Page 16 of Ruin

She blinks slowly, then fights my hold on her face, pushes her tongue out, sending the water cascading down the sides of her dirty face. Clean lines streaking her throat, running down her chest, over her breasts. Her dark nipples pebble at the cold. Ignoring it all, I keep her neck arched, head tilted back painfully against the edge of the shackle, my hand around her face. I’ll hold out until she needs to breathe, but she’ll choke instead.

“There are so many ways I could kill you,” is what I say instead, because it’s true and I still haven’t quite decided what it is I want to do with her yet.

I like to play games.

I like to win.

But I like to struggle a little to get there first. And this girl, I think this tiny girl is going to struggle until it kills her, or us both. My cock is so hard now it presses against the front of my low-rise jeans, I close my eyes, feel it throbbing in time with my heartbeat, weeping precum at the tip. Rushing blood pounds in my ears, until she starts to splutter.

The sound has me humming with satisfaction, I don’t even feel the way she tries to attack me through the bars, but then her choking and spluttering reminds me of when the other half of my soul was drowning, and I release the girl’s face so quickly I fall back onto my palms.

Blinking through the wave of sudden feelings, I grit my teeth, grind them together, feel my fang tooth snag the inside of my lip. Copper, iron. Peace washes over me, and I let my back hit the floor, head bashing hard against the concrete. Dizzy, temples pounding, the corner of my lip tips up, pain is my friend, grounding, keeping me tethered, like the weight on the end of a balloon string.

I think of Kyla-Rose, see her submerged beneath the water, bubbles exploding out of her nose. I see my brother, decaying, skin melting, eyeball hanging down his cheek, bullet hole in his chest, blood blooming on his crisp shirt. Feel the gun in my hands, heavy, my eyes closing. Remember the cage, the feel of hot piss as it ran down my legs, my body trembling like a leaf hanging onto its branch. I rememberhiseyes, blue like the Mediterranean, kind and soft, young,sorry. He was always so sorry. After…

I feel my chest rise and fall, stinging up my arms, claw marks from this girl, gouges in my flesh, blood on my tongue. I release my bitten lip, lick over my bloody teeth, swallow down the iron.

After a while, a bony hand finds my bare foot, curling around my ankle. I smile, expecting her to claw every exposed inch of skin. Maybe try to yank me in the same way I did her. But she just… holds onto me. Light and loose, soft, a shackle of bone around my foot. I stare up at the ceiling, my eyes stinging where I force them to stay open.

I think of my late brother Jacob, his eyes alight with happiness when I was no more than four years old, he a little older than I. It was only us two then, happy, covered in mud and sticks and leaves. I was in the apple tree, sticky sap covering the palms of my hands as I clung onto the trunk. His hand around my foot, big toothy smile on his face as he scampered up behind me, my eyes down on his, he nodded, reassuring me, we climbed higher.

Blinking, I kick out my leg, a huff of air forcing its way out of her lungs. My toes smash into the bars, the heel of my foot thudding into the concrete as I scrabble my way backwards on my hands and feet.

She peers at me through her hair, her chest heaving, hands drawing her knees up to her chin, thin shins grey. I swallow hard, breathing through my nose, neither one of us speaks. Her, never having done so, I don’t speak much either, not sinc-, I stop thinking about my own cage. Study hers instead.

My breaths slow, I push up from my palms, sit forward, resting my elbows on my bent knees. Her own arms curling around her pulled in legs. I look at where her chain is connected, large hook in one corner, the chain link welded to it. Red is smeared over her hand, dried from where her cannula was torn out the other day.

I wonder what she looks like beneath all the grime. I wonder how long she’s been sat in her own filth. I’ve spent so long down here, I’ve gotten used to the smell. I’ve gotten used to a lot of smells, but this one is the hardest. The ripe scent of death, that’s how you feel, stripped bare, chained, locked up. You are meant to feel worthless. And it works. Psychological disturbance. Absence of light, clothes, water, food, a toilet.

Slowly, I get to my feet, her blue-brown eyes tracking me as I walk backwards, my eyes still on her. I go over to the large trough-like sink, place a plastic bucket beneath the tap and fill it. The smell of bleach instantly assaults my nose, the feature wrinkling at the odour and I tip the fresh water back out.

I leave the bucket in the sink and then exit. Walk through the short tunnel, make my way through the security doors, onlymyhandprint can now open. I think of Kyla-Rose,Lala, her long, dainty fingers. My stomach sinks, remembering her hand splayed over the scanner, how her face dropped when she realised I’d cancelled her access.

I puff out my chest, holding my breath, heart pounding, as I wander through each door. A steady incline as I go. Exiting through the final one, it opens out into a small entryway type hall, hidden behind the staff kitchens, larders and pantries. I close the steel door at my back, leaning against it, palms splaying over the smooth surface, the crown of my skull knocking into it softly as I drop my head back. The breath I was holding shudders out of me, rattling my bones as I exhale, and then I make my way into the kitchens.

Chapter10

Ava

He comes when he thinks I sleep.

The space is cold, echoey, my whimpers and growls ricochet around the cavernous walls like thunder in my ears even though I am quiet.

He watches me from a distance. Piercing green through the pitch. A red light turning his white hair scarlet.

Never speaking. No words. No muffling sounds. He thinks I am unaware of his ghostlike presence, but I have never felt more aware of anything in the entirety of my existence.

My skin is pebbled with goosebumps, tremors tearing up my spine, my back freezing as though I am turning into ice. Time has no meaning. There are no windows again, and I have not seen sunlight since my mother sold me. Desperation to feed her addiction. I passed through many hands of many vile men, but none of them ever ruined me quite enough to prepare for my last owner.

I shiver again, teeth catching the inside of my hollow cheek. I was always quite curvy when I was younger. Fifteen was the last birthday I celebrated, not many weeks after that I was sold. I do not know how many have passed since then. But I know I spent three years with my first family. Servicing not only the father but his wife, their sons. There have been seven owners since then, I must be in my twenties now. I squeeze my eyes closed tight, the backs of them burning, but I am too dry on my insides to form any tears. I do not cry. Not unless I am ordered to.

Curled into a ball, cheek flush to the filthy floor, hands linked beneath my chin, forearms pulled in tightly to my chest. The metal throat shackle rubs the length of my jaw painfully, neck aching and uncomfortable where I am unable to angle it fully down, chafed and raw beneath the heavy steel. My teeth chatter, but I keep my eyes shuttered, open just enough that I can watch him through my lashes. I breathe a little too fast, but I am barely alive, my body still functions, agonisingly so.

I want to claw into my chest, snap open my bones, tear my heart from the crevice. I am not lucky enough to have that sort of strength. My arms shake if I lift them for too long, my knees trembled when I last had to bear my own weight, but I have not stood in so long, perhaps I am no longer able to.

I don’t know how long he was gone for, after I touched him. He let me and I don’t know why I did it. He didn’t like it. Kicking me away. But it wasn’t immediate, and Iliked it for the short moment he allowed me to do it. He was cold, his skin smooth, a light dusting of hair, coarse beneath my fingers.

He stands there now, back to the workbench, a white duck beneath the bench, its eyes on me every second of everyday, staring at me as thoughIam the taxidermy piece. I have never seen one on wheels before and the way the strange man cares for it, pulls it around, pets it, you would think it were alive. He cares for it greatly. Something so foreign to me. He is reverent in the way he strokes down the white feathers on its head, orange beak a little dull, but I imagine, once upon a time, it was vibrant and bright with life.

---