Page 51 of Dark Knight

"Hello, Brittany." Sean's voice froze me in my tracks.

No, no, no, no, no.

Anybody but him.

Panic seized me, and I threw myself forward. I almost fell down the stairs, but I achieved my goal of yanking my t-shirt free from his grip. I didn't waste a second as I began moving down the stairs toward the main area of the house.

Sean followed me with frantic leaps and bounds, covering the same distance in less time until he was at the bottom of the stairs only a second after me. With the length of his stride, he caught up with me in a matter of heartbeats. Before I had the chance to pivot to try and get away, his hands wrapped around one of my wrists, holding me in place.

"You can run, but I'll always catch you. I'll always find you. This time, if you don't willingly come with me, if you try and pull another stunt like you did back at the auction house, your new boy toys will suffer. Would you rather have them pay the price for your disobedience?" His grip tightened on my wrist as I struggled. Apparently he wasn’t worried that I would break free because he released one of his hands and pulled his phone from his pocket, holding it up to show me a photo.

It must have already been pulled up for this exact moment, which was annoying. He was so damn confident that he'd catch me that he had everything ready to go.

The worst part was the photo itself, though. Dylan was on his knees with a knife pressed to his throat. There was murder in his eyes.

How the hell had they gotten the drop on him? I had no idea, but I wasn't about to sacrifice Dylan's life for my own. I stilled and stopped struggling.

"I knew you could be reasonable, Brittany." It was almost like he was saying my old name just to drive home the point that he was taking me back to the cult. Or maybe it was that he still saw me as the person I had been before I ran away.

I didn't respond, didn't want to give him anything to work with or any opening to try and weasel his way into.

He slipped his phone back into his pocket. The hand that had been holding the phone lifted until he cupped my face. I had to fight the urge to pull away. "You were so beautiful and pure once, and now look at you. You've turned into such a whore."

The pity on his face was only there for a moment before it turned into some kind of sick glee. "I'm sure the Light Father will have a hard time making you pure once more, but if anybody can do it, he can. Once the filth has been scrubbed from your soul, you can become the Light Mother, and I'll be your Light Brother. Everything will be as it should be. Who knows, maybe the Light Father will realize what a good bond we have and allow me to take over his position."

I wanted to snort. There was no way the Light Father would ever give up the power he had over the cult. I didn't make a sound, though.

I kept my face carefully neutral. If Sean was just power hungry, there was no telling what he might do to get what he wanted. Especially if he had me as a bargaining chip.

"We're going to go down to the garage, and I'm going to put you in the trunk of a car. You're not going to fight me, do you understand?" I nodded. "We're going to get out of here. Once we're a fair distance away, I'll let you out and you can sit in the back seat, provided you promise good behavior. Do you think you can handle that?"

I nodded again, but the simple action didn't seem to be enough for him.

"Tell me you understand, Brittany."

"I understand, Sean." Those three words tore at my soul in a way I hadn't expected.

I didn't want to understand, and I sure as hell didn't want to obey. How could I not if my reckless behavior was just going to punish those I cared about? The thought wasn't completely foreign to me, but I'd been ignoring it until that point. The truth was, I did care about Dylan and Hud. Whether they saw me the same way wasn't in my control, so I hadn't allowed myself to contemplate my feelings for more than a few seconds.

"Good. Once we're back on the compound, I'll have them let Dylan go. However, until you're safely ensconced within the walls of the compound again, I won't put up with any shenanigans from you. No desperate attempts to save your demonic boyfriend's life. No heroic attempts to escape and go to him. No escape attempts, period. Do you really understand what I'm saying to you?"

"Yes."

"Yes. What?"

He had let me get away with calling him by his name before, but I knew that wasn't what he wanted this time. "Yes, Elder Brother." I bowed my head and rounded my shoulders, assuming the submissive pose of the women who were members of the Children of Radiance.

"Just so you know, don't think you can trick me again like you did before. I have this and I'm not scared to use it." He pulled a knife from his pocket, flicking it so the blade extended. "And if I have to get this out, I'll take my frustrations out on you and satisfy myself with your body. What's one more sin when the Light Father will be cleansing you anyway? It's not like you aren't familiar with the act. I've heard you screaming their names, filling your body with their filth."

The urge to vomit was strong, but I took a deep breath and quietly replied, "I understand, Elder Brother." Of course, the women of the Children of Radiance weren't loud and their voices weren't harsh. They were soft, weak, and controllable.

Sean led me through the mansion, going through hallways and doors that I had never seen before. I followed him just as he asked, maintaining the same meek posture that I had grown up with. It didn't matter that it was slowly killing something inside of me. The part of my soul that was hurting was fragile and small like a flower. It was one that had just started to grow but hadn't quite bloomed. It was a flower that was being crushed under the heel of a boot.

Finally, after going down another small set of stairs, we emerged in the garage. I'd been there a couple times before, but the car had always been waiting, so I hadn't really had a chance to look around.

This time, we came out through a side door instead of the main doors or the elevator, which gave me more of a chance to see the cars. Not that I should have wasted my time paying attention to them. For the time being, however, I didn't see a way to escape without risking Dylan's life, and I wasn't about to do that.

There were all different kinds of vehicles down here, everything from SUVs, to sports cars, to motorcycles, and even to vans that looked like they would be used to kidnap a person. The vans were not an encouraging sight. Sean seemed to know exactly where he was going and stopped by a box on the wall that looked like it held the keys.

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