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Ignoring my question, he digs the spoon into the bowl and holds a large scoop of porridge to my mouth. I don’t question him or think. I just open up and take it, feeling oddly grateful that someone would care enough to feed me. And not just feed me, but save my life too.
“Were you at the bar? Hearing me sing?” I ask before he holds another spoonful to my lips.
He meets my eyes again, and something flashes in his otherwise impassive expression. It’s almost as if the memory haunts him. It’s the same expression the crowd held as I sang for the last time—or I thought I did.
He doesn’t say anything, but I think I know the answer. “Was it that obvious?” I ask. “That I was saying goodbye. Is that why you came? You had some kind of hunch or something?”
Once again, no reply. I take it as a yes, though. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.
“How long are you keeping me here?” I ask.
“As long as—”
“No,” I interrupt. “Don’t answer. I don’t want to know.” I don’t want to think about returning to the cruel world out there, where I don’t belong and have nowhere to go. The thought of going back makes me want to rip those bandages right off and cut my arms anew. I want to stay in this quiet moment for as long as I can.
I open my mouth again when he holds the spoon to my lips. The porridge isn’t half bad compared to the scraps I sometimes have to eat. It’s actually sort of warm and hearty and reminds me of my mother making breakfast in our kitchen, back when I had a home. Back when I hadsomeone.
It’s only when the bowl is empty that I speak again. “What’s your name?”
“Dorin,” he says.
I give a slow nod and say quietly, “I’m Lavinia.”
He just stares at me, not even acknowledging that he heard what I said. When he’s about to get up, I hurriedly ask another question. “What’s going to happen to me here?” I say, and when he stares off into the distance, seeming to consider my question, I add, “Some kind of therapy?”
He looks back at me, and there’s a hint of a smile at the corners of his lips that I can’t quite gauge. “Sure. Some kind of therapy.”
4
DORIN
I’m more than confused as I leave the padded cell. I went in there thinking I’d feed her, then drag her out and start her training. But the way she reacted to me changed my motives. There was no fear or hatred in her eyes. She didn’t think I was the devil or his spawn. She thought I was her savior. In a way, I guess I am, but if she knew what lies ahead, she wouldn’t look at me with all that thankful vulnerability. She’d be screaming and cursing. I couldn’t quite make myself ruin all that innocence yet. Plus, she seemed eager to believe she was in a mental facility, so it was easy enough to keep her in that illusion. I didn’t even have to lie. All I needed was to stay quiet and let her come up with her own explanations. She even gave me the idea for my next step.
Some kind of therapy, she said.
I’m not going to bring her a doctor or a head shrink. The closest thing we have to a doctor is Dax and his medical training in the army, and the closest thing we have to the latter is Mikhail and his uncanny ability to read people. Neither will do her any good, and for some reason, I don’t want either man to lay his hands on her or try to worm his way into her head.
What I can do is give her another type of therapy that will keep her in this ridiculous delusion for a while. I’m not sure why I want to feed the idea of this being a mental facility and not justtell her the truth. I’d do that with anyone else, if only just to see the horror on their face. Then I’d give them a good beating to welcome them and shove my cock into their ass while they were screaming.
But this girl has me doing everything differently. I didn’t even give her the usual cold shower when I took her in last night. I just brought her straight to her cell, changed her bandages carefully, then left her to sleep.
I do have to do some things the usual way, though, or someone’s bound to ask questions. If there’s anything I hate, it’s people sticking their noses in others’ business. So I head for Dax’s office. On my way there, I find a guard that I order to make sure to give her bathroom breaks since the padded cells don’t have any toilets. Then I tell him the same as I tell every other guard and trainer I meet on the way: to keep their filthy hands off her and not say a single fucking word to her. This seems to be the new custom, after all—trainers getting to lay claim to girls. I fucking hated it when Mikhail did it with Nikolai’s girl and the way Dax is doing it with this sub-training thing he has going. Right until this point.
“I need you to make a file on a new girl,” I tell Dax once I’m in his office, sliding her driver’s license across his desk where he’s working on some leather project. His new sub is at his side, kneeling with her eyes downcast and hands placed on her thighs. If I didn’t find this new training regime of his ridiculous, I’d be impressed by the way she just sits there, not even twitching a finger or chancing a glance up at my arrival.
“Sure.” Dax grabs the license and flips his laptop open, and I watch his fingers tap away at the keys as he types in the information he has on her.
“What cell is she in?” he asks as he gets to the identification number, which indicates the year of arrival, how many girls came in before her said year, and her cell number.
“One,” I say.
“One what?”
“Cell number zero one,” I enunciate clearly as if he’s dim-witted.
“Oh shit, Dorin, have you already messed her up that bad?”
The girls who end up in cell one, two, and three—the padded ones—usually don’t go there before at least a few days, or, more likely, a few weeks. Most girls don’t have the guts to try to end their own life, and insanity takes time. Even so, a pair of manacles can usually do the job. It’s only when they start banging their heads against the concrete or damaging themselves in ways that decrease their value that we put them in there. Half the girls who go in there are beyond saving and end up in the incinerator room with my hands around their throats, writhing like beasts just before I snap their necks and throw them into the fire.