Page 4 of Degrading Her

When I opened my eyes, the room sloshed to the side. He was a dark blob now.

Maybe it was a good thing that we didn’t do anything. I might vomit on him.

He rose, his shadow taking up the doorway. I lifted a hand to stop him, but the room was spinning and I could barely see. Did he have brown eyes? Were they red, like a devil’s? Or were they blue and gray like a stormy sky? I couldn’t remember. I could barely see him there.

“You don’t want me?” I asked.

“I offered you my game.”

If I win, you’re mine,he had said. Why was that so hot? Like he wanted to own me.

Maybe a game or two wouldn’t be that bad.

“I have games of my own,” I teased.

His gaze sharpened, cutting into me. “One day, you will beg me. And I won’t be a gentleman. I’ll scare you. You will wish you had never met me.”

I squinted my eyes, trying to understand. His words were suddenly threatening, and yet he still hadn’t laid a single finger on me. It didn’t make sense. He seemed polite. Respectful, even. Charming.

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

He stepped back, leaving me alone in the room. “You will.”

Sawyer

The next night, I stood outside of her apartment, watching her window. There was no reason to care that she got home. She was a college student, like so many others I had played with.

But she was the first to deny my game. As if she was better than me. As if she believed she could do it all by herself.

Fiona Ross. College student. Double major. On track to medical school. Struggled in her biology classes, but made up for it with her GPA in English. She even volunteered at her hometown library on the weekends.

But why had she declined my game?

The delivery came: a small tablet. The clunky old laptopworked well enough, but she needed something lightweight. One of her three roommates opened the door.

“Fiona! It’s for you!”

Fiona bounced to the front door, her hair spun in a towel on top of her head.

“I didn’t order this,” she said.

“Says here you won it. On a grant or something,” the delivery man said.

“I can’t pay for it.”

“It’s already been paid for.”

She furrowed her brows.

“Just take it,” the delivery man said. He shoved the clipboard toward her, and finally, she signed her name, taking the box. Her roommate patted her back as they closed the doors.

I couldn’t figure it out. My livestock order had been completed; our client’s target was dead. There was absolutely no reason to be in this college town anymore. But I had been watching her apartment for hours. Waiting. Searching for the reason she had denied me.

She had acted like she had something over me. For a moment, she had. And that intrigued me.

How long would she last?

I headed back to Crown Creek. At the Feldman Farm, I went straight to my office situated inside of the Calving Barn. My father sat behind the desk.

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