Julie moves behind me before I can even process the insult. She’s taller, stronger than me, and her arms are like steel bands as they lock around me from behind, pinning my own arms to my sides. I thrash, but it’s useless. She is immovable.
“Let me go,” I gasp, the plea pathetic and thin.
Felice laughs, a sound like shattering glass. “Why would we do that? Master is away. We have all night to remind you of your place…”
She crouches in front of me, her face level with mine. Her eyes are pits of darkness, reflecting not light, but a deep, abiding hatred.
“He thinks you’re so special, doesn’t he? His new, soft little toy. Thinks your fear is more exquisite than our obedience.”
She reaches out and traces a cold finger down my cheek. I flinch away, but Julie holds me fast.
“…but we know what you are. You’re not special. You’re just a useless, greedy slut. You eat the food he gives you like you deserve it. You take his attention like you’ve earned it.”
Her words are a different kind of assault, each one a small, precise cut designed to bleed me of any last shred of dignity. “Fat, useless slut,” she repeats, savouring the words. “You think he loves the softness of you? He’s just fattening you up for the slaughter. You’re nothing but a temporary diversion.”
A shadow moves, and I realise with relief that it’s Anya. Her face is pale, her eyes wide with a fear that mirrors my own, but there’s a resolve there too.
“Felice, stop this,” she says, her voice trembling but clear. “This isn’t what he wants. He’ll be furious.”
Felice’s head turns slowly, her focus shifting from me to Anya. The air in the room chills by several degrees. “What hewants?” she echoes, rising to her full height. “And you think you know what he wants? You, the one he hasn’t touched in weeks? The forgotten one?”
Anya stands her ground, though her hands are clenched into tight fists at her sides. “I know he doesn’t want his property damaged. I know he punishes disobedience. This is disobedience.”
For a moment, there is silence. Felice takes a step toward Anya, and the movement is so fluid, so predatory that I stop struggling against Julie’s grip. The attention is off me but a new, colder dread is freezing the blood in my veins.
“Disobedience?” Felice whispers. Then, faster than a snake strike, her hand flies out and cracks across Anya’s face.
The sound is sickeningly loud in the tense quiet. Anya stumbles back, a bright red handprint flowering on her pale cheek. She brings a hand to her face, her eyes wide with shock and pain.
“You think you can defy orders?” Felice’s voice is no longer a whisper; it’s a low, guttural roar. “You think your pathetic conscience matters here?”
She hits Anya again, a closed-fist blow to the stomach this time. Anya doubles over with a choked gasp, the air driven from her lungs.
“No.” I scream, renewing my struggle. Julie’s grip tightens, her fingernails digging into the soft flesh of my arms, and I can only watch as Felice unleashes her fury.
It is a brutal, efficient punishment. Felice doesn’t scream or rant, she is cold and precise. A blow to the ribs. Another slap that snaps Anya’s head to the side. Anya tries to curl into a protective ball but even as she does, Felice continues delivering blow after blow. The only sounds are the dull thuds of impact, Anya’s ragged whimpers, and the frantic beating of my own heart.
Then, Felice delivers a final, vicious blow to the side of Anya’s head, just above her temple. Anya’s body goes limp instantly. Her eyes roll back, showing the whites, and a thin trickle of blood seeps from her nostril.
The world seems to stop.
The only movement is the slow, dark pool of blood spreading from under Anya’s head on the polished wood. Is she breathing? I can’t tell.
A silent scream is trapped in my throat, a pressure so immense I think my skull will split open.
They’ve killed her. They’ve killed Anya for trying to help me.
Felice turns back to me. There is no remorse in her eyes. Only a bright, feverish anticipation. The interruption is over. The main event can now resume.
“Now,” she says, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. “Where were we?”
Julie shoves me forward, and I collapse onto my hands and knees on the cold floor. The grain of the wood is sharp against my palms. I am staring at Anya’s unconscious form, my mind screaming.
Felice’s shadow falls over me. “This fat, useless slut who stole our Master’s eye.”
The first kick catches me in the side. It’s not a hesitative tap; it’s a full-force impact that lifts me off the floor for a second. A white-hot bolt of pain explodes in my ribs, and a gasp is punched from my lungs. Before I can even draw breath another kick lands, this time on my thigh. A sharp, specific agony that feels like a tendon tearing.
Hands are on me again, but not to hold me still. These hands are instruments of pain. They pinch and twist the soft flesh of my arms, my stomach, the underside of my breasts. Fingernails, sharpened to points, rake down my back. I feel the skin part, a series of fiery lines etched into me. I try to curl up, to protect my head and my stomach, but they are everywhere.
