When the Dark Wins Read online

  Thirsty. I’m so thirsty.

  Beth’s world slid again. Hours, days in darkness, she didn’t know how much time had passed. He hadn’t fed her, twice he had sprayed her with water and she had tried to swallow as much as she could, even as it stung her eyes and nose. Another he had used a short, leather thing on her flesh, striking and making her scream weakly as he hurt her. Another had been confusing, she had been sure she had seen two people, and then he had given her a shot — or it had felt like a shot — she couldn’t remember.

  Everything was fractured.

  Something clicked and then he lifted her head, one fist buried in her hair, and the other pressed a glass to her lips. Water. It was the best thing she’d ever tasted, and she swallowed, and swallowed, feeling it wash into her empty stomach.

  She wanted to thank him, wanted to be grateful, but then he took it away, and there was another loud clank, and she slid in a new direction. Towards him, his fist in her hair pulling her, but she still couldn’t lift her arms and legs.

  Blurry eyes opening she saw the glass of water atop the cabinet where her drawer was, and then he released her head and it dropped. Too weak to fight him, too weak to lift it, too weak to turn away when he unbuttoned his pants and slid the zipper down.

  His cock from this angle looked larger, and when he tapped her cheek and said, “Open,” she obeyed without thinking. Fingers slipped into her mouth first, and she sucked, desperate for water, to make him happy, but he didn’t say anything else as he slid them free and replaced them with his cock. Her jaw stretched, lips folding over teeth as he pushed in slowly, a heady groan from above.

  Hitting the back of her throat meant little at this angle, but he paused enough to give her one short breath before he thrust forward, into the channel that cut off her air and made her choke. Sliding back, she coughed, sputtered, and then he forced his cock deep again, holding still with her nose against his balls.

  Property.

  A set of holes.

  It was all true, that’s what she felt like in this moment. Bound, unable to fight back, unable to struggle, no energy to be defiant and brave. He started to move, slowly at first, almost all the way out, letting her breathe, before plunging deep once more.

  Catching on to the rhythm, she measured her breaths, and as his pace increased she had less and less air, until finally he was holding himself in her throat for longer and longer as she swallowed around his cock. Struggling weakly, twisting against the cuffs as she silently begged to breathe. He was fucking her throat, using her brutally, and the ache was getting worse the longer he continued.

  Stop?

  Such a useless word. It didn’t do anything. Why had she ever even learned it? If someone wanted to ignore it, they did. Whether it was running a stop sign, or whipping someone, or fucking their throat — what did stop mean if it meant nothing?

  Her mind was growing hazier, the fog thicker, and she felt numb as he worked in and out of her mouth, barely a snippet of air allowed on some of the harder thrusts that required him to pull back a little further. Throat on fire, tears burning her eyes, she felt his hand wrap around her throat and squeeze.

  Is this it? Is this when he kills me?

  Instead of death, she felt him come before she tasted it. Heard his low groan, felt his grip tighten across her neck, and then she was choking. As soon as he pulled out, her stomach emptied, and she heard him curse.

  Still choking, she turned her head, but air wouldn’t come.

  Metallic clangs echoed like they were coming down a long hallway, and then her world turned again, and she was gone.

  13

  Master.

  You will call me Master.

  There will be no freedom, no escape. You will call me Master, and then you will be sold to someone new, and then you will call him Master. That is your future. Accept it. Say it.

  Words invaded her mind. His words. Digging in like burrowing worms until they felt like they had always been there. A permanent fixture in her head. An absolute truth. She fought them through the haze, pushed back as hard as she could, but they were there, and she was so tired.

  It was a choice. One of the only choices she had left in this hell, but making it would be worse than dying. It would be the death of her mind. The death of her self.

  Saying it would finally make the first rule true — I am not my own. I am property.

  The world around her felt distant, but she knew she was sitting up slightly, on a hard surface, which couldn’t be the drawer. She had been held flat inside that hole. Getting her eyes open took too much effort, they felt swollen, the light burned, but finally she saw white, and dark gray walls.

  A bathtub. She was in the bathroom, propped up in the oversized tub, with its angled side, and there was a large towel draped over her skin. No restraints here, but as she looked around she saw a glass of water set on the edge and she grabbed it, spilling a little as she swallowed past an aching throat.

  “Of course she’s alive, I don’t kill slaves.” His voice came from the bedroom, speaking to someone.

  Was the other one back? Beth strained to listen, to clear her mind enough to focus, but there was no other voice.

  “The IV took care of that, and I thought we agreed you would not interfere.” He was so calm, so empty, but she looked down at her arms, finding a pair of small, dark spots in the crook of her elbow.

  He had given her an IV. To keep her alive.

  He wouldn’t allow her to die.

  Putting the glass down, she brushed the dots, traced the splotch of a bruise around them, and then she moved her fingers to her bruised wrist. Darker than before the whipping, before the drawer.

  A shadow made her eyes lift, and he was there in the doorway. Dressed in a pristine pale button-down shirt, dark slacks, his shining shoes. He was holding the phone to his ear as his eyes moved over her, but there was something new in his expression.

  Something terrifying.

  There was a hint of anger narrowing his gaze, lowering his brows just a fraction, but as small as it was… it was still more expression than she’d seen out of him beyond his strange smiles.

  His jaw twitched, and then he turned away, and a moment later she heard the door shut.

  “You just had to have this one, didn’t you? Had to have the blonde California girl no matter what I said.” Marcus was ranting, but Anthony’s own temper was breaking through the cold he always felt. A rare occurrence.

  “We both saw her on the beach, she drew both of our eyes. Do not pretend I made this decision on my own.” Pacing the hallway, he forced a deep breath into his lungs.

  “I told you I needed to follow her, needed to watch her, you put her on the fucking list as soon as you found out her name!”

  “I’ve been taking girls for years without your assessment of their submissive traits, and there has never been an issue.” Anthony felt his fingers form a fist, reassured that he’d turned off all the cameras so that Marcus couldn’t see his reaction. He needed to get this back under control, needed to get her under control.

  “You could have given me a fucking week!”

  “We both agreed that having this operation offline for the duration of your house preparation would be fiscally irresponsible, and you needed to go North.” Keeping his voice steady wasn’t a challenge, it was the irritation moving through his veins that was troubling.

  “Then you could have picked another name off the goddamn list, Anthony! ANY fucking name, it didn’t have to be her!” Marcus shouted, and the volume of it was bothering him more than usual, getting under his skin faster.

  He hated it.

  “She was the highest potential profit on the list based on customer feedback.”

  “Well, now you have her! Your high potential profit cunt. So, what the fuck are you going to do with her?” Another slam of something from his end of the line. Marcus was breaking things, and for a moment Anthony wondered if that would help ease these strange sensations making his fist tighten, his
jaw clench.

  What would he do with her?

  The problem wasn’t a lack of ideas, he had too many things he wanted to do to her. Too many punishments in mind, each more severe than the last — but he didn’t want to kill her. He never killed them.

  For a time the girl’s defiance had been entertaining, so much better than the more fragile responses of others they had taken. The quick slide into constant crying, fear. This one had felt like a challenge at first, and he had enjoyed pushing her, bending her further and further, making her suffer.

  But by this point every other girl had called him Master. By this point they were desperate to please him. Working on their submission, their behavior, learning to be perfect dolls as he erased their sense of self one punishment at a time.

  It was why he’d used the drawer. Kept her in it for days, except for the brief interlude when he’d drugged her and hydrated her to avoid seizures, to ensure her kidneys wouldn’t shut down.

  The drawer should have worked.

  The drawer always worked.

  Yet, she had refused to say the simple word.

  Anthony despised it when things didn’t work the way they were supposed to, and this slut was clearly malfunctioning. The drawer should have shattered her mind, left her hopeless and begging — and she had begged, and cried, looking pretty and desolate on the tiny night vision cameras — but each time he had pulled her out, she had defied him.

  “I’m going to break her,” he finally answered.

  Marcus laughed, broke something else, cursed. “How the fuck do you plan to do that Anthony? No girl has ever lasted this long without submitting, and you think you can fully break her?”

  “Yes.” It was a quick response, almost too quick. He hadn’t even thought it through.

  Was this his pride showing?

  “HOW?” His brother yelled the word, and Anthony tilted his head, cracking the vertebrae in his neck in an effort to relax the tensing muscles.

  “She thinks she wants to die… I plan to give her a taste.”

  “A taste of dying? What the fuck does that mean?” Marcus was muttering curses, randomly shouting in his rage, but Anthony’s mind was finally clearing. A plan forming, organized and purposeful.

  “Watch and see. I will let her recover for a day or so, allow her enough strength so that she can be aware, and then I will break her.”

  “What if this fails too, Anthony? What will you do with her?” There was a thread of concern there, a nervousness in his brother’s voice, and it made Anthony smile.

  “I’ll destroy her.”

  14

  Soup and sleep.

  Water and rest.

  The bed was soft, warm, an extra blanket atop the normal sheet. He hadn’t touched her since he had pulled her from the bathtub and settled her here, and she had only left the cocoon she’d created to use the bathroom.

  But everything still hurt.

  Beth had explored the whip marks in the mirror, stared into the face that used to be so familiar, but now it had changed. She had changed. Dark circles under dull, bloodshot brown eyes. Cheekbones sharper, lips chapped and dry. It wasn’t her, she felt disconnected from the girl in the mirror, didn’t want to be her.

  He was tearing her apart.

  More than just physically, the worst of the damage was inside. The parts she could only get a glimpse of when she had the courage to stare into her own eyes — but she couldn’t maintain it for long. It hurt too much.

  The last blow was the tattoo on the inside of her hip. A small thing. From what she could tell it was a ‘W’ with a crown atop it, underlined with a slash. Dark ink embedded in her skin, still tender to the touch, and she knew he had done it while she had been in the drawer. The time he had drugged her, given her the IV fluids.

  What else had he done while she was unconscious?

  Roaming her body with her fingers, she had explored every inch. Wound them under the collar, plucking at the small padlock that never budged. She was not as sore between her thighs, and the whip marks simply felt like bruises, although they hurt more than the ones on her wrists and ankles. There was nothing else that was new, no other tattoos, just a body that didn’t feel like hers.

  A body she wasn’t sure she wanted to hold onto anymore.

  The other one had claimed she had choices. At the time those choices had felt numerous, so many little battles of wills — some won, some lost — but now there was only one left. It was the only thing that mattered anymore.

  He wanted her mind like he had taken her body.

  But she would die before she gave it to him.

  15

  At least two days had passed in silence.

  Every time he came to the room to leave a tray, or pick up another, she simply watched him. He would look at her too, that same analytical stare from the first night, except there were no strange smiles now.

  No words. No demands. No threats.

  Nothing except a quick exchange of gazes… which was fine with her. She didn’t want to talk to the monster.

  Beth felt stronger, her head clearer. Finally hydrated, and nourished, and well slept. It seemed that all she did was sleep, but she needed it. The unconsciousness in the drawer, and all the other times, had never felt like sleep — there had been no dreams — but now she was dreaming.

  Scattered, whirlwind dreams of familiar voices. Flashes of friendly faces, her family. In one she was simply driving and listening to music, on one of the coastal highways with the sun glinting off the ocean.

  It had been simple and peaceful. No nightmares.

  But it wasn’t like her mind needed to create nightmares when she always awoke in hell, always awoke locked in the same room, in the same house, with the same man — and she knew this strange peace wouldn’t last.

  He was waiting for something.

  The camera angle switched again, showing the flare of her blonde hair against the pillow, the shape of her body under the blankets. Tapping a few keys on the keyboard, he made the angle switch again, zooming in on her face.

  Asleep.

  His phone buzzed again, and he felt his shoulders tighten. It was another email. He knew it without checking. The customers were complaining, a few of them had offered to assist him with her, which had almost resulted in a hasty reply, but he had halted himself.

  Patience was key, especially with the customers, but the general summary of their feedback was nothing but dissatisfaction.

  Not only was she irritating him, now she was damaging their brand. So much money, and time, and energy building his reputation among these wealthy men across the globe. Getting them to trust him, to trust his security measures and his discretion.

  She was ruining everything.

  Anthony cracked his neck again, leaning closer to the screen where her face was formed in tiny pixels. The girl always kept the bathroom light on, and it meant she was still in color, albeit somewhat washed out — but he could see her face was fuller, that color had returned to her cheeks. She was more stable.

  Stable enough to survive what he had planned.

  Drumming his fingers on his desk, he felt another vibration from his phone and he swept it off the desk with a quick jerk of his arm. It clattered to the floor, lighting up, and he gradually became aware of the increased pace of his breaths.

  Anger, stress — if he were capable of feeling those things, he was feeling them now. None of it processed right in his head, but he knew the signs. Had observed them in Marcus for decades, and extraordinary circumstances had summoned similar things in him before.

  This girl was an extraordinary circumstance.

  One that he was about to rectify permanently.

  And then everything would return to normal, the process would work again, customer expectations would be met, and the cold calm of his brain would be restored.

  Drawing in a slow breath, he released it and pushed up from the desk. Calmly lifting the phone from the floor, he tucked it into his pocket and tugged his sl
eeves into place.

  It was time to get his world back under control.

  Walking to her room gave him enough time to solidify his expression into neutrality, to even out his breathing so that he was as composed as he needed to be to do this properly.

  The act of unlocking and opening the door had woken her. Eyes open, she simply stared at him, unmoving, and he felt a much more familiar urge overtake the strange flickers he’d felt before. He was going to make her suffer, to tear out whatever shreds of hope she had left, and watching this one finally break was going to be the greatest enjoyment he’d had in years.

  “Get up.” They were the first words he’d said to her in days, but he had not expected her to obey. When she slid the blankets back, sitting up on the edge of the bed, it almost caught him off-guard.

  Her lithe form stretched out as she stood, her legs steady, and he reached back to press in the code for the door, opening it wide.

  “Come here.” Anthony felt a hint of satisfaction when she walked towards him in careful steps, a passing taste of her obedience that he knew wouldn’t last, so he grabbed onto the back of her collar. “Have you decided to submit?” he asked as he pushed her into the hall.

  She stayed silent, but she didn’t fight him as they walked towards the punishment room. Perhaps she felt it too, this inevitability of their interaction, the coming conclusion. When she was silent like this, pliant, he could almost imagine her becoming a good slave, but he knew her compliance wouldn’t last.

  Not when she saw what awaited her. Understood it.

  Walking into the punishment room, the girl finally jerked against his grip. The new furniture in the center of the floor had her complete attention, and he allowed her a moment to stare. She would never discern its use — if she did she’d start screaming. “Get on the table.”

  This time her obedience wavered, because when he released her she stood completely still. The snap of the door shutting made her muscles jump, and she was aware, coherent, but not moving. Not obeying.