Page 17

Maeve

Time had lost its shape. The only constants were the three of them, Bear, Master, and Mother, each engraved themselves into my brain. Seven years of grey walls and a stain weakened me beyond repair.

Master, Mother, and Bear.

Bear, Master and Mother.

Round and round they went.

Bear had been my confessor. His matted fur had absorbed my tears, and his lopsided smile never wavered as I whispered my sins into his ragged ear.

“I hate her,”

I'd murmured, and his button eyes had gleamed in the dim light as if to say, “I know.”

He'd witnessed it all—the men, the punishments, the nights I'd clawed at my own skin just to feel something clean. His stitching had frayed a little more with every atrocity, his stuffing clumping where I'd clutched him too tight. A silent witness. My only comfort.

Master had been my sculptor.

“Open,”

he'd commanded, slipping a pill between my lips. His fingers smelled of antiseptic and cigars, always precise and clinical as he'd reshaped me. He'd traced the scars on my ribs, laughing when I’d shivered.

“This one's my favourite.”

Mocking me. Always mocking me.

The worst part hadn't been the pain from the knife or razor blade. It had been the way he'd cradled my face afterwards, thumbing away blood like a doting father.

“You're perfect like this, doll,”

he'd sighed, and I'd believed him for a heartbeat. I wanted to believe his every lie.

Then there had been her.

Mother.

She'd lived in the edges of my vision—a flash of her cheap floral perfume in the shower drain, the ghost of her laughter when Master had turned the screws too tight. I'd dreamed of her sometimes, her needle-thin fingers counting the pound notes as men came through my bedroom door.

“Worth every penny,”

she'd chirped, her pupils swallowing her eyes.

Bear had seen those dreams, too.

“She's coming back for you,”

Bear lied one night, his voice sweet as poison.

“She'll save us.”

I'd screamed into his fur until I lost my voice, but Master had rewarded me with extra pills.

Mother's ghost had blown me a kiss from the corner. The same corner where the girl’s blood-stained mattress had been.

And Bear?

He just watched.

**

Footsteps echoed in the silence. I crawled to the door, my knees scraping against concrete, my body already trembling for what he’d give me—or take away.

The keys jangled. The door creaked open.

Master stood at the entrance, his polished shoes gleaming under the dim light. He scrutinised me, his gaze lingering on the way my hands shook. Then, slowly, he closed the door behind him. The keys slipped back into his pocket.

“My, my, my,”

he drawled, tilting his head.

“Look at you. Like a dog waiting for scraps.”

I nodded, my eyes darting to his pocket.

“Pathetic,”

he sighed, crouching to my level. His fingers gripped my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes.

“You’d lick the floor for a taste, wouldn’t you?”

I swallowed hard.

“Go on,”

he murmured, releasing me with a shove.

“Ask nicely.”

“Please,”

I said, but my voice cracked.

“Please…?”

“Please, Daddy.”

“Good girl.”

A slow smile curled his lips. My breath hitched as his hand dipped into his pocket.

“Ah—ah. Get on the bed and offer your holes to me first. Let me see how much you really want it.”

I jumped up and scurried to the bed. My heart raced in anticipation of my next pill. I lay on the bed, but I faced him, spreading myself open and staring at him as he walked toward me. His eyes were focused on my pussy, so I began to rub myself, placing my heels on the edge of the bed. I pushed three fingers inside, moving them in and out, watching him tug his tie off before he pulled his zip down.

“Tsk. Look how used you've become. Like a stretched-out toy no one wants anymore,”

he said, making me pause.

“Open wider. Spread your arse for me. Offer me that tight, warm hole.”

I moved my hands around my legs to grip my flesh and pulled as hard as I could until I felt the painful stretch in my flesh. Nothing mattered, only my next fix.

“Yes, doll. Oh, my. Almost perfect,”

he said, reaching over me to place Bear beside my head.

“That’s better.”

He removed his jacket, tossing it on the bed.

“How about two pills and no lube?”

he said, palming my breasts together.

“Would you like that, doll?”

I began to shake but nodded my head. He straightened to dig a hand in his trouser pocket, and I eagerly opened my mouth. He dropped the pills into my mouth, and I quickly gulped them down, ignoring the edges poking against my throat as I swallowed several times until they vanished.

He spat in his palm and rubbed it over the tip of his cock.

“What do you say, doll?”

“Thank you, Daddy,”

I said, relaxing on the bed, rubbing my face into Bear’s fur.

That night, I screamed, cried and begged for more. More pain, more humiliation and more of my Daddy’s cock. I was lost.

**

I blinked awake, my skin slick with sweat. Something was wrong. The heat wasn't just from the stifling basement. It was from him. Master lay beside me, his bare chest rising and falling in sleep, one arm draped possessively over my waist.

The door. He never locked the door.

I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle my breathing, which had turned ragged and loud in my ears. This had never happened before.

Was it a test, a trap, a cruel game where the punishment would be worse if I failed? Was it a game of cat and mouse, the one I never won?

My gaze darted to the pile of his clothes on the table—his shirt, his belt, and, half-buried in the fabric, the knife. The blade caught the dim light, glinting like a dare. My blood dried on it tonight and countless times before.

Six months? Six years? How long until he got bored? My future had been set in stone by him. I’d end up like the girls before me or the girl I watched him drain the life out of. The one he killed while he rutted me like a beast.

Bear lay on the floor, his button eyes fixed on me.

“Move or die,”

he seemed to say, but that could be the pills.

I carefully slithered off the bed, my bare stomach and breasts scraping against the mattress edge. The pain from the knife was sharp and grounding. I paused, but Master's breathing didn't change.

Death had always hovered over me, a breath against the back of my neck, but tonight, I would outrun it.

Fuck him. Fuck my mother. Fuck the years I’d spent counting cracks in the walls like they were stars.

I grabbed Bear, the knife, and the shirt that reeked of him, the one he’d left crumpled on the table like a second skin. The fabric slithered against my arms as I pulled it on, the sleeves swallowing my hands whole.

The door groaned as I pressed against it, my fingers memorising the exact pressure point where the hinges stayed silent. For seven years, this door had been my world. Now, it was nothing. It was simply wood and metal, but I never wanted to hear the lock click again. I paused before it opened, not knowing what to expect once it opened.

I left the door ajar so there would be no sound, and I bolted up the stairs, taking care not to slap my feet against the stone staircase. There was another door, but when I tried the handle, it opened.

I was free.

The garage was a tomb of shadows and oil stains. Moonlight bled through the grimy windows, painting the concrete in streaks of silver. My bare feet slapped against the cold floor, sending echoes bouncing off the walls.

Too loud. Too loud. Fuck. Too loud. Too loud.

Another door, and then there was real air. I sucked it in, flooding my lungs and senses with the sharp pine and damp earth scent. The dark sky yawned above me, endless and uncaring. The clouds slithered across the moon, but it was enough. Enough to see the outline of the main house, its windows dark. Enough to run.

I didn’t look back, but I cursed the devil. I wasn’t worthy to reside beneath his home. He had me in an outbuilding, locked away to use and abuse. I wasn’t sure if it was hallucinations, drugs or my dad in the stars watching over me as I found the courage, but I moved.

Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck him.

With each movement, that was my mantra. The rage and adrenaline forced me to run as fast as I could, with twigs biting into my feet and stones tearing at my soles. The pain was beautiful, and I felt alive. Each step sent fire up my legs, but I welcomed it. The wall loomed ahead, its bricks rough under my palms as I hauled myself over. For the first time in years, I moved.

That’s when I heard it. A dull thud of a door slamming.

A voice, raw with rage, splitting the night.

“I’m going to fucking kill you, he howled.

I ran faster.

Fuck him.

**

My legs burned, my lungs screaming for air as I crashed through the undergrowth. The knife was slick in my grip, the handle biting into my palm like a living thing. I couldn’t stop. Not now. Not when his voice slithered through the trees, closer with every second.

“I see you, doll,”

he taunted, trying to get under my skin.

The flashlight beam cut through the darkness, painting the forest in jagged stripes of light and shadow. I ducked behind a thick oak, pressing my back against the bark. My breath came in ragged gasps, my heart pounding so loud I was sure he could hear it.

Crack.

A branch snapped under my foot. The sound was a gunshot in the silence.

His laughter was a blade against my spine.

“I’m going to fucking amputate your feet. You won’t be able to run on stumps, you fucking cunt,”

he bellowed with fury vibrating in his voice.

His footsteps thundered behind me, closer, but I ran for my life.

The trees blurred. My bare feet continued to tear against roots and rocks, but the pain was nothing compared to the terror clawing up my throat. He was gaining. I could feel him, his breath hot on my neck, his fingers itching to drag me back.

The knife trembled in my hand.

I wouldn’t go back. I couldn’t.

A few moments later, his hand fisted in my hair, yanking it until the world spun. Only this time, I didn’t freeze. This time, I moved. Bear tumbled from my hand as I twisted, the knife flashing in the dark. The blade sank into his shoulder with a wet crunch. His blood was hot. Hotter than the shower, he'd scalded me in. Hotter than the fever dreams I'd drowned in. It splattered my face, my chest, my hands marking me.

Stab. Stab. Stab.

He roared, shoving me back. I hit the dirt, gasping, but my fingers found Bear before my lungs found air. His button eyes gleamed in the fallen flashlight's glow, his stitched smile smeared with dirt.

Master clutched his bloody body, his breath ragged. “You—”

I didn't let him finish.

I ran.

The knife stayed in my grip, his blood drying between my fingers.

I couldn't let go of it even if I tried.

The trees blurred again, and the night swallowed his screams of rage.

For the first time in seven years, I was ahead of him.

I continued to run for my life, and I thought I was free for one breathless second.

Then, the world exploded in white.

Twin beams, blinding as bright as hellfire, ripped through the night.

Tires screeched.

Metal screamed. My body left the ground before I could even gasp, limbs twisting like a doll’s as the car struck me. The impact was a star bursting behind my ribs.

I hit the tarmac hard.

Too hard.

The taste of copper flooded my mouth, warm and thick.

Blood.

My blood. It poured from my temple, pooling beneath my cheek in a slick, dark halo. The knife was gone. Bear lay a few feet beside me.

Footsteps pounded toward me—voices, muffled. Then, frantic, they cut through the ringing in my ears.

“Oh shit. She came out of nowhere. Oh, God. Call an ambulance!”

“Is she alive?!”

But I already knew the truth. Freedom had been a dream, and death had won. The edges of my vision frayed, darkness creeping in like ink in water.

My lips curled.

Fuck him.

Part III