The Sect (29 page)

“You’re making assumptions to try to soften the man I am. Don’t.” He grabbed my arm firmly, his fingers slipped down to clasp my hand. When I looked at his hold, his fingers intertwining in mine, something awoke inside me that I couldn’t describe.
 

“You’re remorseful over trying to help someone that you couldn’t.” His hold began to burn as his fingers firmed their grip. “And the pleasure, Noah? Do you take more joy in giving me pleasure or pain?”

His eyes glimmered as he searched my eyes in silence. “What if I told you they both felt the same?” As if his hand had behaved against his will, he abruptly pulled back and nodded to the bed. “Rest. Tomorrow we’re going to have to do something you won’t like to make this whole thing believable.”

“I sang for you,” I said quietly, halting his exit. “I sang for you, not Reven or anyone else. And now, I can’t sing anymore.”

“So the caged bird finally stopped singing? Ironic.” His breath unfurled slowly as he remained with his back to me. “Get. Some. Sleep.” The echo of his movement faded away as he disappeared down the hall.

T
HE
TUB
was the first place I visited when I returned to my bedroom in the morning. Soaking in the hot water served to alleviate my muscle aches from being tied up, but did very little to cure the pain of my surface wounds. It was different than it was before.
He
was different than before. He used the weapon he forced me to make. The times in which the knotted rope hit my skin were done with a deftness that helped me find my way of coping with pain again. He was patient with me, waiting until my mind slipped into a particular space before he flogged me again, spacing each hit until I was there.
 

With every hit, bits and pieces of the happier times in my life came back to me.

In a way in which I wasn’t proud to admit to, it felt special for many reasons. The reason that stuck with me the most, he used the tool that was made by the both of us. The discomfort he left me with didn’t break me or empty me. Eventually, I realized I didn’t need my coping mechanism to numb me because the pain began to awaken a little piece inside of me that Rebirth had nearly killed.

 
I stared at the marks on my back and behind through the bathroom mirror for more than a few minutes. I equated his marks on my skin to the feelings he had for me that he wouldn’t express. Every jagged little line felt like a sentiment. His words weren’t angry or fueled with acid, they were gentle and kind, reminding me to use my ways of coping even when I no longer needed to.

When he was done, he tended to my wounds, being very tender with me.
 

What scared me the most was that our arrangement was verging on becoming completely consensual; that someday I would ask him to hurt me because I would want it.
 

When he held me in his bed afterward, I fell asleep in peace. I felt a safety and a euphoric warmth I hadn’t experienced since before I was taken.

I became contented in the marks he made, equating them to manifestations of something I’d long missed. But then I realized, missing something that never belonged to me was an impossibility. What he began to give me was new. My contradictory thoughts and emotions began to slide to one side. I believed I began to develop feelings for a man who tried to break me.

I looked up at my reflection, catching the sight of my smile in the mirror. As I fingered my lips, I began to frown.

It was my thirtieth sunset from the day I nearly succumbed to the alluring darkness, otherwise known as Noah. The buzz around the compound was that the six-week seminars were close to coming to an end for the year and would be picked up again in the new year. Many of my housemates were anxious because it was said that the last month of the last seminars were intense. No one would elaborate on why. I assumed from what many had told me that it was the month many would lose their lives.

The same woman asked for me day after day; Mrs. Sherman. She never really spoke to me; she simply wanted me to accompany her to the paradise room. We would sit somewhere away from the activities and enjoy the silence between us amongst the din of the others.

A hand on my behind startled me out of my daze as I stood with only one other inside the theater lobby. A middle-aged gentleman, profusely sweating above his brow, leered at me. “Come to my room, honey.” He wiggled his eyebrows with his hand sliding further and further up my behind.

An obstruction developed in my throat, hindering my ability to decline. My limbs were frozen in place, unable to run. The thought of having to do something I put out of my mind didn’t help matters.
 

His hand was roughly shoved away. When I looked at the person who’d dissuaded the man in front of me from engaging with me, I was more than a little shocked. “You know better than that, Mr. Daniels. She’s above your level. Pick one of the women inside the Eden room.”

Grumbling, the man left, following Noah’s directions to the other side of the lobby.

Noah wouldn’t look at me; instead, he kept his eye trained to the camera in the room. “Someone else wants you.” He grabbed my arm to another area of the lobby.
 

The same woman I’d spent a great deal of time with in the theater greeted me with a smile. “Can I offer you a drink?” She pointed to the bottle of champagne on the table. “It’s sparkling apple cider but we can pretend it’s something more appetizing.”

I looked at Noah, not sure what to do.

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” she assured me. “There is a reason I’m able to sit next to you in the paradise room without making a move on you. I’m not interested in you that way. I’d just like to see you…you know…pray.”

I looked at Noah again, who pressed into my ear. “Mrs. Sherman wants you to masturbate in front of her, but she won’t touch you. Let her take you to her home.”

Home? Mrs. Sherman had a home here?
It would’ve rendered her as one of the elites and given her the power to do whatever she wanted to me. I thought I’d lost my ability to see the nature of people. I held out hope that I hadn’t, because Mrs. Sherman had the most gentle eyes of anyone here.

I had nodded before I registered the action. The fuzziness clouding my brain began to lift, and I wondered why Noah was still protecting me.
 

The woman never touched me as we moved outside, walking along the path. Noah stood not far behind us, clutching a tablet I’d never seen anyone on the property with; he seemed very preoccupied with it. I glanced back at it and it was noticed. His warning glance forced me to turn back around. It could’ve been that he knew what I was thinking; that my thoughts had turned toward getting ahold of the tablet because it might’ve helped me to escape. He’d be wrong.

The night was chilly, but beginning to warm for another season. The snow was long gone and little peaks of life were evident in the buds on the trees and the return of lush green shade of the grass.

We stopped at the third house, walking up to the porch. Once inside, she turned on the light and revealed a home with an open floor plan and a very modern theme.
 

Noah remained downstairs while Mrs. Sherman led me upstairs and unlocked the double doors that led to her room. The bedroom suite contained a seating area and a bed on a raised platform. The windowed wall showed a prime view of the forested area that cloaked the theater.
 

I turned back to her. Feeling nervous about the situation, I sat on the edge of the bed while she took a seat on the couch directly in front of it.

“I know I’m not much to look at,” Mrs. Sherman apologized. “The gentleman who has been helping you, would you like him to be in the room?”

“No!” I shrilled.

“Are you sure?” She grinned, indicating that she wasn’t put off by my abrupt answer. “He’s much better looking than I, and there is something in your eyes when you look at him.”

“I-I don’t need motivation.” Closing my eyes, I slipped my hands against my thigh. I touched my warmth; the dryness added to my displeasure. I felt nothing when I rotated my hands across my clit, but I pretended I did by moaning.

“My mistake,” Mrs. Sherman said, rising from the couch

I glanced around the room, noting the camera that Noah’s house completely lacked.
 

My bad deeds were numerous and I was living on borrowed time. Noah could only protect me from so much. I wanted to live and find a smart way to escape. Running for the hills at the first opportunity wasn’t the way. I had hopes that the woman in front of me, who would easily do a favor for Noah for some reason or another, might’ve been my key. “Please stay. I’ve had a rough time here. I just…”

“Need help?”

I looked at the camera, knowing it was zeroing in on me. I closed my legs and sobbed.

“Oh, no, honey. Don’t do that. I’ll tell them you did perfectly fine.”

“They won’t believe you. They’ll know.” I looked up at the camera, but instead of pointing at me, it was down. The tablet Noah carried made sense; he brought it to watch me.

Within moments, there was a knock on the open door. Mrs. Sherman invited him in with a smile.

As Noah entered the room, his displeasure was evident with the way he glared at me. He lifted his expression to regard the woman seated on the couch. “Mrs. Sherman, she will perform for you. Just give her a minute.” He tugged my arm and shoved me into the adjoining bathroom.
 

I shrunk from his touch, my back touching the cold, marble tile on the walls.

“I thought you were stronger than this?” He scowled while stage-whispering to me. “You’re going to let what’s happened to you affect you? Don’t let anyone take anything from you, Keaton. Do what I fucking told you to do or I’ll call back the man that made you dry heave and have him fuck you. Is that what you’d prefer?”

I touched my temples, feeling the stress headache pending. “What is wrong with you?” I rasped, my irritation palpable with every word. “Why do you keep putting up this heartless act one minute and then pretend that you care for me the next? Choose a side or just—stop it!”
 

“I am heartless, Keaton,” he replied gruffly. “Or did you forget that because I showed you a few times of kindness? I’m not your bitch. If I’m nice to you, it’s for a reason and it’s not to make you fall for me. Fix this. Because if you fuck up again, Reven will make it worse. Instead of two men, he’ll make is six. And he’ll pick the men from the pool of throwaways. I don’t have say over them. If they get to you, they will fuck you all at once. Brutally. They will tear you apart because they are feral animals that can occasionally be leashed. All you have to do is get wet and come. Is that so damn hard? I stuck my neck out for you so you wouldn’t be pawed down by the piece of shit who wanted you. Make me believe you’re grateful.”