Page 2 of Broken Discipline
“We’re ready,” I said to the members.
I stepped forward, but my mind wasn’t connected with my body. Every movement felt incomplete. My vision shifted into strobes of light: My father climbing onto the wheel. My hands binding his ankles in thick chains. My father’s eyes peeled wide. His pupils as small as pinpoints, and glued to me.
A member gestured to me, showing me how to rotate the wheel by a lever on the wall. I took my place at the lever, my heart pounding in my ears, my face drenched in sweat. I spun the contraption, my father a spinning target for the members to do their worst. A knife stabbed in his upper thigh. The back of a pistol mashed his face. A cane smacked down on his balls before being jabbed inside of his ass. A mallet crashed into the stab wound on his thigh, letting blood splatter around the room, streaking my white shirt. My father’s mouth stretched in a scream, but it was silent in my mind, like a muted television. Another member chased him around the wheel, using a saw to pick off his fingers, letting each one drop to the floor. Blood streamed down my father’s body like drips of wax on a candlestick. The members laughed. None of the sacrifices were people to the members; they were entertainment. My father kept his eyes on me as much as he could, still proud and strong in his final moments. But as another knife entered his stomach, his chin dipped, his shoulders shaking, his gaze leaving me. His mouth opened in a blood-curdling scream, but in my mind, everything was silent.
And I couldn’t take it anymore.
I stopped the wheel. The members’ mouths moved, but I didn’t hear them. I grabbed my gun from the holster, cocking it as I stepped closer to the wheel. My father’s eyes flicked toward me, meeting my gaze once again. He nodded at me, telling me to do it.
My face was wet, my throat dry. I aimed at his forehead, my fingers gripped in terror. I had killed before, and I would kill again. But at that moment, holding a gun to my own father’s head? A burning sensation rolled through me like I was being torn apart from the inside. He had raised me like a fathershouldraise their children. And I was repaying him with this.
But I wasn’t going to let him suffer any longer.
His gray eyes held me as his voice cracked: “I am so proud of you, son.”
I pulled the trigger, the bullet riding through his skull. The bloody circle adorned his forehead like the center jewel of a crown. I blinked my eyes, unable to accept that it was real.
Everything inside of me was weak.
A man in black, one of the official members, put his hand on my shoulder, his eyes gleaming through his simple black mask.
“Congratulations,” the member said. “And welcome to the Marked Blooms Syndicate.”
I pushed him away, hurling myself out of the room. Snot dripped out of my nose. I wiped my face on the back of my hand, but the material of the mask clung to my face, trapping me. I needed fresh air. I neededanythingto get this warped sensation inside of me to stop. I hated it. Hated myself. Hated my father for being altruistic. Why couldn’t he be selfish? Why couldn’t we find someone else, capture them, and force them to pretend to be my sacrifice? Why wasn’t there another way?
They’ll know,he had warned me.If we find a fake sacrifice, they’ll know. And then you’ll lose your chance to join their secret society forever. You must do this.
Streaks of cold air conditioning brushed against my face, chilling my damp skin. I stopped, my eyes falling to my button-up shirt. Blood painted the white fabric in pops of red. It constricted around me, on the verge of asphyxiation. I ripped it off, letting the buttons fly everywhere. I raced down the hallway, trying to find the exit, but it was like a labyrinth of torture. Screams, moans, and sadistic laughter filled the air. My head spun.
A woman’s voice broke through it all: “I was running away?”
Everything inside of me stilled at her voice. A purple room was to my left with two men in black; they were both members, then.
And yet, there was still a woman on her knees with her wrists bound behind her back. Dark brown hair lay in tangles on her shoulders. Her pale skin glowed under the violet light. Her posture was small and subdued, but her eyes—sepia, like a photograph from the past—were filled with purpose. Like she knew she had to endure this.
I could relate to that.
My bulge twitched, aroused at the sight of her. I needed to remind myself of what this was for. Control. Restraint.Discipline.
And I could have that over her.
A man with gray hair bent down, stroking her cheek like a dog.
“Yes, you were running away. But I don’t understand why, darling. You did so well,” the gray-haired man said. “As a wifeshoulddo for her husband. You need to make me proud. Take it like a good wife.”
I cleared my throat. Both men turned toward me. Gold tendrils swirled around the eyes-holes of the white-haired man’s black mask. The gray-haired husband wore a simpler, black mask, but his teeth gleamed in the light.
“May we help you?” the husband asked.
“I want her,” I said.
The husband forced a smile. “Perhaps the next Masquerade,” he said. “My wife has endured quite enough for me tonight.”
I motioned the two members forward. “I can pay.”
“Stay here,” the husband said to his wife.
The two men joined me in the hallway.
