If there was one thing the world seemed intent on teaching me, it was that nothing I could ever do, no tools I could ever acquire, would be enough to save the ones I loved.
“You’re right.”
Yes, and.
“What’s that?” Resi gave me a smirk before finally glancing back at Louisa, who lay still, limbs at funny angles, a broken doll a bored child had flung aside.
The same heat that radiated up from her limbs seemed to sear behind my eyes. Bubbling out of her muzzled mouth came maybe a whimper, maybe a “fuck you,” maybe both.
Obadiah dropped the prod and leered his graying, wrinkled, toothless face down at her, practically licking his lips at the idea of seeing his former master’s daughter helpless and whimpering.
That sick fuck better not get comfortable. When I got out of here, he’d be at the top of my fucking list.
Resi wasn’t having it, either. “Don’t get any ideas, pal,” she told the former gardener without looking. “I’m sorry, but this hot little scenario doesnotinclude you.”
Obadiah’s shoulders sagged with disappointment for a second before he opened his toothless maw again and fired up the prod, the steam from the tip billowing up in a white cloud. Louisa’s body twitched again, and she squeaked helplessly, her muscles tense against the pain. She knew what was coming now. It didn’t take long.
Yes, and. Yes, and.
“You’re right. It’s true,” I said louder, shoving down the desperation in my voice, or any cadence that would reveal that my heart was being ripped apart piece by piece. “I wanted to see her fucked. I wanted to fuck them all.”
“Yeah?” Resi rasped as she stroked herself harder, eyes dilating, cheeks flushed.Shewas getting off on this. At fucking the fuckers. That’s the only thing she loved; the only thing shecouldlove, after what had been done to her. And she thought I was the same, because why wouldn’t I be?
“Again,” she said. “Say it.” My pulse raced, and she grew breathless as she rubbed herself. Almost involuntarily, her teeth tapped my neck, murmuring something as her other hand tugged harshly on a clump of my hair. But I couldn’t hear her now, or myself. I only heard Louisa. Louisa’s face was lost to me, and thank fuck it was because I’d never be able to look at her again after this.
“Say. It,”Resi gurgled.“Or you get the prod instead.”
I love you. I’m not going anywhere. Never, ever give up on me.
“I hate her,” I said, mind racing faster than my mouth. “I hate that she gets under my skin,” I blurted out.
“I hate that when I close my eyes, it’s always, always, always her face I see. I hate the way she reminds me of the freedom I can’t get, of the person I can’t be, of the name I don’t have. But most of all, I hate the way she’s the only one who’s ever looked at me like I’m someone worth saving,” I finished breathlessly. “Someone worth loving. Someoneableto love. When I know I’m not.”
Breathe. Please breathe.
Resi’s blue eyes rolled back in her head, lost in some beautiful or horrible place only she would ever know. She raised her hand, triumphant, and pressed one nail to my lips, as if sealing my mouth shut with some twisted promise. She was so caught up in her own sick victory that she didn’t feel my fingers working at the already loose latch of my cuffs, the one Obadiah had now fucked up twice—once on Louisa’s, once on mine. It figured that Keith had never given him training in proper use of restraints, and Max had apparently overlooked it, too.
Still, I could feel his leering presence behind me, the prod still buzzing, still hot.
I breathed through the nausea as Resi shifted against me, the scent of sweat and something sharper curling in the air. My stomach churned at her touch, at the damp heat of her breath near my ear, at the way her hands still clung like she owned me.
Almost there. Almost?—
The cuff gave.
My wrist slipped free just as Resi leaned more heavily into me, her attention focused entirely on what Obadiah was about to do.
I didn’t hesitate. With a sharp twist, I wrenched my hand free and grabbed the ivory knife from Resi’s belt, using her body as cover just as Obadiah stepped forward, salivating for his turn to dosomething.
Not tonight.
I whirled, slashing upward, blade catching the soft, stubbly flesh of his throat. The electric prod clattered to the floor as he staggered back, fingers clawing at the blood spilling between them.
Resi barely had time to register the shift before I drove my elbow into her ribs, hard enough to send her stumbling backward. It was more than enough, and I lunged for Louisa, unbuckling and yanking the muzzle from her mouth as her limp body tumbled off the bed and onto the carpet, whorls of beautiful hair strewn like so much litter across the floor. For a second, sheer terror washed over me when her chest wasn’t rising.
The bed—wide, too wide—sat in the center of the room like a stage. Resi hit the far edge, crumpling, while Obadiah bled out at the footboard. I was kneeling on the floor, Louisa in my arms, one cuff still clamped around her wrist and the other still binding her to the bedpost.
Breathe. Please breathe.
