Chapter 9:
I'm falling. No, I'm dreaming. No, I'm doing neither. I'm waking up. Sort of. I feel as though I'm standing on top of something high and someone's pushed me. I plummet to a ground that doesn't exist. I feel my stomach drop and my legs go numb and shaky. The feeling is strange, like my blood was separated and then pushed to different ends of my body with a flush.
I hit the ground and fall back into my own body with a sigh of relief. My eyes are closed, my breathing a bit shaken from my fall back to earth.
I'm cold, I realise. And my body feels stretched, like my hands are at the opposite ends of a bar and my legs are in a straddle of some sort. What was I dreaming about? I can't remember. Was I having a nightmare? No. I don't know.
My eyes are still glued shut, not wanting to open them because of the bright morning sun. But I see no evidence of any light coming in at all apart from a soft glow. Did I fall asleep reading again? No, I don't think so. I finished the only book I had with me. I couldn't have been studying. No, I'm not a St Vladimir's. I'm not at St Vladimir's.
My eyes jolt open and I try to sit up. I gasp in surprise when I realise something is holding me down. I look around. This isn't my room back in Goose Creek. Not the house.
The room I'm in is huge. Probably three times the size of my room back at the academy, and everything is a maroon or red with bits of gold splashed in every now and then. Stripy red and gold wall paper adorn some of the tall walls. The ceiling is extremely high and pictures of gold, silver and white baby angles are painted all over it, telling a story I can't even begin to understand.
I'm on a bed. A very big one, I might add. Underneath me, is a fluffy deep purple-y-red donna. Under my head is a matching set of pillows, soft as a baby's skin. I try and pull my arms down to my side so I can warm them up, but they won't budge. I look up and notice that both my wrists are bound to the bed posts. Next, I tug at my feet and again they won't move either, they're bound just like my hands.
I look down at my body and realise why I'm cold. I'm naked. From top to bottom. I keep tugging at my limbs, but neither move an inch. My skin already feels raw and stings.
I could still be dreaming, I point out, it could be some wild fantasy that I most definitely don't think about. Because, quite frankly, I don't. I never really had time to think about sex. I was constantly training and such. But still, it is maybe even a tiny bit possible. Perhaps my Christian Grey will walk in at any moment.
No, I say firmly, this feels to real. I'm not having some wild dream. I try to sit up again but only get up a few centimetres. I hold myself there and stare in front of me.
"Greta?" A familiar voice echoes. "Are you awake?" I have a small heart attack as I turn my head in the direction of the voice. To one side of the bed, I see Sam and Stan, both tied to chairs with grim expressions. Both of them are looking at me, and my eyes go wide. I try helplessly to cover myself but I'm bound too tightly.
"We've seen it all before, Greta." Stan's says but still everts his eyes. I feel my body get hot and blush fiercely.
"Where are we?" I ask them as I give my last attempt to shield my body from their eyes. I groan in frustration and look back at the guardians. Both of them are looking down. "Why am I here? Why am I tied up like... Like this?" I say uncertainly. My brows crease.
Then I remember Leon.
Soon after that I remember being thrown around and the guardian's faces as Leon hit my head against something. Then blacking out and falling back into my own body.
"You don't remember?" Stan's asks and he looks up briefly.
"I remember." I say, "I want to know why we aren't dead. I thought stringoi are ruthless killers. They don't hesitate at causing pain."
"Its not always the case. They would only ever do something like this if they wanted something or wanted to provoke someone. I'm going to take a wild guess here and say they want your father to react and come get you." Sam says. His face is cast downwards towards hell as he says the words. I feel tears come to my eyes.
"So, they can kill him?"
"Most likely." Stan says. His voice is emotionless.
"How can you say that in that in such a monotone way?" I say angrily. "I would have thought that the thought that one of your own dying at the hands of stringoi would at least bring a little emotion out of even the stoniest of guardians." My jaw is clenched and my throat aches from holding back tears that rim my eyes. I breath in and out shakily.
At that moment, on the other side of the room, there's the sound of foot steps. I didn't notice them before but on one side of the room are two huge white and gold double French doors. Really, I feel stupid not seeing them, because, quite literally, they're huge, stretching from the floor almost to the high ceiling. I look back at Sam and he tells me to be quiet.
When the titanic sized doors open, I don't make I sound, I don't look up. Just stare forward. The deep red carpet under the feet of the invader is silent.
"My my," a breathy male voice says. "What a beautiful sight." I don't turn to look at him, whoever he is, but I feel his gaze burning a hole through me. It weighs on me to the point where I have to look at him.
Standing to the side of the room is a tall pale man without a flaw on his skin. His dead-straight dark hair is tied back a little with two handfuls of it cascading down his front, stopping just below his chest. His red eyes glow luminous in the dim light. He looks like a very old fashioned, stereotypical Dracula figure but younger. Much younger, like a twenty year old. His pale face his surprisingly handsome. His smile is blindingly bright and is laced with two long fangs. But the thing that surprises me most is that his face looks strikingly like Leon's. "Such beauty."
His gaze travel from my face down my body, lingering on my breasts and the tops of my thighs. I blush fiercely and try and close my legs.
"Looks can be deceiving." A new voice speaks up, and it's so cold I feel my bones go to ice. Leon steps out from behind the other, older stringoi. His blonde hair looks darker in the poor lighting, but his eyes have turned a deep red. This is what I would expect the colour of lust to be. But all I see is pure loathing for me and the guardians, still tied to their chairs on the other side of the room. "Hello, Little Girl. Miss me?" I growl at Leon through clenched teeth.
"She's got some bite in her, doesn't she, Leon?" The other stringoi cackles a breathless laugh and claps his pale hands together. I hear Leon mutter, "so do I" before being silenced by the other stringoi.
The stringoi with the long, dark hair takes a couple of steps forward, a smile on his face, his eyes glued on mine the whole drawn out time. He stops not to the right side of the bed.
"Who are you?" I ask.
"Oh, how rude of me not to introduce myself." He genuinely looks appalled with himself. "My name is Nazareth." Nazareth gestures to Leon, "and this is my son, Leon. I'm sure you two have met before."
"I never would've thought that a stringoi could have a name as holy as Nazareth." I say. It really does seem funny. Stringoi couldn't enter holy ground and I heard from some novice that the name of God scorches their throats. So, hearing a stringoi introduce himself as the place where Jesus Christ was born seems extremely... Unusual. Nazareth just smiles.
"Before I was Awakened some two hundred years ago, I came from a very religious family. Many of my brothers and sisters were named after people and places from the bible." Nazareth's face turns downwards and he begins to pace. "I had my son Leon here a month or so before I was awakened. He is my only son, seeing as his mother died giving birth to him, and as you must very well know, stringoi can't reproduce.
"I left him in the care of his grandmother. I didn't see him for many years until I came back for him and Awakened him. We have been living together since the mid 1800's."
"You both look nothing alike." I say for no particular reason, not really expecting an answer. "I know," Nazareth's eyes lift back up to my face and he gives me a cold stare. "You, on the other hand, look just like your father. You have his height and features."
"What you know about him?" I ask coldly. Nazareth chuckles softly.
"I met your father briefly many years ago. Very recently awakened. But with the cruelty of someone centuries older. His one flaw was his obsession with your mother. Rose Hathaway, I believe." His face darkens as he says my mother's name. "He had great plans for her. I was one of the few who knew of his 'ideas'. He was a very smart man." Nazareth looks down before adding, "and a great lose to our ranks."
"How sad," I say sickly sweet. "Why am I here?" My gaze is cold and accusing. Nazareth's face breaks into a huge smile. He laughs loudly.
"Oh, My Dear," he says breathlessly, "isn't it obvious?"
"Well, if I'm asking then, no." I say with a sneer. My gaze is so full of hate towards the stringoi standing in front of me, I feel a heavy, clenched feeling in my stomach.
"When your father was changed back into his dhampir form, he made the terrible mistake of sacrificing many of our own. He made many powerful enemies including myself. But a two hundred year old stringoi is nothing compared to a seven hundred year old one." Nazareth speaks enthusiastically. "What we want is to see your father dead, with his throat torn out and life leaving him." Nazareth's face darkens. "Which brings us back to you, My Dear. We only very recently found out about you, and before hand, we considered kidnapping your mother, but we were against the idea. To many stringoi would've been slain if we tried to enter the royal court. So we waited, for years. But then, a miracle. One of our spies gave us news of a girl. The offspring of Belikov and Hathaway. And we thought what better way to lurer your father out of the safety of the academy's wards than to take the thing that keeps him in them out... you." Nazareth finishes his speech and looks at me.
"So that threatening letter that was sent to that academy-"
"-was sent by myself, with, of course, the help of a few others. It was meant to provoke, and it did, seeing as your here and bound. Along with your loyal protectors."
"So, you didn't want to hurt me? Just lurer my father out?" What kind of sick person does that? Stringoi obviously. I stare Nazareth dead in the eyes.
"Oh no, My Dear. No, I intend on hurting you. Because if you hurt so does your father. You see, if I had no intention of doing you any harm, I would've just raided the academy, like we did some twenty years ago, when I believe your mother was still a student and your father was her mentor. More then that I believe." Nazareth smirks. "Far more than that."
I just stare at him, wide eyes and worried. My mind travels to a whole manner of different scenarios. I see myself bleeding with a knife to my throat, me being burned, me at the mercy of the pale man in front of me. I shrink back into myself. "Oh, My Dear, I seem to have frightened you." He claps his hands together and frowns. "But this is necessary."
"Cowards," I say, "Both of you. Picking on someone who is defenceless," Leon sneers
"I do that every night, Little Girl." His face is set in a cold smirk. Nazareth turns to face his son, and, from Leon's expression, it's not a nice look he's getting.
"Leave us, Leon." Nazareth says in a dark voice. "Get something to eat, your looking paler than usual." Leon stands for a few seconds before asking his father.
"What about them?" Leon points to the guardians. "Can I have them?" Nazareth sighs.
"Do what you like, Leon. Whatever makes you leave quicker."
Leon gives me one more sneer before slowly walks over to where the guardians are bound to their chairs. He stalks behind them, like a panther ready to pounce. The guardians don't give Leon the satisfaction of seeing them flinch away. I watch Leon's every move. "Be hasty, Leon. I have things to do and you here is delaying them." Leon nods and stops his pacing behind Stan. Roughly, Leon pushes Stan's head to the side and sinks his teeth into his neck. Stan's face contorts in pain for less than a second before he moans in pleasure and he closes his eyes.
I watch, mouth open as his skin gets paler and paler. Then it hits me, Leon was killing him.
"Stop!" I scream. "You're killing him!" Leon doesn't stop drinking but turns his eyes towards me for a second or so. I turn to Nazareth. "Tell him to stop! Please!"
"Leon!" His father yells across the room and like that Leon is no longer drinking. His head shoots up and looks at his father. Stan's head droops but I think he's still conscious. Just a little, but it's something. Stan tips his head back and I see an intoxicated smile on his lips and he sighs. He's more conscious than I thought, but he must have lost quite a bit of blood. I hope that his colour returns soon, him being this pale isn't healthy. My head turns back to Nazareth when he speaks. "You will not drink from the dhampirs again. You'd have killed him then if I hadn't had stopped you. Now leave." Nazareth points to the door. Leon casts his gaze downwards before storming out of the room.
The huge doors close with a deep bang. The room is silent for a few moments and my eyes are on Nazareth. "I apologise for my son's actions. I'm afraid he can be a bit, how do you modern people put it? Oh yes, over the top." He says.
"It's sort of creepy that you look the same age as your son," I say. Nazareth doesn't say anything, just takes off his long, navy blue jacket. Under it is a plain white t-shirt. Nazareth walks over to a chair that is sitting over in the far corner of the room and drapes the jacket over it, before walking back and standing at the foot of the bed, staring at my body.
I tug on ropes that bind my wrists and ankles but still they don't budge.
"They won't come un-done, My Dear. I did them myself." Nazareth braces his callused hands on both bed posts down the bottom on the bed, still looking me up and done. I see him lick his lips. I look towards Sam and a still out-of-it Stan. Stan still has goofy look on his face but Sam's face is hard and set, watching Nazareth's every move.
I realise that my breathing had become shallow and that I was panicking. I didn't like Nazareth looking at me like that, like a predatory ready to devour some poor, helpless animal. "You look worried, My Dear." My mouth opens, ready to reply when Nazareth steps away from the bed and strips his shirt. I look back at Sam, and he doesn't look happy. Extraordinarily uncomfortable to say the least. I remember Sam's homosexuality, but the look on his face says that's not what's bothering him. I look back Nazareth and see him gazing right back at me, one of his arms braced on the bed post. His dark, imposing figure standing above me is intimidating.
I swallow hard but down turn away from his brooding gaze. His long hair has been tossed over one shoulder and looks like an inky, cascading waterfall. The hand that isn't braced on the post comes down and strokes my cheek. I swallow again.
"Don't touch her!" I hear Sam growl from across the room. He sounds so powerful yet helpless. I hear him struggling with his ropes and the chair make soft thudding sounds on the carpet as he jumps to try and loosen himself. Above me, I hear Nazareth chuckle. I look towards Stan and see that he's recovered a bit. Next to him, Sam has a murderous look in his eyes, some dangerous spark that's been ignited. I see that his jaw is clenched.
"Watch me," Nazareth snarls. His face ducks down to my neck and I feel him bite down. Agony. That's what I register for half a second then just pure bliss. I moan, well I think I do anyway. Distantly, I feel Nazareth's hands snake down my body, touching me I places I've never been touched before. Instead of pleasure, I feel repulsed and horrible. I gasp and break away from his mouth. The euphoria I'm in goes away in a matter of seconds and I feel more awake than I have in a long while. Even with my hands bound, I manage to wriggle away. It's not far, a couple of inches at the most, but I want to be as far away from him as possible.
My arms feel strained and cold. "Stay away from me," I murmur, my eyes wide. My blood drips down from Nazareth's mouth and his teeth are stained yellow. "Don't touch me," I feel a sob catch in my throat. "Go away," my fists clench.
"As you will, but there are others that are very willing to take my place," Nazareth grabs his clothes and hastily throws them on. Striding to the doors with confidence, he throws them open. Outside, I hear voices. Nazareth turns his head back to me and smirks. "Have fun, My Dear." Then he leaves but I don't feel myself relaxed. Something in my stomachs turns over and I don't like it.
My head snaps back to the doors when I hear footsteps enter the room again. Nazareth left the doors open and to my horror five more stringoi are stalking in, their mouths turned up in a sneer and the eyes glowing a crimson red. I jolt and turn my head to the guardians. Stan's sobered up now, well and truly. His eyes are wide, but not with fear. Our guardian mantra comes to my head They come first. Stan has tensed up, his face hard. He looks very much like a cornered lion, so fierce yet so helpless. Sam has a similar look on his face.
My head turns back to the stringoi, all five of them moving towards me with a hungry look in their eyes. I'm not sure if its because their hungry or looking down my body. I hate both the prospects. I tug helplessly on the ropes that bind me to the bed. Please, I beg silently to anyone who will listen.
The stringoi stand over me, a couple on one side of the bed the rest on the other. My face is covered with there dark shadows. Putting on a brave face, I return their glowing stares.
"Get away from me," I try my best to sound fierce but the stringoi laugh at me.
"She's got some bite, doesn't she?" One of them hoots, voice cold and snarky. I turn my head towards him. He's shorter than the others and has jet black hair.
"And one hell of a body," another quips. This one's on the opposite side of the bed. He's extraordinarily tall which probably means that he was a Moroi before he was awakened. He looks like a human at the age of thirty to thirty-five.
In the group, I notice that there is only one girl. My eyes lock with her's and she growls, baring her fangs at me. The other stringoi turn her way and lower their heads. She moves forward and the crowd parts for her. She looks like the Asian girl I staked back in Goose Creek. They could've been sisters or twins.
Shit, I staked her sister!
The girls face looms over me and I gulp. The girl places a hand on the post, just above my hand. I notice now that the other stringoi have gone silent and are looking at the girl hovering above my face. I close my eyes for a second, expecting to be hit or something. This must've angered her. She lets out a roar and grabs my chin, yanking on it. My eyes open in an instant and lock on her's, seeing them glow an angry red.
"You will not look away from me!" She hisses, loathing for me in her voice. Her grip tightens and I let out a gasp of pain, wondering why my jaw hasn't been crushed yet. "You staked my sister, you little whore!" She yells in my ear. I cringe.
"That's not very nice." my voice had turned arrogant. "I never knew you guys had that much emotion in you," I say boldly. The Asian girl hits me across the face. I feel my cheeks inflame and become hot. I don't even flinch.
"You will not speak!" She orders. "Whores like you don't deserve to speak."
One of the four male stringoi, one of the taller ones, puts a hand on her forearm.
"Easy, Lea." He says in a mocking voice. "If you give her a heart attack, her blood won't taste as good." He eyes me and licks his lips. He looks so familiar and I recognise him as one of the stringoi from Goose Creek. Connor, I think his name was.
Connor takes a step forward and looks down on me while pushing the other girl back. He looks so much like Uncle Christian. If his eyes were that piercing blue, they could almost look like twins. I hate that fact. I love Uncle Christian and loath that this stringoi looks so much like him.
Thinking of Uncle Christian makes me think of my mum and dad. Then Aunty Lissa, then Uncle Adrian and Hamish, his brothers and sister, my cousins. I feel myself catch another sob, but I quickly forget about my family when Connor bites down on my neck and I feel the rush of endorphins. I moan before feeling small pricks of pain all over my body. The rush becomes stronger and I vaguely realise the stringoi are biting me all at once.
I feel lost yet so close to heaven. My body loosens. I don't care what happens just that I want to stay in this state. I feel so amazingly high that all the drugs in the world wouldn't even come close to making me feel like this. Calloused things crawl over my body, touching me. I barley notice them as the stringoi keep drinking from me.
Then I feel it fading away, and it's not because they've stopped drinking. I'm dying, my on-cloud-nine mind sighs happily. But I don't care. I feel hands slide down my waist to my hips to in between my thighs. God, do I not care. It's too good, it feels to good. I breathing becomes shallow, my heart slowing and just like that the stringoi are off me, the rush is gone, my sense of self gone with it. Without the delightful rush, I feel dizzy from the blood loss. The world spins and my eyes go out of focus as my body tries to recover. I feel awful now, utterly sick that I let them do that to me. Violate me like that. The dizziness is still there when I feel a weight on me.
I don't have the energy to look, but it feels horribly wrong. I hear voices in the background, shouting. I think it's Sam and Stan. They sound panicked and angry. In return, I register hisses, but they're not exasperated or angry, more mocking, taunting. Then I feel it... Pain. A horrible, uncomfortable pain where my thighs are. I softly yell out in agony, and I feel tears sting my eyes.
I don't even know how I'm awake, but as seconds pass I begin to recover, bit by bit, and register what's going on around me. I feel that pain again, over and over. I arch my back off the bed and wriggle painfully. I hear malicious laughter around me and I cry out over and over again as the pain doesn't ebb.
When I feel I have the strength to, I lift my head and look down at myself. I'm still a bit dizzy and out-of-it but there is no mistaking that there is someone on top of me, a man. The coal black hair comes into view, then the glowing red eyes. Connor. I feel that pain again, more deeply. I look away from Connor and...
...I cry out again in mental agony as I realise what he's doing. No, I refuse to contemplate it, but the pain I'm feeling forces me to.
"Get off me, you sick monster!" I growl at him but he doesn't stop. I begin to cry softly as his thrusts become more forceful. I hear stringoi chanting him on. I cry harder, and cringe. "Please," I beg him through my tears, "Please, stop." My face feels hot and but the pain is slowly is ebbing away down there. I wish now that I had blacked out from blood loss, or even died. This feels horrible.
My salty tasting tears drip onto my neck, down my shoulders and into the mattress. My voice is so weak and powerless when I say: "Please stop. I beg you."
"I like it when girls beg," Connor sneers breathlessly. "I'll be done in a minute, Darling." At this his thrusts become harder and more urgent. I sob and weep as he continues, trying to think of anything else.
To my left, I hear the guardians yelling, cursing the stringoi and telling them to stop. Connor's thrusts are harder, and he laughs mockingly before his face contorts into something I've never seen on a man before. Pleasure. He lowers his face to my neck and bites down. I hear him growl and bite down harder. I feel that rush of bliss and pleasure again. It's only there for a second or so before Connor rips his fangs from my neck and roars his release. I feel his seed inside me, a repulsed feeling rising in my stomach.
Not very gracefully, he rolls off me and lies there for a second before composing himself and standing up. He grabs his clothes and throws them on. I start to cry again and close my eyes. "Thank-you, Darling." He laughs and leaves room with the others, closing the doors behind him. I don't feel the high anymore, just an awful, empty feeling. I refuse to look at the guardians. I feel so violated and helpless, like...like a damsel in distress. And that's what I hate the most.
From the blood loss and...what just happened, feeling so defeated and betrayed, I don't know what else to do. I cry harder, tears falling freely into the pillow under my head.
"Greta?" Sam qhooes softly, almost sounding afraid to speak. My body shakes with sobs as I hear his voice. "Please look at us." He sounds so desperate, like my father when I was younger and I would cry over not being able to see my mother. I clench the insides of my throat and bite my lip. Slowly, I turn my head towards them both. Facing them, I feel weak. I eyes ache from crying and my face throbs. Trying to breathe steadily, my eyes lock with Sam's. Instantly, tears begin to fall once more. I close my eyes, turning the world black, and turn away from the guardian's faces.
I yearn to be with my mum and dad, to be held and comforted. No, I can't think like that. No one's here. My breath is shaky and uneven. I set my jaw and open my eyes, suddenly feeling a burning hatred and loathing towards the stringoi. I grit my teeth as I try and soothe myself. If I assess the situation, from trying to come free of these binds and escaping, it's impossible.
I sniffle and face the guardians. I'm no longer crying. I must not look weak, but it's harder than I thought to put on a brave face. I breathe in and out, calming myself with every breath. Although, when I speak my voice comes out dry and shaky, "How long have we been here?" I ask. I remember that Stan was meant to check in with the academy every day, and I'm sure it's been more than one day.
"Three days," Stan says. It's only now that I notice that, (and it has nothing to do with the fact that the stringoi drank from Stan.) both of them look rather pale. "Greta, what just happened-" I cut him off.
"-is rape. I know that, but right now I'm trying not to focus on it." I ignore the tears that threaten to fall. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I speak again: "Have either of eaten while we've been here?" The guardians shake their heads. "Are they trying to kill you?" My eyes widen. I think of how Leon fed off Stan and wonder if that was the only time.
The doors bang open. I expect it to be more stringoi, coming to bite me or...
But it's not. A woman walks in gracefully. She's looks rather dazed. I look at her sceptically and notice a bruise or two on her neck. She holds a tray in her hands, I hope it's food for Sam and Stan, seeing as they hadn't eaten in days. It's then that I notice that I'm not even the tiniest bit hungry. But, unfortunately, I see not even the slightest ration of food on the tray.
Bringing over the plush chair over in one of the corners, the woman sits down on it, the tray on her lap. I look down at it and see different beauty instruments. I look back up at her face and see she's giving me a dazed smile. Blood whore? No, that doesn't seem fair. This isn't uncommon. Many humans are drawn into the stringoi's grasp with the appealing thing called eternal life. Stringoi are powerful, and the humans that hang around with them want what they have. They do whatever the stringoi ask, hoping one day they will awaken them.
The woman in front of me must've been here a while, for on her throat are shiny scars from the bite of a stringoi. She looks about thirty, maybe a couple of years younger.
The thing the surprises me most is that along with the beauty things on the tray, I see two long pieces of rope, hand cuffs and a knife. I look up at the woman's face and see she still has that glazed-over smile glued to her lips.
"My name is Marion," she says in a high, dreamy voice. Ok, she may be a blood whore. The way she speaks is like the way the feeders back at the academy speak right after they've given blood. She looks unimaginably high. "Don't move,"
Picking up the knife, I flinch. Is she going to cut me? Slit my throat? I close my eyes ready for the knife's harsh blade against my skin. But instead I feel my arm loosen and fall a bit. Before I can think to move them, Marion grabs the cuffs and puts them around both my wrists before cutting the other rope.
I sigh as I feel blood re-circulate my arms. I sit up and roll my shoulders while crossing my arms over my chest. My arms feel cold, and I already feel the pointy feeling of pins and needles running along them. I rub them, trying to warm them up while getting rid of the painful, prickly feeling running up and down through them.
With both hands on the tray's sides, Marion lifts herself to her feet and places the tray on the table next to the bed. Now that I'm sitting up, I felt the ache in my legs.
"You wouldn't be able to loosen the ropes on my ankles, would you?" I ask hopefully. Marion shakes her head silently and picks up something from the tray. An old fashioned razor. I really don't like seeing that girl with a razor in her hand. Her eyes look focused, and don't look like she intends to do me harm. "Do you have any food?" Marion shakes her head again and moves to the foot of the bed and climbs onto it. "Whoa. No, I'm not..."
Marion shushes me and brings the razor down onto my pubic hair. "Ow!" I wail. My legs kick out vainly. I try push the away girl away. "Water might help." I say and suppress a groan, "and soap." The girl looks up at me for a second or so before retreating off the bed and out the door before returning with soap and a bucket of water in hand. Her face looks impassive but still a bit high.
Taking up her old place at the end of the bed, she reaches into the bucket and picks up a dripping cloth. She doesn't ring out the excess water into the bucket but onto my pubic hair. She gets the soap and rubs it into the cloth and squeezes it over me again. The water is cold but the comparison of it compared to the temperature on my skin isn't big. I wrap my arms more tightly around myself and lie back down, my mind wandering. I barely notice the girl until a question springs to mind. Sitting back up, I ask. "Where are we?"
"Near the boarder of South Carolina." Marion says. That was easy.
"Why did you tell me?"
"Because master says that if you know where you are, you may somehow give the location to your father, so he can come and get you." Her voice brightens when she talked about her 'master'. This feels far to much like 50 Shades of Grey. All we need is Marion's master to own a grey tie and be named Christian.
Uncle Christian comes to mind. I miss my family so much, even if I don't see my aunt and uncle much I still yearn to see them, to talk to them. Mum and dad come to mind for the second time today and I feel tears sting my eyes. "Oh, please don't cry, Miss. If you cry I'll get into trouble." My eyes look up to meet the Marion's frantic ones. She looks frightened as her eyes dart to the door then back at me. Nothing happens, but for her sake I hold in my sobs. I wipe my eyes as best I can with my cuffed hands and when the woman relaxes she tells me to lie back and lift my arms.
In the time she's been here, she shaved pretty much my whole lower half. I don't even know how she did the other side of my legs seeing as they're tied down. Bringing the bucket back around, she kneels beside me, wets the cloth with soapy water again and rubs my underarms.
At the academy, I tried my hardest to keep myself hair free, waxing my legs and other places to stunt my hair's growth. But I hadn't done that before I left Montana and now I feel awfully embarrassed. I hate having hair anywhere on my body apart from my head and eyebrows.
After she's done my underarms, Marion places the bucket by the door. Returning to my side she grabs tweezers and starts doing my eye brows. It doesn't take long. Then the most uncomfortable thing I've ever had to experience in my life happens. After making my hair free Marion grabs moisturiser and rubs it all over my body. "Sorry," she apologises. "Master says that I have to or he'll hurt me." I just nod and lie, not moving. Marion's done quickly. Setting down the moisturiser, she grabs a small vile of perfume and carefully dabs it onto my body.
When she's finished with me Marion apologises to me before tying my wrist back to the bed post. Before Marion leaves, I ask: "Who is your master, Marion?" She smiles at me.
"Leon Calvert. Nazareth Calvert's son." She says dreamily. Her eyes glaze over, obviously wandering to her 'angel' Leon.
"Why'd he make you do this to me." I try to gesture down to my naked body. Marion shrugs
"I don't know," she admits. "He didn't say." With the tray in her hands, she pushes the double doors open and walks out. The doors close with a bang and the room fills with silence.
Well, that was...strange. I smell like a beautiful flower, like a rose. I never really liked that metaphor. I feel exhausted from the blood loss and 'activities' of today. I close my eyes and fall into a dreamless sleep.
