by R. A. Smyth
The next thing I know, I’m jolted awake to the sting of freezing cold water being hosed over me. I gasp as the horrific realization that this was not some fucked up nightmare, settles in my bones, weighing me down.
“Wakey, wakey, rise and shine, Princess,” a cold voice sings from somewhere in front of me. It takes a second for my brain to come back online after the ice shower, and I almost regret it when it does, because the sight that faces me is bleak and hopeless. I’m completely fucking screwed. I’m shackled to the stone wall behind me, splayed out like a star fish, butt fucking naked as Bowen sprays me down with water so cold my body already feels frozen solid.
Another pass of the water has me crying out, and he laughs cruelly when my whole body wracks in shivers. Bowen is the worst guard here. I guess that’s why he’s in charge, but he’s as coldhearted and morally rotten as our parents are, and the glint in his eye as he comes closer tells me I’m about to experience first-hand just how sick he really is.
Despite fear beating a quick rhythm through my cold veins, I glower at him as he approaches. He smirks, more than ready to rise to the challenge of breaking me as he unsheathes a knife from his waist, rolling it back and forth in his hand, all the while his gaze roams over me.
“I always did like cutting you up.” There’s a sick reverence in his tone that has goosebumps rising to the surface of my skin. He lifts the blade and traces the scar along my collarbone. Every one of my scars occurred at his hands. The twisted fuck gets off on inflicting pain onto others and watching them bleed out in front of him. I know for a fact that begging and crying only spurs him on, so I learned to hold my tongue a long time ago. He could literally stab me in the kidney and I’d refuse to so much as whimper in front of him.
The thing is, I got so good at acting broken when I was here; at pretending they’d beaten me down and turned me into an obedient soldier ever-ready to do their bidding, that they’ve never seen my fire. All those years they thought they crushed me, they were only adding fuel to the building inferno of hatred inside me. I’m burning so fucking brightly, brimming with fire and hate and malice. So he can fucking bring it; I’m ready for him.
I let him see every ounce of contempt I feel for him, for this compound, for the fucking board that runs this hellhole. His eyes widen at the realization of just how alive and ready to fight I really am, before darkening. His lip curls up on one side, and his eyes sparkle with sick excitement.
“Oh D, I’m going to enjoy breaking you,” he promises, dragging the blade down between my exposed breasts. He applies just enough pressure to bring blood to the surface, occasionally nicking the skin and causing small red droplets to form before they drip down over my white skin. His tongue flicks out to lick his bottom lip and he digs the blade in deeper. My body tenses, preparing for the slash of pain when he breaks the surface. Instead of pushing the blade all the way in though, he loosens his hold, trailing it further and further south until a red line runs from the base of my neck to my pubic bone.
“Nothing gets me harder than having my prey all trussed up and covered in blood.” He smiles wickedly before pushing the blade through my folds, the cold steel making me gasp as my body freezes.
“I haven’t been allowed to play with you the way I want,” he pouts, pulling the blade away from my body. My muscles relax, now that I don’t need to worry about him nicking any of my sensitive bits, right before a perverted grin crosses his face. “But my time is coming. Soon I’ll have claimed every part of you.”
***
Facing Bowen becomes a daily part of my routine. For several hours every day, I’m splayed out for him to slice and dice like a slab of meat. Of course, just to drive the knife in deeper, he opens up the gallery for any and every fucker to come and watch the ‘Humiliating Hadley’ show. It becomes the only way for me to tell the passing of each day. Based on my count, today is day number four. I’ve been here for four days.
It already feels like a lifetime.
The frozen water blasts over my skin—again—and I grit my teeth against the shivers wracking my body, blocking out the hoots and hollers from the guards. All of them are getting off on seeing me strung up and at Bowen’s mercy. The tangy smell of blood in the air as Bowen trails the tip of his blade along my skin, decorating my body with brand new scars, drives the men wild. They’re like rabid dogs, biting on the bit and itching for a taste.
“Just like old times, D. I remember how much you and your little friend loved being chained to my wall.” He leans in, whispering in my ear, “Keep fighting, D. Every day you hold out is another day Lawrence gets closer to caving and letting me do what I want with you.” A wicked glint enters his eye as he presses the flat side of his knife against my nipple, getting distracted as he trails a circle around it. “In the meantime…” He nicks my skin, a bead of blood swelling before it spills over onto my milky skin. “Why don’t we give the guys a show.” The smirk that lifts his lips is positively vicious. “Let’s see if I can make you scream.”
Sweat beads my skin over the next hour as I strain and grunt, refusing to give these fuckers what they’re craving—my pain. When Bowen is finally done making me bleed for the day and I’m panting from the exertion, he steps away, and one by one the guards approach me. With lecherous looks, they unzip their trousers, jerking themselves off until their cum hits my thighs, my abdomen, my hip—whatever body part they can reach.
“They’re all going to get a piece of you one day, D,” Bowen calls out. “You’re only delaying the inevitable.”
I don’t have the energy to digest what he’s saying. Instead, I let his words wash over me like rain, tuning him out, along with everyone else in the room. Disconnecting myself from my reality, I let my mind slip away to a better place. It’s something I’ve become adept at doing, and it’s only when my knees collide painfully with the stone floor that I abruptly crash land in the present again.
I’m a sticky mess on the floor, blood and cum combining and crusting on my skin. Without my restraints holding me upright, my body no longer has the energy to stand unaided. Instead, I’m a boneless heap sprawled out on the ground. I’ve had nothing to eat or drink since I arrived, so my muscles are running on nothing but grit and sheer determination at this point, but my adrenaline is quickly wearing off. I’m exhausted; beyond exhausted. Fucking numb.
The assholes don’t even wash me down before dumping me, naked, back in my cell. I’m not sure how long I sit on the floor, staring absently at the stone slabs before I gather enough energy to drag myself onto the thin, lumpy mattress on my cot.
Just as my eyes droop, sleep threatening to drag me down, the screaming and banging starts.
No. Please no. Not again.
It’s the same death metal they blast every time exhaustion is about to pull me under. The lights start flashing next—a painfully bright strobing that has my retinas burning, even though I squeeze them shut and bury my head in the mattress.
Everything they’re doing is intended to break me and, fuck, I think it might be working. I can feel myself slowly giving up the fight. The only thing that keeps me alive is the thought of my guys. Images of them all, of Emilia and Hawk, and even Wilder, flitter across my mind, providing me with the only source of energy to keep me going. I can’t help but wonder if they’re out there looking for me. Do they know where I am? The music, if you can even call it that, blares through the speakers into the cell, threatening to drive me mad as I clamp my hands over my ears. I need sleep. I need food. I need to get out of here.
I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
Even if my guys do find me, will there be anything left to save?
Chapter 26
Today’s the day. The day I finally take control of my future. I can practically feel the sun on my face, heating my skin; the light breeze whispering ‘freedom’ as it whips around me. By the time the sun sets today, I’ll be standing on the other side of these tall, concrete walls, free to do whatever the fuck I want with the re
st of my life.
That, or I’ll be dead.
Lights out was hours ago, and I’ve been sitting impatiently in my small room ever since. Waiting. By the time I hear the lock disengaging, I’m a ball of nervous energy, no longer able to sit still. I’ve been pacing back and forth across the small space for a while now, and the sound of the door opening freezes me in my tracks.
“Hurry up,” a deep voice hisses. The guard is nothing but a dark silhouette in the narrow slit of my open door. Not wasting any more time, I close the distance and slip out the door without a backward glance, and he closes it soundlessly behind me.
He doesn’t say anything, but I can see the tick of annoyance in his jaw as he strides down the corridor. Glancing nervously around at the other closed doors in the block, each one containing a sleeping soldier behind them, I scurry silently after him, and catch up to him as he reaches the door leading outside.
I suck down a deep breath of the cool, night air, but I’m not free yet. Without a word, the guard takes off. He doesn’t look over his shoulder even once to see if I’m following. He probably hopes I’ll change my mind, but that won’t happen. Nothing will stand in my way tonight. The only way I’m going back into my room is if they drag me kicking and screaming.
I trail the guard in silence, the two of us stealthily making our way across the dark yard to a garage at the far side. I’ve never been to this part of the compound. Although, I’d hazard a guess there’s a lot of this place I’ve never seen—not that I care to. The sleeping barracks and main building where we train, eat, and receive punishments are the only two buildings the recruits have any reason to be in. Whatever is in the other outbuildings I’ve seen is nothing more than a guess to me—one I don’t care to find an answer to.
“Get in, and stay down,” he orders in a low whisper, opening the back door of a compact sedan. There’s junk strewn all over his backseat, and, as I quickly wedge myself into the floorboard, squirming as far under the front seat as I can, he shoves some of it down on top of me, ensuring I’m well hidden. I hate having to rely on him to get me out the gate, but what choice do I have? I’ve done all I can to guarantee he doesn’t turn on me. I wiggle, arching my back so I can slip the knife I stole from a guard earlier out of my pocket, and when he slips into the driver's seat, his weight further pinning me to the floor of the car, I poke my arm out from beneath the junk on top of me, sticking it through the small hole between his seat and the door of the car, and angle the blade at his kidney. I hear it—his gasp—when the sharp edge digs into his skin.
“Don’t get any funny ideas,” I bark out in a low, threatening growl.
I’ve been bribing Stevo, the guard so kindly helping me this evening, for the past year. Any time my team is sent on a job, he’s ordered to come along too, to keep an eye on me. I’m precious cargo after all—can’t have Lawrence’s plaything getting killed, or disappearing. He’s also up to his ears in gambling debts, so it wasn’t difficult to coax him into taking a cut of the ‘off book’ jobs I accepted any time I was away from the compound.
It all started as sheer fucking luck. Right place, right time sorta bullshit. We were on a job up in Black Creek, and I was running surveillance on our target. On my way to the rendezvous point, I came across some bikers harassing a curvy redhead. I wasn’t about to let that fly, and I quickly pulled them off her. She offered to pay me if I taught her how to hold her own in a fight. Sounded like a bunch of bullshit to me, but she produced the cold hard cash there and then. I didn’t ask why she wanted to know this stuff. That’s her business. My guess would be, living in Black Creek, an attractive girl like her would stand out by a mile, with her red hair, well-sized rack, and curvy ass. She probably just wanted some basic self-defense tactics to protect herself from sleazy scumbags. Whatever the reason, I accepted her offer.
With that first wad of cash, I bought myself a burner phone and rented out a locker at the run-down bus station in Black Creek. That way I had somewhere to keep my money and a way to contact the redhead—Red—when I was next in town.
So, after that, any time we were sent up Black Creek’s direction for a job, we’d meet up. I’d either make up some bullshit excuse for why I needed more time to do my job, or I’d bribe Stevo into letting me out for an hour. Red was a lifesaver. She was able to put me in touch with a guy that makes top-line fake IDs, and she even secured me a couple of quick and easy jobs, delivering cars to chop shops and running drugs, to help me get the money together.
Once I had papers sporting my brand new name, it was only a matter of waiting for Pacific Prep applications to open, and finally, last week, when I checked my PO Box, I had received my acceptance letter. With everything in place, there was no reason for me to stay here any longer. I lifted as much cash as I could from my locker and bribed a reluctant Stevo into helping me tonight. Of course, it’s a big fucking difference between him letting me slip out for an hour, and him actually helping me escape. It took a lot of haggling and threatening for him to finally cave, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to trust him. Anyone who can be bought, can’t be trusted.
I roll my eyes as he grunts and curses me out under his breath, the car slowly making its way through the compound. As we roll to a stop, I hiss out, “Remember I can kill you faster than you can blink.”
He ignores me, rolling down his window, and I pray the guards won’t be able to make out the white skin of my arm wedged around the side of the seat, or demand to rifle through the stuff in his backseat.
“Alright, Stevo,” the guard greets. “Where are you off to tonight?”
“Off to drown my sorrows, man. The Cubs were supposed to be a sure thing.” Stevo sighs, and his disappointment sounds too genuine to be fake. He probably had all of the bribe money I’m about to hand over to him riding on tonight's game.
“Ouch, man.” I hear the guard chuckle sympathetically. “You won’t be the only one drinking away the loss.” There’s a pause, and unable to see what’s going on, I press the tip of the blade more firmly into Stevo’s skin, only stopping when I hear him hiss. “You’re all good, Stevo. Catch ya later, man.”
There is another tense moment as Stevo waits for the gates to slide open, before he rolls the car forward and we drive through. Sweat coats my skin and my heart hammers against my chest. I keep expecting one of the guards to call out for him to stop, but no one does, and we drive down the dark road.
“Where am I going?” he growls, letting his anger show.
“Just keep going.” I wiggle out from beneath the seat, shoving all of his shit off the backseat so I can sit on it. My eyes dart all around us, half expecting some sort of ambush, but there’s only darkness.
We drive in silence for twenty minutes before I tell him to pull over. I’ve no idea where the fuck we are, but it doesn’t really matter.
The car idles at the side of the road, and I lean forward in my seat.
“Sorry about this,” I apologize in a bland voice before jabbing the knife into his kidney.
He screams, “What the fuck?” as blood soaks through his shirt, and he scrambles for the door handle, getting out of the car. I follow quickly behind him, and the second he stumbles onto the road, clutching at his side, I launch myself at him. I slice the knife quickly through the soft skin of his neck, jumping off him as he collapses to the ground, gurgling and gasping.
I couldn’t let him live. I couldn’t run the risk that he would raise the alarm. It’s why I chose to escape from the compound, rather than when we were out on a job. It would have been so much easier to escape then, but someone would have noticed me missing much sooner. I need every second I can get to grab the last of the cash and things from my locker at the bus station and disappear.
With Stevo dead, I know that no one will realize I’m missing until the morning. That gives me several hours to do everything I need to. Dragging his dead body into the undergrowth along the side of the road, I wipe off the few flecks of blood on my skin and climb in behind the wheel.
I flick through the radio channels until I find one I like, cranking it all the way up as I speed down the country lanes to freedom.
I’m in and out of consciousness, barely alive, when I hear the steel door of my cell being pulled open. No. Not yet. I’m not strong enough to survive another round already.
“Up,” a deep voice snaps.
When I don’t move—because I’m not physically capable of it—he grabs roughly onto my upper arms and yanks me up. Once I’m in a sitting position he shoves a tray of food in front of me.
“Eat.”
Clearly, he’s only capable of monosyllabic words.
I don’t even have the energy to lift my spoon, and the smell of the soup has my stomach threatening to revolt.
When I make no effort to follow his instructions, he pinches my cheeks painfully, forcing my mouth open and starts shoveling the food into me. It’s not long before I’m gagging and puking up what little he managed to get down my throat.
Vomit splashes over the front of his shirt and he’s quick to react, slapping me across the face as he curses me out. I don’t know what he expected to happen when I haven’t eaten anything in god knows how long.
Wiping himself down, he returns to his task of force feeding me. I’m fairly certain most of it ends up on the ground or over both of us, but eventually the tray is empty.
When we’re done, he hauls me out of the cell, dragging me into a large room with a drain in the middle of the floor. Grabbing a hose, he douses me in freezing cold water. The thing about being blasted daily with ice cold water is that you never get used to it. You know it’s going to be a shock to your system, but no matter how prepared you are, you still flinch away when it hits your skin. I can’t do anything but lie there, shivering and naked on the floor as the water washes over me. I no longer even give a shit that I’m naked. That requires energy—energy I don’t have.