Fourteen

FOURTEEN

Iwatch the clock on the dash as it marches on. Two hours pass before Declan returns to the car. In the glare of the headlights I can see his shirt is covered in blood. I’m surprisingly horrified by this. I knew they were monsters. But I’ve never seen it in this visceral, violent way before. He and Seven just spent all this time torturing a man to death while I sat out in the car in the dark. This is what they have inside them.

As bad as Andrew was, it still twists something in my gut to know the amount of suffering he just endured. It’s so stupid because he had every intention to carve me up like a turkey. Declan takes off the bloody shirt, pops the trunk, and stuffs it inside before getting into the driver’s side.

He starts to pull out of the huge parking lot.

“Wait... what about Seven?”

“He’s doing clean up and disposal. He’ll meet us back at the house later.”

I almost ask how the hell he’ll do that if we take the car but then I realize he’s going to take Andrew’s car... and get rid of it.

We drive silently away from the meat-packing plant and onto a lonely abandoned road. I’m lost deep in thought. I was with Andrew for two years. I thought he was an asshole, a piece of shit. Was he also a sociopath? It’s so tempting to try to shift him into that category. He was going to torture me to death. I have no doubt of that.

We want to believe every violent terrible person is crazy. We want to believe every sociopath is a crazed violent lunatic. But I’m not sure if that’s true. We want to believe that there’s a special category of not-really-human who does bad things and that we can never be in that category because we’re sane. We’re real people, and they are not.

But just being with Seven and Declan, I’ve felt pieces of my humanity shut off. I find myself influenced by the way they see the world around them. And what just happened back there... me happily letting them get me off while Andrew watched... something is definitely broken and changed in me. But I’m not a monster.

I know now that Andrew is a monster. But is Andrew empty in the way Seven and Declan are? The idea that I could be safe with the men I’m with but in danger from someone who has no actual mental illness is unsettling.

While I’m thinking all this, I’m very aware that Seven is happily chopping up a body to dispose of. And I’m sure he’s happy about it. Possibly gleeful.

In college I took sociology because I thought it would help me in the advertising world. Psychology is the normal choice, and there’s a lot of overlap, but if you want to sell a lot of a product, you need to know how people act in herds, not just as individuals.

I remember an experiment we learned about called the Milgram experiment. It showed that normal, good, moral people in shockingly large numbers will obey an authority figure to act against their own conscience to harm a random innocent person. So I’m not sure I’m any more unsafe with these men than I would be with some “good” person.

At least every decision Seven and Declan make comes absolutely from their own will with no other influence. There’s a strange safety in that. I stare out the window, clutching Declan’s coat around me as I watch the trees move by in a blur outside the window. Night has settled in more deeply, growing comfortable in its cloak of darkness. The full moon rises over the treetops, and there’s a strange peace in this moment.

“Are you all right?” he finally asks.

At least I don’t have to make up an excuse for being home late. I can’t believe that’s the thought I’m thinking right now. What have these men done to my mind?

“Yes, Master. Thank you for coming to get me.” I almost say thank you for putting the tracking device in my collar, but that’s too crazy even for me. Absently, I trail my fingertips over the metal band around my throat that just saved my life.

When we get home, Declan takes me to the master bathroom attached to Seven’s room. He runs a hot bath and lights some candles for me.

“Take a bath and then come downstairs. I’ll make you something to eat.”

“Thank you, Master.”

He just nods and leaves. I take off the suit coat and lay it across the bed in Seven’s room, then I turn off the bathroom lights so there’s only the soft glow of the candles and get into the tub.

I think I was in shock back at the plant because I finally cry. I let all these feelings inside me come out... the latent fear over what could have so easily happened, and the relief that it didn’t, the relief that I’m back home.

I soak for a very long time, but finally I get out of the bath and dry off, blowing out the candles on the way out of the room. I go to my room and find something to wear, selecting a white sundress with small yellow flowers on it. Declan and Seven both like this dress. I’m only allowed underwear when I have my time out of my cage each day so I don’t put any on.

When I get downstairs, I find the kitchen table set for three. Declan has made homemade beef pot pie. It’s a soothing, comforting meal and exactly what I need right now. He always knows exactly what I need.

The front door opens and slams shut, and a few minutes later, Seven stands in the kitchen doorway. He’s covered in blood, much like Declan was, only worse because he had to actually cut up the body. I shudder at that thought.

His gaze finds mine. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, Master.”

“How did it go?” Declan asks.

“No one will ever find him,” Seven replies.

“And the car?”

“Same. I’m going to grab a quick shower.” Seven disappears from the room as Declan pours some tea into my glass and puts a generous serving of pot pie on my plate.

“Eat,” he orders.

I thought we’d wait on Seven, but he doesn’t have to tell me twice. I’m so hungry. Every few bites I look up to find his gray gaze on me. He’s eating, too, but he doesn’t take his eyes from mine. He doesn’t say anything.

Is he trying to figure out if I’m really okay? If any lasting psychological damage was done? Part of me thinks they would have enjoyed torturing the life from Andrew even if he’d done nothing wrong just for the sheer sport of it. It’s convenient that there was a justifiable excuse.

Fifteen minutes later, Seven is back downstairs, wearing only jeans, water dripping down his back from his still wet hair. He sits across from me and digs in, eating like this is the first meal he’s had in a week. He doesn’t look up at me until he’s cleaned his plate.

“Do you want more?” Declan asks me, noticing my plate is clean, too.

“No, Master.”

He nods and clears all of our plates from the table.

“Go up to my room and wait for us,” Seven says.

A shiver skates down my spine at this command.

When I get to Seven’s room, I strip off the dress and get into his huge bed. When they join me, I don’t get the rough claiming fucking I expected. I assumed they would want to piss on their territory. After another man had his hands on me—even if the situation wasn’t my choice—surely they’d want to fuck me in a way so there was no mistake who I belonged to, lest any creature with breath in its lungs forget.

But they don’t do this. Instead, they are so careful, gentle as though I might break. Soft kisses, gentle caresses, murmured endearments I no longer know if I should let myself believe, yet can’t chastise myself for hoping are real. They don’t fuck me together. They take turns, and each of them is slow and deliberate, savoring the feel of their body inside of mine.

My monsters take such very good care of me. Maybe they can’t really feel love, but I’ve heard that the early kind of love in a relationship is only infatuation, that it isn’t real. Everyone who claims to really know says that love isn’t a feeling; it’s an action.

If love is an action, then my monsters definitely love me. Maybe they can’t feel the same things other people can feel, but they do take care of me. And they do want me.

I don’t know if they’re still playing a game with me or if what we have is real, but either way, I’ll play.