Amber
I'm terrified when Dex announces he's leaving. I didn't know what their dynamic was, whether they'd both been keeping me captive this whole time, whether they'd both bought me, or whether they were going to share me.
Judging by the way he seems to feel awkward around me, I'm guessing he hasn't fucked me since I've been here, which should be a good thing, a small source of comfort. But it means that even though he feels like the safe one now, he isn't the one who made me feel cherished when he fucked me.
I don't remember much of anything before being pulled out of my cell and Ma’am dosing me to make me sleep, but I remember thinking I was back in the hell I was raised in. I remember wondering when Parker would come for me, wondering why he hadn't.
And then I remember everything shifting.
Suddenly, it wasn't a monster visiting me in the darkness to take my body. Suddenly, it was a shadow figure, a person I couldn't see but I could definitely feel.
The fact that it is the more unhinged one between these two makes me nervous. The idea of being left alone with him makes meespeciallynervous.
I find my voice just to ask him not to leave me, gripping his muscular forearm and taking him by surprise.
“Please.” I beg, once my voice has finished cracking.
I guess I re-learned how to speak when I was unconscious.
I remember disappearing into my head as the men beat Parker to death, and I screamed so loud that it snapped something inside of me. Seeing mybrother die in front of me, knowing the last thing he saw as he left this world was something so cruel and unnatural…
My voice is back, but words feel tenuous and exhausting on my tongue.
“Don't leave me alone.”
“You aren't alone.” Cal assured me, but it's not a sentiment that provides any comfort. Not when I've parsed together the fact that he ordered me off some seedy website the way I used to order junk from online, loving the overnight shipping option to fuel whatever thing I'd seen online and decided would fix all my problems. It never did, which allowed me to hold out hope that thenextthing would do it for me.
I don’t think any amount of online shopping can fix the predicament that I’m in now.
“He's not going to hurt you.” Dex promises, stroking my hair. “Just relax, okay? Get some rest, and I promise I'll be back.”
“Can't you stay again?”
I’m not too proud to beg him, but he assures me he can't. He needs to go home to take care of a few things.
I assume a few things means a goldfish or a cat, both of which he decided are more important than me.
It's wrong of me to judge him, but there's no ring on his hand. I know that doesn’t mean he has no life, but he gives me a buffer from the man who looks at me like he's dying to tie me up to his bedposts and fuck me ruthlessly.
And what scares me most aboutthatis the fact that it doesn't terrify me the way I know it should.
My brain is horrified by the reality I've woken up in and horrified by the prospect that he will continue to fuck me while I'm awake, that I will have to endure whatever despicable things he wants to do to me.
But weirdly, my body is not at all as horrified as my brain.
I'm keenly aware of Cal's presence. It would be impossible not to be, even if I wasn't scared of him. His presence is commanding, the kind that demands people pay attention to him.
I wonder who he is. Certainly, someone important, to be able to afford to keep a whole person in his home without anyone being wiser for it. I'm guessing a doctor of sorts, based on the fact that he had me hooked up to various machines and the fucking catheter that still makes me burn when I think of it.
For all my pleading, Dex didn't relent. He still left me, and now it's just me and the psychopath.
The highlight of the night is that he leaves me to shower alone, and I take full advantage. After months of rotting in his basement, the memories of Eric, the back of the truck with the piss and blood... it feels like heaven to be able to wash the grime off of me.
I did gather, of course, that he bathed me. He sponge-bathed me too, I guess, but it did little to keep me from feeling dirty... particularly when I think about how many times he must have fucked me since I've been here.
In the shower, I can wash it all away. I can sob under the stream, which is turned as high as it will go so that the stall is filled with steam that fogs the glass, and I actually get lightheaded by the time I'm ready to get out.
I'm more tired by the time I stop the water, but I'm grateful that he didn't intrude on me mid-shower, worried I'd try to slit my wrist with the razor he left for me. I'd be lying if I said I didn't consider it, but that would have taken skill I don't possess, and honestly, I can't give up yet.
