“Mina, that’s not…”
“I don’t want to hear it.” She got up and slammed the door on her way out. Her situation may be terrible, but at least she didn’t have to kiss the doctor’s ass anymore. Or his boots. Fuck him. Fuck all of them. She wanted to include Brian in that big fat fuck-you, but he hadn’t hurt her. Yet.
Mina climbed the endless steps to the tower. She doubted anybody would send her things. If she wanted them, it would be up to her to move them.
She packed her bags, trying not to think about where she was taking them. She caught her reflection in the mirror and stared at the collar.
She’d forgotten it was around her throat. There had been too much panic to give it a second thought beyond her initial reaction. But now that she knew who it was from… What did that mean? He’d noticed her ring and taken the time to have a collar made to match it. And what about the Chopin? And how he’d made the exchange as easy for her as he could? And all the small moments she’d shared with him. None of it went with the picture of Brian she’d been given, or her strong instincts to avoid him.
Mina shook the thoughts from her head. No. She’d been down this road. She’d played these games. It was the same bullshit small kindnesses to make her rationalize away her smarter instincts—if she had any at all.
She lugged her suitcases down the many flights of stairs, ignoring the gawking from the girls in the house as she passed.
When she got the luggage to the dungeon corridor, she paused to catch her breath. And in that pause, she heard the screams coming from cell B.
She couldn’t stop herself from going to the door where the sounds emitted. The cell had a window, and Mina didn’t have the strength of will not to sate her curiosity. Upon looking, she wished she’d resisted the temptation. What had she hoped to see that could possibly make her feel any better?
The woman was nude and tied to a pole in the center of the room. Her arms were crossed and tied over her head, and then farther down, her waist had been tied to keep her in place, allowing Brian to nudge her legs apart. Harsh marks glared from where he’d whipped her, and her face was swollen from crying. He fucked her, one hand wrapped around her throat, pulling her back closer.
“Tell me what you love to be called now?” he growled.
“Cunt,” she whimpered.
“So, if someone else calls you that again, it won’t be a problem, will it?”
“N-no, Sir.”
Whatever awful things he’d done to her—and there was plenty of evidence that it had been bad, from the marks he’d left all the way to the implements that lay strewn around the cell as if just used—somehow, against all odds, she’d succumbed to him and the pleasure he took from her.
He looked up, and his eyes met Mina’s. His stare was hard. He thrust into the woman harder, a defiant look on his face as if he dared Mina to be jealous or complain or even feel sorry for her.
Mina turned and fled back up the stairs. She ran on pure adrenalin. Her mind raced as she tried to determine a place to hide—a place he wouldn’t find her. As if that existed.
There was nowhere to go, but if she found a good enough hidden nook in this vast labyrinth of rooms, surely he’d leave her alone for a while.
She rejected spot after spot until she found the library. The library took up a large portion of the east wing of the house and stood two stories. The space was immense and deserted. On the second floor were rows and rows of boring reference books that seemed to only exist because no quality library would be without them. Tucked away in the back was a storage room. It seemed to have been forgotten, nearly concealed behind a bookshelf and some dilapidated furniture.
Given the dust, it didn’t look as if anyone had been there for some time. The beeping started. Brian was calling. She tried to ignore it, but the sound was unrelenting. She took a pillow from the old couch and covered it to muffle the beep.
She was relieved when the sound muted. But what if the beeping never stopped? How would she ever leave this spot? She’d have to use the bathroom and eat at some point. With the security band screaming like a car alarm, it wasn’t as if she could move through the house without notice.
After about twenty minutes, the noise subsided. Had he given up? Had the beeping simply run its course?
All at once, the stress of the day caught up to her. She curled up in the corner and slept.
23
Mina felt strong arms around her. She was being carried. Without opening her eyes she knew it was Brian. She already knew the feel of him, the smell of him, the aura of shadows and pain that surrounded him. It was the foreboding feeling one got immediately upon waking from a nightmare—only she’d never wake from Brian.
“There’s a tracking device inside your collar. There is nowhere you can go to hide from me. I knew where you were when I activated the beeper. I just wanted to see if you would come to me on your own. Now I have my answer.”
He was too calm, as if he’d laid out some horrible punishment, and the thought of it kept him appeased. She struggled and squirmed, but he held her tighter. She screamed.
Lindsay rushed out of his room, naked, with a woman in an equal state of dress clinging to him. The doctor extracted himself from the woman’s grip and followed them.
“Brian!”
Her master stopped. “What!” he growled.
“Mina, are you all right?”
“Oh she’s peachy. Don’t you know the sound of a scream of delight when you hear one? Oh, no, I guess you don’t.”
The doctor glared. “Just let me talk to her in my office. Perhaps I should speak with you as well.”
Brian’s nostrils flared. “Absofuckinglutely not! No! You will not get in the middle of this—analyzing and making notes about us. You are done seeing me, and from now on you are done seeing Mina. No more digging in either of our heads. I don’t want you in the middle between us!”
In the midst of his tirade, he set Mina on her feet so he could more effectively invade Lindsay’s personal space. She gripped the wall to steady herself, contemplating running—not that she’d get far. Between the electronic bracelet and the tracking device in her collar, escaping him even for a short while was futile. And enraging him more wasn’t on her top list of things to do right now.
Brian slammed Lindsay against the wall, and the naked girl fled into the doctor’s bedroom. “No more fucking head shrinking! No more games and notes and psychoanalysis bullshit. She is MINE! Do you understand me? Do you?”
“B-Brian, I promised her. I swore to her that I would keep seeing her, that I would check in with her and make sure she was okay.”
“And if she wasn’t? Who would you send as enforcer? How would you protect her from me, you fool?”
“You said you wouldn’t harm her.”
“And have I? Have I harmed her? Have I laid a finger on her?” Brian rounded on Mina, and she shrank back. “Tell the good doctor here. Have I hurt you? Beat you? Raped you? Anything horrific?”
How could she answer such a question? She’d literally been alone with him five minutes before he’d been called away to torture some poor girl. And the way he was behaving now didn’t show much promise.