by Bob Dattolo
“You’re correct. He holds the position of power. I can do this, and other things, and save you the pain of it. Me doing it allows you to step away. To work through what’s happening. You would have attacked him, and he still would have fucked us. Or you would have balked. And he still would have fucked us. Or you would have broken down. And he still would have fucked us. I was able to step in and handle it. Take part in it. Yes, it’s not something you or I wanted to do, but I can do it without a problem. This will allow you time to deal with the reality of what happened.”
“I so don’t understand. I can see how that helped, but…who are you? How are you doing this?”
“I can’t explain who I am. I’m you. Just a different aspect of you. We need to work through this. Through everything. For now, just sit back and watch. I’ll handle things for a while. Especially if and when his friends come. Once you feel better. More centered, you can come out and drive for short periods of time. I’ll take over when you can’t. We’ll be able to work up to splitting time, and you’ll be able to handle it like I can now.”
“You’re really me?”
“I am. Now, do you agree?”
“I guess? I’m so lost.”
“You’ll understand at some point. Now, I’m going to go try to make some food and get some sleep. He said he’d be back tomorrow. We want to be rested for him. To show him how eager we are. You understood what I did with his hand on our neck?”
“You submitted to him? Petitioned to belong to him?”
“Very good. I did. In his mind, this is now willing, even though it’s not from ours. We’re using his nature against him, yet I have no plans of fighting. He owns us in a very real way, and I want that ownership to be as pain-free as possible. If that means fucking on command, then I’ll do it. Even his friends. All of them. Now, rest. I’m going to find food.”
My body finished up as I faded behind the barrier wall and watched everything.
This is really happening. Is this a psychotic break? Jean taught me about that at one point. Or the idea of it. Is this what that means? It sure feels like it might be. I’ve had strange, disjointed conversations with myself over the past few years, but the connection was so jacked up that I couldn’t really understand the responses. Not fully, at least.
Now the voice is driving my body. Walking. Talking. Showering. Hunting through the fridge.
And yet I can’t help thinking that’s a good idea. If I have to have a mental breakdown, surely having one where another personality handles the bad things happening and lets the real me relax in the background is a good idea? Sure, it could be irreversible, but I don’t know that’s the case. I’ll cross that bridge when and if we get to it. Until then? Until then, my body is going to eat this tuna salad sandwich and enjoy the hell out of it. All the while knowing what it feels like to have a dick in me.
Something I only pictured happening way down the line. Yet I took part in things. Willingly, from his perspective, no matter what screaming I was doing on the inside.
Which is exactly why I’m in this situation. Why other-me is driving. Humming happily as I drink ice water. Something I haven’t had in forever. Jean didn’t have a freezer, so couldn’t even make ice. I haven’t had it since I was a kid and before I became this blind version of myself.
I spent nine years in a home that I can’t remember and ended up broken and battered and magicless and blind in an alley. Then I spent four years with a loving woman teaching me about the world and allowing me to experience more and more each day. Now…here I am. My first day belonging to Reggie.
Thank you, other-me for stepping in and helping. You’re right, no matter what I did, we wouldn’t be given the kind of freedom that we seem to have right now. Every reaction I would have had would have resulted in pain coming back tenfold. No part of me would have willingly given in. Even had I wanted to, I would have been petrified, locked up and unable to act on it.
And yet the voice took over. Helped. I hate that giving in and doing what we did was considered helping, yet…it was. When you’re presented with two options, one being painful and humiliating and the other just being humiliating? Why push yourself down the painful path?
The bitch of it is that, while this is pedophilia to a human, it’s not to a mage or a dragon. They’re available as soon as they have their inducement ceremony. Toss in me being a stricken, and if cops walked in while he was in me and I begged them to save me, they would have laughed and walked out. No part of what was happening would have been illegal.
Other-me’s right. I need to rest and try to absorb what happened.
And cry.
Jean’s dead. My life, my second life, is over. Now I’m onto a third one.
No, don’t think about that, Maddie. Rest. Drift away. Let her drive us for a while.
Chapter 5
The couple was back again. Over four years of being trapped here by Reggie, I’ve come to hate them the most. Out of all of the people that have come through here, all of his friends, even Reggie himself, these two stand out to me.
I can tell them by smell.
As I can any of the ones that have been here more than once.
Which I don’t understand.
“You don’t need to understand it. It’s simply what we can do.”
The voice has been in control probably 95 percent of the time since getting here, and it’s been a lifesaver. So much of one.
It hasn’t just saved my life; it’s saved my sanity. Thank God Reggie didn’t have friends through every day. Not even once a week. At least normally. Once every other week? That’s closer to the truth. Then again, he’s been visiting me at least every other day, if not slightly more often on average.
There has to be something going on with me mentally, because I don’t hate him. That’s solely due to her. I still don’t have a name.
“I told you, I’m you.”
Ugh, “You know I don’t know what that means!”
The woman made some comment about pain, and I knew she’d have one of the whips out again. She always breaks out the whips at some point.
“I’ve told you, we’re not separate people. I’m not an interloper. I’m you. I’m helping us make it through this since we have no choice but to go through it.”
I just… “Look, I get that, I do. Why couldn’t we fight back at some point, though! It’s been more than four years!”
The whip landed, making me wince at the pain that I barely feel. She feels it all, while I’m protected, at least a little.
“We stand no chance of fighting back and surviving. This allows us to live. To grow. To plan. To look for an opening to escape and survive.”
We’ve had this argument so often that I want to scream from it more than I do from the woman whipping me or what her husband is doing to me.
“I know that! When will we be able to leave, though? When?! We’ve had chances to do it before, I know it!”
The voice growled, catching me by surprise, that’s been happening a lot more lately. Not the surprise, the growling. Although the surprise followed each time. “We have had limited opportunities for it to happen. I have been struggling with our sight. With our strength. We can’t risk breaking his rules and not being successful! You know what happens when you do that!”
Fuck. Too true. He came home with a guy a month after we were here. The guy fought back. He died screaming over the next two weeks, and it’s the most gruesome thing I’ve ever heard.
Reggie is not a man, or dragon, to be crossed. Powerful. Vindictive. Passionate. He’s allowed us more and more freedom over the years, but we know we’re being monitored by cameras and magic. As long as we obey, we’re safe. Ish. We just have to push through these visits.
More lashes from her. More hits from him. More grunting from him.
That thought pushed at me. My mental walls.
“I WANT OUT.”
“You can drive if you want.”
My growl was all internal, but it was just as fier
ce as hers, “You know what I mean! I want out of here!”
Something pulsed within me, pushing harder than ever before.
I’ve felt it more and more over the past four years, but it’s never been this strong. Even when it happened yesterday and the day before, it wasn’t anywhere near this level.
“If we fail, we’ll be killed!”
You know what? I’m okay with that.
Another pulse, this time orders of magnitude stronger than before. With it came a scene from the room. I’m strapped down, like normal when the couple visits, so I can’t see either of them. I can see the room, though, and the blood on the walls from her efforts. This has happened more often, too. It’s just never stayed around this long before.
“What are you doing, Maddie?”
“I told you, I want out. Out of here. Out of this life. If they kill me? Fine. If we get free? Fine. But I’m going out on my own terms. If we can’t get free, then I’ll kill myself. I’m done with this. Done with them.”
Growling overtook me again just as another pulse flared through me, going even higher. Pain lanced through my face like I haven’t felt in at least two years. Pressure behind the mortmagi made me scream, which I’d been fighting doing. This couple gets worse when you scream, and I’ve learned to keep silent through very nearly everything.
I’ve never made it through a session with them without breaking down, though. I haven’t done it this early in at least three years.
The hits started coming harder and faster as they both cried out. They enjoy this. Immensely. The pain. The blood. The screams. They’re not even in a frenzy yet, but that’s how this ends. I’ll be left a bloody mess that will take weeks to heal enough to be able to even walk, and that’s if I hold out far longer than I managed today.
They may even kill me.
You know what? Good.
More growling as I pushed and dug, trying to gain traction inside. I want control, and she won’t give it to me. I want it. This is me. Even if it’s us, it’s also me. And I want to drive.
“Maddie, we may die!”
Louder growling, “Good! Death is preferable to this non-life! I want out. I want to kill these two if I can, but today’s it. I’m done. Death is my choice. I’d rather live and go free, but I’ll accept death on my own terms!”
Another burst of something from within me, this time it’s way beyond anything I’ve felt before. With it comes soul-destroying levels of pain in my face from the plates nailed into the bone.
“You can’t do this alone. You need my help.”
I do? “Then give it!”
Her growl sounds different this time. “If I do, there may be no going back. It may call for…integration.”
“Then do it!”
“I’m not sure we can survive like that.”
“Then we’ll die like that. Our choice. Our decision. This ends. Today.”
The hits and whips came in even harder, and my weird sight is showing me more and more blood.
And then they paused. “Did she just growl?” The woman sounds confused.
I growled?
The strangeness in me expanded uncontrollably as other-me did something that I can’t even describe. It’s like she opened a doorway through the thick protective layer between me and the reality of our life.
Now I feel the pain. All of it.
It’s still less than the mental pain of everything that’s happened to me.
“Push, Maddie. Push. I’ll do what I can. If I can’t talk to you again…Keep us safe.”
I can do that. Or die trying. I’m okay either way.
Instead of answering, I grabbed at everything in me and pulled, wrapping the strange feeling around myself as I tried to suck it down. Pain lashed through my body as my nerve endings came online for me in ways they haven’t done in years at this point, yet something else is happening. Something that I can’t at all understand.
The pain in my face…it’s getting worse. It crossed into territory that I haven’t felt since they were rammed into place, and it’s still growing.
And yet the rage filling me is also growing. As is the tingling sensation.
Wait…tingling? Magic? I can’t have magic. The mortmagi destroy magic when they’re in. Our power comes from our eyes, and mine are gone. Have been, for more than half of my life at this point.
And yet I’m seeing. Somehow.
I’m also feeling the tingles as they spread out, filling me, and making my skin expand, feeling like I’m going to explode and end the agony of my existence.
That means I need more power. If I’m gonna explode, maybe I’ll take these two animals with me. I can live, or die, with that happening.
Legs appear in front of me, “She’s growling? She should be screaming?! El, make her scream for me again!”
“Anything for you, Annie.”
He did something that brought on mountains of pain, except it was snowed under by a world of pain being dredged up from within me. My face grew hotter as power built in my empty eye sockets. The tingles spread out, cramming more and more pressure into my small frame.
And yet he continued to hit me. She started saying something about not enough screams and also began whipping me again. Yet I still didn’t scream. I wanted to. Yes, I did, just not from what they’re doing. What they’re doing is painful, but it’s like my cramps and how they faded when these things were rammed into my skull.
Insignificant in comparison.
With every hit from either of them, the power and pressure in me built. And built. And built. As it did, the rage inside of me did the same. Other-me is doing something, and I can’t tell what it is, but it feels like she’s trying to pull me through the barrier holding most of me back from being able to control me. Yet at the same time…she’s not going anywhere. It’s like she wants both of us in me at the same time. Both controlling me.
Integration.
That’s what she called it. Integration. We wouldn’t be me and other-me. We’d be us? No, me. Just me.
My metaphysical hands reached through the open barrier and I latched onto her and started heaving as I shoved behind me with more waves of power. As I did, my growling got louder and louder, filling the room, and causing the two of them to go into a frenzy of hits and blows.
Without warning, the me that was locked away shatters the barrier, and I feel myself getting crammed into a space too small for me. For us.
“Integration.”
“If that’s what we need to live. Then I’m okay with it.”
She didn’t respond at first, “If this is what you want, then it’s what I want. Come together. We live or we die in a blaze of glory.”
It’s been four years since I last controlled my body and spoke. Four long years of pretending that it’s just the one me here in residence, not wanting to let Reggie know any different. Yet when my brain shattered, I couldn’t help saying, “It’s time to live.”
I was not prepared for a universe of pain to land in my eye sockets. Nor was I prepared for a high-pitched squealing sound that echoed through the room and clogged my ears over and above their hits on me.
Hits that stopped as the sound registered to them.
“What the fuck is that?” He doesn’t talk much when he’s here, so hearing a full question is kind of a shock. Hearing two full sentences from him in a day is more than he’s ever done during any one visit before.
That suddenly became less important to me as I felt something that I never envisioned feeling again. I feel coldness. Cold. In my eye sockets. The hellish pressure of the mortmagi reduces as the universe of pressure in my sockets causes the squealing sound…which I didn’t even start to understand before the first one falls free, clanging against the floor.
I didn’t see it moving. Now I see it on the floor covered in caked on blood. Then the second. It looks the same. There’s tissue and stuff on the blades and bone on some of the spikes.
”What the fuck happened? How’d that happen?” The woman
drops the whip, and fingers grab my hair and yank my head back just as I feel something shifting in my face. In my sockets.
For the first time ever, I see her face. For a long second, it’s in the strange grid view that has details in it…then there’s light and fine detail as I stare up at her.
And my growling starts anew.
She has just enough time to inhale to scream before the ropes holding me down break.
Their joint screams last a solid half hour before they’re both too far gone to continue. She died maybe a minute ago, with him following her about ten seconds ago.
I so didn’t hear anyone coming, so the door to the room being destroyed came as a complete shock as guys in body armor and wielding guns, swords, and shields, came in. Six of them came to a halt, staring around in horror at the room.
A tall man steps through them and looks around the space, then holds up his hand and nods. He catches the mortmagi on the floor and nods once again. “Maddie Stricken?”
“I am.”
“What happened here?”
The hell? “I’ve been held captive here for more than four years. This couple would come in and beat and rape me.”
Something flared from him, and his eyes widened a tiny bit as he nodded. “I…see. What happened with your mortmagi? How did you heal?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t know.” The voice inside of me is silent. Did we really integrate? I can’t tell. My senses aren’t what I remembered having, yet that could just be growing older? As it is, I feel the tingles inside of me that tell me I have magic. Something I shouldn’t have.
“She’s telling the truth.” He patted the armored guy to his left on the shoulder, “Pull the cameras from the corners. Get all of the recordings. I want to know everyone that came through here.”
“What about Reggie?”
He looked back to me, “Mr. Thomas? Who is he to you?”
“He kidnapped me when I was 13 after killing the woman that took me in. Jean. He told me what would happen…and I sort of gave in until I could fight back.” Still nothing from other-me.
Slow nod, “We’ll have to ask more questions, but you should be safe. Reggie Thomas is dead. He was outside when we responded to the reports that there was uncontrolled magic taking place here. I have to think that was you?”