Page 1 of Fear No Hell

Calliope

Ihate this room.

I hate the dark wainscoting that runs the length of the suite. The rich turquoise wallpaper adorned with metallic gold flowers and jewel-toned hummingbirds. The oversized bed that I do my best to never sleep in unless he forces me into it.

Most of all, I despise the mystical cuff circling my wrist and chaining me to the ostentatious four-poster bed frame that dominates the room. Imprisoning me. Ensuring I can never leave.

This sprawling suite is my prison. I’ve been locked within these four walls for the last two decades with no one to visit me but him.

My sisters abandoned me long ago after Melpomene and Clio visited and left me here because it was my responsibility to save myself.

My mother never once answered the countless summons I’ve sent to her, begging her to come save me.

None of my family so much as asked whether I wanted to be taken from my home, although it was clear when they answered my initial summons that I wasn’t here willingly.

After they left, their insults ringing in my ears, I knew I couldn’t rely on them to help me.

I figured he would let me go eventually.

That was almost 20 years ago.

More than 19 years have passed since my family left me here to rot under the tender care of my warden.

Over seven thousand days since the first time he came into the room where he keeps me chained and bound, demanding that I inspire his writing.

Explaining that it was my responsibility as the muse of epic poetry to inspire and, as an author, his due to be inspired by me.

When I refused, he forced inspiration from me.

Sixteen years since he published his long-awaited second novel and a little more than 130,000 hours since Arthur Francis became a household name.

It might seem dramatic to know how much time has elapsed as I’ve gone slowly mad in this hellhole.

However, I’ve had little else to do here except count the time in my sentence, which, given my immortality, could be endless, and do my best to avoid thinking of what I’ve experienced at the hands of a man well known and beloved by the outside world as being a powerful advocate for women, especially those in the literary field.

My chains extend far enough for me to reach the restroom, so I can relieve myself and take a shower.

Even if I did manage to break free of my bonds, the room itself is powerfully ensorcelled against my escape.

As Arthur explained, if the door is closed, then I’m trapped in here.

Although he didn’t say it quite like that.

He made my imprisonment sound like an honor.

I know better, though.

What I don’t know is who Arthur enlisted to help him incarcerate me. Whoever they are, they must be powerful if their magic can hold me against the voices of the millions of authors begging for inspiration from me.

The door opens silently, swinging inward on well-oiled hinges.

Although all of my cage is well-appointed, the furnishings elegant and expensive, Arthur pays special attention to those hinges, oiling them at least once a week to ensure they don’t squeak and alert any other occupants in the house of his regular visits to this room.

Although I’ve only ever seen Arthur, I know that at least one other person must live here.

A wife. A woman I’ve never met and only know exists because of the gold band encircling his left ring finger.

Once I realized this woman existed, I tried to be extra loud, screaming and pleading—both when he was here and after he left—until my voice gave out in the hopes that she might hear. No one ever responded, though.

Maybe that, too, is part of the sorcery keeping me here.

After twenty years, I’ve stopped hoping anyone will come, and I’ve stopped screaming. It doesn’t do anything.

“Hello, beauty,” my captor croons, stepping over the threshold and swinging the door shut behind him.

I simply glare in response. Although Arthur prefers to take his writing inspiration through forced sexual encounters, the most common method is for me to speak to an author.

Initially, I tried to speak to Arthur, attempting to convince him to set me free and allow me to return on my own to inspire him.

A small smile gracing his face, he placed both of his hands on my shoulders gently—almost kindly—and forced me to my knees in front of his rapidly hardening cock.

Since that encounter, I’ve held my tongue around him.

I refuse to give him any more of me than he has already stolen.

“Are you still not speaking to me?” Arthur crosses the suite to the window bench I’m sitting on. “Don’t you think that’s a bit immature?”

Rich coming from a kidnapper and rapist.

Without responding to his jab, I turn my gaze away from him to stare out the window, watching the outside world hungrily, appreciating every little interaction of the people walking on the sidewalk.

I want to be free so badly. Instead—

Arthur’s hand closes around my upper arm, and he tears me from the bench, flinging me towards the massive bed.

My foot catches on the carpet, and I find myself falling, uncontrolled and scared, onto the mattress.

There’s no time for me to scramble away, to do anything, between when I land and when Arthur tears down his pants, the sound of the zipper brittle and angry, and falls on to my body.

Clad only in the threadbare mini-dresses he provides for me, there’s almost nothing separating us.

As he shoves the dress over my hips, I claw at his face, scraping my fingernails across his skin, wanting to hurt him as badly as he has hurt me. Silent screams stretch the muscles of my face as blood from the deep scratches I’ve gouged into his cheeks pours into my eyes.

He grunts as my fingers connect with his eyes, glancing off the eyelids rather than digging into the organ itself like I had intended.

“C’mon, beauty, this is going to happen. You’ll enjoy it more if you stop fighting,” he hisses, gripping my wrists in one hand and forcing them over my head. His other hand reaches between us to grasp his cock and angle it towards my entrance.

The scream of rage I’ve been biting back finally emerges as I swing my head forward violently.

My forehead connects with his so hard I almost don’t hear the crunch of his nose over the pulsing pain in my skull.

His pained shout and the burn of him thrusting into me, though, are enough to pierce through the haze, tearing an agonized, “No!” from my unwilling lips.

His lips twist into a distorted smile under his swollen, bleeding nose. “You stupid bitch—”

“Dad?” A small boy with a furrowed brow, maybe 10 years of age at the oldest, if I had to guess, stands in the doorway. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, Sam,” Arthur grits out. His eyes promise violent retribution if I open my mouth to say something, anything, to this child who could be my savior, but I don’t care. It can’t be any worse than what he has already done to me.

“Help me,” I beg, voice raw. “Please help me, Sam!”

But my pleas are covered by the sound of Arthur saying, “Go on downstairs, kiddo.”

The child’s hazel eyes squint at us. “Who’s that?” he asks with enough of a lilt to indicate confusion rather than suspicion.

“This is just one of my friends.” Arthur’s response sounds so measured when, in fact, there’s objectively nothing reasonable about any of this. Especially not when I’m screaming and he’s bleeding. “Now please go down to the kitchen and grab something to eat.”

His calm tone lights a fury unlike anything I’ve ever known inside me.

How dare he?

Without any conscious thought behind it, I scream banshee-like and swing my arms forcefully upwards against his hold.

The hand holding my wrists, loosened at his distraction, falls away, enough that I’m able to punch hard against the side of his face.

It’s surprise more than pain that causes him to fall backward, pulling out of me and onto his ass on the floor.

I sneer at the monster sitting on the plush carpet in front of me then lunge for him, hands bared into claws as I land in a straddle over his torso.

My nails dig chunks from his neck and face, driving deep into his flesh, all while I’m shouting over my shoulder, “Please help me!” at the boy.

Underneath me, Arthur is howling as I strike at him over and over, the sound of his pain and the wet tearing of his flesh sending vindictive pleasure through me.

A shadow falls across us. “Are you okay?” The little boy’s eyes are huge and scared, set in an angelic face and laser-focused on me.

I think he’s talking to me. My arms slowly stop swinging; why would this little boy be asking me if I’m okay when I’m beating his father? I reach one hand out toward him, the mystical cuff chaining me to the bed dangling at the movement. “Help me—”

With all the suddenness of the serpent in human form he is, Arthur moves, throwing me from him into the bedframe.

My head snaps against the hard wood; I fall to the floor stunned, unable to do anything but watch as Arthur pushes himself to his feet and brutally strikes his son across the face.

The boy cries out, his small body stumbling to the side from the hit’s force.

Before he can fall to the floor, Arthur’s hand wraps around the child’s throat so tightly that his breaths are little more than wheezes as Arthur carries him across the floor.

“I told you to go downstairs,” Arthur bellows. “I told you not to fucking interrupt Daddy while he’s working! But you couldn’t listen.”

A thud echoes from the hall. A plaintive wail makes its way to my ears.

I need to help him. That thought, more than any fear for myself, rips me out of my pain-soaked stupor.

I force myself to my hands and knees, small gasps of anguish pouring from me with each movement.

When I pause to catch my breath, my hand braced on the side of the bed because my head is spinning, I glance up just in time to see Arthur shoot me a mutinous glare as he stalks towards the open door of the attic.

Behind Arthur, Sam is shoving himself back to his feet from where he was curled on the floor. “Let her go.” Although the words are strangled, they’re icy and commanding too. His young face burns with fury, his expression mature beyond his years.

In those eyes, I can see the person he’ll become. Not a monster like his father. A protector. A modern man with the valiant heart of the knights of old.

“Let her go?” Arthur repeats mockingly as he turns with predatory lethality. “Who do you think you are, boy? Why the fuck would I let her go? This is all she’s good for.”

And as I manage to take my first step, unsteady but upright and moving all the same, he shoves his son towards the stairs outside of my room.

For a brief moment, the boy’s silhouette, all flailing limbs that are too long for his small body, is backlit by the lights illuminating the landing. Then he vanishes.

I can hear the thumps of his body, the pained cries, as he hits each hard wooden step, followed by glaring silence that’s broken only by my sobs. Devastated tears shed both for me and the child lying at the bottom of the stairs.

Arthur turns slightly. “This was your fault, you know?” he says almost conversationally.

“If you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and spread your legs like the whore you are, it never would have come to this.” With a tight smile, he adds, “I’ll be back for you later,” before slamming the door shut.

The click of the key is barely audible over my crying.

Half an hour later, a siren breaks the street’s quiet.

I watch as they pull up, as the technicians roll a tiny Sam—bloody, right leg outstretched with the barest hint of ivory peeking through the mess that is his shin—out of the house.

Even from this distance, I can see that his face is contorted in pain, fat tears staining his cheeks.

Before they put him in the back of the ambulance, he locks eyes with me, and I can see him mouth, “It’s okay. ”

But he doesn’t return.

And it’s never okay.