Page 28 of Saving Lauren

I look at him skeptically, this can’t be good. I am not saying a word though, keep my mind clear and my eyes open.

He pulls something from his pocket and it’s a sphere the size of a tennis ball. I have seen these before, with Yalix. It’s a way of communicating….

I break out in a sweat, they wouldn’t. They...

He activates the ball before throwing it in my cell. A screen emerges and then the face of my nightmares is staring right at me.

“Hello, little pet. Did you miss me?”

It’s him. Yalix. The monster, pure evil, and he is looking right at me. I whimper, I can’t hold it in, but seeing his face again after so long is making me lose all my resolve. I am terrified.

“You look very well,” he purrs, I see his forked tongue flicking. I feel nauseous, because I feel that tongue on my skin.

He cocks his head and I start trembling. That is not a good sign.

“Lost your tongue there, little pet?” he says. “Nothing to say to me?” When I remain quiet, he continues.

“Well, she doesn’t need her tongue then, does she. Dax you can take it out.”

I scream. “NO, NO, PLEASE DON’T! What do you want me to say?”

The aliens start cackling and Yalix gives me a mean, smug smile. “Now she talks. What do you two think we should do to the little pet? Does she need her tongue? Or her eyes?”

I whimper and start crying. It’s too much. I try to find some inner strength, but all I see when I look deep inside is fear. I was just starting to come back to being myself again, but two sentences from my tormenter and I am back to a blubbering mess.

Yalix had a knack for torture and pain. He was very creative with the torture, but he never left any permanent physical marks.

“You’ll need the tongue when you fuck her mouth,” one of the aliens says grinning. “I don’t know about the eyes.”

“But torture is so much more fun when they can see what you’re doing to them,” the other adds and a shiver is working its way across my spine.

“Please,” I whimper, but I don’t know what I beg for.

He raises an eyebrow and looks at me. “You didn’t think I would ever let go of you did you?”

“But… but the whore house?” I am terribly confused.

He grins. “That was just temporarily, I hoped it would break you, but I see I still have some work to do when you get back.”

He turns to the Sternotheri. “Brand her,” Yalix commands. “Make sure she never forgets who she belongs to. She will never be free, will always be mine.” The aliens start cackling and one of them walks towards the corner.

“Can we play with her a bit before we give her to you?” the alien from the beginning asks Yalix. Yalix lets out a growl.

“What part of mine don’t you understand? The only way you can touch her is with my permission and when I can see. Right now, branding her is all you can do.”

I am silent in horror. A brand, something that will forever be on my skin. I think of a tattoo, but when I hear sizzling, I know to expect the worst. They are going to brand me like I’m a cow.

“Here we go,” the alien says in a sing-songy voice when he gets back with the branding iron.

“I got your house emblem, Yalix. Funny we had it lying around here.” He giggles a strange giggle. This one is clearly mentally deranged and that is going to make it so much worse for me.

Alien number two opens the cell door, and I can see Yalix’s tongue flicking again and again in excitement. Desperately, I scramble towards the far corner.

It does me no good at all and I start screaming when one holds me down and the other slices my pants with his claws and pushes the iron into the skin of my inner thigh.

The pain is overwhelming. The white-hot heat is searing my skin and I start sobbing. I have the feeling this fucking asshole of an alien is pushing it in even deeper then necessary. The smell of my own flesh burning makes the contents of my stomach rise. I throw up all over the alien holding me down, which makes the other back off.

I curl myself into a little ball in anticipation of the beating that will surely happen but the alien who branded me just laughs, while the other curses because I threw up on him.

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