Holly
I was floatingas I skipped my way down the stairs of the bunker. The conversation from the night before had taken the hours Valentino had warned it would, and it still wasn’t over. But I had a contract in hand—not actually in my hand, it was back at my apartment—that I was to read over thoroughly, make notes, and add amendments as I needed. Master Mal even encouraged me to text him throughout the day if I had any questions.
Then, onceIwas ready and not a moment before, Master Mal and I would sign the contract to make our relationship official. I couldn’t wait!
But there was a big issue that I needed to address: Jason.
I needed Jason in my life. He wasn’t just my mentor, he was the father mine had never been. He’d saved me, protected me, trained me, given me a purpose. I owed him. I could not risk him seeing my decision to stay with Master Mal as a betrayal.
There was no telling what Jason might do then. His moral compass wasn’t exactly pointing north. Actually, Jason might not even have a moral compass. At least I had one, and it was only slightly askew.
Problem was, I didn’t know what Jason wanted. He wasn’t the sort of man who cared about material possessions. Orpeople. Or animals. Or…well, anything other than himself. And I couldn’t exactly gift him himself.
I needed…something. But what did I own? It wasn’t like I had money of my own. I didn’t have a nine-to-five job, a car, or anything. Everything I had camefromJason. Hell, even this bunker was technically his.
I had nothing. But there had to besomethingI could get for him or do for him in exchange for Master Mal’s life.
I heard grunting as soon as I opened the door to descend the stairs down to the cells. Hannah, with her newly tattooed face, was staring up at me from her place on the floor. The metal boots I’d painted red were due to be tightened soon, and she knew it.
Roman’s and Jerald’s cells were empty.
Alicia was surrounded by vomit and bile. Beyond my rape that she’d participated in, Alicia had been a bully from the time we’d entered kindergarten together. Mostly, she made me write reports for her. So, I went to the library and found a book about a group of teenagers who cheated their way through school by bullying a nerdy boy named Karl to do all their work for them. Not willing to harm a book, I borrowed Jason’s laptop and copied the book into a document before printing out numerous copies of it.
Then I started shoving the book down Alicia’s throat, paper by balled-up paper. Since she couldn’t stomach doing her own homework during school, I was making her stomach it now. Ah, karma.
Based on the amount of bile around her, apparently homework wasn’t sitting any better with her now than it had when we were teenagers.
Ignoring both women, I wandered into my cell, where my jaw dropped.
Roman and Jerald were both wearing Victorian dresses, complete with corsets, bonnets, petticoats, heeled boots, andmakeup. Around their throats were shock collars, like people put on dogs, and they had gags in their mouths that looked like a horse’s bit.
To top it off, Jason was sitting in a beach chair completely naked with his feet up on a cooler, sipping a beer with an oscillating fan next to him. He even had sunglasses and a white smear of sunscreen down his nose, like he was fucking sunbathing. He had his back to me and the other cells as he watched the show before him.
Most of my torture equipment had been pushed to the sides of my bunker room. On the floor in the center was a painted black attempt at a circle. Based on how jagged the edges are, I had to wonder how many beers Jason had had before picking up the spray-paint can.
“Come on, ladies! Let’s put some effort into it! You know what happens to the loser!”
Roman and Jerald charged at each other like they were onWrestle Mania.
I walked up next to him, my hip to his shoulder. “What happens to the loser?”
“They have to recite the entire script of the firstPirates of the Caribbeanmovie. Every error is five minutes in the ring with me—and I treatmylosers very differently.”
I’ll bet, I deadpanned silently. “What happens to the winner?”
“He gets food I haven’t pissed on.”
I shrugged. “Well, all right then.” Since my cell was currently in use, my plans for today would have to be reevaluated. If I cleaned up the vomit in Alicia’s cell, I could tie her down there and start shoving more papers down her throat.
Jason grabbed my wrist as I made to walk away. “What happened last night?”
I cringed internally, because I didn’t have a bargaining chip ready yet. But Jason was right yesterday. He was the one person I didn’t lie to. “We talked about a contract.”
Roman and Jerald suddenly yelled through their gags as their entire bodies spasmed. A puddle of piss appeared beneath them on the concrete floor, but I couldn’t tell if it came from one or both of them. Their hands had been clasped together during whatever wrestling move they’d been attempting to make and now they were a writhing mess, braced up against each other.
The moment Jason let go of the button in his hand, both stopped screaming as they crumpled to the piss-covered ground in a heap of skirts and petticoats.
“Get the fuck back up!” Jason roared. Both groaned and whimpered through their gags. “If you’re not standing in ten seconds, I press the button again!”
