Chapter 20

Astrid

I don't know why I'm crying. Maybe I forgot the master is still a monster. And that won't change.

As my feet scurry over the rugged stones in the basement, I find the old cell. The door stands open. Like it knew I'd return. I rush to the corner cabinet, throwing it open, and relief hits my chest. Ted is still there, waiting for me. Slumping to the harsh flooring, I clutch my knees and rock. Tears heat my eyes, then my cheeks as they spill onto my face.

I miss the girl I was before I got here.

The one who didn't have to understand about child trafficking and mafias and the government. Slaves and masters didn't exist, except the ones ruling my mind.

So which is better? To have my eyes open to what is happening with Herodius and Clavius? Or let ignorance woo me into a state of bliss?

Fury rises from deep within me until a primal scream unleashes from my lungs. Wails waft off the walls in resounding echoes. I don't feel any better. And now my throat feels raw.

Choice was never something I had in any of this. Will I ever get one?

The blanket scratches my bare legs when I slip underneath it, pulling it above my head. If I try really hard, I could cease to exist. Though no matter how much I concentrate, the thoughts still invade my mind.

Something about that bullet hole in Brandon's head sent me running here. Sulfur and iron. Blood and rot. Images of the white halls and dead bodies in a pile. "Stay down. Be quiet." I still hear Wyatt's voice.

Vincente isn't who I thought he was. A rapist. A murderer. A sadistic devil. Yes. But underneath is a vulnerability, loyalty, and a caring nature I never expected.

So perhaps I do understand why I cry. It's because I miss her . Astrid before Vincente.

But I can never go back.

And the horrific realization is…I'm not sure I want to.

It's probably going to take a lot of those counselors the state tried to make me talk to, to understand it, but this strange asylum feels like home. Not the cell. No.

In Vincente's arms.

Somehow, he makes me feel the safest I ever have. His genuine nature and utter honesty are fresh experiences for me. Despite his evil tendencies, he seems to have a thing for me. Like he wants to take care of me. And I haven't seen that with anybody else.

Is it the fact I could bear his child and save us both? I'm not sure. If it were just that, it would feel more disconcerting. Like I'm still just a body part he needs.

But if it's more…

While debating the reasons behind the madman's motivations, I fall into a deep sleep.

My fingers clutch Fred the flashlight underneath the pillow as I awaken. The sconce on the wall still glows, but without windows, I have no concept of time. Using my old bathroom, I brush my teeth and stare at the person in the mirror.

She's different now. Older. Wiser? Yes.

Eyes a little more narrowed, my brow heavier. The tension in my neck never goes away. Except during baths with Vincente. His arms are my fortress.

The reflection is of a woman on the precipice of a dire decision. I'm not even sure what it is yet, but I feel it deep within me. As if the natural state of me is unleashed.

Sliding up the servant stairs, I find my way to the kitchen and steal some fresh bacon while the cooks pay me no attention. It's early morning and a gray mist hovers on the wet grass when I exit the back door.

As the rain picks up, I slip into the large greenhouse. It feels like summer with the heavy air and smell of fragrant flowers. Vegetables line most of the long beds, but there's still an abundance of beauty to be had. Even the lettuces look like a rainbow spilled onto the rich dirt.

In the rows near the back, the gardeners left an abundance of tools while digging through overgrown plants and some weeds. Scythes, machetes, knives, pruning shears, hedging shears… I only know of them because of making a list of items I'd need to get through the jungles of Belize.

It's careless of them.

And convenient for me.

All that holds Vincente's oversized T-shirt on my body is a tied belt from his wardrobe. I left his pajama pants in the library. My fingers tug on the loops and tighten the leather.

Not really understanding why, I choose two machetes and slide them into the makeshift holster and skirt back to the house. It feels right to have the weapons on me. Though I'm not quite sure what I'm doing with them.

I stare at the billowing clouds rolling by instead of walking inside immediately. The atmosphere is angry; the sun hides behind a mask of violent air. Tears from the sky pelt my body like a brutal shower, washing me with a vicious need for violence. Despite its savagery, the water covers the ground with a slurry of nourishing moisture.

Perhaps it's not a thought that carries me up the winding, narrow stairs. It's the wind whistling through the cracks in the old walls. Willing me to whet the appetite for chaos.

When I reach my room, I don't stop until I toss open the connecting door to my husband's bedchamber. It doesn't surprise me that he lies in bed surrounded by women. Vincente seems to hide behind the bickering and cattiness that he causes to hide the truth.

He's a scared little boy.

Especially when his gray eyes peek open from his slumber and widen with sleep still heavy across his face. Five women cover the comforter with their nude and varied bodies. Curvy like Yasmina. Pink like Chloe. Dark like Ceylon. Thin like Nari. Edgy like Lydia. The girls don't see me as they writhe on each other, giggling and laughing, but he does.

The master sees everything, but remains frozen like a statue.

Rage riles me into a riotous wrath.

Slick wooden handles fill my palms as I slide the machetes into each hand. My wrist tingles when I first hit one of them in the back of the head. Plunged between Ceylon's thighs, Lydia sprays blood from her fresh wound all over my forearms until the heat tickles my skin. No one moves. Not at first.

A scream wrenches from Ceylon's thick lips until it's silenced by my slice across her cheek. Her jaw shatters beneath the blow, and one eye bounces out of its socket. The gruesome sight is something like from a movie and doesn't register as real to my brain. More shattering sounds surround the room as the others scramble, not knowing where to go.

It's quite funny, actually. The way they look like chickens. The fear they have of me . Hysterical, really.

And powerful.

With the blades held in an X, I slice Nari through her abdomen. Her insides spill out like Polish sausages. Grasping at the slimy entrails, she attempts to shove them back inside the gaping hole while screeching with horror. She stumbles away and drops to the floor in a tiny pile of ruin.

Yasmina curls into a ball near the master, but she's easily swayed from him when I pull her hair. Using the sharpened edge, I slice her throat until blood gushes in a torrid wave across the master's chest. The stench of iron and cheap perfume fills me with a continued courage for carnage. He holds up his hands as if to stop the incoming tsunami, but it just spreads through the slats of his fingers.

Meanwhile, Chloe attempts to run off, but I chase her down and spear one blade through her spinal cord. She falls on her face while her body stiffens into a rod. I kick her over so she has to look at me, and the panic taking over her face makes me smile a goodbye.

With a leap, I lunge onto her core and dice whatever the machetes can dig up. Blood spews into my mouth and nostrils, tongue, eyes. Blinking back red tears, I inspect my artwork. She's left a pile of gore and sinew. An unrecognizable pulp of parts. Except for the pink hair that clings to my weapons.

I turn and face the master, who sits on the edge of his bed. His posture isn't even offering concern. If anything, he looks as if he's watching a show. Shoulders bowed and hands plastered on the mattress. The red streaks decorate his white hair and broad chest like stripes of a deranged zebra. Raising one of his palms, he licks the area between his thumb and forefinger while keeping his eyes locked on me. Perhaps there's pride behind them.

No. Vincente Strauss isn't a monster.

I am.

We study each other for a long time. My chest heaves with the work I've just performed. After I catch my breath, I bend at the waist while maintaining his gaze, and take a bow. Holding the machetes out to my sides, I add a cute curtsy to the end.

He stands and gives a loud round of applause. Each clap slices through my ears like stab wounds. With his long legs, he strolls toward me with a serious expression, globs of tissue from some woman dripping off his skin. When he reaches me, his fingers slick back some of the hair that collected on my damp face. He tucks it behind my ears and presses his lips to my forehead.

"Are you finished?" His voice is deep and penetrates the part of my mind I don't have control over. It soothes it back to some level of awareness.

It comes out as a whisper. But the resolve behind my voice is forceful. "I'll never be finished."

Leaning over, he whispers in my ear, "Do you remember now , my grim reaper? Your first slay?"

White walls. Blood. "Stay down. Be quiet." My chest freezes as air seizes in my lungs. I say it aloud this time and can picture it all as if I'm there... "I killed them. Those men sent for my parents and my brother."

"Yes, my precious angel. You killed them. They sent more, but you got the first ones. You were chosen by me. My perfect match…"

Blinking, I can still feel the butcher knife from the kitchen heavy in my right hand. None of the men were suspecting me when I cut their guts or necks as they fell to the ground. My parents were tossed into a pile on the couch, but Wyatt distracted them by grabbing a gun and shooting a couple while I held the blade and sliced the first man's legs so he couldn't run.

And it didn't even bother me, their faces so screwed up in agony. Spurts of their life force gargling through their throats.

The muscles holding my weapons shake with a mix of anger and retribution. They grasp onto the handles like my lifeline, an extension of me. Tears heat my eyes, not so much from sadness, but from understanding.

How did he know? That this is who I am.

A horror.

In a flurry of passion, he captures my lips with his, forcing his metallic tongue into my mouth. My grips on the machetes tightens. I'm not letting go. The war between want and will rises deep within me.

He grabs my ass, then pulls me up, so I wrap my legs around his waist. With a pivot, he falls on the bed with me underneath. As I plunge onto the mattress, my back meets the squishy remnants of my massacre.

Vincente's hand slides over my arm and grasps the end of my weapon. When he backs away from me, his eyebrows dip with a question. Do I give it up for him? Clenching my jaw, I relent, and he takes it, then sits on my waist. My fingers tingle from the tightness with which I hold the other blade.

I jerk in surprise as he takes the machete and slices his bloody shirt off my body, then the pajama pants he wears. His thick, long cock juts out at me. It looks as if it just experienced the best porn it's ever seen.

He slides off my body, then lifts my knees, holding them out wide. A chop of his hand in the crook of my elbow makes my arm bend so my other blade rests against my exposed throat. Instead of his dick, the firm wooden handle of the ax presses against my entrance. When I try to look down, the other knife nicks me, so I freeze.

"Ah, ah. Careful, or you'll get cut." Then he thrusts the hilt inside me as I squirm at the intrusion. "Fuck this blade. And get off on it like the dark serpent you are."

With the heat of my rampage dissipating, an all-out lust furrows in my thighs and I do. I hump the fuck out of the machete. My weapon of destruction.

"Yes…" Leaning over my body, he presses his mouth against mine as I work myself into a frenzied state. "You thought you were a precious angel… But I knew your secret. You're my angel of death." He watches my body move against his tool, my back arching off the bed as surges of pleasure rise within me. I explode with a rush of ecstasy, replacing every erratic ire that I held on to.

Vincente's cock replaces the blade. Shoving deep inside me, his full thickness splits me wider, forcing a ragged breath from my lungs as I writhe and whimper. I'm instantly with him again, away from the source of my sorrow. It's muffled when he places his lips against my neck and sucks. Hard . When he raises up to meet me with his fiery gray eyes, blood coats his lips. Then he feeds it to me.

Panting against my parted mouth, he says, "That's it. Fuck your husband. Fuck him on a pile of his dead whores. This is where you belong."

I grip his waist with my thighs and swivel my hips, trying to fight him off me. The irritation I'd had before storms back with a vengeance. His hands snatch my arms to hold me in place, but I battle with everything left inside me. "Fuck you! Fuck you for using them. For using me . I will fuck you, Strauss. "

"Fight me. Go on. Do it. Give it all to me."

One of my palms slips from his grasp, and I slap him across the face. While his head is turned from the blow, I get on top of him while he's still inside me. The fullness of his dick is everything I never knew I wanted. I bounce on his lap to get even more of it. With one sharp downstroke, I'm shuddering with all-consuming pleasure, my fingers grasping at his neck to hold on while he grabs mine.

"Why are you so angry? Huh? Where is it coming from? Tell me."

Biting my lip, I refuse to speak. My inner muscles clamp onto him, not letting him go.

He laughs as I swivel my hips on him, working his granite length inside me, chasing the high and wanting another orgasm.

" Why ? I didn't fuck them."

Gathering up a wad of spit, I let it loose on his bloody face. He only laughs harder as the grip around my throat tightens. "Admit why…"

My vision darkens until white spots swirl around like the clouds outside. Just as I lose consciousness, I hear him instruct me again, "Admit it."

I force the words out, spewing them with any spit left in my mouth. "Because…I hate you."

Everything goes black.

When I come to, I'm on my back while my husband works swiftly in and out of me. "Don't wake up yet. I'm almost finished, little girl. Let me fuck you while you're unconscious." His lips cover mine with a passionate embrace, and I erupt, convulsing with another bout of rapture that he channels through his body and into mine. He studies my expression as I do and thrusts in a final time to fill me and groans. "My jealous little angel."

So heavy. He's so heavy when he collapses onto me. It's difficult to gather my air and exhaustion settles within my ragged muscles. But his mouth finds its way to my ear and whispers, "I love you."