Page 30 of Broken Hearts

How the hell did he know what I was going to do? How did he get back here so fast? He said he wouldn’t be home till dinnertime. That gave me eight hours to get the hell out, not half an hour!

He leaned down to pick up the broken collar, then shook his head. “Silly little girl. You thought I wouldn’t have it set up so that I’d be alerted if you ever tried to damage this thing or get it off? You must think I was born yesterday.”

I took a step back, my hands shaking. I guess that explained how he knew to get back here so quickly. The whole time I’d been sawing at the collar, he’d been driving like mad, desperate to get back here and stop me.

“And you must think I’m stupid, acting like it’s normal for a man to force a woman into a shock collar just to keep her around. It’s fucked up,” I said in a low voice, finally finding my tongue. It didn’t really matter what I said now. I was screwed either way.

“I see we’re right back here again. Riding the same old carousel.” Alex smiled, dropped the collar and slowly stepped toward me. “What is this… the second time you’ve tried to escape? Or is it the third? You just can’t make up your mind, can you?”

He was right. In the time I’d been here, I’d changed my mind about him many times. I’d flip-flopped between wanting to escape and wanting to stay so often that I felt dizzy, but it wasn’t my fault. It was his fault for breaking me so much, making my mind whirl constantly with unanswered questions. His fault for lying to me and convincing me that his true intentions for me were good, even though I was now sure those intentions were actually cruel, dark and sadistic.

“Get away from me,” I said, edging back toward the closet.

“No. I don’t think so.” His voice came low and dangerous through the red roaring in my head. My legs felt as if they would give out any minute.

“Are you going to kill me now?” I asked.

He narrowed his eyes. “Kill you? No. Punish you? Yes. You know the rules, and you broke them.” He shook his head, then went on. “I don’t know what the fuck it’s going to take to make you see you need to be here, Celeste. But one way or another, it’s going to happen.”

I took another faltering step backward. “You may as well kill me, because I’d rather be dead than live like this!” I said.

I could see from the look of stark shock in his eyes that I’d hurt him by saying that, but I didn’t care. All I cared about now was getting the hell out of here.

He lunged for me then, and I tried to dart away, but he was too quick for me. Too strong. He scooped me up easily and threw me over his shoulder. I screamed and pounded on his back with my fists. “Let me go!”

“Never. You need me as much as I need you.”

“I don’t need you! You’re a fucking liar!” I shrieked.

He didn’t reply to that. He kicked the playroom door open and led me toward the desk with the shackles on the ground. Upon putting me down, he crouched and locked my feet to the ground with the shackles, then forced me to bend over the desk so he could restrain my hands there as well. I struggled as much as I could, but there was no point. He was—and always would be—stronger than me.

When I was firmly stuck in the position with my pants around my ankles, Alex stepped away. I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, because I couldn’t turn, but I knew he was selecting something from the rack of whips and paddles to punish me with.

He returned a moment later, and I felt the cool, flat surface of a wooden paddle being slowly draped over my ass cheeks. It wasn’t supposed to hurt; it was just to let me know what I was getting soon.

“Before we begin your punishment, I want to know what provoked this outburst,” Alex said, stepping around to the front of the desk, paddle in hand. His eyes were dark and cloudy with anger. “We seemed to be doing so well. We trusted each other. Now this. So why, Celeste? Why did you try to run again?”

I gritted my teeth. “Because it’s not enough. This isn’t enough for me. I don’t believe a word you say anymore. I should’ve never believed you.”

He arched a thick brow. “That’s what I don’t understand. Why the sudden change? You trusted me a couple of weeks ago. You wanted to help me. At least you seemed to. Or are you simply a better actress than I thought?”

I shook my head. “I was only kidding myself. I guess I finally opened my eyes,” I said. It wasn’t a real answer, or the answer he was obviously hoping for, but it was all he was going to get out of me.

If he didn’t plan on being honest with me, then why the hell should I give him the satisfaction of being honest with him about what I found the other day? It would only get me into more trouble and possibly leave me dead and buried in the cold ground outside, because I strongly suspected by now that he would want to get rid of me if I admitted I knew about Evangeline and what he’d more than likely done to her.

For all my earlier claims that I would rather die than be here, I still wanted to stay alive as long as possible. I didn’t actually want to die tonight. Not here. Not like poor Evangeline. I needed more time.

Alex tapped a finger against his chin. “There has to be something that set off this sudden distrust. Did I say something? Do something?”

I shook my head again, determined not to tell him anything. “No. I just woke up, in a manner of speaking.”

He tried a different tack. “Okay. So what specific things don’t you believe?” he said, his voice low and icy. “Tell me, or I’ll triple the strokes I give you. You like pain, but you won’t like that, believe me.”

My knees went weak at the thought of the brutal, agonizing pain Alex could possibly inflict upon me if he wanted. Shit. I had to tell him something.

I settled on a half-truth without having to mention the other girl’s name or the fact that I knew about her.

“I think you lied when you said I was in danger because you wanted to force me to stay out of fear. Just like that guy did to those girls in Slovenia a few years ago with all the satanic bullshit. I think if I left and went back to the real world, I would be safe. No, I know it,” I said, my voice coming out in breathy, angry hisses. “There’s no one chasing after me except you.”

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