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I must have been able to fall asleep because I awake with a sudden jolt as the room vibrates with something so intense I unconsciously sway with the vibrations. I slowly open my eyes and I’m bathed in a bright light that showcases three large bodies that stand tall and proud inside my little cell. They stand by the entrance for what feels like years, their eyes roam up and down my body in an evil touch that has me gulping down the bile that threatens to erupt from my stomach. I turn away from their hungry eyes and close my own, not wanting to see the man that holds my life in his hands. Hands that I once wanted to touch me in a gentle caress but after what he has done to me I don’t think he would even know what gentle means.
How could I ever have loved that man?
How could I have been so stupid to have fallen for all his lies? Because they were all lies.
He never loved me.
He never wanted me or wanted a future with me.
They were all lies, and he knew the right words to say to me to have me just where he wanted me.
I was so stupid.
I was naive and gullible, and he was a trickster.
He was a trickster. No, he’s a monster.
I don’t know him, I never knew him. Never knew the monster that lay in wait.
He’s a monster.
A monster that has the ability to lie and bewitch me with just a certain look. Fresh tears leave my eyes at my stupidity. That look, the look that once upon a time melted skin and bones to a river of hope. There is no hope any longer, just despair and destruction as he works his new super power over me like a rain cloud.
“Look at us.” One of them commands but I can’t. I can’t because the moment that I do it’s as if I’m confirming the new path Mark is trying to take me down and there is no way I can do that. I have to know that there is a way out of this, that there is a way to get back to the family I love and who loves me. My eyes remain closed just hoping with all that I am that when I do open them again the scene will melt away and I’ll be back with my family. But it never happens. I’ve tried too many times to count and each time I open them I’m back where I started, in this hell.
“Open your eyes.”
“Open your fucking eyes now.”
I hear one of their feet begin to stomp towards me when I don’t do as I’m told and I feel all their anger fill the room, casting a black cloud of doom over the scene that I try to hide away from with my closed lids. Two menacing fingers take a harsh hold of my chin and forces my face up before a cold hard slap strikes the side of my face.
“Who do you belong to?” Mark says as his face lingers too close to my ear, his words sending brutal shivers down my spine as he says them with more promise. This is no game, he means every word that he is saying to me and any hope that I may have had that this was all a dream or that my family could save me disappears into the thin air around me.
This is my cold reality and there is no way that I will make this easy for him.
I can’t, and I won’t.
“H..Hope Bryant.” I stare him right in his cold eyes as I say the words with clarity.
“And I belong to no one.”
Take that, you piece of shit scum bag. He rolls his eyes in slow motion and then turns to the two figures in the doorway. From here I can’t see them, but their figures are different from what I’ve seen so far. There’s more of them, Mark has brought more and a powerful flush of dread washes through every vein in my body with the beat of my scared heart.
“What are you?”
Two lone fingers trace along both my breasts in a slow path towards my nipples where he squeezes and pulls them. Pain shoots through my breasts and goes through my ribs to my lungs trying to stop my breaths.
“What are you?”
He lets go of my nipples and then slaps each of them at the same time.
“Who do you belong to?”
I don’t say anything, I just look into his eyes and I’m causing them to grow with his anger. Good, I hope I am because that will hint to the bastard just a small amount of the anger he has erupting from me. The bastard, I can’t believe I thought I was falling for this guy, no I fell for his well-played game.
“See what I’ve had to put up with for the last week.”
Week? Has it only been a week? I feel like I’ve been here for years. A million years of hurting and waiting for the next set of abuse that Mark wants to dish out and it’s only been a week.
Mum and dad must be so worried about me. I can’t help but wonder what they could be doing right now. I want to go home, please let me go home, please let me survive this. At the thought of my parents and my survival I try to cloud everything around me as if to protect myself, but nothing seems to help. Nothing helps, I’ve tried. More tears fall at my lost thoughts for my own survival.
Am I doomed to be their toy forever? Or whatever they have planned for me. My body shivers as I look down at the floor so I don’t see one of the figures step towards me. I hear them as their feet stomp closer with a little clack just after, one of them must be wearing boots with those metal things on the heel so they make a better sound. A better sound, to me it sounds more like another monster coming to get me. Another nightmare whispering through the air as everything turns to cold around me. My eyes remain down, I don’t look up, but I know without even looking that the man that steps closer than the others is going to be worse than Mark. What Mark has been doing has only been child’s play compared to what this man could do to me. I shiver and swallow more bile as this new monster awakens a new fear inside me.
This man is going to be worse.
This man is the devil in disguise. A rough cold hand lingers before my face and then I feel him take a slow linger around the rest of my body. He doesn’t put his hands on me, but his fingers are close enough for me to feel the roughness and coldness of him. This man is different, I don’t have to look at him to know that he reeks of power, he has power and he uses it to its full potential.
“Very nice.” He says and I’m sure he must be looking over at the other two. This whole situation just feels like it can’t possibly be real but the more I try to get back to the real world, the more this world comes back with more force, more anger than before.
“This is the fun part son.” He says, and his voice sounds just as terrifying as I thought it would. It’s cold and unforgiving in its ability to unnerve me more than I have ever been before.
“When you break them. Mould them to the slaves they are.”
Oh God, he said slave, I know Mark has said it before, but I thought he was only joking, trying to get a reaction out of me.
Slave, a slave oh God no. Please, please just let me wake up. Please and I can’t stop the build up of tears flowing down my cheeks in my despair. He abruptly takes my chin with his forefinger and thumb and pushes my head back so I’m forced to look at him. I have to take a double look, I’m sure I’m looking at Mark, but I can see him through the corner of my eye looking proudly at the man who I assume is his father. They look just like one another except the man in front of me has grey blue eyes and an older-looking face.
“I didn’t know she was such a looker. Just like her mom.” My mum how does he know my mum, I want to ask but then Mark has to crush my world more than he has already.
“It wasn’t bad to pretend I was in love with her.”
Pretend I was in love with her, why do those words send a knife right through my heart. I’ve known what this man’s true intentions are for a whole week or what’s felt like years, but hearing those words. Hearing him say exactly what he really did to me sends me right back to the start when I thought I was in love with him. I’m not though, I know the truth but it still doesn’t help the pain. They talk about me as If I’m not even in the room and I manage to drown their voices out even with the older man’s vile fingers still keep my head up and in view of them.
“What do you think, Zac?”
“I wouldn’t say no, boss.”
The new voice from the doorway sounds like a warm summer breeze blasting through the cold winter air and my skin suddenly heats up at hearing it. A fire starts to bubble on the surface as I glance my eyes up in his direction and see him step towards us. As he gets closer I can see his outline more clearly and I can see he has light denim pants on that fit his legs perfectly, showcasing their natural beauty. A black top showcases a valley of muscles throughout his arms and down to his stomach and I can see his hands are in his pockets. He looks so normal, he looks like he could be like any other man on the street but what could this man do to me? Will he be just like Mark? He stops just to the left of the older man and he looks a little older than Mark. His face is defined, he has sharp cheekbones and chin that has a light covering of hair. He has brown eyes that look as deep as chocolate and his hair is brown with just a hint of red through the waves in the light from outside my cell cast down on him. He’s so handsome that I almost forget for a moment where I am until an eruption of laughter fills my tiny room.
“I think we are all going to have some fun with you.”
“I might not want to share, Dad. I’ve had her to myself and liked it even if she’s been a pain in the fucking arse.”
My chin is let go of and I see the other two men’s eyes concentrate on Mark rather than me and I release a breath in relief. I didn’t even know I was holding on to it until I let it go.
“You need the help, so I would say you’ll have to start to learn, don’t you think?” Mark nods his head and then looks back at me.
“I haven’t told her much yet. Just played around a bit with my knowledge” Mark says with a laugh.
“She’ll learn in time and when she does she’ll know that there is no way out for her. That this will be her future”
I start to shake my head looking at each of them in turn as Mark’s dad reaches in to his pocket and pulls something out. It’s a vial with a clear liquid and it’s then that I see the other item too. He’s holding a needle, I watch silently as he attaches the vial to the needle and then the liquid squirts out from the top of the needle.
“I think this will help with our cause if she gets to be too much. Release one of her wrists.”
There’s an evil glint in his eyes as Mark comes over to me and releases one of my wrists, it feels like a dead weight as it hangs from my side and I can’t get it to move but it’s quickly grabbed again and then I feel the needle penetrate my skin as it breaks through my natural barrier. I feel the cold liquid enter my body through my blood and as it travels through my veins my body feels even colder than before.
“This will give her something to think about. Give us something to remind her about when she doesn’t do as she’s told.” He says before he steps away from me and starts to walk away. The good-looking man following behind him like a loyal puppy looks back towards me and I can see something different in his eyes, but I’m drawn away from an angel by Mark talking to me again.
“Looks like I’ll have to share you. My father won’t be as patient as me, so you better start behaving. Do as you’re told or maybe we’ll make playtime a picnic so far my love.”
My love, why does he have to keep calling me that? Doesn’t he know he has hurt me enough, that calling me that knowing what he’s doing to me is like pushing the knife deeper into my back. I watch as he starts to turn around and begins to walk away.
“Mark, please.”
He stops dead in his tracks and turns back to look at me. There must be some of the Mark I fell in love with still in there somewhere. Maybe, just maybe, I could reach out to him, find him within all that hard exterior and ask for help.
He could help, he could be the man I love again.
“Mark, you can’t do this. Please.”
“I think you’ll find I can, my love.” He responds as he moves his fingers through my short hair and then lays his hand on the side of my face before placing a kiss just above my eye. He gives me a look that says push me, please and then turns back around and starts to walk leaving me hanging by his chains.
He’s still the monster, none of the old Mark is left untouched.
He’s gone like the wind, like the tide, nothing is left.
“M..Mark.”
I call out his name on a plea, fresh tears falling down my already-wet cheeks. Begging for him to return to me, begging for him to help me and be the man I was in love with.
“Mark please. At least let me down.”
“And why would I do that?” He says as he turns around to look at me and with that I just know that he is a lost cause.
There’s no hope, the man I love is really gone.
“My arms. They’re hurting. Please.”
“You know what? I kind of like having you hanging around.” He walks toward the door and just before he closes it he turns back to look at me again.
“For the time being at least.”