath, released it. “I...” God. No emotion, remember? “I can see your points. Logically, you had to, uhhh, obey Gregor.”
“Yes.”
Ah, fuck. I needed to set boundaries. “You see, I’ve never liked people touching me. This is making it worse.”
Pieter nodded. A reasonable man. What a contrast to...
The man with the whip circling, hitting me, eyes like stone on fire.
I gulped. “I don’t think I will ever be able to let you touch me again.”
Except for when Gregor made him. I shivered, cold. My nails were aching and I made myself stop digging at them before they bled.
Calm. Calm, calm, calm. Calmitty fuckitty calm. He was looking at me like I was turning into a psycho before his eyes. Be calm.
“So.” I eyed the floor. “You’re going to have to sleep there.”
Just for a split second, his gaze went deep, like maybe he wanted to challenge that. I stared back and he shrugged.
“I don’t know how long we’ll be in here together. I’m checking out everything again.” He rose.
“Why?”
His frown made as if he thought I’d just said the dumbest thing so far. “I never give up. You should remember it too. Never give up. Never give in.”
“Uh-huh.” It wasn’t a bad idea, really.
I said it to myself. The words were ones I could cling to, and it was nice to have this man still trying to find a way out. I watched as he looked up at the dome of the showerhead that was bolted flush to the ceiling, as if he could unscrew it by staring. Then he leapt up, grabbed the window shelf, and did a chin-up to stare out my...our tiny window.
I realized I had given in. I had decided whatever Gregor wanted, he was going to get. No matter how much I had to hurt.
Never give up. Never give in. Pieter had given me something good.
“What’s out there?”
“The courtyard. First a covered way right next to this room, then a courtyard.” He let go and landed in a neat crouch. “It’s where they had me staked out when I arrived. I was supposed to die until they decided I had a use.”
A use? Torturing me. My mouth hung open.
“Do you still have no idea who this client is? Whoever it is only visits weekends, so far. I’m guessing they’re from Australia. Someone you wronged, maybe?”
There were so many of those. I’d done a lot of stories, a lot of dirty laundry had been exposed over the years of my journalistic career, but no one special sprang to mind. “No. I can’t think of anyone.” I paused, remembered my fake career. “Librarians don’t tend to annoy people that much. Overdue loans, I don’t think anyone has ever been murdered over them.”
Though journos had been, regularly, when people like the IRA got annoyed. I wracked my brains for a clue. Still none.
He nodded. “Okay. Can I sit there?” He indicated the bed.
Ice swept me. “No!”
His nod was too fast.
I’d goofed. “How about we play a game or something?”
“Game?” His eyebrows shot upward. “Like? Noughts and crosses? How about I do something useful like self-defense lessons?”
That sounded good until I figured out the flaw. “Only if,” I said slowly, “you can do it without touching.”
“Hmm.”
Even that hmm reminded me. He’d said it once, before he finger fucked me. I didn’t think I’d ever forget his words.
I want you. One day, I’ll have you stand still, so I can look at you before I fuck you.
Such dirty words – ones that even now made me look at him and see the animalistic, dominating man who’d given me both more pain and more pleasure than anyone else, ever.
How could someone repulse me so much yet also make me want him to walk over here and grab me and do nasty things? Subtly, I squeezed my thighs together, feeling the tiny awakening throb.
We were going to have to shower and go to the toilet with the other person in the room. I prayed I could get him to turn away and not look...and that I could do the same.
His self-defense lessons were to the point and though maybe not as effective as doing them with a partner, I could practice eye jabbing on my pillow and shin sweeps and heel-of-hand to nose smashes. Things like breaking the hold when someone grabbed my throat from behind, they’d have to wait. I wasn’t letting him near me. Even when he sighed at my obstinacy.
The more I did, the more my stiffness ebbed. I’d be sore later though.
“So.” I straightened and kicked my pillow onto the bed, scoring a brilliant goal on the headboard. “Does this mean I stand a chance at taking out a guard?”
The hesitation said it all.
“No?”
“No. I wouldn’t try it unless it was one on one and you were truly desperate. You’d lose against these guys, but it’s worth knowing. We’ll practice over and over. There might be a chance, one day.”
“Sure.” Gingerly I sat on the bed. “I figured as much.” I sent him a wry smile.
“Now it’s your turn. Game?”
“Uhh.” I scrambled to think. Word games? I scuffed aside the tiny, thin rug next to the bed. “We could do hangman on the floor. Draw in...” I searched the room. “Water?”
“I doubt that’d be much use. About all we have is blood.”
It was a joke, I reminded myself, but the space between us seemed to shrink.
“Fuck. Sorry. Bad choice.”
I cleared my throat. “Yes. It was.”
I could never completely escape the reminders of why I was here, locked up. Though I was getting good at shoving them away and carrying on. The pain, the beatings, would return when I was washing my hands, or just eating a meal, or in the boring times in between. They’d flash in and I’d freeze up then push them away. Life went on. I guess people always needed hope and some sort of normality, else they’d curl up and die.
Seize me From Darkness (Pierced Hearts Book 4) Page 7