Tell Me...

7

He smiled thinly as he watched the slow tears roll down her face, his eyes cold and unsympathetic—a predator's stare. It did not matter how much she begged, nothing she did seemed to phase him or soften his resolve. It hadn't taken her long to figure out what this whole thing was about—this show of how much he could make her want to die. This wasn't about himself, or her; this was all about Christian, and how much Richard could make him suffer. He bent down to where she was sprawled on the floor, tied up and gagged, and stroked a cool finger down the side of her face, capturing her tears and bringing them to his lips, his eyes a little sad.

"Tell me..." he breathed the words so softly his breath felt like silk against her skin. "What makes you so special?"

I wish I knew was on the tip of her tongue, but she caught herself just in time. Instead, she said, "I don't know," She hoped that he did not imagine hearing something in her voice that would make him puch her like he had, again. In the hours that he had had her inprisoned here, he had beat her into unconsciousness and, perhaps even before she had regained conciousness, done things to her that she could hardly even bring herself think about. The only thing she could be sure of was just how much she was hurting, and how much she would give to be saved from this; she would give anything, and everything.

"You're lying," he hissed, the venom in his voice making her feel as queazy as if she had in fact injested arsenic and was suffering the effects. "Tell me what he's done with Marisa—and do not lie to me again, understand?" He wrapped his long, strong arms around her and squeezed her tightly as a warning that even a deaf man would have heard.

"I'm not lying—I don't know what your talking about! Why would Christian do anything to harm anyone?" Who was Marisa?

He made a scoffing sound that she felt vibrating her bones, but he was smiling. "Did you enjoy..." he nodded his head to the objects before them, each of which had caused her pain. "...all this?" He felt more than saw her shake her head in the negative. "No? That's too bad, I guess, since I know for a fact that the man you seem so willing to protect wants to do this to you, too..." his smile crackled as he grinned. "He wants to be your master, for you to be his slave..."

"No!" she shouted, though so softly it was no louder than her previous whispered words. No!

"Saying," he did a poor imitation of her voice, "No! Doesn't change the fact that the only reason he hired you was so he could keep you all to himself..."

"It isn't true!" Even to her own ears the words sounded hollow. She had suspected from the first moment she ever laid eyes on Christian Grey that there was something different about him, but even after being told bluntly that he was different she could not believe it. She could not imagine the suave business man as... this...

X

"How should we approach the warehouse?" Elliott asked, his previous good humour suddenly evaporated by the strange look on his brother's face, his voice subdued for once. There must be something about this woman that he did not see, or simply wasn't capable of fathoming. To him, Olivia was just the same as every other female that worked for his brother. Now that they knew where she was the next step should have been obvious, but Christian held up a hand as if to hold him back.

"There are guards at either entrance, so walking through the front door is out of the question..."

"Or walking through the back, huh?"

"Aren't you taking this seriously at all? There has to be another way in." His eyes narrowed as he scanned the satalite image of the building. At last he spotted something and nodded his head in it's direction. "What about over there?"

Elliott looked over in that direction an squinted hard to see what his brother was speaking about, It took him a few extra precious seconds, but finally he spotted something amiss. "I can't tell if it's just my imagination," he said, putting his hand up as if to sheild his eyes from the sun, even where the sky was cloudy and dark above.

Christian leant forwards slightly as he tried to see what his brother was seeing. The walls, atleast those on the exterior of the building, were plated with some sort of grey metal, and parts were in worse state than others. He saw now what he should have noticed at the beginning, had he been thinking straight. A foot to the left of centre of the metallic wall was a section that was rimmed by rust. Was it just a coincidence, would he go up to it and not find a secret, hidden back door to the place?

"Who puts a back door to their evil lair?" Elliott asked, coming to the same conclusion at roughly the same moment. "I mean—really, what kind of sense does that make?"

He murmured something low in acknowlegement of the question. He was only vaguely aware that his brother was speaking—instead of listening he tried to weigh his options. He could forget about subtlty and storm inside, or wait for a better opportunity to enter undetected. It would not do any of them any good if he was caught, but if he waited too long there might not be anything to save at all. He was not thinking about himself at all anymore, what did it matter if the best he would be able to hope for with her was vanilla sex? Why did he even care about any of that—wouldn't he forsake that dark pleasure if it meant having her with him?

X

"Kneel," he ordered, his tone as cold and hard as a lonely bolder at the top of a wintery mountain. When her stunned brain could not process the order as quickly as he would have liked, he clamped clawed hands around her shoulders and pushed her to her knees. She fell easily, offering no resistance at all, but even when she was planted firmly on the floor he did not relent his grip on her—not until she begged him.

"Please..." she whimpered, the vibrations of her own voice hurting her raw throat.

"Not good enough," he snarled, the sound resonating inside the cold, almost empty room. There was nothing comforting in the room, just pain, even their breaths echoed around them, but it still made her feel clausterphobic when he crowded her with his body. "I want you to beg for me to stop, say you will do anything if it will make me release you..."

"Please... I'll do anything if you just... please..."

"Master..."

"Please Master..."

He released his punishing grip on her shoulders and violently forced her forwards until her cheek was pressed against the ground, her backside in the air. He pressed himself firmly against her and waited, feeling a stirring from inside him. "Good girl," he mumured, shifting slightly into a better position.

From somewhere below them, there was a loud crashing sound, followed by a clashing of metal and the sound of a gun firing and a bullet hitting it's target.

TBC