After my fruitless meeting with the Senior Magister and a quick bite at a burger joint in town, I headed over to Ben’s house on the other side of town. I only hoped that he had been able to get his hands on something that was strong enough to restrain me, especially since I wasn’t sure how strong Dominic’s compulsion over me would prove to be.
It wasn’t as though I’d ever been able to test it out. The few times Dominic compelled me, it didn’t even occur to me to try to fight it. It seemed beyond my paygrade.
“Hey, Jem. Come on in,” said Ben as he answered the front door. It occurred to me that I’d never really been to Ben’s house before, but I didn’t really have time to appreciate the beautiful Victorian mansion for what it was. I’d have to catch the tour some other day—when the clock wasn’t ticking furiously behind my head.
“Thanks,” I said and checked over my shoulder to make sure I hadn’t been followed before stepping inside his house. The last thing I needed was for Trace to catch me secretly meeting up with his best friend behind his back. No doubt that would solidify every bad thing he’d ever thought of me. “Did you get everything?” I asked, hopeful.
The sun was already beginning its slow decent into the horizon, so we had to move quickly if I had any chance of being sufficiently locked down before sunset.
“I think so,” he said and gestured for me to follow him.
We moved quickly through the house before making our way down to the basement. Most of the space was unfinished and looked completely different from the rest of the house. Beams and exposed pipes made up the ceiling while bricks and dank stone made up most of the walls.
“It’s, uh, interesting down here,” I said as I swiped at a spiderweb that had coiled itself around my arm as I approached the cellar door at the far end of the basement.
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” he said and then pushed open the large steel door.
Leaning forward, I took in the medieval-looking, dungeon-style room and shuddered. Several pairs of chains hung from the cement wall, some with handcuffs attached at the end of them, others with a lock and key as big as my hand.
Honestly, if I hadn’t asked him to do this for me, this torture-chamber-looking-room would’ve creeped the hell out of me.
Straightening my shoulders, I walked inside and moved towards the hanging chains. I gave them a small tug and was happy to find they held up well. Satisfied, I then proceeded to put my full weight into it and made a consorted effort to pull the suckers right off the cement wall.
They didn’t budge an inch.
“Looks good.” I turned back to him and smiled. “Alright, friend. Chain me up.”
Ben took a deep breath and then moved beside me, picking up one of the longer chains in his hand. I couldn’t help but notice the nervous look in his eyes or that his hand was trembling just a tad. Either he thought this was a bad idea altogether or he didn’t trust his hardware.
I wasn’t sure which was worse, but at this point, I really didn’t have another option.
Chewing the inside of my cheek, I lifted my arms in the air as he twisted the chain around my torso until there was no more give left and then he secured it with the giant lock. When that was done, he then moved to the chains attached to the handcuffs and secured those around each of my wrists.
“I think that should do it,” he said, eyeing his handy work as he tapped his chin.
Eager to test it out, I tried to take a forceful step forward and painfully failed to move. “I think I’m good to go. Or not go,” I amended and then shook my head. “You know what I mean.”
“So, what should we do while we wait?” he asked as he checked his watch and then looked back at me with a beaming smile as an idea spouted in his mind. “Dude. Two words: X-Files marathon.”
“X-Files marathon,” I repeated.
“I can bring my laptop down here, and we can start from season one. What do you say?”
Oh, bless his heart. The excitement on his face was beyond adorable.
Not having the heart to let him down, I did my best to mirror his excitement and answered, “Sure. That sounds like fun.” So. Much. Fun.
“Awesome! You’re going to love this show! You haven’t seen it, right?” He didn’t bother waiting for my answer. “Should I get us some snacks?”
I made a face and lifted my shackled hands. “Maybe hold off on the snacks for now?”
“Right.” He nodded into it and then shook his head. “My bad, Jem.”
“It’s all good,” I said and smiled at him. The guy was doing me a major solid. I wasn’t about to get testy with him.
“Alright. Give me two minutes,” he said and then zipped out of the room like a kid on Christmas morning.
Silence fell over the cellar as I leaned back against the cement wall (which also happened to be the only direction I could go) and waited for Ben to return. Without meaning to, I found my thoughts drifting to Dominic as I wondered what he was doing just then, and what vile thing he had planned for me tonight.
My face twisted with disgust as I imagined him clanking his blood-filled glass with Pricilla’s as they toasted to the stupid little Slayer that had been idiotic enough to bloodbond herself to a vampire. I imagined them inconsolably laughing at me as they drained their latest human sacrifice and then had dirty vampire-sex all over his living room floor.
Rage broiled through me as my stomach dropped simultaneously.
I really needed to figure out a way to get Dominic to turn his emotions back on, and I needed to get rid of that skanky Sire of his too. Okay, so I wasn’t actually sure she was a skank, but she definitely looked like one. Either way, I knew there was no chance of ever undoing the damage she’d done if she was still around, whispering little nothings into his ear like the twisted two-headed snake that she was.
I turned back to the sound of footfalls approaching and smiled as Ben rejoined me, laptop in hand.
“Man, I haven’t done this since…” His words tapered away as a sadness took hold of his expression. “Well, you know.”
Since Taylor.
My heart constricted as memories of my best friend came back to haunt me. Memories I’d worked fairly hard to bury. Not because I didn’t care or because I didn’t love and miss her, of course. But because it just hurt too damn much to think about her at all anymore. Lord knew she would have been right here with us if she were still alive. Cracking jokes and jabbing Ben about his questionable choices in tv shows.
Fuck, I missed her.
“Sorry,” he said, remarking my own gloomy expression. “I didn’t mean to bring the mood down.”
“You didn’t. Don’t worry about it.”
“Alright, so let me get this set up,” he said as he popped a squat on the floor and started typing away on the keyboard. “We’ll start from the first episode and then work our way up. You think we’ll be able to make it through the whole first season?” he asked, but for some reason, I couldn’t concentrate on his voice anymore.
It was as though it had been relegated to the back of my mind, a distant murmuring too insignificant to pay attention to. And then Dominic’s voice came into my mind, taking up the entirety of the space there as though every other thought had evacuated the premises to make room for his.
Lose the Reaper and come find me.
Come find me.
COME FIND ME.
His voice felt like nails scratching against the inside of my head. Painful. Incessant. Overbearing.
“Benjamin!” I yelled out his name, halting him in whatever it was he was going on about. “You need to get these chains off of me. RIGHT NOW!” I screamed and then started tugging uncontrollably at the chains. Apart from making a whole lot of noise with them, not much else was happening.
“Huh?” He straightened out and looked over at me in confusion. “What are you talking about, Jem? You just told me to chain you up?”
More scratching. More tearing at the inside of my head.
“I made a mistake, Ben.
You have to get these things off me, please,” I begged as I continued yanking at the chains. “I need to go. Right now. I beg of you!”
He shook his head slowly as though he weren’t really sure of his answer. “I can’t do that, Jem. You told me not to cut you lose no matter what you say.”
My face contorted as the pain radiated from my skull into my eyeballs. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know what I was talking about. Please! You’re my friend! Don’t do this to me,” I hissed as the clawing intensified. “I’m in so much pain, Ben. It hurts too much.”
“What hurts?” he asked, confused. “I don’t understand.”
Sobs choked out of me as I rolled my neck, desperate for some sort of reprieve from the incessant scraping inside my mind. “He’s in my head, Ben! I can’t do this…it hurts too much. Please, take these things off me! Take them off! Take them off!” I screamed out hysterically as I reared against the chains.
“Shit, Jem. I don’t know what to do!” he yelled back, panic overtaking his own voice as he rubbed as his buzzed head.
“Get these fucking chains off me!” I roared as I bucked and pulled against them, using every muscle I had in my body to free myself of these godforsaken restraints. I just needed to go see him. I needed this pain to stop!
Pieces of the cement behind me crumbled to the ground as Ben’s eyes darted over my shoulder.
“Jemma, come on, you’ve got to calm down, okay? This is for your own good. You have to fight—”
“Fuck fighting!” I screamed out like a banshee. “I need to get out of here.” I didn’t even recognize my voice as my own. It was loud and abrasive and filled with hysteria. But not even that deterred me.
The only thing I could focus on was the ear-splitting ache in my head that was begging me to obey Dominic’s command. Begging me to go to him. The longer I stayed chained, the more the pain grew, and I honestly wasn’t sure how much more of it I could take.
Either my head was going to split wide open in the middle of this torture chamber or I was going to pass out from the pain and possibly never wake up again. Though with how I was feeling in that moment, both sounded like a dream.
“Listen to me, Ben,” I said as beads of sweat began to form on my forehead. “This was a mistake. I didn’t know what I was talking about when I asked you to do this,” I said, gasping between sobs. “I thought I could do this, but I can’t. I can’t do this, Ben…I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” he said, doing his best to encourage me, but it was completely misplaced. This wasn’t about will or positivity. This was going against nature. However unnatural it may have been.
“I’m going to die here, Ben. I swear to god,” I said and then yanked at the chains again. More cement chunks crumbled to the floor like little pieces of hope. “It’s killing me!”
“Fuck!” he cursed as he paced the small cellar in a panic, his palms splayed against the top of his head. Freezing mid-step, he pulled out his phone from his pocket and met my water-filled eyes. “I’m sorry, Jem. But I have to do this.”
Like a caged animal, I thrashed against the restraints as tears continued to spill from my eyes.
“You left me with no other choice,” he said as he put the phone to his ear. “I’m calling Trace.”
15. WITH OR WITHOUT YOU
The breathtaking Reaper from my dreams materialized in the cellar before Ben had a chance to end the phone call. His expression quickly morphed from annoyance to seething rage upon spotting me chained to the wall, dry heaving and shrieking as though Ben were getting ready to skin me alive.
“What the hell is going on here?” shouted Trace as he rushed to my side and picked up my chin, carefully brushing the matted hair back from my forehead. “Why is she chained up like this?” he asked and immediately started playing with the chains, pulling at them in an effort to break me loose.
“You have to help me,” I pleaded with him, my teeth chattering as though I were standing in the middle of an ice storm. The pain was making my entire body tremble.
Trace swung around to Ben; his hands clenched into fists as though he were going to hit him. “I said what the fuck is this?!” he snapped, getting directly in Ben’s face now.
“She asked me to do it, I swear it,” he quickly defended, raising both palms in the air. “I think Dominic compelled her to do something she didn’t want to do.”
Trace swung around, his eyes probing me for confirmation. “Is that true?”
“It’s…he…I can’t—” I shook my head, unable to utter a word about our secret rendezvous.
“I think he compelled her to keep quiet about it,” suggested Ben as Trace made his way back over to me, cursing under his breath.
He brought his hand to my face and caressed my cheeks with the pad of his fingers. The second his skin made contact with mine and stayed there, the blood-curdling ache inside my head eased just a tiny bit. Not enough to make a real dent, but enough to keep me from vomiting all over his shoes.
“Dammit, Jemma. Why didn’t you come to me?” he murmured as he continued to stroke my cheek. It was almost as though he knew that his touching me was making the pain more bearable.
“I couldn’t,” I said, closing my eyes as tears dripped out from the corners. “And I wouldn’t have even if I could.”
His eyes darkened in vexation. “Why the hell not?”
“You know why.” I tried not to blink as though the gesture might give my leaky eyes a break. “You’ve already done enough for me, Trace. I’m not your responsibility, and I can’t keep pushing you away with one hand and pulling you in with—”
“This is different,” he quickly cut in. Without stepping away from me, he turned slightly toward his best friend. “Ben, can you give us a minute?” he asked, his jaw muscle pumping profusely.
Ben made a face like he thought that was a bad idea. “Are you sure, man? I don’t think those chains are going to hold her much longer if she keeps pulling at them.”
“I got it,” he said firmly and ducked his chin a nod.
“Alright…I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” he said wearily and then looked over at me. “I’m sorry, Jem. I did what I thought was best.”
I nodded, because I knew he only wanted to help me, and he did. “I’m sorry for putting this on you.”
“Nah,” he said and chucked me under my chin. “That’s what friends are for.”
I tried for a smile as I watched him leave the room and then shut the cellar door behind himself, leaving me alone with Trace and the disturbing feeling of Dominic’s words scratching through my insides.
“It hurts so bad,” I said as I tried to move closer to him but was abruptly halted by the chains.
At this point, the only thing that was making me feel even remotely better was his touch, and I was willing to do just about anything to get it.
He closed the small gap between us as though knowing exactly what I needed. With his hand still pressed against the side of my face, he circled his other arm around my waist and leaned me back against the wall. Momentarily lulled, I rested my cheek against his palm and closed my eyes as he traced small circles with his thumb into the small of my back.
I could still feel Dominic’s words scratching inside my head, beating me into obedience, but the longer Trace stayed beside me, touching me the way he was, the more the pain and compulsion became manageable. The easier it become to resist his call.
“How long do you think this is going to last?” I asked after a while with my eyes still closed tightly.
“I don’t know.” His tone was clipped, as though he were pissed off and having a hard time hiding it.
I chanced a peek at him and met his troubled gaze. “Are you mad at me?”
“No,” he said, but his expression was saying something entirely different.
“You look mad,” I noted, my voice strained from all the wailing I had done earlier.
He worked his jaw before answering. “I don’t like to see you hurting like this,” he
said lowly, his gaze cutting to the chains that were restraining my arms. “I swear to god, Jemma, I’m going to put his face through a wall.”
I looked up and met his fiercely protective eyes. “That isn’t going to solve anything,” I pointed out quietly.
“No, but it’ll make me feel better,” he said distractedly as his focus skirted back to the chains. Removing his hand from my face, he grasped the thick looped metal and tugged, testing out its solidity.
The more he played with the chains, the more his body inched away from mine.
“Trace?”
His gaze slid back to mine easily. “Yeah?”
“I need you to keep your hands on me,” I said, my cheeks flushing as the pain slowly amplified.
“Right. Sorry.” Grimacing, he immediately pressed his body against mine and wrapped both arms around my waist in what must’ve looked like an intimate lover’s embrace. “Is this too much?” he asked tentatively, his mouth only a mere inch from mine.
I shook my head, breathing in his spicey scent like it was the cure to the bubonic plague. “I’m sorry about all this. This is probably the last thing you wanted to be doing tonight.”
His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth when he answered, “It could be worse.”
“Yeah? How so?” I mean, he was literally stuck in his best friends’ cellar, cuddling the girl who shot him down the night before.
“I could be cuddling Ben instead,” he offered, having heard my thoughts.
I laughed at that, but the smile quickly faded away as I realized it was open season on everything going through my mind just then. “Can I ask you for a favor?” I said timidly, looking up at him under my lashes.
“Anything.”
“Could you try not to listen in…while I’m like this?”
It felt like an invasion of privacy because I didn’t have enough strength to put up my walls when I needed to. Plus, after what he said this morning, I obviously wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping my thoughts under wraps during even the best of circumstances.
He nodded regretfully as he tightened his hold on me. “I’ll try my best.”
Incipient: A Dark Paranormal Romance (The Marked Book 6) Page 10