Claire leaned against the cell door. She couldn't make her hands stop shaking. She'd actually confronted him—actually spoken to him when she had the power. But she didn't feel like she had it. She'd had to fight past every instinct not to run out of the room the second his cold blue eyes had been on her—as if he could somehow attack her in those heavy chains. She'd tested everything. She knew the chains would hold him. Still.
His act was so convincing. She almost believed him, but it was him. It was definitely him. That scar across his chest. What kind of an idiot did he think she was? She sank into a large leather recliner and closed her eyes, trying not to return to that basement but knowing her mind was already halfway inside the memory.
He'd been drunk that night. He was going to kill her. Something had set him off and he was tired of her. He was antsy, ready to start the whole cycle again with someone new. Claire wasn't sure how she'd known this, but she'd known.
Maybe it was the knife. He'd threatened her with the knife before, but the way he'd held it... with such purpose, his grip on it so tight... She knew. She'd spent the last three hours struggling in ropes he hadn't tied quite right. It was just enough so she could struggle and have stupid hope but not enough to get free. She wondered if he'd done it on purpose to play with her, to make her think she had a chance against him. Or to make killing her more interesting.
Her wrists bled and burned from the struggle against the ropes, but she'd stretched the fibers. She was almost free.
He paced back and forth in the cell rambling again about the government and the elites. And rich bitches like her who had it too good. Too easy. In his drunken haze he waved the large kitchen knife around erratically.
Claire continued to fight with the ropes, biting back the pain as they kept cutting into her in her struggle, feeling the blood as it dripped down her hands. Her own warm life flowing down her skin.
She was nearly free. He laid the knife down on the table beside her and turned his back for just a moment. It was enough for her to slip out of the ropes and grab it. She stood and backed away. She was so hungry and weak. She felt dizzy, but she knew if she gave in to it and fainted, she'd die.
He turned and advanced on her. She stabbed at him, cutting him multiple times but not able to get a good solid jab. The knife was big enough that as long as she kept wildly swinging it around, he couldn't get too close. She slashed out and felt the knife slice through his chest. She turned and ran.
He was right behind her. She fell and the knife flew from her hand as he gripped her ankle and pulled her down.
“NO!” she shrieked, kicking at him, hitting him hard in the face with her foot. He released her and she half-crawled, half-ran up the stairs and out the door into the fresh open air.
Claire pushed the memories away, gripping the leather arm rests, willing her heartbeat and breathing to calm. That was him. She had him in a cell. That was the guy. He had a scar where she'd cut him. How could he lie to her with such a straight face when they both knew he had that scar and how he'd gotten it?
Because he's a sociopath, Claire. He isn't like normal people.
She couldn't let herself forget that—what he was. She couldn't let herself be tricked by the beautiful monster into setting him free and losing her own life. She got up and went to the kitchen, taking another bottle of beer from the fridge. This one she drank all the way down until a light pleasant buzz of calm skated across her skin. She took a long, steadying breath and grabbed the broom and dustbin.
When she returned to the cell, at least the arrogance had left his face. Maybe he was starting to understand his situation, that the tables had turned and he was now at her mercy. Let him lie about things, as long as she could wipe the smug smile off his face.
She silently swept up the shards of the beer bottle. The last thing she needed was for him to have a weapon. That had been his mistake with her after all.
“You can still let me go,” he said. His voice was so gentle and soothing. Calm and reasonable.
He'd never spoken to her like that in the basement. Of course not, he'd had the power then. He has to placate you now.
Claire just laughed. “Right. I'm going to let you go so you can hurt me again. Am I supposed to believe you're reformed? After me, you stopped torturing and killing women? You realized the error of your ways?”
“What's your name?” he asked, changing tactics. “My name...”
“Shut UP! If you speak your name I'll kill you. I swear to fuck I will. I NEVER want to hear your fucking name. EVER. Don't you try to humanize yourself. You're a fucking monster, and you know it!”
“I'm sorry,” he said quickly, holding his hands up in surrender.
No he wasn't, he was placating her.
“What's your name, then?” he said, trying again.
“You know my fucking name. You used to hiss it in my ear while you were...” she trailed off, unable to say the words. She turned away from him and took a deep breath, quickly wiping the tears that threatened to spill over. She was not going to cry in front of him anymore. She'd cried all the tears for him she would cry.
She had the power now. Not him. NOT him. But she was shaking. She could feel the light tremors in her arms. He must be able to see them. He was the one chained up, and he was going to break her again.
Never.
“It's okay if you don't have it in you to hurt me. I don't think you're that kind of person,” he said gently.
“Just shut the fuck up!” she screamed. “I should starve you, just like you starved me for the tiniest act of defiance.” She turned back to finish sweeping the stray shards into the dustpan.
“Look at me,” he said.
It was a fucking command. He thought he could order her around when he was the prisoner? But she turned and looked at him.
“I would never starve you. Ever,” he said, holding her gaze in his.
He'd already starved her, and they both knew it. These head games... she had to regroup her strategy or he was going to get inside her head and mess with it. If she lost her nerve... if he got free again, he'd kill her this time. She was already in too deep. She had to get her shit together and finish this. It was the only choice.
She didn't reply. She just took the dustpan and broom and left the cell.
Ari watched the door. She'd been gone a while. His first assessment of her was quickly fading, and now he realized how foolish it had been. This girl was not crazy. She wasn't some psycho out for vengeance or attention for some petty drama. This girl had been broken... by someone who no doubt looked a lot like him.
He'd seen the haunted expression in her eyes more than once already. She'd revealed precious few details but the very little she'd given up told him it was bad. Starvation. Probably beatings. Probably rape. How long had her captor had her? Ari wondered if she'd been planning revenge the whole time she'd been free.
Finally the door slid open. When she came in this time she held a whip.
“Don't get too excited, we aren't acting out your kinky fantasies, today,” she said.
Ari bit back the urge to say his kinky fantasies involved him holding the whip. It would end badly.
“I can take whatever you have to give,” he said. It was true. He had a high pain tolerance, and he doubted this girl had enough upper body strength to really make it hurt. If she got this out of her system, she'd break down, and then he could convince her he wasn't the guy who'd done this to her. He just needed to be patient and wait for her to break.
“Stand up,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly hard. Impressive even.
“Or what?” The retort slipped out involuntarily. What was this tiny slip of a girl going to do to make him comply with her demands?
The whip came down hard across his cheek.
“Owww, fucking bitch!” Ari kept forgetting they weren't playing by kink rules. This girl was serious, and she didn't care about the normal safe places to strike someone with a whip. She'd take any exposed skin he offered her.
“I can go for the face. Or your back. Your call.” Her resolve had hardened while she'd been outside the cell.
He wasn't about to sit here and let her slice his face to ribbons if he could stop it. Ari pressed his palms flat against the wall and inched his way up to a standing position.
“Good, now turn around.”
He shifted, so that he faced the wall. Ari had been on the receiving end of chains and whips and canes and clamps and all manner of fun toys because he'd wanted to know what everything felt like before doing it to someone else. He'd wanted to know the limits and boundaries and how hard he could go before he did damage or how much pain was too much for most people's tolerance.
But he hadn't exactly been in this position. He still somehow saw himself as the one in control, still thought he could dominate her and get her to comply with his will. Even though he was locked in a cell and chained at her mercy, he couldn't let go of the idea that he somehow had the power here. Old habits died hard.
He couldn't let himself admit that a girl so small and fragile-looking had the power to break him, given enough time.
“Do your worst,” he said, unable to stop himself. His mouth was going to get him killed. He knew it. He was so used to being the one with the power.
Sure, everybody said subs had all the power, but that was only if they weren't with an abuser. The reality was if someone half your size was tied up and you had a whip in your hand, you had the power, and they just had to hope you were a decent enough human not to abuse their trust. The person chained up never had the power.
But it was a nice idea to put on a T-shirt.
The whip struck him with more force than he remembered from the times he'd submitted to it in the past. It was hard to believe this slight girl could put so much power into her strikes. But she was fueled entirely on rage and fear and adrenaline. And a need for payback.
He winced when the whip came down a second time and then a third and a fourth. She wasn't talking now or screaming at him. Or making threats. She seemed to have found a rhythm and had fallen into a zone.
Ari didn't cry out or beg her to stop even though after a while the sting of the whip was a real and present thing lighting up all the nerve endings along his back, and not in a good way. He just stood there and took it. He told himself it was because he wanted to save her. And a part of him did. It was another habit that was hard to break.
But none of that mattered. She would do this no matter what he said or did or no matter how much he wanted to get his hands on the man who had turned her into this. Her pain was a raw living thing, and it was impossible to be exposed to it for any amount of time and not wish an agonizing death on the person who had created it.
He listened to the crack echoing against the cell walls until he felt his skin break and the blood dripping down. Was she waiting for him to scream, beg, cry? She'd be waiting a long damned time for that.
He gritted his teeth against the blows that continued to fall until finally the whip clattered to the hard floor. And then she was sobbing. He turned back around to see her crumpled on the concrete, her head in her hands, rocking and sobbing.
“How long did he keep you?”
She looked up, and their gazes locked together for a long moment.
“You!” she screamed at him through her tears. “You. Stop pretending. I know it was you! I can see the fucking scar!”
Ari looked down at his chest. He didn't ask about the scar and what she thought it meant. It was obviously such an upsetting issue for her, she'd no doubt just start shrieking at him and threatening to kill him. He needed her calm. So he sidestepped that issue for now.
“How long?” he repeated quietly.
“Forty-three days.”
“Is that how long you're going to keep me?”
She didn't answer. Instead she struggled to her feet and wiped the tears off her face. She withdrew a set of keys from her pocket and put them on the metal table at the end of the cell, far out of his reach—the keys to the chains. Then she took out a syringe.
“We both know I can take that from you,” he said.
“And we both know you can't get out of the chains without me. I've got a tranquilizer gun if you're going to make this difficult. Are you going to fight me?”
Ari thought about it for a moment. The chains might have enough give that if she got close enough he could overpower her, but he couldn't reach the key. He needed her for that. Finally he sighed.
“No, I'm not going to fight you.”
She inched warily closer to him like she didn't believe he wouldn't just kill her out of spite and let them both die.
“Did you get the air out?” he asked. The last thing he needed was someone who didn't know how to operate a syringe.
“I do it when I first prepare them so I won't forget.”
He couldn't stop himself from inhaling her fresh clean scent as she moved closer. Ari winced as she plunged the syringe into the muscle in his arm. The drugs burned in his veins. The scent of her shampoo hit him then, and it was all he could focus on. Raspberries, was his last thought before the room went dark.
Claire sat behind the monitor, watching him. The drug in the syringe had taken a few hours to wear off, though she wondered if he might be pretending to sleep for longer than was necessary. He was a fool if he thought she'd ever go near him unchained any time but right after the drugs first kicked in.
She knew if he woke unchained and she was in the cell with him, her life was over. The stakes were far too high to break the pattern she'd planned. She'd laid it all out so meticulously, and there could be no deviation from even the slightest detail. She would get her revenge, and then he would die. She tried not to think about the logistics of body disposal.
Except for the microphones in the camera that allowed her to hear him from the surveillance panel, the cell was soundproof. No one would hear the chainsaw. She didn't want to think about that right now. It was too grotesque. But if she didn't want to go to prison for the rest of her life she had to get rid of the body when she was done. She'd known when she'd taken him that there was no backing out of this once she started because even if he'd arrogantly forgotten about her and moved on, after this, it was kill or be killed.
He winced and stood, stretched, and began to pace like the caged animal he was. Blood from the whip lashes had dried on his back while he was unconscious. He stared at the bucket of water at the end of the cell and then up at the camera.
Claire flipped a switch on the control panel and spoke into the microphone. “Leave your clothes beside the door.”
He flipped off the camera with both hands, but started to take off his jeans, not particularly concerned with the prospect of nudity.
She took a deep breath and switched off the microphone. It was an expensive control panel. The microphone wasn't the kind where you had to be constantly pressing a button to talk. You just flipped the switch and could talk hands-free.
He put his shoes and socks and jeans and boxers in a pile next to the door.
“Will I be getting laundry service?” he asked.
Claire flipped the switch again and said, “You won't be needing clothes. You'll spend the rest of your life a naked animal, and then you'll die a naked animal in that cell.”
Her hands shook as she leaned back in her chair. She'd questioned this choice a thousand times. Even chained, him being naked felt like a real threat to her safety. But she wasn't going to wash his clothes. The thought made bile rise in her throat. She'd burn them when this was over. And even that short period of handling them would be difficult to stomach.
The simplest solution was no clothes and a daily bath. But it was still hard to justify that choice given how much violence she knew his body was capable of.
This was the clearest look she'd ever gotten of him. When he'd kept her in the basement he'd always blindfolded her when he'd... when he'd done things. He'd blindfolded her when he'd passed her around, too. She closed her eyes against the memory of all the men who had paid to take a ride on her.
She watched as he stood over the drain, sponging some of the water over himself, gritting his teeth and wincing again as the now-cold water slid down his back. Good. She hoped his skin burned like the hell he was going to when she killed him.
Then she watched as he took the soap and lathered up. A sudden throbbing ache started between her legs at the sight of the sudsy water running over the muscles of his chest and abs. She immediately looked away from the screen. What was wrong with her? She was sick. Objectively he was far better looking unclothed than she ever could have imagined. A truly beautiful monster. But she should react with revulsion at the sight of him, not fucking desire.
When he'd had her in the basement he'd never been able to turn her body against her. Not once. Neither he, nor any of the men he'd pimped her to had the finesse to make her body want anything they did to her or to feel even the slightest pleasure from their touch.
Part of it was because he'd kept her so drugged and starved and terrorized. But if she'd seen him like this, he might have made her body want him. And in many ways, that would have been worse.
He was succeeding now—not even trying. He made no lewd gestures or obscene statements now. He just bathed. And he was winning. He was still winning—still breaking her down in new and different ways just by his presence filling up the cell.
It enraged her that seeing him naked created a visceral physical reaction. Did her body not know what this man had done to her? She wished like hell she could keep him dressed, but clothes got too dirty. The idea of doing his laundry was too fucking repulsive to her. And she couldn't handle the stench if she let him wear the same clothes day after day. It would remind her too much of the basement. She had to keep him clean. And the only way was this way.