CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
NICHOLAS
“What are you doing? Get up.” I stare down dumbstruck at Victoria. “Have you gone insane? I gave you the easiest task.” I bend down and, with gritted teeth, tell her to stop this madness.
“No. I want to kill the person.” All the time she speaks, her eyes are flicking over to Amelia.
“I’m not going to give you the gun. Go back to the coals.”
“What’s going on?” My father shouts from the other side of the room. He’s already undoing his trousers and pulling himself out. It’s not something I enjoy seeing, but sadly it’s something I’ve witnessed far too often. The society’s members are infamous for their orgy nights. The one and only thing that I used to quite enjoy.
“Nothing,” I reply.
“Can the bitch not even do the easiest of the tasks without causing a problem? George” ‒he waves his hand in the air toward one of the guards‒ “bring the scold’s bridle. I don’t have time for messing around.” My father shoves his dick into Elizabeth’s mouth, and she gags around the surprise intrusion. “I hope you’re going to be better at swallowing me than that.”
“It’s fine. I’ll deal with it. We don’t need the bridle.” I pull Victoria up toward me. “Stop this now. I thought giving you the diary would have knocked some sense into you.”
“Please swap us,” she pleads. I can see the desperation in her eyes.
“Tell me why? Give me one good reason. You know what's about to happen. I don’t want that on your conscience.”
“Amelia.” She opens her mouth to tell me, but there’s a commotion at the door. A man’s brought in and thrown onto his knees in the center of the room. He’s one of the ‘workers’, as we call them here in the society, who do the mundane work for us. They aren’t paid well, for they’re the lowest of the low. Pulled from the streets and offered a better life only to be thrown to the lion, that is my father, and forced to risk everything, so we don’t have to.
“This man has stolen from us. He took money to perform a task, and he spent it on getting high instead. The work was not done to the highest standard, and I now have to get another loyal man out of prison in Egypt, as a result.” My father’s bucking his hips into Elizabeth’s mouth while he speaks. He’s using her like a rag doll with a hole to get himself off. There's no finesse about the act. It’s raw fucking of a willing hole. Then again, that’s pretty much all Elizabeth Sandford is: willing with three holes to stick a dick in. “The punishment for stealing from us is death. Sometimes, as the leader, we don’t like to get our hands dirty, and that’s where our wives come into the equation. Amelia, your task is to kill this man.”
Victoria whimpers and grabs hold of my ankle. “Please, don’t make her do this.”
“You know I have to follow the rules,” I respond.
“Let the games begin,” my father shouts.
“Nicholas, please.”
“Enough,” I shout and grab Victoria by the arm. I drag her to her feet and, with the red mists descending, pull her across the room back to the coals. Behind me, I can hear one of the guards explaining to Amelia how to use the gun. To the side of me is my father’s carnal grunts, and Elizabeth’s wet suction. All the time, Victoria is squirming in my hands.
“No!” she screams, but I slam my hand over her mouth to muffle the sound.
“Damn it, please stop this. Just do what I ask. I can’t handle this with every task. Why are you so bloody defiant all the time?”
“Kill him.” My father’s voice echoes around the room. “His punishment is death.”
“Please don’t,” the man whimpers. The gun cocks.
Victoria’s wriggling so much in my arms that I can barely hold her. She’s like a piece of Jell-O. She bites on the hand I have clamped over her mouth, and I curse.
“Fuck.”
I’ve had enough and push her onto the coals, so she has no choice but to walk on them. She's still defiant, though, as she stumbles back across them toward and then past me. I spin on my heels. The world turns slowly like those old-fashioned movies where the film breaks, and the world turns like it would go on forever. Victoria falls to her feet and screams. At the same time Amelia puts the gun in her mouth and pulls the trigger, ending her life as her head explodes.
“No!” Victoria cries out, again and again, bringing the world rapidly back up to speed. I can barely catch my breath as Amelia’s body falls to the floor next to the drugged up thief that she was supposed to kill. Suddenly, I’m running. I’m next to Victoria, scooping her up into my arms. My father’s sexual grunts come back into my consciousness as he comes down Elizabeth’s throat. I feel sick — I’m going to be sick. The stench of death fills the room. Blood is flowing all over the floor — parts of the dead girl’s brain and skull are splattered everywhere. And still, my father comes and comes. I can’t do this. I need to leave. My legs are carrying me, and I hold a still hysterical Victoria in my arms. We’re going — we’re getting out of here.
“Leaving so soon, son?” my father calls out. A gun goes off again. I turn back to see Elizabeth Sandford holding the smoking weapon, this time, and the condemned man lying dead beside Amelia.
“At least, the tasks were completed, and we’re one girl down. Makes the choice a whole lot easier, don’t you think?”
I don’t wait to hear any more. I just get the hell out of there.