Page 9 of Tyrant

“Are you okay?” Lia’s voice asks.

I step away from my bed, shaking my head. I point to my bag.

“Naya,” Lia calls out. “She’s freaking out over her welcome package.”

I hear Naya laugh as she gets closer to my bedroom.

“Let me guess,” she says as she enters the room, “someone jerked off into one of your bras?”

“Panties,” Lia says.

“Oh, nice,” Naya says.

“What the fuck is this?” I scream. “Who the fuck are you two? And who would do this to my stuff? You’re telling me someone masturbated into my bag?”

“Masturbated,” Naya says with a grin. “She’s all proper.”

“Look, it’s what they do,” Lia says. “To remind you of who you are. Just throw the panties out. You’re not afraid of some cum, are you?”

I gasp. Lia and Naya start to laugh at me. When they leave the room, I shut the door and lock it. I move toward my bag again as though it contains a bomb.

Nope. Just some guy’s cum.

I have no choice but to reach into the bag and grab my cum-filled panties. I carefully lift my panties out of my bag and take them to a trashcan near the door.

So this is it for me now? This is… home? Masked men in black robes willing to kidnap me, attack me, hurt me… willing to do who knows what else, evident by the globs of semen in my panties in the trash.

There’s a gentle knock at my door. I unlock and open it a few inches. It’s Naya.

“If you need help sleeping, we havestuff,” she whispers. “First night always sucks. New place. New bed. Total shock to your system.”

“Mymotherhas been a shock to my system for years.”

“You saymotherin such a weird way.”

“My father never wanted me to call Bridgette my stepmother. It’s complicated. Weird. I don’t know. Habit, I guess. Look, I’m scared out of my mind right now. I’m not usually one to break down and freak out and cry. I know that won’t change a thing. Um, can I ask you something?”

“Go for it,” Naya says.

“Does anyone know I’m here? Are there… administrators? Bosses? I don’t know the right terminology.”

Naya laughs. “You’re where you are meant to be, Sera.”

I nod. “You called me Sera.”

“Is that wrong?”

“Only people I’m close with call me Sera.”

“I’m probably the closest thing you have to a friend right now,” Naya says. “Myself and Lia. You really need to get some sleep. Not to be cliché but this is literally the calm before the storm in your life.”

“I was just fucking kidnapped and ripped from my own bed. How can…”

Naya slips me a bottle of liquid. There’s no label on it. I have no clue what the stuff is. I have a sick feeling that if I drank all that was in there, I would die. Maybe this is a test. Maybe Naya is giving me a way out.

I put the bottle in the nightstand drawer and I sit on the edge of the bed. This is beyond weird.

This is totally fucked up.

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