Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 86717 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86717 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
How had I not seen any cameras?
Not one blind spot or unreported room.
At the time, my heart had grabbed a spade and dug a hole so deep and cavernous inside, I feared I’d never climb back out.
But I had. Because I had no choice.
“Ah now, Pim, don’t be like that. I’ve been gone for three hours…surely, you must’ve missed me.”
Like I’d miss ebola.
I narrowed my gaze, risking a look at him.
The moment we made eye contact, he smirked. “Still refusing to speak, I see. You can clamp your lips together, hell, you can rip out your tongue, but I hear you screaming at me. I hear your retorts even if you don’t say them aloud.”
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hoped he’d heard those; the decibels vibrated through my body for any deaf or blind person to feel.
He chuckled, ducking to my level on my knees. His fingertip traced the line of my jaw, deliberately pressing the bruise he’d left there last night. “You know…if you’d just spoken to me from the beginning, I might’ve been a little nicer to you.”
Bullshit.
I wrenched my face away from his touch.
He sucked in an angry breath. His hand dropped to my naked chest, pinching my nipple. “I might’ve given you clothes, at least.”
I don’t believe you.
He wouldn’t. He had no compassion and only lived to hurt.
The morning of my welcome, he’d stripped me of my white dress and never given it back. Once stolen, I had nothing. No clothes existed for me in any of the wardrobes of his twelve-bedroom estate. When I’d tried to commandeer one of his t-shirts, he’d beaten me so black, I avoided all the bathroom mirrors for weeks. Feeling him abuse me was one thing. Seeing the ownership and betrayal on my skin was entirely another.
After that first initiation, I’d gone crazy. I’d flown around his house like a psychotic bird trapped in a cage. I’d rattled every door, clawed every window—I’d searched and searched for a chink in the house’s fortress, looking for something, anything to free me.
I’d failed.
However, my fight hadn’t faded.
He’d tried to make me talk. He’d become…inventive with persuasion.
But I hadn’t faltered.
If he spoke to me, I stared at a wall. If he took me to bed, I shut down my mind. If he threw things or beat me, I curled tight around my soulcase and held on until it was over.
And each time, I got back up.
One step in front of the other…until one day, I would stop.
But that day wasn’t today.
Or tomorrow.
“Do you know what special thing I have planned tonight?”
Is it your death? That’s the only gift I want from you.
“It’s gonna be a doubly awesome night for me.” Patting my head, he grinned. “First, I have a very important visitor who I expect you to entertain if requested.”
I froze.
“Second, once he’s gone…we’ll have our own celebration to mark two years.” He smirked. “Oh, while I was out, I went shopping. I picked up a new gag and fresh rope. I’m so generous when it comes to you, Pim.”
The ladder and spade and parachute my heart had tried to escape with clattered against my ribs as the damn organ grew legs to sprint far, far away.
He could keep his barbaric generosity.
Heading to the small fridge beside the dressing table, where he kept a stock of beer to stay hydrated while spending hours making me wish I was dead, he twisted the top off his favourite brand and drank deep. “One thing you should know about tonight, Pim, is this bastard doesn’t know how unique our love is. It’s special; do you understand?”
It took everything I had not to roll my eyes.
You’re deluded. Insane!
Love? Bah!
His ownership of me was the very definition of fucked up.
“You’ll be on your best behaviour because I have something else to give you.”
My shoulders rolled, protecting myself from a wallop or painful kiss from whatever new item he’d purchased. My ability to read him had scrambled as if sudden inference switched his usual agenda.
If you can’t predict him, you’ve failed Psychology 101.
My mother wouldn’t be proud.
My thoughts didn’t often go to her, but when they did, I wondered if she ever mingled with the bastard who’d taken me. Smiling at him, thinking he was there for her business all while he smirked with the secret of stealing me for profit.
How much of the one point five million did he get for me?
What would he get for me now? Now I was skinny and beaten and blue?
Master A turned to face me.
My flesh prickled with foreboding.
All I wanted to do was shoot him and walk away. I needed good news to tell No One. Even though I shared my life with my imaginary pen friend, I couldn’t write most confessions.
He’d hurt me worse than I wanted to immortalize in graphite. He could defile me, abuse me, and even cajole me to speak, but I would never give him what he wanted most.