Page 39 of Control

“Then do that!” Reyna said, understanding what might be coming for us. “We can’t take any chances. They’re getting violent now!”

“I can’t!” Cris said, causing Reyna to drop my hand and walk back toward her.

“What are you talking about?” Reyna said to Cris as she stood in front of her. “Just close it!”

“The customers!” Cris said, referencing all the patrons in her room that were currently engaged in congress with her escorts. “If I close the room it will kick everyone out and send them back to their own rooms. It will severally piss of a lot of people if I do that.”

“Then why bring us here?” Reyna said, making an excellent point. Just then the trolls began to arrive, spawning in at the two larger spawn points as well as outside the doors. Not caring who they hurt, they began to throw chairs and flip tables over, all while trying to make their way to the three of us. People began to scream and the handful of guards that Cris employed did their best to hold them off, but to no avail. They were gaining ground and fast. “Close the god damn room, Cris!”

Cris froze in place as if unable to comprehend what was happening inside her brothel. Such chaos had never broken out inside it before as most people understood and followed the rules without question. Reyna and I called out to her but she stood there looking over her room as more and more furniture went flying and patrons and escorts ran for cover. Before long, over 20 trolls had made it inside the room and were gunning for us. They began throwing anything they could get their hands on our way as Reyna and I retreated further inside. Cris still stood there frozen and unable to act. Several of her guards ran over to her and whisked her away to another room as Reyna and I continued down a long hallway lined with several doors. I looked over to Reyna as we ran and could tell she was working her HUD.

“My place!” she said to me as she looked over to me. “All personal rooms are private by default so we’ll be safe!” I nodded to her, knowing she was right. It was where we should have gone in the first place, but failed to realize it as the adrenaline had overtaken us all. “We’re going now.” With a few more taps on her HUD, Reyna teleported us instantly to her personal in game apartment, a place I’d not been to since she’d left.

It was still very much the same, mostly untouched. All the white furniture and decor was all the same and the layout remained as it was 18 months prior. My hand still in hers, Reyna pulled me to her and embraced me, squeezing me and giving me the feeling she had no intention of letting go.

“Ana,” she said to me, the veil of toughness slowly fading. “What the hell is going on? Why is all this happening?” I felt my arms wrap around her, my heart beating a million miles an hour from our ordeal. I could hear her labored breathing, her chest moving in and out against my own. I could smell her perfume rising from her neck as her hair lightly tickled my cheek. I felt myself quickly being overcome with emotion. It was the first time since she came back that I’d really taken hold of her and let myself absorb her presence. The sensation of being in her arms again overtook me and I began to let all of my old feelings loose. I felt in that moment, even with the chaos that was unfolding around us, as safe as I did all that time ago. I began to feel that a part of me that I thought I’d lost along ago had finally found its’ way back to me. Although we’d not properly talked about all that had happened or all that we felt might, I still let myself take solace in her presence. It was a feeling I’d been chasing since she left and I wanted to bask in it as long as I could.

“I don’t know,” I said to her in a light voice. “I wish I knew.”

“Why can’t they just leave you alone?” she said back to me, her voice beginning to break. “What do they want from you?” Just then, without warning, a sinister and familiar voice came out from the dark corner where the spawn point was.

“I want to cut her fucking heart out,” an evil voice whispered. Both Reyna and I, startled, looked back toward the spawn point. Out of the darkness stepped Four Buttons, an evil and diabolical expression covering his face. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to have you like this.”

“What the fuck!” Reyna said, her voice still breaking. “But…how? My room’s private! How could you get in?” Four Buttons looked past Reyna and spoke directly to me.

“You and your bitch need to learn,” he said as he stepped closer to us. In his hand, a large reflective object with a point that glistened brightly. It was a knife, it’s sharpness seeming to call out and threaten us without making a sound. “You think you’re so much better than the rest of us.”

“No!” I said in an attempt to get him to stay back. “I’ve never felt that way.”

“You fucking liar!” he screamed at me. Reyna and I slowly backed away from him. I could tell she was attempting to teleport us out, but for some reason it wasn’t working. “You have no idea what it’s like to be one of us! To be me! You wouldn’t survive a single day in my shoes!”

“Why are you doing this!” Reyna cried out, the fear in her voice becoming unbearable. “Please…just leave us alone!”

“No!” Four said to us in an almost playful voice. “You, dear Miss Reyna. I don’t give a shit about you. All I care about is that whore behind you!”

“Why!” Reyna said, her back against my chest and her arms reaching back and around me. She was slowly pushing me back further into her apartment as Four slowly moved closer.

“Why don’t you tell her?” Four said to me. I sincerely had no idea what he was talking about. “Does she even know about your time when you were whoring around for money? Even then you thought you were better than all of us! Isn’t that right!”

“What?” I said, still having no idea what he was getting at. “Of course she knows I was an escort! What does that have to do with any of this?”

“It has everything to do with it!” Four said to me, his voice deepening and becoming more rigid. “I went to you that day. I went to you because I needed help! And what did you do? You ignored me! Turned me away!”

“What?” I said again. “All I’ve ever done is try and help people!”

“Except me,” he said. “All except me. I needed someone that day and you brushed me off all so you could go fuck someone for money.” His words made me think back to my time when I was actively taking clients during my escorting days. It wasn’t unusual for me to occasionally talk to people who needed a shoulder to cry on while I wasn’t all that busy. However, I always made a point to take care of my paying customers so I made sure to have them set appointments with me which I was diligent in keeping. If I set a time and date for them, it was kept with almost no exceptions.

It occurred to me that it was possible that at some point Four Buttons may have approached me seeking help when I was unavailable and I had to turn him away. I hated doing it, but it felt unfair for me to cancel a client’s preset appointment to speak to someone else. It wasn’t even about the money. It was about who came to me first and respecting them enough to not cancel on them for anyone else, regardless of circumstance. Many of my paying clients who just wanted to talk even paid me as they would if using my escorting services. I often asked them not to, but they sent me the money after the fact anyway in many cases, often feeling as if they had unfairly taken up my time. It was then I realized this was probably what happened with him. Four had come to me at a time when I was either prepping for a client or about to start a session with one and I had to turn him away.

It didn’t take long for my reputation to spread and it wasn’t uncommon for people to come looking for me simply so they could talk. They knew I would never judge them or expose their secrets to anyone else. I’d managed to build trust with people quickly and was often told I was extremely easy to talk to which is why the word spread as it did. Four Buttons, at some point, must have fallen through the cracks when I couldn’t make time for him. I tried to make time for everyone as much as I could, but there were always those I simply couldn’t get to. Some people would only need me for 15 minutes while others needed hours. It was often so hard to tell, even with appointments. You never want to leave someone when they are at their most vulnerable and I avoided doing that as much as I could. I wanted to give everyone that wanted it a chance, but it was physically and logistically impossible.

“Please stop,” Reyna said, her voice shattered with anxiety and fear. “I won’t let you touch her. You’re going to have to kill me!” Through it all, she still continued trying to teleport us out, but it wouldn’t work. Something was keeping us there. Even trying to log ourselves out was of no use. It was finally hitting both of us that we might have to fight Four Buttons off as if this were a real life encounter. Reyna and I had our Escort applications and we could make ourselves stronger, but seeing as how something was preventing us from even teleporting away, it was possible that our apps might also be compromised.

Even in Aurora, the trauma of being attacked could feel so real as to permanently scar your psyche in real life. It was all built and designed to feel as real as possible to the point where an average human brain would interpret it as actually happening and respond accordingly. In this case, it could cause our minds to overload and potentially cause serious and even deadly harm to our bodies as we slept. Reyna and I both knew this and Four Buttons definitely knew which is why he was wanting it to happen. He really did want me to hurt. He wanted me to feel his pain in a physical way. He wanted it to cross the boundaries of Aurora and into the real world.

I felt Reyna’s body quaking with fear. I could see the evil in Four’s eyes, his thirst for blood becoming more and more apparently with each step he took toward us. I stared at the blade as it moved with him, my eyes focusing on the point. In my mind, it was like I was back on that bathroom floor, a towel barely covering me and my wet hair sticking to by reddened skin. I could hear his voice all over again as it echoed throughout the apartment with each taunt he threw my way. I could feel the warmth from my burning tears streaming down my face. But then, in that moment, the tip of the blade squarely in my sight, I found myself reaching around Reyna and pulling her back around me until I was in front of her. I’d somehow managed to unconsciously put my life before hers. Suddenly, I was the one protecting her from that blade.

I could feel the manic rush of blood coursing through my veins, but the longer I stared at the knife and felt those emotions race through me, the clearer my vision became. I could see the blade and watched it as if time were slowing down. I glanced up to his eyes and although they were dead set on me, I did not blink. I found myself staring back at him, through him, unwavering. I mouthed a few lyrics to myself, that same song I was taunted with all those years ago, playing in my head.

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