Make her take back the words while she screams my name.
But that's not happening. She's leaving. For a year.
"Nineteen minutes," I say, and walk out.
I watch from my window as Lionel loads her into the car.
She's wearing her own clothes now—jeans and a sweater that do nothing to hide the collar.
She didn't even try to cover it.
She wears it like armor.
Like pride.
Like mine.
The car pulls away, and she doesn't look back.
Doesn't wave. Doesn't hesitate. Just goes.
The room still smells like her.
The bed still holds the shape of her body.
The collar is gone with her, but everything else remains—the memory of her submission, her defiance, her tears.
Peter appears in my doorway. "Boss? She's gone?"
"For now."
"You think she'll come back?"
I think about her kneeling alone in that room, waiting for orders that weren't coming.
Think about her wearing my collar for a year, remembering.
Think about the determination in her eyes when she said she'd learn.
"Yes."
"And if she does?"
"Then I'll destroy her completely. Remake her into something that can survive in our world."
"And if she finds out? About her parents?"
I pour myself a whiskey even though it's not even noon. "Then we'll see if she's really mine."
Peter leaves, and I'm alone with the monitors and the whiskey and the ghost of her presence.
365 days.
I've given her a year to become someone else, someone harder, someone who belongs in my world.
What I haven't told her is that I'll be watching.
Every day.
