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Slap. Slap. Slap.

I still remember how my face whipped to the side, my teeth clacking together. If he hadn’t grabbed my T-shirt, I would’ve collapsed. His grip was the only thing holding me up—and it wasn’t mercy. It was possession. He didn’t want me to fall. He wanted me to suffer standing.

No one came to save me.

My mother? She’d stopped flinching a long time ago. For her, violence had become routine. Normal. He’d been right, she wasweak and pathetic. The familiar disgust curled in the pit of my belly.

I wondered what became of my younger siblings. I hadn’t seen them in years. Part of me hoped they escaped.

The other part resented the fact that, as the eldest, I took the brunt of it.

I looked at Charlotte.

She was nothing like my mother.

Fucking worlds apart.

Charlotte wouldn’t disobey. She wouldn’t forget appointments or cower behind locked doors. She wouldn’t cry and apologise after letting him in. She was consistent and obedient. Perfectly programmed to be attuned to all of my needs.

“As a child,” I said evenly,“most of my learning came from school. I’d stay late at the public library… read eBooks, revise.”

It was true.

I’d sit there for hours until the hunger forced me home.

But she didn’t need to know that part.

She didn’t need to know that every time I turned the key, I flinched—half-expecting to walk into another drunken brawl or broken plate.

Charlotte didn’t need to know how broken I was.

That’s the beauty of her.

She’d never ask questions I didn’t want to answer.

Chapter 16

Kyle

While Charlotte cooked dinner—her soft humming barely audible over the sizzle of butter—I scrolled through the latest uploads on DD. The room smelled of garlic, and fresh herbs.

I uploaded last night’s blowjob footage with a smirk. $inner$kin001 would gain traction. My video already had thirty likes before it even finished processing.

A ping.

[Socketsurgeon999: New Upload]

I tapped on it out of curiosity.

The screen lit up with the flicker of harsh fluorescent lights. A cold metal table. The cydoll was splayed over it like a discarded mannequin. Mismatched parts crudely glued together—one arm amputated at the shoulder, the remaining limb twitching from faulty nerve feedback. Her head was too small for the body, her scalp partially peeled, revealing a pink lattice of exposed wiring.

Socketsurgeon’s gloved hands entered the frame.

“She’s lubed and loaded, people,” he said, his voice calm, clinical.

He spread her silicone arse open and pushed two fingers inside.

A faint moan escaped her—distorted. Almost childlike.