And I’m gone.
9
Raphael
I HAVE SPENT MY LIFE COLLECTING VULNERABILITY.
Citizen Soldier Playlist
“Runaway (From Myself)”
“Reason to Live”
She lasted longer than I expected before passing out. It’s almost time.
First, I direct Seth to loosen the chain connected to the collar since she is deadweight and slack. I’d prefer her not to suffocate in her passed-out state. Not when she has given me the first glimmer of potential out of all the girls we’ve brought here or to the cabin.
I don’t interfere as my boys swap their bets. Vincent never gambles. I don’t need to gamble.
“Fuck, look at those pussy lips,” Rory says, his voice thick and gravelly with how much he’s dying to fuck her. Never before me. “Gonna feel so goddamn hot and pretty when it comes time to shove our cocks in her.”
Jude tilts his head, observing with fascination. “Her inner labia are a lovely, darker red.”
“You think she’s tight?” Seth wonders.
“Who cares?” laughs Rory. Yes. Anyone is tight with him.
The suction cup does its work, pulling long, slow, and hard, granting her femininity a reprieve before it sucks hard again. She still doesn’t move as her pubic lips grow plumper and thicker.
Rory loves the torture, the sadism. Jude enjoys watching from a far more scientific and biological standpoint, admiring the physical form and how much the body can take. Vincent keeps a safe distance because his emotions run far too deep, and if he loses control, no force in the universe could stop him short of all of us uniting against him. Seth goes with the flow as usual.
For me? It’s the power. The control.
She earned herself a Level 1 Kinship Punishment when we killed for her, and she drew Jude’s blood and ran in defiance. Taking Rory’s flesh earned her Level 2. But when she dared to draw her line in the sand, when she stared into my eyes and refused to flinch at the abyss staring back at her, she earned Level 3.
She will likely not survive the night. If she does not, she will pass into the next world and carry my darkness with her like a ghost. If she does…
Everything is a means to an end.
The bruises decorating her skin. The blood dripping down her back. The flesh torn from the whip. The swollen red flesh between her legs is a means to an end.
Every soft cry, every whimper, every moan, every sound she has made is a means to an end. Every breath is a test.
Not because I want what’s best for her. No. Because I’m a psychopath. Not a stereotype. I’m built differently, wired differently. No empathy. No moral compass. Not by choice. It’s an incapacity.
I don’t feel fear, or guilt, or regret—not in the way the others do. But I know the consequences of breaking her. I know the cost. I choose carefully. Everything else is data.
Yes, I have a moral compass. It points toward what preserves my world and those bound to me. Not kindness, not mercy. Loyalty, utility, survival—that is my direction.
I don’t confuse suffering with meaning, or endurance with virtue. I don’t imagine I’m shaping her into something better. This isn’t punishment. It isn’t pleasure. It isn’t personal.
It’s procedure.
If she breaks, she was never useful. If she survives, she belongs—unconditionally, irrevocably. Not because she earned it, though my boys will view it so, including Rory. For me, it’s because the system worked.
I am her antithesis.
When Rory touched her, confirming her arousal—endorphins or chemicals related—she was not focused on any of them. She did not rebel with a denial of screams or unintelligible curses on account of the ring.
