Page 3 of Sadist

A low groan pulled my attention back to the other side of this infernal room, the soft rattle of chain loud in the stillness as my companion rolled over, a whimper coming from her a second later. She was breathing too lightly to be in the same drug-induced slumber I had just woken from, but from the look of the bruise at her temple, I guessed she would be feeling just as rough.

She was facing me now, and I studied her features. A little older than my twenty-nine years, there were the tiniest of creases at the corners of her eyes on her otherwise flawless face. She had a few freckles across the bridge of her nose, and tattoos seemed to cover much of her skin from the neck down. Her long brunette hair was pulled back into a messy braid that was coming loose, and she wore a simple grey sweater and black joggers that didn’t give any indication of who she was or where she had been taken from.

The sweater was rucked up, and the purple outline of a large bruise across her abdomen stretched over the fine lines of another tattoo. She had been brutalized, whoever she was.

She stirred again, her lashes fluttering as another soft moan rose from her.

“Hey,” I said. “Try not to move too much yet, you look like you took a beating.”

I noticed her swallow a few times and poured a cup of water from the jug sitting between us, moving as far as my chained wrist would allow and pushing the cup as close to her as I could.

“Who are you?” Her voice was slightly husky, edged with a hint of pain as she pushed herself to her elbows and groaned again, resting her forehead against her own thin mattress.

“Octavia,” I offered, not wanting to admit my last name. “Where are we?”

There was a humorless huff of laughter from her as she slowly sat upright, squinting at me with eyes that were the strangest color. Pale green at the center with a deep navy ring around the outside.

“Purgatory.” She leaned against the wall with a sigh and tipped her head back. “And the psychopath guarding its gates is a fucking sadist. I’d suggest you don’t piss her off.”

“Well, that’s ominous,” I muttered, clearing my throat as my voice wavered with the rapidly increasing panic twisting its way through my gut. “What does she want?”

“It’s not her you need to worry about, it’s who she works for,” the woman replied.

“And…who is that?” I asked hoarsely.

“I couldn’t tell you,” she said, closing her eyes.

I blinked at her, more questions simmering on the tip of my tongue, but unsure where to start.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“A long time,” she replied without opening her eyes and wincing as she licked a fresh split in her lip. “I don’t really know, the days blur together here.” She was quiet for a long moment, and I thought she had drifted off until she spoke again, her voice barely a whisper.

“I don’t think I even have anyone who cares I’m gone.” She looked at me with a strange expression. “Do you? Havepeople who will come looking for you, I mean. Your accent is American…Are you not from here?”

I hated…truly hated to banish the iota of hope I saw creep across her battered face, but I shook my head, staring at my hands.

“I have only just recently come back to the UK from overseas. I was born here, but I’ve been away since I was sixteen.” I gave her a weak smile. “Hence the accent. The friends I do have don’t know I’m back here, and even if they realize I’m gone, they will just think I have taken off to go experience the lantern festival in Taiwan or walk the PCT on a whim or something. They are used to me disappearing and popping back up months later.”

She sat up, wrapping her arms around her bent knees with a soft groan. “What about a lover?”

I laughed in response.

Her shoulders dropped slightly, and she looked at the floor for a long moment.

“You have family here?”

My mind was still scrabbling through the scraps of information I had gleaned over the past few minutes, as the last conversation I had with my father lingered uncomfortably in my mind.

“It’s amusing how quickly you do as you are told when you want something.”As my phone chimed with a deposit notification.

“It’s been very distant for a number of years,” I said quietly. “I do my own thing.”

She let out a soft sigh, resting her forehead on her crossed arms.

“Well, that’s fucking unfortunate.” Her voice was muffled, and she looked up suddenly when I snorted, choking back the unhinged urge to laugh. There was absolutelyno needto scare this poor woman more than she already was by thinking she waschained up with a raving lunatic who was laughing at her own dire situation rather than panicking like any mentally sound person should.

“What the hell is funny?” she asked.

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