The elevator dings. We’ve arrived, far too soon. She seems to be thinking the same thing, but I guess in her case, it’s the menace of the cell looming. Whereas I’m already aching with the loss of her, and for how long?
A week should do it; I don’t believe I could stay away longer, and the boys will be satisfied by one week, even Vale. One weekwill allow me to calm him down. Until then, even I can’t keep her entirely safe.
One week should be enough to break her in as well. Keep her from trying to escape again.
I unlock the heavy metal door, and she cringes away, then blinks in surprise when she finds it’s empty. It’s a very small, very ordinary, room, entirely bare of spikes, but also of beds. We don’t use it much, and it’s not this place people should fear, it’s the room next door, Igor’s stronghold. That’s where our enemies go. A few days of torture, and they’re welcoming death, but they don’t go slowly, not in the room next door.
I would never put my girl there. Even leaving her in the cell is a struggle, but you don’t rise to the top of Devil by being soft. Still, I let her feel my soothing touch a moment longer before pushing her inside and twisting the key in the lock.
I head back upstairs, trying to scrub my eyeballs of the memory of those deep violet eyes. And more specifically, the look that was in them, not fear but rather a sad sort of acceptance, as I locked the door. Like she didn’t expect anything other than to suffer.
It’s not really the kind of reaction you’d expect from a captive. Fear, yes. Struggling, yes, in some girls. But acceptance? I can’t understand her, and it annoys me. Moments ago, she tried to escape by stabbing me with a stapler. And just as I got used to the idea that my pet has a streak of rebellion in her, she suddenly accepted her fate.
Not because that fate is inevitable, though it is. It’s more like she’s used to suffering. In a way, this is just more of the same.
Maybe the thing that made her try to escape wasn’t the thought of captivity, but the threat of my touch. Of sex.
Which is too bad, because that’s exactly what I have in mind.
-
I go up to the eleventh floor, where our offices are. The others are already gathered in the conference room.
“She’s in the cell,” I announce as I step in, and then snap my fingers at my assistant Vincent. At once, he comes to me with a glass of whiskey and then returns shortly after with the first aid kit. I occasionally have scruples about involving a teenager in our sordid affairs. He’s only just turned eighteen, but he’s useful. A zoomer who knows a lot more about tech than we ever could. Though to be honest, it’s really his family connections that interest me.
Vale merely shrugs at my words, taking a swig from the small bottle of water in front of him.
“Happy now?” I insist, wincing in discomfort as Vincent applies antiseptic to the tiny holes left by the stapler.
Vale shrugs again, his eyes glued to the laptop screen in front of him.
“I’m going to leave her there for a week,” I continue, hating that I need to prove myself to him. I never have before. But this past year, things have gotten messy. It’s really the worst time to develop an obsession, but I can’t exactly help myself.
“We’re going to have to kill her anyway,” he comments in his gravelly voice.
I push down on the urge to beat the shit out of him. “We’ll do no such thing.”
“I don’t think we need to,” cuts in Logan quietly. At least I can still count on him. “I’m sure we’ll find another solution.”
“Yeah? Which one?” spits out Vale. “If we don’t kill her, Angelwill.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Tell them not to, then, since you seem to be so close to them.”
It’s rare to see Vale lose his cool, but now he sputters in confused anger for a moment before quickly recovering.
“You can’t exactly blame Angel for wanting her dead. The nanochip is the motive that would tie them, and us, to the murders. They were supposed to hand it over to us, clean and easy. We’d destroy it and no one would have to worry about it again. They did their job, we did too. Except now, a random chick has it. She’s probably working for some third party. Best case scenario, a lowly criminal who wants to blackmail us. Worst case, the authorities.”
“Seems to me nothing about the Cole murders was clean and easy,” observes Logan drily. “Seeing as how Angel murdered the entire family.”
Vale ignores him, instead directing his attention to me. “Kill the girl.”
“She’s innocent,” I growl. “I won’t kill her.”
“Yeah, right. That’s not why you won’t kill her. It’s because you’re obsessed. Your obsession is going to ruin us all.”
It’s all I can do to keep my anger down. “She’s innocent.”
He smirks, noting my reaction. “If she’s innocent, Angel won’t believe it, and they’ll kill her. If she’s guilty, and we don’t kill her, we’re all fucked. Basically, there’s no future in which she doesn’t die.”
