“Because if I release you and find out you’re once again scurrying around in the dark, then this goes back on your ankle for the rest of your life. Got it?”
No way.
A month was bad enough.
A month of knowing Storymaker felt my every move. A month of constantly backtracking around furniture so I could earn slack to serve guests or do my chores. Each time I jerked in my sleep with a nightmare, the chain let Storymaker know. The first few times, he’d charged into the dorm and beat me, just for the sake of it. He claimed it was because I’d tried to leave my bed, but in reality, it was just an excuse to hurt me.
At least the entire month I wore Parable, he’d never laid another finger on my other family members. They were boring to him. I was the fly, and he was the spider, and he relished playing with me.
“I’m only letting you go because I’m sick of your twitching waking me up at night. Don’t make me regret this.” Stroking my cheek, he dropped his gaze to my mouth. “Otherwise, I might just make an exception to my sexual preferences and see why all our guests rave about you.”
My stomach revolted.
I almost vomited.
I waited for the command that I couldn’t refuse. The instruction to serve and get on my pathetic, conditioned knees. But after a second, he blinked and inserted the key into the padlock. When the cuff fell off my ankle, I swallowed a groan.
Pulling up his shirt, he unlocked and unbuckled the belt from his waist.
He smiled as he stood, leaving the long length of chain on the floor. “Put that away, nice and safe, Kassen. That way, if you disobey me again, you’ll know exactly where to go to retrieve it.”
Fuck that. I wanted to burn it.
I wanted to smash it into teeny tiny pieces and—
I gasped, stumbling to the side, lost for a second as Storymaker’s room switched for sunshine and vegetable patches.
The heavy shame and crawling disgust I’d felt wearing Parable crawled over me. It’d psychologically screwed me up. For months after being chained, I’d been embarrassingly obedient. I’d no longer sneaked extra food for my family. I turned my back on their wounds and refused to slink through the dark to get medicine.
I was a perfect little slave, and to this day, it left oily guilt in my stomach. I still couldn’t shed the shame. I’d conveniently shoved that memory away—just like all the rest. I forgot what a nasty imprisonment Parable was. I’d forced Gemma to wear it. The girl currently helping me survive winter. The girl who no longer looked at me as if I was her enemy.
The girl I was fucking falling for—
Get it off!
The ax handle grew heavy and hot in my hands. I might wear a different end of the chain these days, but it still bound me to this place, to my memories, to the masters who I despised. It made me become that master. It made me the bastard in Gemma’s eyes.
Get it the fuck off me.
Swinging the ax, I didn’t aim true.
I just struck.
I struck and struck, clods of dirt went flying as I hacked at the monstrous chain.
“Wait!” Gemma sprang backward, getting the hell out of the way as I went wild, chopping Parable into pieces just like I wished I could’ve back then.
Storymaker’s ghost slithered in my mind, hissing retribution and pain.
I hit harder.
I would’ve sliced the damn chain into ribbons if it wasn’t for my broken arm sending shooting pains through my bone, making me hiss, sending my swing unstable.
“Stop!” Gem hugged herself, staying a safe distance. “Stop, you’re hurting your arm again! For God’s sake, I’ll do it.”
I folded forward, the ax blade wedging into the dirt as sweat poured down my back. I looked at the massacre. The ground had well and truly been murdered, including the chain that now rested in broken links.
Satisfaction soothed my mania.
It’s done.” Breathing hard, I dropped the ax and stepped back, waiting to see how many metal loops followed me. Not many. Just a short reminder. A length to match hers, no longer joined together—just a memento of so many sick and twisted things.
My knees wobbled as she moved toward me, picking up the short length and tugging it slightly, reeling me into her, a slave caught by a leash.
I wanted to tell her to stop. To let me go. But the closer she came and the more steps she dragged me forward, the thicker the air became.
Every inch of me buzzed with need as we stopped in the middle of the garden, her hands wrapped around the chain as if she never wanted to let me go. I was captive before her, aware my heart had a new master now, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.