31
Rae
January 30th, 2020
Jack finally had to use the bathroom, leaving me on the couch watching my movies alone while Zo stood on the far side of the wall of windows on the phone.
I wondered if she had finally gotten a hold of Malachi. It’s all they had been doing for the last few hours. Trying to call their master. Trying to put together puzzle pieces that might never get put together. I felt the whole idea of trying to get him to answer questions was useless. My Mom was closer to me than Malachi was to them, and she never told me anything. She kept so much from me. Everything.
I had trusted her with my life, trusted her to know that anything she put me through, it was for my own good.
Now what? She wasn’t even dead. She was just…gone. Maybe I was wrong though. Maybe Malachi would tell them everything. Confess to them like a sinner to a priest. But I highly doubted it. There was something about him that set my teeth on edge. But I suppose Azrael set my teeth on edge too.
The sun had finally set, and the rain wasn’t easing up. The woods surrounding us looked almost haunted. I felt more comfortable now then I had a few hours ago.
It’s what I loved most about spending that year in Seattle in that building. The rain, the trees, the fresh air. Our jobs took us everywhere, but mostly we found ourselves staying in larger cities, it made it easier to disappear.
But that year in those woods outside of Seattle? God, I had never known such peace. Going through the worst training of my entire life, and yet I had been happier there than I had been anywhere else in the world.
My eyes had been locked on Zo for the last two minutes. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, partially due to the distance, but during the session, something had been jostled around in my head. Jack never once punched me. He didn’t go as hard as he could have gone, as he was trained to go. I knew that even before the memories came back.
Yet it had been enough. It had been plenty.
“That was Everett,” Zo explained, walking over. “He doesn’t remember you either.”
None of them would. I didn’t remember seeing anyone except for their six trainers. In fact, for that entire year, I was alone in that building most days, or it had seemed like it. Malachi sent me instructions via letters, which had irritated the shit out of me at the time, but he was a busy guy. He couldn’t be everywhere at once.
Actually, I suppose there had been one other guy. A man who had come in to watch me from time to time, but he had always stood in dark corners, keeping a hood on. He never said a word to me, never came near me, he had just watched. I had no guess as to who it could have been. Most likely just one of the trainers making sure I followed the rules, I suppose.
“I need to talk to you about something,” I told her as she took a seat in the chair cattycorner to me.
She waved me on, clearly tired, but patient. I wondered how she saw me now. Willingly letting myself get tortured just to unlock some memories, to undo what my own father had done to me. I hoped she didn’t pity me. I’d be fine, I just needed to fight a little harder.
I pulled the blanket closer around me, my muscles stiff and sore. “Earlier when Jack was cleaning me, I said his name. He took it as an advance.” Guilt filled me as I said the words, remembered that moment.
Zo nodded. “I think Malachi injects them with something. All of those boys have insatiable libidos, but you don’t have to worry about it, okay? He’s a good guy. He’ll give you some time.” She thought about it and shrugged. “Not a lot, but some.”
I swallowed, searching her eyes, hoping I wouldn’t have to actually say it.
Her brows furrowed when I didn’t respond. “Was it not an advance?” she finally asked. “You whimpered his name.”
My cheeks reddened because I truly wasn’t sure what it had been at the time, why it had come out like that. “I don’t fear his touch,” I explained carefully. “It’s not like that. I chose this, chose to be put in that situation, I was fully aware of what…”
Zo held up a hand, my words trailing off. “You can be fully cognizant of your decisions and still not understand the repercussions of them,” she explained softly. “I’m not going to say it was brave, making that decision. It was smart. Idiotic, but smart. It worked, good for you, but it was also incredibly stupid. Your mind has changed, Rae, not just because you were able to break open the cracks in the programming, but because you were willingly tortured by a man you loved.”
She straightened, adjusting herself. “You made that decision while you were still, more or less, a civilian with no training, no preparation, no anything other than what Jack put you through in the last two months. Torture alters your mind anyway, no matter the training. During this, you remembered what they put you through, while you were in an identical situation with J. It’s bound to alter your physical responses.”
I studied her carefully before turning back to my hands, firmly gripped in the blankets. I didn’t want anything to change. I was finally back in my own head. I saw the world clearer now, I understood it better. It was as if I had been underwater for the last year, and I was finally seeing clearly again. “I have spent the last 10 months under someone else’s programming,” I told her, finding her eyes again. “I just want to be fully in control again.”
“Other than the bedroom?” she asked, a smile touching her lips.
I released a snort, rolled my eyes, and nodded. “Yeah, other than that.”
Her smile widened. “Yeah, I get that. Look, none of us, except for Azrael, has ever been through that kind of torture with someone who we didn’t know. We can study and prepare all we want, but it can never be like the real thing. I can’t tell you how to fix whatever is happening in your head, but if you need it, I sent over the numbers of my brothers and sisters. Talk to any of them, but prepare yourself for Azrael, he’s…”
“I met him,” I reminded her when she didn’t go on. “I’ve heard Jack talk about him, I get it. Thank you,” I said. I just didn’t want to flinch from Jack’s touch. I didn’t want to fear it. I didn’t want to associate him with what my dad had done to me. He and his ‘coworkers’.
I couldn’t really do much of anything for a while, but I could write. I could record everything I remembered, and while I didn’t remember the details of actually being tortured, I remembered what had happened the night I had been captured and the week after I had been released.
I could record it all. Make sure I wasn’t missing anything. This would end. All of it. I needed it to end, no matter the cost.
January st, 2020
I jerked awake, sweat soaking through my nightgown, through the sheets, causing my hair to stick to my skin. The world was dark and silent, the sound of my heart and ragged breathing filling the room.
Fuck.
I clenched my hands into fists, trying to stop their shaking. I could still hear the sound of the torch. Jack hadn’t used a torch, but they had.
They had.
I glanced over, finding him laying on his stomach, hands shoved under his pillow, softly breathing. Calm, unbothered by my sudden bout of terror.
Very carefully, and with great effort, I pushed the blankets back and forced myself to an unsteady stand.
I grabbed my phone and limped out of the room and into the living area, sliding a hand over my ribcage. Everything still hurt, but that felt the worst.
It was still raining, thunder booming around the woods like the clash of cymbals, lighting up the trees, the dark room. It was as if I stepped into a dramatic action movie scene when the house was just about to get broken into and I was the damsel wearing the flimsy white nightgown about to fight for her life.
I hoped a burglar would break in. I’d show them I could kill them even in this state. Don’t fucking test me right now.
With trembling hands, I tried to calm my heart as I found Azrael’s number. God, this was a mistake, wasn’t it? It absolutely was, but I didn’t know what else to do. Who else to talk to. Zo said he had gone through this too, so if I was going to get help, this was how I would do it.
But holy Hell, I shouldn’t be doing this. Fuck, I shouldn’t be do—
“Hello, little daffodil.”
My brows instantly furrowed as I stepped up to the windows, watching the rain fall. “How did you know it was me?” I asked, my voice weaker than I wanted it to sound.
“Oh, I had your number saved in my phone months ago. Everyone always comes crawling to me eventually. I’m where every road leads, no matter how cracked and destroyed. So, to what do I owe this secretive pleasure?”
I frowned. Yeah, this was a mistake. “I’m not keeping this conversation from Jack.”
“But he doesn’t know you called me,” he stated and clicked his tongue. “Words, Agent, words matter.”
I rolled my eyes, my expression hardening. “I know that, I just…” I gripped the bridge of my nose for a few seconds before releasing a sigh and turning back to the window. “Zo said you were tortured. I need to know what happens after that, how you moved past it. I need advice. Please,” I added, my heart hammering. This was stupid, I should have just talked to Jack. He had been trained to withstand torture. We both had, probably by the same people, but I suppose he had never actually been tortured for nefarious reasons. Shit, I had no idea what to do. What was I supposed to do?
“You never move past it, daffodil,” he answered, his voice shifting to something cold and inhuman. “You learn to live with it. You’re a big girl, big enough to consent to the Pg-13 ways of my dear older brother, you’re big enough to hear this. It doesn’t ever go away. The nightmares, the feeling of their hands on you when they rip into your flesh and rape your mind, it never goes away.”
My soul dropped to my stomach, my hope quickly diminishing.
“You’re going about this all wrong, daffodil, you shouldn’t be trying to move past it, you should embrace it. They fucked your mind, twisted your soul. Why are you trying to find peace when you can absorb that pain and hatred and use it against them?”
God, his voice made my skin crawl. There was no emotion other than cold hatred. “That was not how I was raised.”
“None of us were raised to be this way, you imbecilic. We all fell into our roles, it’s time you fell into yours. Rape their minds like they raped yours. Don’t live with it, become what they turned you into and use it to destroy them. It’s fun.”
I stared at those blurred trees, lightning cracking across the sky. “I went through the same training you did,” I told him. “Why did you turn out so…”
“Cold? Some of us are born with monstrous dispositions. Levels of which we hate and brood. We are what they turn us into,” he repeated. “I embraced it long ago, you should too. You’ve been trained since you were born. Maybe not like us but trained all the same. So, even in your short life, you have done more than any of us have, which means, daffodil, that you should be better than us. You should understand that the darkness in this world has roots of thorns and barbs and that it will never let go. Stop settling in your little house of self-pity and do something about it. Go fuck your pretty little boytoy, little daffodil,” he hummed, “or I might think you want another initial carved into that pretty little chest of yours.”
Click.
I lowered the phone, closing my eyes, shaking my head. I didn’t think talking to him would help in the slightest, yet here I was, disappointed.
“You called Azrael?”
My eyes lifted to the window, watching the trails of rain cut down the glass. I had assumed he would get up. Jack had a sixth sense about that kind of thing. “It’s not your fault,” I told him, turning to him.
He stood several feet away in nothing but his black sweatpants, his hair a mess. Fuck, every time I saw him, a zing went through my body. The high I had been seeking all these months, the one I had missed from a life of traveling and fighting, he had brought it to me without trying. He had brought it to me without doing anything other than showing up.
I wasn’t sure if that was sad or not.
He watched me half cloaked in shadows, his eyes glowing. “I didn’t think it was.”
My lips thinned. “Because of your arrogance?”
A smile touched one corner of his lips. “Because my nine days was nothing compared to your four months. All of the wounds I gave you were shallow—”
“I didn’t break,” I argued.
Jack shook his head. “Never said you did.”
But I couldn’t drop the defenses. “I’m fine,” I told him. “I’m strong enough to deal with this. My mind is good.” I could still fight. I could still do missions. I was fine.
Jack closed the distance between us. “I didn’t say it wasn’t, Princess.”
“So why are you attacking me?” I asked, my voice raising an octave. “You wake up in the middle of the night, asking me if I called your brother, I did,” I told him, my heart skipping a beat. “I called him, why? Because Zo said he went through torture.”
“He is torture,” he responded calmly.
My heart was racing, my breathing picking up. “I needed answers.”
Jack stopped in front of me, searching my eyes. “All you’re going to find is advice,” he replied. “Nobody is qualified to give you the answers you want.”
I glanced to his hands and back, still at his sides. He made no move to touch me, no move of any kind, actually. “What are you doing?” I asked, taking a step back, my back hitting the cool window, sending shivers across my skin. “I just need to understand what’s happening, that’s all,” I went on, not waiting for an answer. “I love you too, did you know that? Because I do, and I asked for what you did to me. I was so sure of it. I needed it for answers. We both did. We both wanted it. My mind is fine. It’s fine.”
“Well, I had hoped that you would reveal that information when you weren’t having a panic attack, but I’m glad you do.”
My face twisted, my fingers digging into my pained ribs. “I’m not having a panic attack. I’m fine.”
“I’m not touching you because you’re not ready to be touched,” Jack answered my first question. “I’ll give you time to work through that, but not a lot.” His eyes scanned over my body. “A few days.” His eyes lifted back to mine. “You were tortured for four months, Princess, there was always going to be repercussions. You aren’t reacting to my touch in the way that you think you are.”
“It makes me want to vomit,” I spat, my hands shaking. “That’s not reacting in the way I think it is? I don’t want you touching me, Jack. It makes my stomach twist, how is that not what I think it is? Thinking about you touching me makes me want to puke.”
“You didn’t blink,” he told me, his voice soft, clearly unaffected by my weak attacks. “When I was changing your bandages, you didn’t blink. It’s not my touch that makes you sick, it’s theirs. You keep your eyes open because you don’t want to see them. Your mind is confusing you, and that’s okay, like I said, I’ll give you a few days to work through it, but then I’ll claim what’s mine again. Whatever Azrael told you, he’s right.”
My brows pulled together, my heart skipping at his words. “I…I thought you hated him.”
Jack shrugged, his eyes falling to my breasts again, my hardened nipples. “He’s my brother,” he answered as if that was enough.
I swallowed, gripping a hand at my side, my legs tired from the pressure of the stab wounds. “He told me to rape their minds like they did mine. That I should use what they turned me into and destroy them with it. That I have been doing this longer than you, that I should be better because of it.”
His eyes found mine again, dark with lust. “Like I said, he’s right. Now get to bed, Princess, before I lose the shred of control I have. For the next week, we study, we strengthen your mind, stretch your muscles, and then we get back into our routine. Understand?”
My shoulders fell a bit, relief filling me. He truly was giving me the week I asked for. “Thank you,” I told softly. “I’m—”
He shook his head, cutting me off. “Don’t apologize for your broken mind, Rae, just work on fixing it so I can have my friend back.”
My heart fluttered, my eyes widening in slight shock at the word he had chosen to use. “Friend?” He didn’t seem like the type to have any kind of friend, let alone admit that I was one.
He gave me a flicker of a smile. “Goodnight, Rae.” And with that, he turned around and headed back for our bedroom.
We were friends?
I guess I had never thought about it before, that term for us, but something about it made my stomach flutter and a warm feeling fill me. He was my friend. We were friends.
God, how could something so simple make me feel so… relieved?