by Sansa Rayne
Good Sick: A Dark Psychological Romance
Copyright 2016 Sansa Rayne. All right reserved.
Kindle Edition
All characters depicted are over the age of 18.
This book may not be reproduced in any form by any means, without the author’s permission, except for reviewers, who may quote short excerpts.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations and action come from the author’s imagination and presented as fiction. Any resemblance to real individuals, alive or deceased, as well as events or places, is completely coincidental.
This book features explicit depictions of sex and other material that may offend some audiences. Therefore, is intended for adults only.
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“Downcome” font courtesy of Misprinted Type, www.misprintedtype.com.
Table of Contents
“Prologue”
“Chapter 1”
“Chapter 2”
“Chapter 3”
“Chapter 4”
“Chapter 5”
“Chapter 6”
“Chapter 7”
“Chapter 8”
“Chapter 9”
“Chapter 10”
“Chapter 11”
“Chapter 12”
“Chapter 13”
“Chapter 14”
“Chapter 15”
“Chapter 16”
“Chapter 17”
“Chapter 18”
“Chapter 19”
“Chapter 20”
“Chapter 21”
“Chapter 22”
“Chapter 23”
“Chapter 24”
“Chapter 25”
“Chapter 26”
“Chapter 27”
“Epilogue”
Sansa Rayne’s Mailing List & Free Bonus Chapter
Sansa Rayne ARC Reader List
For Further Reading
About the Author/Acknowledgments
“They called it a cult. I called it home.”
ABIGAIL
I don’t regret running away from home six years ago. I wound up at Good Souls, a secluded farm where I could fight my dark, dirty impulses and remain pure. I knew that soon I would receive the ultimate reward: ascension straight to heaven. Then the police raided our farm and took everything away. They called it being “rescued.”
I had nothing: no family or friends, just an empty apartment in New York. The other women from the farm barely spoke to me. Our leader, Brady Booker, was missing, and my therapist wanted to convince me my sexual urges were normal, and that ascension was a lie.
For so long I believed my hunger for discipline and restraint was the work of demons tempting me to sin. Then I met Mason. Dominant and handsome, he made me feel good… even if I am sick…
MASON
For ten years I’ve been on the hunt, trying to fix a mistake that cost me everything. Obsessed with righting the wrongs of my past, I lost touch with my friends and family; I lost my badge; I lost all semblance of a normal life.
I never should have let Abigail Lamb get under my skin. Just when I’d caught a break, when I thought the end was in sight, she stood in my way. Beautiful, but brainwashed, her tragic past and thirst for submission drew me in and held on tight. I couldn’t resist, even if it meant jeopardizing my mission.
Now I have no choice. I can’t let her go, not until I get what I need. I’m going to finish what I started, even if that means becoming a monster…
Publisher's note: “Good Sick” is a new adult dark romance story with explicit sexual content, including BDSM practices, with no cliffhangers, no cheating and a HEA.
The door to my room busted open so loudly I thought for sure it had been kicked in half. If I’d been asleep I would have screamed, but I was up, sweating through my sheets, listening to boots pound the hardwood floors. They were going room to room, asking all the girls the same question. I knew I’d be next.
“Abigail, where’s Elspeth?”
I clutched the white blanket over my head and twisted away from the door. This isn’t happening. It’s not my fault.
“I don’t know, Brady. What’s going on?”
“She’s not here!” he barked. “Where is she?”
Chills ran through my spine. I sat up and saw his silhouette in the backlit door frame. “I don’t know!” I hoped the anger in my voice would hide the fear of lying. What I said wasn’t even really a lie, but it felt like one. “How would I? I’ve been in here.” That part was true.
Elspeth tried to convince me to come with her, but she didn’t know where she was going.
“Not here,” was all she’d said. I figured she meant the closest town, but where was that? I didn’t know. And what would we do then? Uncertainty anchored me to the bed. I couldn’t cope.
“I can’t go,” I told her, and she didn’t try to convince me. She left, and the door swung shut behind her, locking from the outside. At first I cried, made miserable by my cowardice. Yet, I couldn’t blame Elspeth for going. She slept in the room next to mine, and Isaac had been there. I’d heard what happened to her. I’d hummed to myself to drown out the muffled whines. The slaps. Her cries.
“Don’t be a sinner,” he’d said, chuckling. Isaac was always toughest on her. “Rest well, good soul.”
“Be blessed,” she’d croaked in reply. If I hadn’t heard her say it in her disaffected way so often, I wouldn’t have understood it.
“He doesn’t want you to miss your ascension,” I’d told her in the past. She’d laughed at me. She didn’t believe anymore. She’d only been here a few months, but she didn’t think her time would come. Did she have any idea how long I’d been waiting? If anybody should give up, it’s me, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was a good soul, and when the time was right, my holiness — my purity — would be rewarded.
If I still had it. The demons tempted me daily. Today I passed their test, more than once.
Is that why Elspeth left? Did the demons drive her to ruin? She didn’t think so. She told me once, with no doubt in her voice, “It’s all a lie, Abbi. I hope you can see it before it’s too late.”
I laid awake since then, wondering if she’d been found, imagining Brady’s disappointment. Ascension was such a precious gift; squandering it may as well have been spitting in God’s face. Still, I never thought he’d be so furious to find her gone. You can’t save everyone.
“If I found out you helped her, I swear, you’ll regret it,” said Brady.
“Please,” I mumbled. “I’m sorry. Please be merciful.” The words came out by rote, meaningless. This was the one thing I had to lie about. Begging for succor was expected, so I begged. I shouldn’t want to be punished, but I can’t help it. The sweet sting of the lash, the feel of his hand against my soft skin… Like every agonizing blow is a sip of guilt siphoned out of me. I needed it.
Stop it, Abigail. That’s the demons tempting you. By now you should know better.
“Be blessed,” growled Brady. As soon as he left and I heard his heavy footsteps recede, I scrambled out of bed and put my ear to the door. I didn’t try the knob; if he hadn’t left it locked before, he certainly would have now.
Listening hard, holding my breath to keep quiet, I heard bass tones of muted voices from downstairs. Brady and Isaac were having one of their “discussions.” Most of it came through as indecipherable murmurs, but I could swear I heard them say Elspeth’s name again and again. Their voices got louder, and soon I heard the patter of the other girls at their doors, eavesdropping right
along with me.
“Picked the lock? Are you fucking kidding me?” Brady’s voice stabbed into my heart like a dagger. Even when he was angry with me, he always had such… control. Like his emotions were there, but only as spectators, commenting to themselves. Now they’d stolen the show and were running away with it.
“She’s not a moron! She could have!” Isaac snapped back.
“And she’d have learned to do it how, exactly? Think she got lucky? Really?”
“All right, all right, Brady, fine! I admit it, okay? I may have left the door unlocked. If I did, you know it was an accident!”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Isaac was so disciplined, like the rest of us. He knows the procedure: tell the good soul to get in bed. Shut the door. Lock the door. Check the lock. Say goodnight.
If we got out, who knows what could happen?
“Yeah?” said Brady. “Maybe you were… distracted.” His voice dripped venom.
“What are you saying?”
“You fucking know. You know.”
I exhaled, unable to hold my breath any longer. It was pointless anyway: my pounding heart drowned out all else. What were they talking about? I kept waiting to hear a wet smack, or breaking glass, followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor. I was so preoccupied listening for the inevitable, I screamed when the interruption came not from below, but from outside.
Retina-burning brilliance flashed through my window. It was so bright, I thought it had to be my ascension. I lurched forward, ready to be called to paradise, but it was just a spotlight shining directly into my eyes.
I covered my face and then the beam went away. Blinking a few times, I realized a new sound had replaced all else: a helicopter. I’d heard one a few times, mostly on television, but recognized the loud, low-pitched chopping. I looked to the sky and saw red and white dots circling round. In the fields below, thousands of cornstalks danced as if in a dream. Illuminated by spinning cones of blue and red light, the corn shimmied in the wind. Between the two cornfields, pairs of headlights sped down the dirt path to our home, creeping along like river crocodiles, invisible except for their predatory eyes.
I thrashed against the door with my fists. “Brady, let me out! Brady!” I shouted. When I stopped I could hear the other girls doing the same. I put on my shoes and kicked at the doorknob, but it was no use. I nearly fell over on the last attempt, so I sat down on my bed. My throat itched, desert dry with a sandpaper tongue. My hands shook. I heard a roar in my head, and after a minute it resolved into a booming electric voice.
“Everybody please stay calm!”
Out the window I saw the policeman with the megaphone. He must have noticed the movement in the window because he turned and he looked right at me.
“We don’t want to hurt anybody. Get down on the floor and put your hands on your head. I repeat, if you’re being held here against your will, you’re safe now. We’re coming to get you. You’re safe now.”
Safe? I wasn’t safe before? I didn’t know what was going on. I thought, over and over, Where’s Brady?
“I know you. You’re Annie Whatserface. From the news.”
It happened at least once a week: somebody recognized me on a bus, or maybe the subway. They got the name right about half the time.
Today it’s a middle-aged man in a gray business suit. Balding and sweaty, he seemed amused and maybe a little fascinated, like a kid visiting the zoo.
Except I’m the one surrounded by animals.
“It’s Abigail. Be blessed,” I said, getting up to find another seat, ignoring his request for a selfie. I missed not knowing that word.
And I missed telling people to “be blessed” without it sounding sarcastic. I blame the city for that, although it was my choice to move here. It’s where I wanted to live before I was… sidetracked.
The subway station felt like the inside of a tea kettle. Breeze from the oncoming trains didn’t help much. It wasn’t any cooler, just windier.
In my haste to escape the swelter, I missed the sign for the escalator out to the street and wound up having to climb up all six flights. That didn’t help either.
Life was so much simpler back at Good Souls. Now I see a doctor two or three times a week, and she tells me how much better it is here.
“Abigail, you’re not a prisoner anymore.”
“Abigail, you were being brainwashed.”
“Abigail, those men were criminals.”
I tried to like Dr. Davis. She had good intentions. She wanted to help. She was helping, I suppose. Plus, I liked her appearance: pretty, but in a relaxed way, with small, squarish glasses and light hair pulled back into a ponytail. I had this impression of her having gym shorts and a sports bra on underneath her blazer and skirt. As if she’d put her heels in her purse, pull out some sneakers and jog home.
“How are your finances?” she asked as I sat down on the white, cloth couch in her office. Coffee stained and sunken in the center, it reminded me more of home than anything else in the entire city.
“Okay. The donations are slowing, but I’m getting by.”
I wondered how many of her patients saw her because they chose to, or because a court decided they had to. Her office conveyed a sense of welcoming, but also neutrality. Framed degrees hung from the walls, evidence of her credentials; fully-stocked bookshelves added to the perception of a diligent professional. Paintings of pretty landscapes and flowers lightened the tone like a reassuring hand on your shoulder. Maybe her other patients liked them, but they took me straight back to the farm.
“Still checking out colleges? Or are you applying for jobs?”
“Colleges,” I said. I’d been so close to finishing high school before I left, it didn’t take me long to get my GED. And I liked staying inside and studying.
“Good. Glad to hear it.”
The doctor sat back in her leather recliner and waited; it was her way of prompting me to speak.
“Elspeth called again last night,” I said. “She sounded good.”
“That’s wonderful.”
I rolled my eyes. Elspeth got what she wanted. Why wouldn’t she sound good?
Davis saw my scowl. “Ellie was gone a lot less time than you. It’s going to be a lot easier for her to make the adjustment.”
Now there’s a nice word for it. Adjustment. As if I was righting a picture frame, or nudging the salad fork a little to the left.
“Have you seen her since that night?” asked Davis.
“You mean the night she ripped my home away from me?”
“Abigail.”
“The night that may have cost me eternal paradise?”
“Please, Abigail…”
“What?” Fists clenched, I crossed my arms and seethed. That’s what happens when I think about the night Elspeth ran away. She left Good Souls and didn’t stop until she reached Forestburgh. Didn’t waste any time once there. She pounded on the front door of the first house she saw and asked for the police. Twenty minutes later, every car within twenty miles was on its way.
Davis sighed and looked me in the eye. “Think of it from her point of view. She’d suffered terrible abuse. She’d been beaten, and worse. The farm wasn’t her home, it was her prison.”
I unclenched my fists and smoothed my long, royal blue dress. The doctor had a point. Isaac’s visits to her room after dark… Elspeth knew I could hear. I felt bad for her when it happened, but it wasn’t my place to interfere. Isaac had demons like everyone else. I couldn’t fight them off for him. No one could.
“She escaped,” I said at last. “She didn’t have to ruin it for everyone else.”
Davis suppressed her exasperation, but still regarded me like some kind of child. “Do Good Souls not believe in justice? It’s only right that her abuser face justice.”
“That’s not for us to decide,” I argued.
“Actually it is, Abigail,” Davis snapped. “We’ve decided it is. Men like Isaac are not above the law, just because he’s ‘b
lessed.’” She stood up and paced around her office. “I’m sorry, that was condescending,” she said at last.
“It’s fine, doctor. I know you have your beliefs and I have mine.”
“These aren’t beliefs,” said Davis. “They’re facts. Come on, you know what I’m saying. You weren’t born at Good Souls. I know you had a troubled upbringing, and that your guardians and foster siblings had brushes with the law when you were a juvenile. You know perfectly well that we have a system in place, and nobody is exempt. Whether you like it or not, Ellie was right to do what she did, okay?”
Is this how therapy is supposed to go? You spend forty-five minutes on the subway to sit on a crummy couch and have somebody yell at you for an hour?
Yet, Davis was right, at least as far as she could know: this was a country and it had rules. I got that. And it wasn’t Elspeth’s fault that she didn’t have enough time to learn the way to ascension.
“All right,” I said. “I just think she made a mistake.”
“Fine.” Davis sat back down. The leather squeaked as she slid back along its length. “I’d like to move on. It’s been a few months since you started coming here, Abbi. I feel like we’ve gotten to know each other. I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to ask you some sensitive questions.”
She called me Abigail to make me comfortable, and Abbi to shift the tone. I admit, it was clever: I liked the diminutive, even though I probably shouldn’t. “Sure.”
“Abbi, when you were at the farm, at any time did Brady or anyone else make you… perform certain… acts… that you didn’t want to?”
Davis paused as she spoke, as if working out the most diplomatic way to interrogate me. I’d been asked this question hundreds of times and in as many ways.
“No, Dr. Davis,” I said, effecting a robotic monotone. “At no point did any of them ever touch me, or make me touch them, or do anything of the sort. I’ve stated this many times.”
“Abbi, remember that what you say here is strictly confidential. This is for me to know about you, not them, so I can help you.”
I rolled my eyes. I’d heard that line before too. I’m not delusional. I know what abuse is. The only thing even comes close to that was…