Page 14 of UnTrained: Volume One
I’m not quite sure what I’m thanking him for—letting me release? helping me up? buying me?—but he doesn’t ask me to elaborate.
Aiden turns on the small sink and wets a washcloth with warm water. Without a word, he begins cleaning me—gently wiping my thighs, my bottom, between my legs. The intimacy of it should terrify me, but instead I find myself relaxing under his careful touch.
"What's your real name?" he asks quietly as he works.
I freeze. My real name. I haven't said it aloud in so long that I'm not sure I remember how it sounds in my own voice.
I shake my head, remembering my place. “One twenty-seven.”
Aiden frowns. His brows pull together, creating a crease between them that I find myself wanting to smooth away.
"That's not a name," he says, his voice low but firm. "It's a number."
I swallow hard, the lump in my throat making it difficult. "It's what they call me."
He studies me for a long moment, his blue eyes searching mine as if he could find my real name written there. I drop my gaze, focusing on the tile floor beneath my bare feet.
"When we're done here," he says finally, "we'll get you some clothes and something to eat. Then we'll talk."
Talk. The word sends a fresh wave of anxiety through me. Talking means questions. Questions I'm not sure I want to answer.
But I nod anyway, because what choice do I have?
He helps me back to the exam room where Gavin waits. The metal table gleams under the harsh lights, and I shudder at the thought of climbing back onto it.
"We're almost done," Gavin says, pulling on a fresh pair of gloves. "I just need to check a few more things.”
I’m frozen in place until Aiden’s hand presses gently against my lower back. “Come on, baby,” he says. “Now.”
His tone is gruff, commanding, at odds with his gentle touch.
And it’s exactly what I need.
I climb onto the exam table and lie back, allowing Gavin to direct my feet into the stirrups once again.
When Gavin lifts a speculum from the metal tray beside him, my breath catches, and I look at Aiden.
“You can take it, baby,” he says. “Take all of it. For me.”
And so I do.
10
AIDEN
“Fuck.” I sink onto the couch in the break room, running both hands through my hair.
Alex looks up from where he's making coffee. "That bad?"
He left shortly after Gavin came in for my girl’s exam, so he didn’t see the full extent of it.
"She's completely broken." I lean forward, elbows on my knees. "They've stripped away everything. Her name, her identity, her will to fight. She responds to commands like she's been programmed."
"But she did fight," Alex points out, settling into the chair across from me. "When Gavin wanted to do the enema. She said no. I was watching on the cameras."
"For about thirty seconds. Then I used the right tone, and she complied." I shake my head, disgusted with myself for how easily I manipulated her. "She called me Master. She thinks we bought her."
To be fair, we did. Even if the goal was to return these girls to their lives and to obtain information to take down the organization, the fact remains that money changed hands.
