Page 17 of Broken Hearts

7

Celeste

Alex returnedan hour or so after lunchtime. I assumed he’d gone to work, so I was surprised when I heard the sound of his car pulling down the long driveway. I knew it was him, because no one else ever came out here, aside from that one time he had a colleague over to help with some sort of research project. And the only reason that even happened was because he wanted to punish me by locking me in that box and making sure I knew possible help was only a few feet away yet inaccessible, seeing as the colleague couldn’t see or hear me.

I walked to one of the front windows and peered through the curtains, my breath frosting on the glass. Alex had something large wrapped in a blanket, and he was hauling it out of his car’s trunk. My breath caught in my throat. I had a fairly good idea of what was contained within the swathed confines of the blanket.

I didn’t want to get in trouble for disturbing him, but he came into the house and asked me to follow him five minutes later anyway.

“I have something for you,” he said, eyes twinkling.

I trudged in the snow behind him until we reached the old fallout shelter. Alex took my hand and led me down into the cells, and my heart leapt into my throat. An old man was lying in the smaller cell, unconscious. Alex had removed his expensive jacket and shoes, and it had the effect of making the man look even older and more helpless, curled up on the cot barefoot and cold.

“Is that….” My voice trailed off, and I looked at Alex uncertainly.

“Justice George Baldwin. The judge whose lap you used to sit on.”

“Are you sure he’s definitely one of them?” I asked, my heart thudding. Just because I recognized him that day didn’t mean he was definitely a Circle member. For all I knew, he was innocent, and the party I remembered him from was some other benign, boring event my father took me to.

Alex peeled back the man’s shirt to reveal a tiny black circle on his wrinkled arm. “Already checked. But here, see? He’s one of them.”

I stepped closer to look, and a throbbing ache drummed along my back and shoulders as I caught a better view of his face. He was fifteen years older now, but he didn’t look much different—after all, when I last saw him, he was already what I considered to be quite old, seeing as I was only five or six. His hair was a lighter shade of gray than it used to be and a little thinner, and he had a few more wrinkles, but it was still unmistakably him.

I swallowed hard and closed my eyes as I remembered sitting on his lap again. Remembered every miniscule detail. Seeing his face brought it all flooding back.

“Such a good little girl, aren’t you,” he said to me that evening, reaching up my blouse and tickling my belly as he bounced me up and down on his lap. “Such gorgeous eyes. It’s a real shame little girls have to grow up, isn’t it?”

In my young innocence, I thought he meant it was a shame that everyone has to grow up one day and be an adult with all the responsibilities that came with getting older. It simply didn’t occur to me that there was any double meaning behind his words.

“Yes, Mr. Ball-win,” I said. My father had told me his name, but I couldn’t quite grasp it.

He pinched my bottom, and I squealed. “Shh, it’s just a fun game. Bottoms are funny, aren’t they?” he said, eyes glittering as he reached up and tickled me again.

I remembered giggling and nodding, but at the same time, some deep part of me felt uncomfortable and wanted to get away. I wanted to find my daddy and leave the party, but he was nowhere to be seen for the next hour.

I turned away and leaned down, bile rising in my throat at the harrowing memory. Pain was stampeding through my upper back now, and my face contorted in a grimace.

“Celeste?” Alex stepped over to me and touched a hand to my shoulder. “What is it?”

“My nerve pain… it’s coming back.”

He simply stared at me with wide eyes. He looked more vulnerable than he ever had. I suddenly realized he’d done this just for me, brought me to this man like he was some kind of prized gift, thinking that seeing him locked up would ease my condition like watching Dan’s death did. It made sense, and I could see why he thought that. But it wasn’t working today. Seeing the old man made me prickle with more pain, as if the mere sight of him stressed my nerves to their breaking point.

If he was already dead or dying, then it might work, but he was still breathing, still alive and unharmed before me, and Alex would want to keep him that way for a while. Extract as much information as he possibly could. Torture him. Make him feel what all those poor kids did when they were taken and locked away by men like him.

Alex shook his head. “I made a mistake. I’m sorry, Celeste. I thought you’d like this. I didn’t realize it might make your pain worse.”

The expression of guilt in his eyes was haunting me, filling me with an overwhelming urge to make him feel better.

“I know how to make it go away. You taught me how,” I said breathlessly. Alex raised his brows, and I went on. “Take me to the playroom, sir. Tie me up to that beam. Or the cross.”

I wanted him to whip me. I wanted to beg for it. I craved it; that sweet mixture of sizzling pleasure and stinging pain. The exquisite pain that took away the bad.

Alex didn’t look surprised. He simply said, “Okay,” and took my hand.

Moments later, he had me stripped and cuffed to the X-framed cross in the playroom, facing away from him. He said he would let me pick which flogger I wanted him to use on me, but I told him to choose it himself. I wanted him in full control, needed it.

His hands caressed my back for a moment, and I felt the chill of their absence when he pulled them away and stepped over to the rack to select the flogger. I heard a whistle through the air, and then a snap of the leather spray on my upper back. I moaned with pleasure, walking a tightrope of pleasure and pain, the two sensations spiraling together until I was spinning and vibrating, whimpering and begging. Out of control. Just like me. I’d given Alex all the power, and I loved it.

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