Page 28 of Torment

She talked for a few more minutes about weather conditions in other parishes, and then the report ended. After a few loud and colorful ads, a cooking show started. One of the guest stars racing to bake a cake before the buzzer went off was my favorite actress, and I watched with a faint smile, grateful for the small taste of the real world. If I pretended enough, I could almost convince myself I was at home in my apartment, watching the show of my own volition.

The TV switched off all of a sudden. So did the light in my cell. I heard a loud clicking from the other side of the bars, along with a faint grinding sound.

A flicker of hope began to burn inside me. The intensity of my longing was almost painful.

The lake house where I was being kept could be in one of the parishes the weather forecaster mentioned earlier, and the high winds could have knocked out the power. That meant the bars and door to the house would be disabled. I could get out.

I padded over to the bars and yanked on them. I was right. They slid open easily.

Holy shit. I swallowed hard as a mixture of excitement and terror swirled in my guts.

I had to consider that this might just be Mason messing with my mind. I could easily imagine myself escaping my cell and opening the door at the end of the passage only to find him standing there, staring at me with malicious amusement. Did you really think I’d let you get away, little whore? he’d say before erupting in spiteful chuckles.

I pictured myself from above, my hand hovering over a chess pawn, trying to decide my move. Should I risk it? I might get away, but would I make it anywhere in time for someone to help me and cut the tracking chip out of my back before Mason found me again? And what if it was just one of Mason’s sick games? What sort of heinous punishment would he inflict on me for daring to think I had a chance at escape?

It seemed obvious to the logical side of my brain that I should go for it. I should run up the passage right now, leave the lake house, and make a mad dash for freedom. At the same time, I was paralyzed with indecision, too afraid of the pain I might cause myself if I was caught.

The choice was made for me a second later. The bars slid shut as the light and TV turned back on. My shoulders slumped as I realized there must be a backup power source in case the usual one failed due to the weather or other external factors. It was stupid of me to think Mason would be careless enough to fail to install one.

The TV channel had changed somehow, and something about trucks was playing onscreen. I didn’t care about that, so I grabbed a book from the supply boxes and sat on the mattress.

Mason must’ve given me at least fifty books to read while he was gone. They were all popular fiction, and I’d never read any of them, even though I’d heard of all of them.

Over the years, I’d been far too busy trying to catch up with my peers to keep up with pop culture. I’d spent a good portion of my free time frantically reading all the non-fiction things I could get my hands on in an attempt to learn everything I’d missed out on during my time at New Eden, seeing as my Baton Rouge crash course in education didn’t cover everything. As such, I usually read about science, geography, economics, international issues, politics, and history; all those things kids learned about in school with so many taking it for granted. I simply didn’t have time for things like Harry Potter and Gone Girl.

Because of that, I found it incredibly gratifying to finally have the chance to read all these books now. I devoured two or three a day, happily immersing myself in the imaginary worlds, and the best part was that I could do it without any guilt. I didn’t have a job to attend or any other commitments to worry about. I had all the time in the world down here.

In a twisted way, this was almost a vacation for me. Alone, at peace, reading for fun for the first time.

I dropped the book with horror as I realized what I’d just been thinking. How the hell could I even try to put a positive spin on this? This wasn’t a fucking vacation. I was going to die here at Mason’s hands, and before that, my body would be broken, beaten, and tortured for god knows how long. There was nothing peaceful or positive about that. What on earth was wrong with me?

Perhaps I was developing some sort of captive bonding syndrome. My brain was trying to make sense of it all and force me to believe there was something good in these circumstances in an attempt to keep me sane.

That was exactly how it worked at New Eden. At first, back in 1999, all the girls rebelled against the strict new way of life, but we eventually ‘learned’ our place and realized we needed to live that way in order to free ourselves from our so-called feminine sin. We even worshiped the men for supposedly helping and protecting us.

For months after our rescue eleven years later, many of the girls had cried hysterically every day, desperate to see their husbands again. They were bonded to them despite all the agony the men put them through. Stockholm syndrome was no joke, especially when a person wasn’t even aware they were a captive. It was messed up.

With a sigh, I ran my fingertips over the letter Mason carved into me a week ago. It was covered in the rough crust of the scab that had formed on it, and it still stung, but I knew it would heal soon and fade into a deep pink scar. I would be marked for the rest of my life with this reminder of him, however short that life may wind up being.

With a force that felt like a blow to the chest, I remembered how much it hurt when he started cutting into me that day. The physical pain was awful, of course, but that wasn’t the worst part of it. Not by a long shot. The worst part was that Mason would do something so terrible to me with such glee, such fervor. Even though I was hanging upside down at the time, I could still see him, and the look in his eyes made me want to die right then and there. No one had ever hated me as much as him in that moment.

I hated him too, for everything he’d done to me, but at the same time, it was hard to reconcile this new Mason with the one I once knew and loved. I wasn’t lying the other day when I told him I still thought and dreamed about him all the time, and I wasn’t lying when I tried to tell him I wasn’t sure if I ever really stopped loving him.

But that was the old Mason I was referring to.

Whoever he was now, he wasn’t the man I once knew, or the man I once loved. He was something else now. A dark, twisted monster. Not on the outside, but on the inside.

I shouldn’t feel anything but loathing toward this new version of him… and yet, whenever I saw him, I felt as if I’d been struck by lightning, electrifying my insides and turning me giddy and breathless.

Whenever his eyes locked on mine, I couldn’t think. Couldn’t function. I would instantly be transported back to 2010, when my eyes met his on that fateful day in the shelter and my stomach flipped and clenched with a hunger I’d never known. Back then, I would have given him anything, and I did. I gave myself to him. My body, my soul, my heart.

We could both try to deny it all we wanted, but whatever used to link us was still there, flowing with no limits. Even when Mason was dousing me with freezing water, his touch would make me shiver and gasp in a way that wasn’t from the shock of the cold. Even when he was forcing me to suck his cock, hands tangling roughly in my hair, my scalp tingled pleasantly and my brain sang with excitement, as if all my neurons were firing at once.

As fucked up as it was, my desire for him ran deeper than ever. Darker. The excitement I used to feel eight years ago, when we sneaked around and screwed our brains out every chance we got… I felt it now too. It hummed through me, sleek and sinister. It shouldn’t be there, but it wouldn’t go away. It wouldn’t stop.

It wasn’t just lust, either. Even after he’d committed such despicable acts toward me, I still cared for Mason, and I missed the man he used to be. I hoped he would find peace one day, and I hoped part of his old personality could be salvaged.

I wasn’t sure that would ever happen, though. There was a gaping chasm between us, and I couldn’t reach him. He was disgusted by me. He seemed disgusted by himself, too, and the whole world on top of that. It was as if the insecurity and anger he felt about his scars radiated in everyone else’s direction at all times, creating a shield around him that no one could ever hope to break through.

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