Chapter Twenty-Three
Toy
Master is gone all night and most of the next day. When he enters the playroom, I can see he’s furious. I’ve never seen him quite like this before. That icy mask of his rarely slips, and when it does, when he’s mad at me, it’s still a cold, controlled kind of anger.
But today he comes boiling through the door, eyes blazing with rage. I hold as still as possible, so panicked that my breath sticks in my throat. He seems to be moving in manic fast-motion.
He stalks over to me and practically rips my collar off. Then his hands close around my throat and he pulls me to my feet. I’m gurgling in panic; I can’t breathe, and my hands flail and slap at his wrists. Instinctively, I try the Krav Maga technique that he’s taught me. I bring my hands down on the insides of his elbows, and my knee comes up toward his groin. He twists away easily.
He eases up a little bit, enough that I can breathe.
“Your technique still sucks, Toy. Fucking useless at everything, aren’t you?”
I start to cry. “Yes, Master, I’m useless. I’m sorry, Master.” I would die right now for one kind word. I’d die happy.
“Somebody is looking for you, Toy,” he snarls. “Someone has been bombarding the fucking press with messages about you and implying that I’m behind your disappearance. The police interrogated me for hours today. They ambushed me with all kinds of information that they shouldn’t have access to. I was forced to do a press conference, upping the reward for information leading to your return. Who knows that you went back to pick up your purse that night? Who would have that kind of information? Other than your former neighbor, who could be behind this? I know it’s not her, because she never reported you missing.”
A shock wave rolls over me and my knees give out. He hauls me to my feet, and I stand there for a moment as the implication of what he just said floods my body with light and warmth.
Somebody cares about me. I am not invisible. I am not worthless like Master tells me over and over.
But who? If nobody reported me missing in the first place, why would they suddenly be after me now? “I don’t know who would look for me, Master. I have nothing and nobody.”
He’s staring straight into my eyes. Anger flickers over his face. “You have me. And I am everything.”
I bob my head as much as I am able with his hands closed around my throat. “Yes, Master.”
“The person who did this has been sending anonymous emails to both the police and the newspapers. And they’ve been naming me as a suspect. You must know who it is.”
“Heather was my only friend!” I protest weakly. “I mean, I thought she was my friend.”
“Somebody at the place where you volunteered?”
“Nobody that I know of, Master. If they didn’t report me missing after a month, why would they start now? Master?”
The thought of that place… Tears start running down my face and I can’t stop crying. Oh God, I miss my old life. That’s why I never think of it, because it will sap the last bit of my strength and it won’t matter because no matter how miserable I am, there’s nothing I can do to escape this.
“Stop crying,” he snarls. “Right fucking now.”
“I c-c-can’t.” I’m having some kind of breakdown. I can’t remember how to breathe. I’m shaking so hard I’m almost convulsing. Images of the people back at the shelter flood my mind, summoning up a drenching wave of misery.
“You c-c-can’t?” he mocks me, and throws me to the floor. I curl up and hug my knees and wail, rocking back and forth.
He goes down on his knees next to me, grabs my hair and yanks my head up. “Who?” he screams. Who is this angry man? He never used to lose control like this. “Who did you tell about me?”
“Only Heather!” I cry. “I swear, Master, I swear!” Tears and snot run down my face, and I’m gulping in panic because I can’t make him happy but I must make him happy.
He looks down at me in disgust. “Wash your face.”
He uncuffs me and storms toward the door. He doesn’t even bother to put the collar or the ankle cuffs on me, he’s so angry.
Then he pauses in the doorway and looks back at me with a great weariness on his face.
“Your technique when I choked you, it was good,” he says. “It would have worked on anyone but me. You’ve gotten much better, very quickly. You’re actually a natural.”
He waits expectantly.
“Thank you, Master,” I whisper, and as he walks away, the thought springs unbidden into my head. Fuck yourself up the ass with a nail-studded baseball bat, Joshua Smith.
How dare he lie to me just to make me feel badly, when I’m spending every waking second trying to please him? How dare he expect me to continue living like this, when there’s no reward, no acknowledgment, ever? Hearing him admit that he lied to me about my technique makes me so angry I want to cut his throat and watch him bleed out.
And wait, wait, wait…something else…
My mind frantically picks through everything he just said.
“Upping the reward for your safe return…” If nobody knew I was missing, then why would there be a reward in the first place? Master certainly wouldn’t have made it public and offered a reward unless someone had come looking for me.
Wild fury seizes me. He lied to me. That lie was worse than anything else he’s ever done to me. He lied to me knowing how I was abandoned by my own mother and how that haunted me with self-loathing. His lie broke my heart, made me feel worthless, made me feel ugly and invisible.
Something in me snaps. I can’t submit anymore. It’s the beginning of the end for me, and I can’t even wrap my head around what that will mean.
I stagger off to the bathroom to wash my face.
As I’m walking down the hall, trembling with fury, it hits me.
Mark.
The man in the doorway.
There’s a strong possibility it’s him. He knew where I was going. He talked to me about work sometimes. He used to work in computer security.
Fear fills me.
I am terrible at lying to Master… No, fuck that, to Joshua Smith.
He can see right through me. Just by looking at me, he’ll see that I’m trying to hide something from him. And he’ll torture me until I talk. I won’t be able to help myself. He’s a one-man Spanish Inquisition.
There is only one way to save Mark. And now that I think of it, one way to save myself.
I look in the mirror. I am Tamara Bennett. I have been kidnapped by Joshua Smith, who tried to break me and make me into something I’m not, but he failed.
I am at peace.
Joshua hurt me horribly when he told me that nobody was looking for me. Now I know the truth. There’s at least one person out there who cares, and that is enough. And that is worth dying for. This nightmare is about to end. I will finally float free away from here, and I will be who I want. Tam with a Plan. Tam who helps other people.
I start running the water in the bath. I fill it up with bubbles so he won’t see. The razor that he uses to shave my pussy is in a drawer with cans of lather and washcloths; I hide it in a cloth and carry it to the tub.
He finally got sloppy. My plan worked. I’m just not escaping the way I’d planned. But this will do.
I slash my wrist under the water, hunching over so the camera won’t see the look on my face. It hurts way more than I expected. It’s searing agony down my wrist, but the thought of giving Mark up to Joshua hurts worse.
Time ticks by, and I start to slide into oblivion. Warm, delicious lassitude swallows me, and I float away to freedom.
I wake up to horror.
Because I’m not dead.
My wrist is throbbing, and I am restrained hand and foot on a bed.
Joshua is looking down at me, his face twisted with rage.
He says one thing.
“Why?”