Page 72 of Shattered In Darkness

Those sockets haunt every inch of this concrete box. The silence here is gnashing and grinding, always hungry. He hasn’t come down yet, but I feel him everywhere. The stench of his leather gloves, the echo of his boots on the floor overhead, the aftertaste of him coating my tongue.

Fighting back would save me, but I learned what happens when I do that. Marcus embedded it into my skull. Good girls take what’s given to them. Bad girls who fight back get punished.

I pace, then crouch, then pace again. I try not to touch my lips, try not to feel the phantom ache in my jaw. My hands shake, and nausea runs through me. I want to vomit, but there’s nothing left inside except bile, and memory, and the knowledge that I’m not alone down here, no matter how empty the room looks.

The door at the top of the stairs rattles. My heart jolts so hard I think it’s going to burst out of my chest and splatter against the wall. I hate how my thighs clench, how my skin prickles with dread and something worse, something that pulses between my legs against my will.

He comes down, patient, every step a statement: I control the pace. I control the world. I own this space and everything in it. Including you.

I scramble to my feet, back pressed flat against the wall, chin high because that’s the last thing I have left. Defiance, even if it’s just a brittle shell. In reality? I’m helpless. I wish my mom could come back and save me. I wish she would come out of her grave and hold me tight.

Please, momma, give me a sign that I’ll make it out of here alive.

Only the darkness responds, silent and foreboding.

The mask appears first, pale, eyes voids carved into death. He fills the stairwell, broad-shouldered, monstrous.

He doesn’t speak; he doesn’t have to. He closes the door behind him with a sound that says there is no escape. Then, silence.

The man approaches, boots leaving dark prints in the dust. He stops inches away. His breath comes out heavy, I hear it through the mask. It sounds like hunger, like anticipation. I stare at the sockets, daring myself not to look away.

“On your knees,” he says.

I hesitate, and a flash of rage passes through his eyes. He grips my hair, yanking me down. My knees slam the floor, bruising instantly. I hiss, but I don’t resist. What’s the point? He likes it when I try to fight, but he likes it even more when I break.

He lurks behind me. His presence is a storm pressing down on my neck. The mask leans close to my ear. “You remember what happens when you don’t obey?” I shake my head, just a little, the movement trembling. He fists my hair tighter, forces my face up. “Open your mouth.” I clamp my lips shut, just for a second. I want him to hit me. I want him to do something that makes me feel real. Instead, he laughs. “Open,” he says again.

I obey, because what else can I do?

He presses gloved fingers between my lips, shoving them in deep, tearing at the corners of my mouth until my eyes water. “That’s better,” he purrs. “You look good like this. Broken. Used.”

I gag on the leather, spit leaking down my chin. He doesn’t care. He drags his fingers out, wipes my saliva on my shirt, then grabs my jaw, squeezing until my teeth grind.

“Is this what you want?” he asks. “To be nothing? To be a hole I can use when I get bored?” I don’t answer. I don’t blink. He laughs again, meaner now. “You’re learning. You’ll thank me for this, eventually. You’ll forget you ever belonged to anyone but me.”

His hand slides down my spine, stopping at the waistband of my pants. I flinch, but he holds me still, thumb rubbing circles on my lower back, pretending tenderness. “Tell me what you are,” he whispers.

I glare up at him, lips trembling. I want to bite his hand. I want to scream that I’m not his, I’ll never be his. But he’s waiting, patient, the mask tilted, silent.

“I’m nothing,” I whisper.

He lets go, shoving me forward. My hands catch on the concrete, scraping skin from my palms. He kneels behind me, knees bracketing my hips. His hands roam over my body with a possessive roughness. He tears at my shirt, rips it up and over my head. I’m bare from the waist up, shivering, nipples tight. The air stings. Shame stings worse.

He palms my breasts, squeezing, bruising, pinching my nipples until I gasp. He leans close, the mask grazing my shoulder. “You like this, don’t you?” he whispers. “You like being owned.”

I shake my head, desperate. He slaps my tit, hard, and I bite my lip to keep from crying out.

He unbuttons my pants, yanking them and my panties down in one harsh motion. I kick, squirm, but he pins my thighs with his knees, holds me splayed like a carcass on a butcher’s block.

“Keep still,” he growls. “Or I’ll tie you down and leave you here for days, bleeding and hungry. You want that?”

I freeze. My heart is a snarl of panic and humiliation and something blacker, something that feels like acceptance. My body stops fighting. He owns me. I am nothing. He presses a hand between my legs, rough and unkind, forcing my thighs wider. He rubs two gloved fingers along my slit, then fast, not for my pleasure, just to see if I’ll react.

I don’t, but my body betrays me. I feel myself get wet, it gathers against his fingers. I hate myself. I want to scream.

He feels it. He laughs. “Filthy little slut. You act like you hate it, but your body gives you away every time.”

He shoves two fingers inside me. I jerk, pain flaring bright in my belly. He twists, grinds his palm into my clit, working me open as if I’m not even human, as if I’m just a new toy to be stretched and broken. Tears prick my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall.