Destroyed

Zel didn’t say anything as she smoothed her hands from my shoulders to the centre of my back. “You have to give yourself to me for this to work. You have to be completely at my mercy. No holding back. If it gets too much to bear, tell me and I’ll add more restraints.” Her voice wobbled, but then strengthened. “You have to tell me if it gets too much. I won’t let you hurt me again.”

I nodded, the sound of fabric from the bedspread loud in my ear. The shooting pain of disobedience darted through my body. Gritting my teeth, I rode through it, trying so hard to do what Zel said and let myself go.

The silence rushed with the voices of my handlers.

Why are you disobeying a direct order, operative?

She’s inflicting you, therefore you must inflict back.

Sweat broke out on my brow as Zel’s hands dropped further. Her hand landed on my ass and my back arched in surprise. “Stop—” I growl-panted, my skin scorching with unrequited orders.

“No,” she whispered. Meticulously, she traced a finger from the crack in my ass upward to the base of my spine. Deliberately taunting me with a mixture of firm and soft, prohibited and allowed.

“You spilled some of your secrets today. I loved hearing more about you even though your past is so sad. Focus on my voice as I touch you. Try and relax. Try not to fight and I’ll tell you some of mine.” Her hand splayed on my spine, massaging the tortured muscles below.

A headache swelled, throbbing with my rapidly beating heart.

Kill her, Fox.

We won’t command again.

Her fingers feathered over the fox tattoo on the base of my spine. “I’ll start with my necklace. I’ve seen you looking at it—the star. The single silver star.” Her voice turned wistful, full of happy memories. “I bought two necklaces with my meagre savings the day Clara turned four. She was obsessed by all things galaxy and drew stars on everything she could get her hands on.”

Her fingers continued their maddening assault, calling more conditioning, more pain. I glued my lips together and bore through it.

“I bought her the necklaces for her birthday. Her face lit up as if she’d swallowed the moon. Her tiny hands tickled my neck as we took turns clasping them on each other. The moment they were on, she announced she would never take it off. She’s my star in more ways than one.” She sighed, her voice turning sad. “I bought the necklaces for another reason, too. But that isn’t a tale for tonight.”

My brain skipped between her voice and the inner commands only I could hear. It took all my willpower to focus on the present and stay lying flat.

It would be so easy to flip her off.

Her neck will snap if you use your legs around her throat.

Zel continued, fingertips pressing deep into never before massaged flesh. “I’ve had so many jobs I can’t remember them all—most of them weren’t legal. I bounced from foster family to foster family, always an outcast. I thought the world hated me—that I’d be forever alone, but then I learned I could create the life I wanted by lying.”

She repositioned her legs, straddling me higher to work deeper on my shoulders. “I have authentic looking documents from colleges around the country. But none of them are true. I forged a past from a runaway no-hoper to proud aspiring mother.

“I’ll never apologise for lying or stealing because it was the only way to survive. It allowed me to give Clara a better world.” Her voice caught before continuing in its smooth lullaby. The more I listened, the more she entranced me, and the more the conditioning didn’t hold centre stage.

Every touch was torture—stroking seized muscles, prolonging the utter madness of crashing orders, but it didn’t overpower me. I didn’t lose myself to blackness.

Her hands moved higher, thumbs digging into hard muscle on either side of my spine. “I have blood on my hands. I’ve stolen two lives.”

My back bowed as the shock of her confession slapped the conditioning away, leaving me clearheaded for a wonderful moment. “What? How did they happen?”

Her hands trailed higher, turning from therapeutic massage to gentle petting. My breathing turned heavy and rasping; my bound fists ached from clenching so hard. The conditioning came back, simmering in the back of my brain.

“I was twelve the first time I turned a man into a corpse.”

So f**king young. Like me.

The connection I felt toward Zel blistered my heart, strengthening my will to ignore the orders.

“I was between foster parents. Up till then, I’d been placed with decent families, kind and generous—I was the one messed up and didn’t let them help me. But that one…it was different. I wasn’t prepared for the jolly overly-touchy uncle to come into my bedroom once everyone had gone to bed. I wasn’t prepared for the pet-name ‘baby-doll’ to become such an irrational fear thanks to him crooning it. I wasn’t prepared to watch him strip or the grotesque erection between his legs. But I was prepared to defend myself.

“I wasn’t innocent, even at that tender age. I’d stolen a kitchen knife from a previous family, and bided my time as he climbed into my bed. His beer breath was rancid in the dark while his foul hands tried to fondle me.

“One touch was all he got before I plunged the sharp blade into his groin. It was pure luck I severed his femoral artery. He bled dry before the ambulance arrived.”

Zel’s hands never stopped their relentless stroking. Her touch twisted my head with needs and urges all while I tried to concentrate on her story. My body sparked with sensitivity. The tickling of her body hovering above mine drove me insane.

“The second time I killed, I’d just turned twenty-one. I slit the throat of a man trying to rape Clue. I didn’t even think. I wasn’t desensitized to hurting people—I avoided it at all costs—but seeing him hurting someone half his size, I stopped thinking and reacted.

“I’ll never regret saving her. She saved me in return.”

Her voice trailed off as she leaned forward, rubbing her hands all over, wrapping me in the fragrance of lily of the valley. Every part of my body ached from fighting an unseen war; anticipation heightening my senses until all I focused on was my rabbiting heartbeat and monstrous curiosity about the woman on top of me.

Slinking forward, Zel climbed my body until she sat on her heels over my ribs. Her hands smoothed my shoulder blades, rubbing with delicious pressure.