Page 4

She’s not waking up.

My private room now has a second bed in it, and Artemis lies unmoving in it. She resembles a corpse, and a pang of worry travels through me again. It seems like every time I close my eyes, I relive our shared past.

With nothing to do in this hospital room—she just returned from surgery, and Saint is elsewhere—I have no distraction from Terror.

My parents told me, the first time we arrived in Sterling Falls, that it was a rite of passage.

It took longer for me to discover that this was something the men in my family had been doing for generations. A way to be wild, yes, but also safe from judgment.

Better to know yourself than figure it out with a girl who could sue. Or worse: end up dead.

Certain proclivities run in the family. Dangerous kinks, one might call them, and without a proper outlet, scandal could fall on the Avery name.

Proper does not mean legal.

They wanted me to learn myself through Artemis. She, at the time, was just the golden girl my parents bid on for me.

The first time I saw her, I didn’t mean to show such interest. Better than the tall blonde, or the petite redhead, she burst onto that stage without fear. Her gaze didn’t move across the people—she was too smart for that—but she still stood firm.

Her expression said she would be unrelenting.

I didn’t know myself then. I didn’t know that learning her body and her mind was a challenge I’d start to crave. Her name, even. She was a mystery I dug into without regard.

After the first time, I sat in a chair in our family theater and watched my interaction with her. My nose still ached from her punch, but it made me smile, too. Watching it back. My father frowned at the screen. He was there, he saw it happen. They left the room to watch what came next from afar.

I didn’t take her virginity, but she took mine.

Those months were strange, to say the least.

I went to a boarding school on the other side of town, but my parents came to sign me out every Friday. We took the ferry to Sterling Falls, they would bid on the golden girl, and an hour later I would be inside her in some form or another.

And then I’d return to school. I’d flirt with girls, but I wasn’t allowed to touch.

Not until I passed my parents’ test.

I learned that the hard way, bringing a girl back to my room after a movie date. My father burst into the room and dragged me out by my ear, and he beat me black and blue in a vacant room down the hall.

No one stopped him.

The girl never spoke to me again, and I…

I focused on the golden girl. I focused on my guilt at having to do such things to her. The weight of expectation threatened to crush me, because I was at odds with everything I knew.

Consent, for one. Parental approval, another. Societal expectation.

I didn’t have a girlfriend. As far as anyone knew, I didn’t have sex either. There were bands tightening around my chest, the pressure cranked up by the adults in my life.

Do this, don’t do that.

The third visit with the golden girl, three weeks in, was supposed to be about foreplay.

That week was my movie date that ended terribly.

On the fourth meeting, I snapped.

Ten years ago

“What do they inject her with?” I ask my father.

While my mother was more supportive in the beginning, she has since stopped traveling with us. She declined at the last visit, wrinkling her nose at the idea of watching me fumble my way around a girl’s body.

We sit on the upper deck of the ferry, and cold wind buffs at our faces. My nose is colder than the rest of me, but I keep my hands in my pockets. I still ache from his beating, but I am the proper son. Chastised, I have learned my lesson.

They rule my life, even from afar. I know exactly who is in charge—it’s why, when my golden girl’s eyes flashed and she asked who had given me permission to touch her, my gaze automatically went to my parents.

They are the authority.

She said last week to ask girls in the outside world, as if it’s so far removed from her.

And in a way… I suppose it is.

“Makes them feel lust and desire,” my father answers. “Easier to work with a girl desperate to be fucked, especially in that place. It works on the boys, too.”

I tense to keep from shuddering.

“This will be your last time,” he adds. “You’re proving disappointingly plain, and it’s not worth our time waiting to see what will come out with comfort, as I suspect that is what’s happening.”

They sent me a video on bondage, but I could barely get through it. She’s already so restrained—mentally—why would I add more? There were videos on knives and blood, hot wax, whips. My stomach turned at all of them.

So maybe I am plain.

“Do something that makes your heart race,” he says. “I don’t care if they fine me for it.”

I nod, swallowing harder.

We arrive in Sterling Falls, take the blacked-out car to Terror, and enter the familiar doorway. Down to the amphitheater, where our seats await. I don’t know how much money my father has spilled into this place, but every low ding of an incoming bid from other parties makes me nauseated.

The golden girl steps through, and I nod at my father.

He appraises me, but he doesn’t reach for the button.

Someone else bids on her. I stare at him, waiting, but he doesn’t push it. He sits back and watches me, a slight smile on his face.

Not a smile—a sneer.

He bids on one at random. I don’t look away from him, like this is a test, and when he wins, we’re shuffled off to the room.

My nerves buzz, my whole body vibrating with anger.

The girl enters, desperation already crowding me. She pulls at my clothes, the waistband of my jeans, and manages to undo the button fast. She shoves them down and opens her mouth, taking my dick in.

I’m not hard.

My father watches from the corner, his expression severe.

My cock twitches, but it fails to stiffen.

“Do something,” my father snarls. “Something you think you’ll regret.”

I slide my fingers into her hair and tighten my hold. She’s fingering herself, too, at my feet. I drag her mouth off of me, practically throwing her back.

She moans and spreads her legs. Her fingers are slick with arousal, and she doesn’t stop touching herself. Not even when I stare down at her, disgust curling my lip.

Do something I think I’ll regret?

I face my father, then shake my head. I leave the room and storm down the dark hallway. This level, one above where they hold the bids, is lush. Velvets and heavy draped fabric to mute the noises, soundproofed rooms.

I peer into each until I find her, and I shoulder my way in.

The scene that fills my vision is awful. My golden girl is in a similar position as the one I just left, on her knees with a cock in her mouth. But her nose is pressed to his groin, and she makes a choking noise.

Drool runs past her lips.

No.

I know, in the back of my head, that she’s not mine.

Not mine to save or keep or protect. But I am inside in a heartbeat, and the older man—my father’s age, maybe, in a suit that strikes me as more expensive than my school tuition—sees me only at the last moment.

Pulled from sadistic pleasure, he looks up right as my fist collides with his jaw.

He stumbles back.

She gasps for air.

I haul her up while her chest heaves, and a guard bursts into the room a second later. His hand is on a taser on his belt, the threat clear. I move her behind me, backing into the wall. She grasps at me.

“What the fuck?” the man I hit roars. “Remove this—this boy?—”

My father, now behind the guard, clears his throat.

The man pales. “Remy?—”

“Nice to see you, Jack,” my father says mildly. “Let’s trade, yeah? There was a mix-up. Our bidding button was broken.” He moves aside, and the other girl’s arm is caught in his grasp. He urges her toward Jack, then looks to me.

I take my golden girl’s hand and lead her out, my father and the guard following close behind. When we return to the room, someone else awaits us at the doorway.

Someone who feels important.

“Go in,” my father orders. “Let me straighten this out.”

Okay.

Okay, I can handle that.

My golden girl moves first, slipping past me and taking a seat on one of the plush lounges. I follow in after her, leaving my father and the important person out in the hall. As Dad said, he’ll straighten it out.

It might result in a donation or something. I’ll find out later when he’s raging on our way home. He told me to do something that made my heart race—that’s this. Driven by her .

She’s trembling, yes, but she has to know that…

“What’s your name?” I ask her. After all this time, I’m desperate to know. I take the seat beside her, but leave a gap between us.

She blinks, her lips parting. Her tongue peeks out, wetting her lips. She’s in gold lingerie, and gold dust highlights her cheeks. She rubs at it now, already ruined by the tear tracks.

I’ve never made her cry, have I?

“Artemis,” she whispers.

“Reese Avery.” I want to shake her hand, but that’s ridiculous after what we’ve done.

The door opens, and I turn to face my father. He narrows his eyes at the space between us, but I can’t tell if he’s more disappointed I’m sitting too close or not already inside her.

“You’re an embarrassment,” he says on a sigh. “Enjoy your last moments with her, son, because you’re done.”

I already knew we were done.

There’s nothing left to try—I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want to explore some lost kink. Those genes skipped me.

After a moment, she shifts, then swings her leg over my legs. Her weight settles on my lap, and it puts our faces on an even level. She reaches down and touches my cock.

For fuck’s sake, it was out. She strokes it, and it hardens under her sure grip. She doesn’t release it until it’s standing straight between us, a bead of precum oozing out of the slit. She rises and positions herself above it, lining up.

I hold my breath when she lowers herself. Her pussy lips brush the sides of my cockhead first, and then her warmth envelops it. The pressure, the squeeze, is delicious. She keeps going, taking my length, and finally settles against me.

“Artemis,” I test out.

“Reese Avery.”

“Nice to meet you.”

She scoffs.

I want to apologize. I almost do, especially when she runs her hands up under my shirt and pushes it off. Her gaze drops to the bruises decorating my rib cage, still pretty stark against my white skin. It’s a reminder of what I have to do…

She doesn’t say a word, but her hips roll. She moves, and I slip my hand between us to touch her clit. I know the way she operates, and bringing on her orgasm is almost easy.

No—it is easy. But it’s aided by the drug. Fueled on by it. She doesn’t stop after one either. She keeps shuddering and gripping at my cock with her inner muscles, riding it like she’s insatiable.

I let her, while my gaze scours her face. I want to commit her to memory, because long after I leave this place, I can’t forget her.

I won’t.

Too soon, I’m riding the edge.

A knock at the door cements it, and I pin her hips down. I spill inside her, that tingling pleasure rushing from the base of my spine straight through my cock. My balls are tight, and the bite of pain in my ribs and abdomen is worth it.

I lift her off me. Turn away from the door and the camera to wipe myself clean and put my pants back in place.

She’s withdrawing, and my heart thumps extra hard.

I open my mouth, but she waves me off.

“Don’t make a promise you can’t keep, Reese Avery.”

So I don’t.

I’m sixteen—I don’t know how to find this place, let alone get her out. I have a feeling the price is too high, and my father wouldn’t allow it. He mutters about the whores in this place when he thinks I can’t hear him.

And now…

When I leave the room, there are more guards waiting. They escort us out, and my father waits until we’re in the car to laugh. The worst sort of laughter.

Condescending.

Loathing.

We travel back in silence. He doesn’t so much as look at me until we arrive home. Not the boarding school—my childhood house. His hand comes down on the back of my neck, that stoic expression locked in place. The laughter was a break in character—this is the act I was expecting.

It’s the same expression he wore when he dragged me out of my room last week, the mutinous anger only cracking a split second before he hit me.

I hate him.

I hate him as he locks me in my room, as I hear him explain to my mother in the hallway what happened. As he paints my infraction as something wrong with me. Something fundamentally broken. He tells her that I might do something truly crazy if I’m allowed anywhere near Sterling Falls.

Once my bruises heal, I’m sent to a new boarding school. One out of reach of him, yes, but also Sterling Falls. Out of the reach of Artemis.

No matter what I do, though, the guilt-driven nightmares don’t abate.

Not until the day I graduate. I’m at the top of my class, giving a speech with concealer hiding dark circles under my eyes and drops put in them to cover how bloodshot they are.

I stride off that stage and out of the building, and right into the Marine recruiter’s office.

They talk about a worthy cause, but I see it as penance.

And weeks later, in cramped barracks on a faraway base, I am finally able to sleep.