Page 17 of But I'm Still Standing

“Let’s eat first, Savvy has to be starving.” Max jumps in, still smiling. He knows his cum is running out of me as he speaks. Did she know what he was going to do? Do they all know what he did? Was he ordered to do it or is he really the one calling the shots. I don’t know at this point.

“Then it’s a good thing that her surprise is probably starving too. Mark, darling, go get her.” Fiona is almost giddy and I’m not sure how to take her enthusiasm.

Mark gets up from the table and leaves the room. I look to MJ who hasn’t said a word. She looks down at her plate with sadness. She finally raises her eyes towards me, and I see tears welled up in them. She knows what happened before dinner. They all knew. I’m just a pawn in Fiona’s game. She wanted to see if I would break. It’s going to take more than her sons tiny dick to break me.

Mark enters practically dragging a bound and gagged woman. It takes me a minute to register who the woman is with all the blood and makeup smeared all over her face and dirt in her hair. When I realize it’s Scarlett my eyes widen.

“Surprise!” Max announces.

Mark is holding her by her hair as tears stream down her face. I can’t say that I feel sorry for her or feel anything to be honest.

“You brought me the bitch that pretended to be my mother my entire life making it a living hell? Why?” I ask confused.

“So that you can decide her fate. She was horrible to you, and I thought you deserved your own revenge. So, we will let you choose her fate. She can go through training to be a pet with Mark and be sold to the highest bidder, not that we would get much for her. Mark could also fuck her up, ultimately ending her life when he is done playing with her, if that’s what you want? I’m giving you the choice, sweetheart.” Max puts a finger under my chin, forcing my eyes to meet his. “Tell me what you want to happen to her. Tell Mark what you want him to do to her.” He persists.

“Am I supposed to care what happens to her? I don’t! She is not my mother and never was!” I insist almost laughing.

“She hurt you, paid others to hurt you, now you get to hurt her! I’m giving you this gift to rid you of the memories of her. Once you order it done, you can live with the memory of being able to control her fate and the fact that she can never hurt you again! It’s your choice.” This man just raped me in my room that was supposed to be safe. Now he wants to give me control of someone else’s fate. Was it really rape if I didn’t fight or scream? If I let him make me come?

I think about everything Scarlet did to me growing up, then look her dead in the eye.

“Mark can have her as his pet for as long as he wants to keep her, and he can choose when she dies as long as she never makes it out of his torture lair. Or whatever you call your sex dungeon.” I shrug my shoulders and wave them off. “The second I realized she wasn’t my mother was the moment I quit giving a shit about her. Do your worst and have fun with her, many have before you, make sure you are the last she ever has.” I pick up my water and take a drink before I grab my fork and start eating my Cajun pasta. I even moan with the first bite for dramatic effect! Everyone is looking at me like I have grown two heads! I play crazy well, especially when it rewards me with the looks from everyone I am getting now, including Mark!

“What? Were you all expecting a different reaction? Did you all think the pregnancy hormones gave me a heart and I would beg you not to hurt my poor defenseless mommy dearest.” I laugh almost uncontrollably!

“I expected you to have a heart, yes, and even say end her quickly, but the fact you want her tortured… Well, I’m impressed!” Fiona chuckles lifting her wine glass to her pink lips.

“Oh, Mark! don’t let that bitch come either! If you want some tips on torture, apparently, I’m pretty good at it. I’ll even help after I eat. I like to watch. Now, can you take the trash back out from where you got it, she is spoiling my dinner, and yes, I’m starving!” I wink at Douchey Boudreaux as I take another bite. I see Fiona’s eyes light up along with Max’s. MJ just looks at me wide eyed. She may not have gotten through to Sin, but I think he definitely got to her, just like I knew he would. They may be running the board, but I’m changing the game, and they don’t even know it yet.

Chapter 11

Sin

27 Weeks

We are getting closer, knowing she is still in Louisiana, because of her playlist. They may have blocked their coordinates with a very impressive server and spyware that even Joe hasn’t been able to decipher yet, but they can’t hide that it’s in Louisiana. He just says it’s more sophisticated than anything he has ever come across and that’s probably a bone they are throwing at us.

We have looked at every stockyard, ranch, and plot of land surrounding New Orleans. She isn’t here. It took her this long to let me talk to her once. Savvy was lying on the phone. Not about our son’s name, but about being okay. I could hear it in her voice and the songs she has been adding to the playlist. She is giving up. Or she wants them to believe she is giving up. Either way, she is in a darker place than she has ever been and that in itself worries me the most as, “Never Let Me Go,” by Florence + The Machine, fills the library.

I’ve been able to log in to her YouTube Music account when she isn’t on it, usually two a.m. is the only time it’s not being used. I have been adding songs to show her how much I miss her, hoping it gives her the strength to not give up on me. I get notifications when songs are added so I can listen to them and know what she is feeling in the moment. It’s all I have to hold onto at this point. I don’t want to thinkabout what is happening to make her add these songs, but it keeps me going until I can help her heal.

My phone dings, notifying me she added another song. I click on the notification, bringing up her playlist and hit play. The voice of Ron Pope & the District starts flowing through the library singing “A Drop in The Ocean.” This is where I spend most of my time now to be closer to Savvy. I instantly stop and drop my head, not able to look at my computer any longer. I know she is hurting now, and I can’t fucking help her.

This is the song she would play when she needed to cry and let it out when her ghosts would pop up in her mind to haunt her. She said it reminded her that it could always be worse. She loves this song as much as I do because of the emotions we both felt the first time hearing it and seeing that Stefan still had some humanity in him. We used to talk about it all the time and still disagree about how his humanity came back when Elena talked to him. I said he didn’t truly turn them back on until later, but he may have had a glimpse of his humanity then. Savvy thinks they turned back on when Elena told him she loved him. Savvy believes in the power of love more than anything on this earth, healing the most broken of souls.I just hope my love is enough to heal whatever has been broken again. She had finally gotten to a point where she believed she was worthy of my love. I will be the sin she needs to bring her back to life as soon as I kill whoever the motherfuckers are that broke her again.

Nick comes out of the secret door with Joe and Jasper on his heels. They all stop and look at me.

“There are two guys down there. We got as much out of them as we could. You can go do whatever you want with them. Don’t forget your dad and step mommy will be here for dinner to talk.” Jasper reminds me. They just got back from their honeymoon. I still can’t believe they went to Mexico for a week after getting married in Vegas. It’s almost as if Sylvia isn’t worried in the slightest about her daughter anymore, which makes me think she started using again.She started taking product when Lottie died and had to go to three different rehabs before she kicked it. I’m hoping she is just a selfish bitch like she has always been.

“I’ll go down in a bit. Savvy is adding songs again and it’s getting worse. I feel like I’m losing her.” I tell them as “Say Something,” by A Great Big World comes to an end and “Ghost,” by ZZ Ward fills the silence. “See what I mean? The songs she is adding are letting me know she isn’t in a good headspace. She keeps adding songs about ghosts, dying, being alone and in the darkness. I wish I could just understand what they mean.” I attempted to explain.

“If I had a clue how women think I wouldn’t be on the couch again. Jill has been worse the past week, like I did something wrong, but I can’t think of a single thing I did to piss her off.” Joe replies, looking frustrated and exhausted.

“Maybe it’s not how she is feeling but something she is trying to get through to you. Ghosts, we have Bash and Lottie, who else is dead that she could be referring to?” Jasper brings up a good point. Maybe I’m looking at this wrong.

“I’m gonna head down. Come and get me when they get here if I’m not done by then.” I get up from the bar, put my earbuds in and turn on Savvy’s playlist. I skip to a couple of songs I added, letting the music get in my head as I take the stairs a bit slower than usual as I try to figure out what Savvy is trying to tell me.

When I get down to the caves, I see the two men hanging on the makeshift webs, just how I like them. They are trying to talk or scream, I don’t know, but I can’t hear them. I bought some noise cancelling earbuds so that all I can hear when I torture them are the sounds of the songs my angel wants me to hear, and a few I added to help get me enraged. The lyrics and beat of, “What I Live For.” by Rob Baily & The Hustle Standard, fill my head. I take in a deep breath and let it out as I run my hand along the table of instruments the boys left out for me. I decide on what form of torture I feel like handing out today, picking my weapon of choice with a smile, as Igrab a jar of moths off the table and a pair of tweezers. I unscrew the lid and take one out with the tweezers, careful not to let the others out. I walk over to victim number one and grab a handful of his hair to keep him still as I place the moth into his ear, letting it go before covering the hole so it can make its way down and get stuck. He thrashes for a moment before I let his head go and watch as he opens his mouth, probably screaming. The terror in his eyes tells me all I need to know. Savvy told me that she once got a moth in her ear on a camping trip, and she almost killed herself before one of the moms got her on the ground and poured oil in her ear to kill the moth. She said she had cuts in her ear from her own fingernails trying to dig it out, and a concussion from slamming the side of her head in the ground. She described it sounding like it was screaming inside her ear and she could feel and hear its wings try to flap as they scraped her eardrum. Savvy said it was the most excruciating thirty minutes of her life and it felt like hours.

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