When the Dark Wins Read online

  Fisting the tangled mess of her hair, he forced her forward until they stood beside the shiny metal. Dark cuffs already installed and waiting for her, she whimpered quietly, and he could feel her leaning back from the table — as if that would stop him. “Up.”

  Increasing the strain, he pulled her onto it when she didn’t obey. Normally, he’d punish her with a shock, but it was best not to distress her before he began, and it didn’t take much effort to push her flat and then drag her down the table to strap her ankles into the cuffs.

  When he looked at her again, her eyes were glued somewhere on the ceiling, head subtly moving from side to side like she was saying no. It brought a smile to his lips.

  So quiet now, and soon there would be so much screaming.

  Save your energy. Save your energy. Save it.

  You won’t win anyway.

  It took more self-control than Beth thought she had, but she let him maneuver her body into place on the cold metal table. Cuffs at ankles and wrists brought back flashes of the drawer, but her collar wasn’t attached to anything, and there was light. Plenty of light.

  She was directly under the camera in the ceiling, unable to avoid staring into the dark, glass eye. People would see this, whatever it was, and she focused on the promise she’d made to herself.

  No matter what he does, I won’t give him my mind.

  If he wanted an audience for this, then she was going to make sure he failed in front of them. It was the only choice left for her, the only shred of power, of control. The table shifted and she lifted her head to see him turning some kind of handle out of sight. As he continued, the end of the table started to rise, but the cuffs held her in place as the angle increased.

  What the fuck is this?

  When he finally stopped she realized the incline wasn’t severe, head slightly closer to the floor than her feet, but it was enough to make her uncomfortable. Then he was there beside the table, trailing his fingers over her stomach, between her breasts, catching her chin so that she had to look at him. “You know what I want you to say. Do you want to avoid all of this and just obey?”

  “Fuck. You.” Beth lifted her chin away from his touch as she enunciated each word, staring into those empty blue eyes that did nothing to hide the monster inside him. He was pure evil, a psychopath, and giving in wouldn’t stop this — he had told her over and over that she was never getting free.

  The bastard smiled. Satisfaction coating the razor sharp edges of his expression, and despite her best efforts fear still bloomed in her stomach. “Since that vulgarity is your answer, we will begin.”

  He turned away, walking to the table against the wall as he unbuttoned one sleeve and rolled it up. The second sleeve was adjusted with quick jerks of his hand as he stared down at the metal table. It was almost empty except for a frosted pitcher, which he picked up, along with a cloth. She twisted her head to keep him in her sight as he moved to the waterspout jutting from the concrete. The loud sound of the spray hitting the plastic made her swallow, trying to understand what he had planned.

  Was he going to electrocute her again?

  As soon as the water cut off he raised his eyes to hers. “You only have one purpose, slave. You understand that, correct?”

  “No,” she spat, glaring at him, refusing to back down. No matter what he does. No matter what.

  “It will be so fun to watch you break.” His smile turned the fear into whirling blades in her belly, and she hated feeling so vulnerable. So weak, as he towered over her. Then he tilted the pitcher just enough to splash water onto her face. Clenching her eyes shut she shook it away, licking at the lingering drops on her lips before she returned to glaring at him.

  “You’re not going to break me. I’m not going to obey—” Cutting off her hissing rage with another little splash, he tsk’d as she jerked at the cuffs, blinking away the water from her eyes, muttering curses.

  “I will admit that you have held on to your defiance longer than other girls I have taken, but what you fail to grasp is that everyone breaks, slave. There is a limit to what your mind can take… and today we are going to find it.”

  “No.” Beth tried to sound confident, but the glint in his eyes promised violence. Pain. Suffering.

  “Tell me, girl, do you know what waterboarding is?” The word made her still against the table. Torture. That was torture, right? He ran his fingers over her cheek, leaning closer. “No? Let me show you.”

  Suddenly there was a cloth over her face, held down by his hand around her jaw, and then she felt the water. She tried to gasp, jerking at the cuffs, but water poured into her nose and mouth. No air. Fabric stuck to her skin, blocking everything as he continued to pour.

  Oh God, I’m drowning.

  As soon as the water stopped, he pulled the cloth away and she choked, spitting water as she turned her head to the side, lifting her shoulders as much as possible to force it out so she could haul in a ragged breath. More violent coughs, and then his hand landed on her chest and slammed her back to the table. Eyes and nose burning, lungs aching, panic rising — he stared at her like an insect. Like prey. “I’m sure you understand the situation now. Will you address me properly?”

  Hauling air into her lungs, she clenched her fists, driving her nails into her palms. “You’re an asshole. A monster! A fucking rap—” The wet cloth was back over her face in an instant, his hard grip molding it to her face, making her jaw ache, and then the water came again.

  She tried to scream, but breathed water instead, and her body convulsed, choked, alarm bells ringing in her body. Dying. Can’t breathe. He’s going to kill me.

  Bright lights blinded her as she coughed violently, almost heaving as water flooded out of her nose, lungs convulsing to force out more. Her ears were ringing, but his voice came in loud and clear, “Say it.”

  Wheezing in air, she coughed again, and shook her head slowly. “Fuck you,” she whispered, voice scratchy and strained.

  His jaw clenched, a muscle twitching in his neck, and then he backhanded her. Pain exploded in her cheek, and she yelped, couldn’t stop the cry. The cloth returned then, just as she tried to refill her lungs, and she was drowning again. Choking on screams until her heels kicked at the table, arms desperate to rip free of the cuffs, but there was no escape. Instinct demanded she try to breathe, but there was only water, and she fought it, fought it until even with her lips pressed closed her brain tried to draw breath through her nose.

  The girl convulsed, chest jerking, breasts bouncing as he counted in his head. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one… twenty-two. Finally he lifted the pitcher upright, moving the cloth free, and water spouted out of her like a fountain. Her first effective cough, and he watched her breathe. One, two… “Say it, slave.”

  Her body jerked violently, struggling against the cuffs, and then she screamed. It was filled with rage, fury, and he silenced her with the cloth, holding it down as he poured the last of the water in the pitcher over her face slowly. The jingling sound of the cuffs at her wrists and ankles, the muffled, guttural groans in her chest, all of it distracted him from the fact that he hadn’t counted.

  Don’t kill her.

  The last of the pitcher emptied, and Anthony pulled the cloth away. She threw up water, shoulder lifting as she turned to the side and expelled a torrent onto the table and floor. None of it bothered him. That was what this room was for — easy clean up — and she hadn’t hit him with any of it.

  Still, he needed her able to respond. Needed her alive.

  Marcus would be watching. As soon as he had turned the cameras back on, everyone had received the alert, including his wayward brother.

  Which meant he needed to control this situation. Taking the pitcher back to the faucet, he filled it, refusing to even look at her as he listened to the haggard breaths, the wheezing, and then she screamed again. Raw and desperate.

  A living thing wanting to stay alive.

  “Say it,” he demanded as he turned back towards her, gripping
the cloth tight in his fist until he felt rivulets streaming between his fingers.

  Her brown eyes met his as her ribs jerked with another cough. “No. Just kill me.”

  A smile twitched at his lips, cock hardening in his pants, urging him to make her submit. To break her until she was nothing more than a mindless doll, an object, a slave.

  She didn’t want to die, and he was going to prove it to her.

  “Take a breath,” he warned her a split second before he blocked her nose and mouth with the soaked cloth, holding it taut to her cheeks as he started to pour again. Thirty seconds this time.

  Beth wanted to let go, wanted to breathe the water deep and end this nightmare, but her fucking body wouldn’t let her. Her mind fought her, overruled her, flooded her system with adrenaline and raw panic until she was fighting the cuffs and choking on water as her useless lungs sought air.

  And then the bastard gave it to her, lifted the cloth so she could drive out the water with painful convulsions, loud, strangled sounds, pulling oxygen back in that did nothing more than drag this hell out a little longer.

  Whimpers were slipping from her, tears burning her eyes, but at least they were invisible amidst all of the water.

  “How much more can you take?” he asked, one of his favorite questions, and she refused to look at him. Instead, she stared at the ceiling, occasionally racked by coughs as her lungs found a new pocket of water. “Say it, slut. Now.”

  A new edge to his voice. Hard and cold as steel.

  The automaton was angry, which meant she was winning.

  Dying, but winning.

  Cloth and water returned, and she tried to breathe it in, to finally die, but she choked instead. And with the choking came more panic, more automatic responses, her body keeping her alive despite her best efforts — and with the jerking of her lungs, the drowning, came pain. Everything burned, her head spun, and she was screaming, sobbing as he pulled back again and her body emptied as much of the water as it could.

  Refusing to die. Refusing to end this.

  The broken wail that left her was all self-pity, because the rage was leaving her with every second she spent without air. Even when he wrenched her head back by her hair, ice cold eyes burning above hers, she barely had the energy to hate him.

  “Say. It.” He hissed into her face, but all she did was cough. Sputtering water from bruised lungs. In the haze of her wheezing breaths, the grunt as he shoved her head to the side — Beth could hear a dull, patterned vibration. But then it was gone, replaced with the cloth, the deafening sound of water smothering her, drowning her.

  Head swimming, she couldn’t coordinate thoughts. Everything narrowed down to the urge to breathe, to the feel of water forcing its way up her nose and into her throat. No way to stop it, even as her body jerked weakly, mindless whimpers and cries broken by desperate choking.

  Air came again, but only after she’d heaved what felt like a gallon out of her nose and mouth. Her breaths were hitched, almost every indrawn breath resulting in a wracking cough that only exhausted her further.

  There was a dull beep, and she opened her eyes, the blurry shape of him coming into view near the other table. He had set the pitcher down, and he was talking. “—not your concern. She will live.”

  Those words pried something loose inside her, something important, foundational, and everything else shifted. Tumbled. Absolute chaos took over as he moved back towards her, carrying the pitcher in one hand, a cell phone pressed to his ear in the other.

  “Watch and see,” he hissed, and then the phone was gone, and the cloth was back. Drenched in black, suffocating, Beth wanted to breathe. She just wanted to breathe, wanted to turn away from the water so she could find air. Thoughts were short-circuiting, on half-finished cycles, but still repeating.

  You have to win.

  Are you winning?

  Win. Don’t give in. Win.

  A convulsion shook her, lungs choking on water. The cloth was gone, but air wouldn’t get in past the water. Too much of it, filling her mouth, running out of her nose, burning her eyes. Everything felt so far away, but the pain was still close. Prying between her ribs like a monster trying to rip her chest open.

  How was I supposed to win again?

  “Say it. Now. Say it now, slave. Call me Master!” The man’s voice was close, his warm exhale brushing over the cool flesh of her cheek, and as his hand tightened over her throat one of her hands tried to lift.

  Stop…

  A metal clank held her arm in place. No way to stop the tightening grip, the throaty whimper as air squeaked out of her lungs. Soaked cloth, another river of water.

  Drowning.

  It was supposed to be peaceful, right?

  But the panic pulled her up from the edge of the abyss, kept her out of the peace as her heart raced, as her body twisted, kicked. Another painful eruption of water, endless, then, after one breath of air, she was under the cloth once more.

  Water came again. Water washed inside, swelled against the broken foundation inside her, and swept it away. All of it.

  Vaguely aware of something important crumbling, splintering, but there wasn’t enough left to know what was missing — what had been taken. It was just gone. Sunk to the bottom, somewhere far out of reach. Far away, under the water.

  Just like she was.

  Lost.

  16

  Anthony leaned against the wall, breathing hard, staring at the almost perfectly still figure of the girl on the shining metal. A weak cough shook her, water running out the side of her mouth, with her eyes unfocused on the ceiling.

  For a moment he’d been sure he had killed her, and then he had forced her head to the side, dropped the pitcher and lifted her shoulder. Holding her in place until biology took over and water had poured out. A quiet, meek gasp, another cough, a gagging heave, more water, and then she’d been limp.

  Vacant.

  Barely perceptible breaths expanding her ribs, and he had stepped back.

  Anger still flickered somewhere in him. At least, the closest thing he could feel to it… because she hadn’t said the word.

  She’d broken first.

  His phone vibrated repeatedly in his pocket, but Marcus would have to wait. Collecting himself, storing the strange flashes of rage away in his mind, he pushed away from the wall and approached her.

  No reaction, no increase in breaths, no sudden twitch to make her limbs fight the cuffs.

  Nothing.

  Turning the handle at the end of the table, he lowered it flat again. It had been tilted at exactly twenty-five degrees. He had never passed thirty seconds on the waterboarding. Yet, the girl was blank.

  Walking to the head of the table, he leaned over her, bracing one hand on the other side of her so he was directly in her line of sight. Brown eyes stared straight through him, lips parted as air rattled its way into her lungs and whispered its way back out.

  Fuck.

  He despised expletives, but there was no other internal reaction that fit this moment. The girl was supposed to submit, to break enough to call him Master, to accept her position — she wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  Anthony caught her chin in his fingers, squeezing hard enough to bruise, but all it earned was a blink. A slow flutter of damp eyelashes.

  “Speak, slave.” It was a command. Everything in his tone demanded an answer, the pain he delivered with the force of his grip was irrefutable, but the girl didn’t even react.

  Standing upright again he slapped her hard. Her head whipped to the side… and stayed. Staring at the opposite wall, breaths still disturbingly even as the pink outlines of his fingers formed on her skin.

  Fuck.

  Another set of vibrations came from the phone in his pocket, and he glanced up at the camera in the ceiling and shook his head once. The buzzing stopped a second later.

  He needed to think. Something other than useless expletives.

  The girl was broken, that was undeniable. She might come back
in a week or two. A month. And he had customers who would pay extra for the opportunity to do things to her in this state — they might even wake her up. Bring her back from this vacant state, to be useful enough to sell to one of his traditional clients.

  If not…

  Anthony sighed and looked her over. She hadn’t lifted her face back towards the ceiling, had not moved at all as far as he could tell. Even her hands were open, palms towards the ceiling like a doll.

  If he couldn’t get her responsive, couldn’t form her into any kind of obedience, then there were always people who didn’t care about things like that. They did not pay as well, there was no acclaim in selling a girl to those parts of the world, but it was some profit.

  And if she wouldn’t respond, then there was no other use for her.

  Broken dolls simply weren’t entertaining.

  Epilogue

  Four Weeks Later

  Anthony sat in front of the fire, his shoes on the leather ottoman to enjoy the warmth as he tapped out replies to emails.

  The business never stopped.

  Customers in almost every time zone across the globe. So much hunger. So many dark wishes to be fulfilled.

  A call interrupted his email screen, and he rejected Marcus so that he could finish typing. More confirmations that his feed would be online again soon… there were just so many decisions to make. What would the customers want from him now? What would the customers allow him to do… and keep paying?

  The girl, Beth, had opened so many new avenues, and she had no idea about it. Marcus’ new slave was already coming like a porn star on command, even though she cried whenever they finished. Entertaining? Yes. Effective? That was yet to be determined.

  Most of their customers were not interested in pleasing the slaves they purchased. That relationship was decidedly inverse, which was what Marcus failed to understand. Slaves should seek to please their Master, regardless of any benefits they received from the interaction. Whether it be food, or comfort, or pleasure.