Melissa

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

 

I wake up early. I didn’t especially mean to, just woke up an hour before my alarm. I hate it when that happens. I have a hard time getting to sleep, so trying to get any more sleep will take long enough that I might as well just get up now. So I do, stretching. Shoulder feels stiff. That’s annoying. It’s been three days since I helped Shawn carry furniture around. I don’t like that my arm is still complaining about it.

I dress myself with barely-conscious movements. It’s a familiar routine, and I wake up sluggish, so it runs on autopilot. It’s just a t-shirt and jeans anyway. Hoodie today, because it’s cold out. Normal.

Check my bag, it’s fine. I don’t really have much else to do before school. I sit and try to play video games to distract myself, but I’m already too distracted for it to help. Can’t focus through the intrusive thoughts. I don’t know what it’s about, not really. I don’t know why I’m having intrusive thoughts about poison, about fire. It’s not something I remember thinking much about until recently.

There are a lot of things I don’t remember happening until recently.

I get reminded of another when I give up and go downstairs. Mom’s already up and getting ready for work. She looks at me and waves, then looks again. “Aren’t you warm in that?” she asks, because I’m already wearing the hoodie while in the house.

I just shrug. “Not really,” I say. I’ve been feeling so cold lately, and I don’t know why. It’s not even winter yet, still autumn.

She makes a noncommittal noise, and goes back to packing her briefcase. I watch, idle and twitchy. I don’t know why I’m twitching. It just feels like there’s some sensation that’s not quite touch and not quite not-touch. Another thing that set in last week.

I’m pretty sure I’m going insane. I haven’t told anyone yet. I’d rather put that particular conversation off, even though I know that it won’t be any easier to have it later.

After a little while, it occurs to me that I should eat something. Peanut butter on toast only takes me a few minutes, but then I sit down and stare at it, struggling to find hunger through the noise. It takes too long for me to eat it, and that’s also new.

Eventually, mom leaves for work; she told me she’ll be working a bunch of overtime tonight, so I won’t see her for a while. Dad’s on a trip to Vegas for business. I am at present officially a latchkey child, a phrase I had been amused to learn. When I decide to leave, I lock the door, and smile a little for no particular reason.

I turn and start walking. It’s not that far, and I don’t feel up to taking a bus right now. This will let me work off some of the nervous energy. Maybe think about the assignment I owe for algeb—

---

—I wake up. There’s no sense of having ever gone to sleep, like I skipped directly from being awake to waking up. It’s surreal. I’ve never had a discontinuity like that.

It gets worse after a few moments. I usually wake up groggy. But this is different. When I open my eyes I can’t see anything. I can feel the fabric, though, and I know before I even try that I won’t be able to move my hands. I try anyway and turn out to be correct.

The reaction to that is sluggish and dissociated. I’m restrained, actually restrained, something I’m familiar with only from TV. Blindfolded. Gagged, as I confirm a moment later. But my reaction to learning this is so muted and I feel like I’m thinking through sludge. Did they also drug me or something?

I don’t know who they are. But I think this is a very, very bad thing for me.

I don’t try to get out. I don’t need to give myself ropeburn or something struggling. I know I don’t know what to do in this situation at all, and the odds of me being able to escape this right now are nil. The odds of me escaping at all…don’t seem great. I think I’m glad I feel that terror only at a distance.

“Ah, there we are,” someone says. A guy, but I can’t tell much more than that from his voice. It’s pretty muffled by the hood over my head. Apparently even my small movements were enough to give me away. “You’re quicker than I expected. Still in transit, I’m afraid. But not for too much longer. It will make more sense soon.”

Right. Because that’s supposed to be comforting. I think I like confusion more than I will like understanding in this case. The fear is starting to register more clearly now.

As it gets stronger, I thrash like I’d been trying not to. Instinct is driving me to attempt to escape, by any means I can find, even if I know it won’t work. He doesn’t comment. I don’t manage to accomplish anything, and then the vehicle I’m in goes over a pothole and the jolt is painful enough I stop writhing. It just hurts.

It’s impossible to tell how long I spend like that. I just drift in the darkness forever, on the way to—

---

—I wake up. It has been five years since that happened. It’s been a year since I got out, but the darkness still has so many hooks in me. I still wake up groggy, but now I need to take several seconds to remind myself of this, that I’m free. It doesn’t feel like it, but after several tries I can at least get a modicum of confidence together.

Free seems like a great overstatement to me. But if I tell myself that enough times, maybe someday I’ll believe it.

I dress myself, and these days I don’t do it on autopilot. I pick actual decent clothes out consciously. Red blouse, to compliment my skin and eyes. Dark slacks. A satin scarf, red and black and gold. It’s flattering on me. I don’t know why I care except for habit, but I think there’s probably something else there too, or I’d be trying to push back on it more.

I wrap it around my neck, and look in the mirror. I draw it snug and tie it. I stare at my throat. I wonder whether it will ever feel normal to see bare skin there. I wonder whether the pressure of the scarf will stop being a comfort I badly need.

Someday, maybe. But not today. I relax a little once it’s there. I try not to think too much about why.

When I open the door, there’s no response for a long moment. Long enough that I can step out and see that it’s Natalie there today. They try to make sure that I know who it is before they say anything, so that it’s not a surprise. They probably told me last night. They usually do. I try to remember, but by the time the nightmare’s done, I don’t have a clue.

Once I see her, she says, “Good morning.” She doesn’t ask how I slept, or how I felt, the way small talk often would.

“Good morning,” I reply. “How do you feel?”

She pauses for a few moments, then says, “I feel fair to decent. I’m pleased that my brother got a promotion a few days ago, and it has me in a slightly happy mood overall.”

I giggle. I don’t mean to. Something about the absurdity. The people who watch me have had to learn a whole new set of vocabulary for feelings, just for me. Such a strange job requirement.

She laughs too, quietly. “Do you want some food?”

I think about it. It’s hard to tell. I feel numb and I feel shaken by the nightmare still. I fall back on, “That sounds like a good idea,” because I don’t know what I want but breakfast is usually a good idea for me.

“I can do that,” she tells me, and then goes to the kitchen, where she starts working on breakfast. I sit at the coffee table and stare at nothing while she works. When she finishes and brings a plate out, I eat it with numb, mechanical motions, on autopilot.

I finish the meal without saying anything, then look at it and try to remember what I just ate. There’s no memory of it at all. I know I ate it but that’s all.

“Thank you,” I say, because I remember that I should.

Natalie smiles gently. “Of course. Should I wash your plate?”

I think about it for a moment, then nod. I forget to actually ask her to do so, but she doesn’t get upset. None of them do. I think they must check that as part of the job requirements.

I have no idea why they’re doing this. Not less than two people here, just for me, around the clock. And that’s on top of feeding, housing, and otherwise supporting me. I know the dvergar are rich, but as the months roll on, it becomes increasingly hard to comprehend this.

In a strange way, I think, I’d rather not have things this way. It reminds me too much, sometimes, of Before. Of the hell I called home for so long. People waited on me hand and foot a lot of the time there, too.

When night comes I don’t know how I spent the day. There’s a decent chance I mostly spent it sitting on the couch staring into space. I don’t know if that bothers me or not. I prepare for bed with rote, mechanical movements, and turn the light off, and stare at the ceiling until—

---

—I wake up. I stare at the ceiling, not knowing what’s going on at first, where I am. It takes a long moment for me to remember. I got kidnapped, in a way and for a reason I can’t comprehend. He said I’d understand more soon, but apparently soon meant tomorrow, because he just stuck me in some kind of cell and left. Someone else removed my restraints. All I’ve seen since is this cell, the walls all stone except one made of iron bars facing out into a hallway. Meals have been brought by other people, all of whom creep the fuck out of me.

Not their fault. Not really. But they all wear the same silver collar around their necks, and it’s not hard to tell that isn’t a fashion accessory. They all have a strange blankness about them, not talking much, not responding in normal ways to anything I said. I don’t know why. I don’t like being reminded of that.

I’m very afraid that I’m looking at what I’m going to become. And it creeps the fuck out of me, seeing it. Maybe that’s why he left me like this.

I see him walking up towards the cell, between breakfast and lunch. I’ve only seen the man once, and his appearance is relatively normal, just a thin, pale man with short black hair and generic business casual clothing. But it’s not like I’d forget, and he’s the only person I’ve seen in here not wearing a collar.

Well. One of two. But I don’t think I’m on the list for the same reason. I cower back into the corner of the cell without really meaning to.

He reaches the door of the cell, opens it. I don’t know if he unlocked it. It’s entirely possible it’s been unlocked this whole time. I never actually checked for a latch. Too scared.

“Come here, darling,” he says, his voice friendly and too-smooth. There’s nothing overtly hostile or threatening in his voice. Nothing at all. But something about it sounds wrong, and even if I had no other information about him I’m pretty sure it would register as something I’d want to avoid.

As it is, I’m literally cowering in the corner, as far from him as I can get, back pressed against the stone wall. He stands at the door for a few seconds, watching, for a few seconds, until it’s clear I’m not going to come. Then, with the trace of a smile playing across his lips, he gestures. Nothing big. A slight, controlled motion of his hand, and then, without any warning—

Shame hits me like a sledgehammer to the forehead. I don’t have words for the feeling. It’s far beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. I’ve been ashamed before, but never like this. I feel like the entire world is staring at me, and like I want to confess everything to them even though there’s nothing I’ve done wrong, that doesn’t matter at all, the shame doesn’t care about that. I feel small and useless and contaminated and wrong.

This isn’t just more shame than I’ve ever felt, I realize, somewhere very very very far away from myself. This is more than I’ve ever felt anything. I find I’m writhing and I’m still trying to hide but now it’s because I feel so profoundly ashamed of everything I am, everything I’ve ever been. If I had a knife I’d kill myself, I’m sure of it, just to escape this. The facts that it’s not true and it’s not mine and I’m definitely the victim here aren’t forgotten but they’re utterly irrelevant. I’m hyperventilating, I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t see, lost in the experience. I’d thought before that I was going insane, but this is—

—over. No more warning than when it started. The feeling doesn’t taper off like normal feelings do. It just…ends. I’m back in my body, back in reality, hyperventilating and sobbing and twitching while I stare at the wall.

I don’t know how long he spends watching me like that before I manage to get my breathing steady. It’s a long time, I know that much.

Then, in exactly the same voice as before, he says, “Come here, darling.”

I’m standing next to him within a couple seconds. Most of that time was because I can’t keep my balance, stumbling a little and needing to catch myself on the wall. I don’t hesitate at all.

“Good girl,” he says, and the approval makes my stomach turn. “You’re a quick learner. Follow.”

He turns and walks off along the hall. I follow, shaky, forcing myself to keep up. I barely notice the hallway around me, don’t look at any of the doors, don’t want to know and can’t afford to slow. I am, in fact, a quick learner. And I’m so ashamed of my mistake earlier that I struggle to remember it wasn’t one. Even without the threat of more, that might be enough to keep me following him.

I don’t know how long we spend walking. Long enough that my legs are tired, but I don’t know how much that actually takes right now, after that experience. I split my knuckles open on the wall earlier with my thrashing. My wrists hurt from the ropeburn in transit.

Eventually, we reach a door and he opens it. The room inside is small, and has little in it. A desk with a laptop sitting on it. A chair that resembles the ones in an optometrist’s office. He says, “Sit,” and I don’t need to ask to know which chair is mine. I sit.

“Good girl.” Again, the approval makes my insides twist. I feel like I might throw up on myself.

He ignores me for a few minutes, doing something with the computer. Then he turns and latches the restraints attached to the chair around my arms and legs. I don’t know what they’re made of, maybe leather. I don’t fight. I can see so clearly that it won’t help, and so I just…don’t.

“Now,” he says after he finishes, going back to his computer. “Since it’s your first day, I’ll just be taking some measurements.”

For a moment, a brief, tiny moment, I hope this might mean reprieve. Maybe he needs to measure my neck for a collar. Maybe some kind of medical examination. For a moment I actually hope that—

—fear. Instant, overwhelming fear, fear like the shame earlier, far far far greater than I’ve ever experienced, I’ve never been so afraid. I think this time it might actually be stronger, maybe because I was already more scared than I’d ever been in my life. But that peak had been normal, the product of an incredibly frightening experience.

This is different. It’s vastly stronger, terror beyond my ability to comprehend. I scream and sob and struggle against the restraints, trying to fight and flee and freeze all at once. I can’t breathe enough to beg or I’d also be fawning. I can’t do any of them, not really. It’s fear like falling off a building, or the time I came close enough to drowning for it to feel real. But it just keeps going, and going, with no focus, no sense of what to be afraid of, just—

—sobbing. Coughing, hoarse. The fear fades, but not entirely because there’s still so much of it left behind. This is still more afraid than I’ve ever been in my life until this point. I’m still crying, coughing, choked up with terror.

And then, not. It’s…gone, somehow. I know I should still be terrified. But it’s not…there. The anxiety about my future is so distant, limited to a sort of dry awareness that this is going to go badly for me. No actual fear.

“Wha’s happening?” I say. I’m slurring. I don’t know why. I can’t hold my head upright. I don’t know why I asked, except that without fear there’s no reason not to.

He smiles. “Oh, nothing that would be of much interest to you, my dear. A branch of mathematics you’ve never heard of. Measuring your responses to magical stimuli.”

I want to say that magic isn’t real. I really want to. But the flood of terror just now was a convincing argument. I’m not…familiar with anything that would do that. If what’s happening to me isn’t magic, it’s so far beyond my comprehension it might as well be.

“Oh.” I don’t know why I say it. Just seems like I should say something, there.

He looks up at me. “Not going to argue?”

I can’t shrug, but I try. “Doesn’t seem like there’s much point.”

“Interesting. You are a quick learner.” He smiles, and this time I can see what’s about to happen, I can see the basic shape of the situation that I’m in. I know what to expect, when he says, “Good girl,” again, and—

—euphoria is just as overwhelming. I’ve never been so happy. Never been so glad to be where I am. It’s ecstasy like nothing I have ever felt in my life. No pride, no achievement I’ve ever had could inspire it. Orgasm would get lost in the intensity, and I actually think one might have as my body reacted to what I’m being made to experience. The fact that I don’t want it, don’t want to be here, am already coming to deeply hate the man providing it, none of that seems to matter in the face of this ecstasy. I’m—

—screaming. From the sound of it I was screaming a few seconds ago, not even noticing. I know, because I can hear the scream suddenly change in tone, flipping from ecstatic pleasure to the fear that I really ought to be feeling, and then tapering out to nothing as I struggle to reorient myself. I don’t feel like I came all the way back to myself this time, and I think I’m glad. Dissociation sounds…restful.

He looks at me. My head lolls to the side when I try to lookback at him. He nods, types another note, and then closes his computer. “You did very well today, sweetheart,” he tells me. “Get some rest.”

He leaves. I don’t particularly want to follow his command, but I really don’t have the option. I’m so dazed that people haven’t even come in to carry me back to my cell before I’m—

---

—waking up. I blink a few times. I stare at the ceiling and try to remember which ceiling looks this way. It takes a few tries.

Oh. Right. I live here. I’ve lived here for…two years. I have been free for two years, and it has been six years since that very first night.

I still have nightmares. I wonder idly if they’ll ever stop. I feel like I should want them to. I’m not sure if I do. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to tell, and I can tell I want that one but not what it would be like.

Eventually, I force through the grogginess and sit up, yawning. I dress myself, and I’m mostly conscious for it. I wear casual clothing a lot of the time these days. The first eighteen months the idea was strangely difficult for me, but it’s become easier now. A little, at least.

But tonight is special. I pick out nicer clothing. Black and red blouse, but a different one, newer. I consider a skirt but get nervous about the restricted mobility and opt for loose black pants.

I open the door. John waits for me to poke my head out and see him before he says anything, then gently tells me, “Good morning.”

I yawn and step out of my bedroom. My caretakers don’t go in there, with the exception of occasional cleaning. No one goes in there.

Then I pause. “Is it still morning?” I ask.

John laughs softly. “Well, no, it’s three in the afternoon. Thanks for reminding me. Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon,” I reply, smiling. I smile most of the time now. It’s usually not very meaningful. I just figured out, a few months ago, that it works better. I used to present as what I thought of as a neutral affect when I couldn’t tell what I should be feeling, and people got weird about it. Asked me what was wrong a lot. Now I have my baseline affect pinned to cheerful, and people still get weird but not as much.

But this time I think I’m actual-smiling. A little bit, at least. I don’t know why. I like John. I really have to wonder how the dvergar pull this off. That they’re rich is obvious, and as months turn into years I’ve started to understand that they genuinely meant it when they said they were willing to support me for the rest of my life.

But finding this many people, to staff a two-person shift around the clock, who all understand how to interact with me? This sort of gentleness isn’t really a very common trait, and I imagine it has to limit their hiring pool considerably. The dvergar also meant it when they said that I would be supported fully. I think I actually feel a little grateful. Maybe that’s why I’m smiling.

I shrug and let the question go. I heat breakfast in the microwave, grab some orange juice. I stand there staring at the carton for several seconds with the fridge open before the beep of the microwave shakes me out of my momentary daze. I don’t know what I was thinking about, or why I went into that daze. Sometimes it just happens.

The food is good. I notice what it is, this time. Eggs, potatoes, sausage links. Normal breakfast foods. I don’t exactly pick my food to avoid things I got in there, but I’m rather glad Master avoided a lot of common foods, and a lot of foods I like.

I pause, realizing I just called him that mentally, and sigh. I finish eating, and stare at nothing until it’s time to go.

John’s not the one driving. That’s Kyle, a younger man, about my age I think. Assuming he ages like a human, at least, and I don’t age at all like a human, so he looks a couple years older than I do. He hasn’t been working this shift rotation for very long, but I like him. He has a nice laugh, and he’s good at telling jokes without triggering me, which is hard for a lot of people. I think I noticed liking him within the first few months, and I think I’d only felt it for a couple weeks before I noticed, which is kind of impressive, somehow.

He’s also a better driver. John is quiet, on the way. Kyle puts on some music. Some psytrance song I’m not familiar with. It’s a low-key genre, not prone to the kinds of sounds that make me freak out. Also not a kind of music I heard much, Before.

And then we’re there. I get out of the car, and the two attendants fall in at my sides. The mental image is strongly one of a bodyguard, and I giggle about that, even though on some level I know that’s actually what they are. They spend more time doing caretaker work, but these people are employed by a security company as the front that the dvergar use for the operation. The people taking care of me are nice and they’re gentle, but I’m aware that they’re dangerous people, that most or all of them have killed people in combat. Even if I weren’t me, I don’t think I’d know how to feel about this.

We’re a few minutes early. Not quite ten. Close, but not quite. At eight, I see Kyoko approaching, walking down the street. She doesn’t drive, of course, but she probably hitched a ride most of the way here. She does that sometimes, intentionally has someone drop her off a little ways away from her destination. Says that the walk helps clear her head, and I can sort of understand that, even though it doesn’t help me.

She’s very recognizable. I like that about her. I don’t have to worry if I’m remembering the right face, if I’m associating things to the right mental model of a person. Nobody I have ever met looked like Kyoko. Even without her tattoos, the eyes would give her away every time. When I think someone looks like Kyoko, I’m looking at Kyoko, and that’s reassuring to know.

“Hey,” she says, gently, once she gets close enough. I think Kyoko was the first person, after my escape, to work through how to not set off my panic attacks. She remains probably the best at it. She’s got her own demons, her own indescribable nightmares, erratic and eccentric needs. She knows what it means, how much it helps me that she doesn’t trigger mine.

“Hi!” I speak louder than she does, like I usually do. I still don’t understand how my own alexithymia works, though Kyoko has helped me to figure it out over the past two years. Apparently I project emotions without exaggerating them, but if someone else responds with the same intensity it feels like escalation. It’s a strange asymmetry to have to manage.

I’m definitely smiling now. I mean it. I haven’t seen Kyoko in a while. Neither of us has been fit for company for the past few weeks. She went into one of her depressive spells at the same time I started having worse nightmares for no particular reason. I like seeing her enough to be confident the smile is real, and I think something about that feels good.

“It’s good to see you,” she says, sounding like she means it. It can be a little hard to tell with Kyoko, and not just for me. Her signals vary from time to time and they aren’t quite the same as other people’s. She says most people have a hard time understanding her. I think most people are idiots. If you pay any real attention, well, she’s only mildly difficult for me to read.

“Good to see you too,” I say, after only slightly longer of a pause than was appropriate.

“You’re sure you’re up for this, right?”

I hesitate. “You said it will be quiet, right?”

“I said it should be quiet,” she corrects. “It’s supposed to be a very calm event. It’s a benefit concert, and I know the owner of the venue. I talked to him about things, and he’s the kind of guy who will take that seriously. This should be about as quiet as a nightclub gets. But.” She shrugs. “People are people.”

I sigh. “Yeah,” I say. “They are.”

I start towards the door of the club. My escorts start with me.

Somewhat to my surprise, Kyoko actually pauses and turns towards Kyle. “Hey,” she says. “Are you planning to just…stand next to us?”

The man pauses, looking vaguely confused. “Yes?” he says after a moment, sounding unsure. Then, more firmly, “It’s our job.”

Kyoko rolls her eyes at him. “Having armed guards standing next to her at a nightclub will get so much of the wrong kind of attention it’s not even funny. Look, I’ll be staying close enough to her to cover the immediate proximity, and I swear I will not allow any harm to come to Melissa tonight, nor leave her on her own until she’s ready to return home. You really need to be covering the crowd and the exits, anyway.”

Kyle looks like he might protest, but John answers first. “You’ve got a point. You’re sure you’re able to handle close-range threats?”

Kyoko smiles, but it’s mostly just showing teeth, and even I can tell the difference when she does this. “I can handle it at least as well as you,” she says. She’s not visibly armed, but she doesn’t really need to be.

He nods, and takes his younger colleague by the arm, pulls him aside to confer. I smile a little as I follow Kyoko inside. I like my escorts, but they get…tiring. And I understand why they’re necessary and am grateful to have them, but I am pretty sure I hate that I do need them.

We show our IDs, both of them probably fake ones but this security guard will definitely not catch the forgeries. He just waves us through after barely looking, and we go to find a table.

Kyoko doesn’t say much. I know why, or at least part of why. It isn’t just me who needs to be very sure about this being a calm event. Different reasons, granted, but concerts and nightclubs are usually things neither of us gets. If it stays calm she probably won’t go into a seizure. Probably. But it will still be pretty overstimulating for her, and she tends to go nonvocal when that happens.

I envy her for it, in a way. It’s something that the two of us share, and very few other people do. Our experiences are different kinds of extreme. Her perceptions, and her awareness of magic in particular, are far outside my ability to really grasp. She doesn’t know much of how it feels, when emotions are pushed beyond natural limits. But we share that experience of knowing extremes that other people can’t.

But hers still cripple her, and I can’t get mine back, and I’m genuinely not sure which of the two of us has it worse. I don’t think I’d be sure even if I were not crippled by the lingering damage mine inflicted. It’s a feeling where surety does not come easily.

She doesn’t talk much. I don’t press her to. We sit in relative quiet, though I occasionally have some small comment on the people around us. She giggles at a few of them. She doesn’t get to do that enough, I think. She gets a lot of kinds of laughter but not that one. I think I’m glad to give it to her. It’s hard to tell.

Time fades into a blur. It does that, for me. Everything feels so thin, so grey. When I’m not doing anything and there’s no strong stimulus I stop really being aware of time passing. I don’t know how long we spend sitting there before the actual performance starts. There’s more violin in it than I expected, and less talking. I don’t attend very closely to the talking parts. I don’t know or care what this benefit concert is beneficent towards. Some human charity that doesn’t matter to me.

The music, though, is nice. And the lights. It’s pretty calm, like the owner promised. Not a ton of lights, and they aren’t flashing or moving a ton. The colors are pretty, moving in slow patterns that catch my eyes and hold them, but it’s not at all the kind of lightshow that might make Kyoko start seizing. Maybe it’s a benefit for neurological disorders or something, and they’re actually paying attention. I don’t know.

Time flows past. I like the music, but I’m definitely getting overstimulated after a while. I think Kyoko might be too, but I’m not sure.

I’m sure about me, though. I look at her and say, “I think I need to step outside.”

She nods, and she stands up immediately. Even if she could talk she wouldn’t ask questions until she’d escorted me out, I’m pretty sure. I don’t think she even really understood the words, she just knows what to expect me to be saying.

She knows where the nearest exit is, because of course she does, and she leads me that direction. Not by the hand, but she looks back to check that I’m following frequently. It’s enough. We go outside.

I am certain that my escorts will catch up to us momentarily. But for just that moment, as we step out into the alley behind the club, it’s just the two of us.

And, of course, that’s when some guy stumbles out of the club after us. He’s drunk. He’s looking at me. “Hey. You’re pretty. And you seem nice.”

I look at him. I’m smiling but it’s definitely not because I’m happy. I’m not sure what I feel but it’s not happiness. “I don’t want any trouble,” I say, because it seems to be the stock phrase for the situation and I haven’t rehearsed anything more specific. Kyoko is clearly ready to grab the man and throw him into a wall or something, but I think she wants to avoid escalating things. And I know for a fact she can’t even understand language right now, much less produce it. Any intervention she makes will be one that escalates to physical violence.

And then the question becomes moot. He says, “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I don’t mean you’re in trouble.” It’s barely a coherent answer, and he’s slurring. Kyoko’s starting to move, but he’s closer to me than I realized, everything feels so strange and distant and confusing. He reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder, starts pulling me into a hug and—

—Master takes me by the shoulder. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he murmurs. I want to worry but I can’t, I know I should but I can’t. I can’t even feel afraid. He doesn’t let me. “This won’t hurt.” He has a silver collar in his hand. No latch, he doesn’t use them, I don’t know how he makes these things but I’ve examined some of the others’ over the past two weeks. We talk sometimes, and they’ve told me what to expect but it doesn’t help. He closes the collar around my neck, and I know it was open just a few seconds ago so it must have a hinge or something but I can’t see it. There’s a hissing feeling of magic and a tinge of distant, smothered fear, and then the collar is on me, tight to my neck. The metal has no hinge, no seam, like it was forged in place. This is a collar that goes on and does not come back off, ever. It shouldn’t feel good but the magic in the collar is tuned to say it does, and it’s tuned to say it in the specific ways that will convince me, personally, that it does, and so it really doesn’t matter that it shouldn’t. I know it shouldn’t but it’s meaningless. I know I should feel afraid, should feel angry, should be—

—watching Kyoko pull him away, but it’s far too late. I don’t even remember the magic I just used on him, but I know what it does. He’s not warded against it in any way that would protect him. He was only in contact with me for maybe half a second while I lost myself in a flashback, but that’s long enough. His hand is blistering like it’s being burned. Kyoko throws him into a wall like I thought she might earlier, and he hits hard enough to leave bruises. He has bigger things to worry about, though, like how he just fell and won’t be getting up again. His legs are starting to spasm and convulse, and he’s trying to scream but it’s quiet. Soon it will be quieter, once his diaphragm is fully paralyzed and he starts to suffocate. Scorpion venom isn’t a particularly fun way to die.

Distantly, I realize my escorts are here, are talking. Something about dealing with the dying man. I’m pretty sure he’s just going to disappear. The dvergar’s company is rather…liberal with its interpretation of what counts as “security” or “protection”. They will know how. Of course, this also means that cutting his throat or something would produce a really awkward amount of blood, so he’ll probably die slowly. I wonder if I feel bad about that. I wonder if I should.

Kyoko totally ignores all of that. She kneels down next to me, and gestures in a vaguely inviting way. Not grabbing my hand, of course. But she’s expressive. I sit, and she sits near me without touching, and makes soft cooing sounds. I lift one hand to touch the light chain around my neck, take a deep breath, let it go.

I don’t know why touch is so bad. I really don’t. Can’t make it make sense. I have bad memories of it, sure, but I can’t fathom why it prompts that kind of terror, so scared even I know what I’m feeling. It doesn’t make sense to me. He touched me, sure, but. Most of the worst things he did only involved touching me on the inside.

I barely notice the trip home. I eat dinner. I read a bit because I think I used to like to, and so it makes sense as a place to start trying to like things. It isn’t working so far. Eventually, I give up and go to bed.

---

I wake up. I still wake up groggy, but it’s a different kind, now. I wake up, and I feel groggy, but the magic in the collar doesn’t. I know what I am supposed to do right now, so I do it. Get up, do hygiene things in the bathroom adjoining my cell, dress myself. I know that I am doing what Master wants me to do and doing it well, and that feeling is so euphoric. Even just the hypothetical case of his approval is enough to make me feel giddy.

Idly, I wonder how much is coming from the collar and how much is just…me. I’m sure it’s not purely the magic. I’m aware, on an intellectual level, that I have also been subjected to mundane gaslighting, conditioning, and indoctrination. It would probably have some kind of effect without the magic even needing to be involved. I might be making these choices without the collar making them for me.

I think I hate him for that. It’s very hard to tell. The hatred is buried under too much love to see it clearly. But I think there’s some there. I suppose, in a way, it’s recursive. My inability to perceive my own hatred is why, on the abstract level, I hate this so much. If the magic were imposing an action on me, just a compulsion forcing me to do something, that would still be awful but it would at least be external.

This isn’t. I make the choice myself. I initiate the action. I just do so while driven by emotions so strong that rational thought can’t hold up under them, has no connection to action or even a connection to incentive. Just a detached awareness. I know I feel hatred, somewhere.

But I have no chance of figuring out whether I hate him or myself.

I sit on my bed once I’m done getting dressed. I dressed nicely today because that’s what I was supposed to do. I don’t know why, but I did it, wearing white and gold with a little bit of red. I like it. I’m satisfied with it. I don’t have anything else to do right now, so I sit and time just turns into a fugue.

It’s a nicer cell than the one I first woke up in. I have a bathroom, a decent bed. But it is still, ultimately, a cell, complete with the wall of bars to let people see in freely. I stopped really caring about that a long time ago but it does occasionally amuse me, in much the same way as the collars, as him calling us thralls, making us call him Master. What he has created here is a cliché verging on a caricature. It doesn’t matter.

Another thrall comes to get me after a while, I don’t know how long. That’s normal. Once people have been here a while he starts to trust them with errands, sometimes more important ones than this. He knows we won’t rebel. The thrall is not one I recognize. My facial recognition has definitely deteriorated while I have been here. I don’t think we’ve spoken before. We don’t speak to each other now. What would be the point?

I’ve been here for a long while now. Years. I don’t know how many, but it’s been years. It’s fascinating how little I actually know about the place, despite having lived in it so long. Some kind of compound in the hills, one which blends elements of a manor, a cult commune, a research facility, and a prison. I’ve seen out windows, occasionally even gotten to go outside for a brief time. But I’ve only really interacted with a relatively small portion of the place or of the people in it. We’re not exactly confined to our cells, but we don’t tend to wander around much and so I mostly just know a few of the other thralls well, with the rest being a blur.

Similarly, the hall blurs around us as we walk. I struggle to remember when and where I am a lot of the time. Navigation is hard. A lot of things are hard. I am aware, in a distant way, that things in me have broken on a fundamental level. The other thralls say that this is worse, for me. Being pushed to various breaking points to see what form the breakage takes is not as routine for them. They still care about the people they used to be, the people they used to love, and they say that it’s sad how much I can’t. I understand this only in a very abstract way. I can’t find a single experience from before this place vivid enough to even feel like real life, real emotions, and the fact that I know this is the version that’s not actually real doesn’t matter.

I don’t know where we are when we stop. A large room with freestanding cages. I don’t remember having been in it before but that means very little. I am led to one of the cages, and I don’t hesitate as I step inside. The bars are literally gilded. This whole thing feels deeply tacky. It doesn’t matter.

I go still once I’m inside. People mostly don’t go this still as I understand it. They fidget. I don’t. I don’t have a reason to move. Everything feels grey. More time blurs past. Other thralls are brought in and led to individual cages. I recognize some of them. There are about twenty of us arranged around the room, with space in between, and a set of catwalks overhead. It’s a very strange room and it smells like disinfectant.

When Master enters the room, all of us turn to look, literally all of us, in unison. He likes to be the center of attention. When we see him smile, just a little, I know I’m not the only one who suddenly feels very happy to have done right.

There are other people with him. I don’t recognize them and they don’t have collars. Peers of his, then, very different from us. People like that visit sometimes. Some of them use us in various ways. None have ever bothered explaining who they are. Occasionally, one of them takes a thrall with them, when they leave. They’re all having a conversation in a language I don’t know. It sounds like Latin, I think, but I don’t know enough languages to be confident at all.

None say anything in English as they make a slow circuit of the room. The various people he has with him examine us. Some of us are naked, others are clothed as well as I am. Presumably, different traits are on display. It doesn’t make much sense but nothing makes much sense to me anymore.

They reach my cage. Master smiles at me and I think I might weep for joy. I love him and I don’t know how to stop. My love and adoration for him is the emotion most frequently and strongly induced in me, and it’s at this point strong enough he doesn’t need to actively use magic on me, my own brain and the permanent spells laid on the collar and on me are more than enough to make me melt. If he didn’t want me to stay standing, I feel like I might collapse into a puddle on the floor. But he does, so I don’t.

“Come here, darling,” he says. The same thing that he said before my first time experiencing his magic. I don’t hesitate a moment as I press myself up to the bars of the cage. I can taste my own venom and I think wistfully about what it might be like to want to use it on him. It’s a very dim concept. Very grey.

He’s saying something to one of the people next to him in that other language. There’s no warning at all. Mid-word, he gestures slightly and—

—terror, laced with shame and directed in ways that I don’t understand, don’t have control over. Why am I afraid to stand up to the point that I need to be flat on the ground on my stomach? I don’t know. I just am, and so I am. Shame is easy to find but I don’t know why I’m ashamed to know that the abstract concept of shame exists.

The terror escalates further. It’s several steps beyond normal fear. Getting violently assaulted wouldn’t do this. If you managed to somehow get violently raped while on a rollercoaster, while drowning, while watching the people you love in mortal danger, that might be enough to evoke it, maybe.

Thought dissolves. Thinking clearly was already out of the question, and I’m pretty sure it has been for years now. But thought and perception dissolve entirely. There is only fear, and shame, and the two just feed into each other and push it further and further and—

—I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t think. I’m on the floor and the idea of standing is a horrible one and I don’t know if I care. I was screaming just now and I think I injured at least one limb while falling. I don’t know which, or when, or how. I feel disoriented and confused.

“Samantha.” Hearing my name, I look up and see Master standing over me on the other side of the cage wall. He smiles at me. “Good girl. You’ve done very well, my dear.”

I’m smiling too, now. Loose and dopey and sincere. The happiness at the praise is instant, but the feeling is a little grey, a little thin. A natural one, not the product of his magic. I’m happy.

His smile widens. He opens his mouth and starts to say something.

No warning. But I’m the one who knows first, this time. I can look past him and see that the loud noise was someone blasting the door down. They throw a whole set of what look like grenades into the room.

Everything turns into white light and piercing noise and static. Can’t focus, can’t think, can’t tell what’s going on. That was a lot of flashbangs. I don’t remember why I know the word.

By the time I can perceive the world again the fighting has already started. It looks like Master and about half a dozen of his associates are still up and fighting. Attacking is…I’m not sure. It looks like a strange cocktail of paramilitary force, historic reenactment club, and horror movie. People with body armor and guns are the most numerous, but there are a few people with heavy steel armor and swords, there are a few people who are clearly throwing magic around to some degree. A couple don’t even look like people, the most visually obvious being a sort of two-legged wolf covered in lightning, but there are others.

The attackers are much more numerous. But Master and his associates are very dangerous people. One calls up a wave of fire that incinerates a few of the gunmen. Another just threw something that exploded into a cloud of thick black fog, and the people in that fog started dying.

But the attackers are also dangerous people, and they have the advantages of surprise and position. That opening volley of flashbangs was also very disruptive. Numbers will tell, in the end. They steadily advance into a room that has suddenly turned into the killing floor of a slaughterhouse.

That includes us, of course. The thralls aren’t exactly being targeted by either side, but we’re standing in freestanding cages spread through the room, our positions intentionally exposed to view from all sides. Weapons in use are not terribly discriminating ones for the most part, and a burst of gunfire that would do little to nothing to one of the mages is enough to kill the person it actually hits. I’m flat on the ground already and vaguely amused to realize that it just saved my life. It’s really only the thralls who thought to hit the deck who seem likely to survive long enough to see who wins the fight.

I wonder who I want to win. I think probably the attackers. But without any idea what’s going on or who they are, it’s very difficult to be confident about it.

They continue to advance. Master throws out a wave of power and half a dozen of them fall to the ground, screaming as they have their first experience of that much emotional suffering. I feel a vague sort of pity because I’ve never managed to forget that first taste of shame and I doubt I ever will. He’s the last person still standing aside from the attackers, and now he gets forced back a step, then another, falling back towards my cage. I don’t know when he moved away from it. One of the people in armor finally reaches him, grabs him by the throat and throws him to the floor right in front of me, close enough I could reach out and touch him. I don’t, though.

The sword comes down. Once. Just once. It’s sharp enough and he’s strong enough to literally decapitate Master that quickly, and I’m absolutely soaked in blood within seconds. As it sinks in what just happened, I stare, and then I start sobbing, and don’t stop until I pass out.

---

Wake up. Eyes open. I feel like my head is full of sludge. I’m staring at a different ceiling than usual, and I’m vaguely proud of realizing it without needing several tries to remember what the usual one is. I still need several tries to remember which this is, but I know it’s not that one.

Memories gradually start to fit together again. It’s been six years since I was freed. I have finally started to somewhat believe that I am. It’s still very difficult to understand. A lot of things are difficult to understand. I can sort of function, but I still very much need the supported living situation.

I’m coming to accept, I think, that I will probably always need it. When the dvergar offered to support me for life, I think they knew better than I what they were saying. I think they knew much more clearly than I did at the time what limits there are to recovery. I’ve gotten a lot better. But it’s just a reality. Some types of damage can be repaired. Some cannot. I have enough of the latter that I am probably going to need this for the rest of my life.

I wonder how I feel about that, as I push myself out of the bed in Cassie’s guest room. It smells strongly of wolf, and I don’t even have a particularly acute sense of smell by human standards. I suppose the werewolves probably just stop smelling themselves pretty quickly. Resentment or sadness seems most likely, but gratitude isn’t out of the question, and that fact itself is pretty nice. For years it would not even have made the list of possibilities.

There are two security workers in Cassie’s living room. It’s not the same two who were there when I went to bed, unexpectedly tired after a small party she hosted last night. They did a shift change on-site, and I don’t know how I feel or how I should feel about this. These people have dedication I can’t readily comprehend.

Cassie left me a note. Doesn’t say much, just that she had to head out early for unspecified reasons and I’m welcome to help myself to the fridge before I leave. I don’t, because werewolves are…well. They’re certainly enthusiastic about food, but their standards tend to run more towards quantity than quality. By the same token, though, offering to share was a kind gesture from a werewolf, and I think I appreciate it. Reasonably sure. I don’t know why I wouldn’t.

I sigh, and walk out the door. I don’t bother trying to lock up behind myself. People who burgle werewolves deserve what they get.

I slip back to sleep while still in the car.

---

I wake up when I hear a voice. “Hey there.”

I blink a few times at the voice. Look up from the floor, trying to shake off the haze of sleep. She’s speaking softly. I don’t recognize her. Japanese girl, I’m pretty sure, with bright green eyes and tattooed hands and forearms. I don’t know where she came from. We’re still in the hotel. Apparently the people who were primarily responsible for this raid just bought out an entire hotel to stick the rescued thralls in while they figure out what to do with us.

“Um. Hi?” I don’t know what my tone was or what I meant for it to be. Everything feels so grey and sludgy.

“Is it okay if I sit with you?”

I look around the hotel lobby. “Is there a reason it wouldn’t be?”

She shrugs. “You don’t need a reason. I don’t want to assume. You just looked lonely.”

I consider this. Am I lonely? It seems plausible. I don’t know how to tell. I realize after a moment that the silence has gone on longer than it probably should, and say, “That’s fine.”

“Cool.” She sits on one of the other hotel chairs, close enough to hear each other, far enough to give me space. “I’m Kyoko. I don’t know whether there’s something you want me to call you.”

“I don’t know.” I think for a few seconds. “I don’t like my old name. Or anything else he called me. I don’t know what all that leaves. And he mostly called me nice things, so that’s kinda. Complicated.”

She nods. “That’s okay. Let me know if anything comes to mind.”

“Thanks. I will.” I tilt my head to the side slightly. Something about her seems…familiar, but I can’t tell what. “Were you there?”

“Mhmm. I was in fur, though.”

I stare for a second while I try to figure that out, then it clicks. “Oh. You were the wolf?”

“Yeah. I didn’t do all that much in the fight. But I helped with finding that place. Wanted to be there.” She sounds almost apologetic, as though having found the compound and helped with attacking it isn’t enough.

“You did good,” I say softly. “It worked.”

She looks at me for a second, and then looks away. “Thank you,” she says quietly, and I get the impression she’s holding back tears with some difficulty. “I wish…I dunno. That it worked better, or someone got there sooner.”

I consider that for a few moments, then say, “Why did you bother?”

Kyoko blinks. “Um. What?”

“Well,” I say slowly, still feeling out the idea, “I guess I’ve heard about some of what was going on. And I know why some people were involved. They were soldiers or something, or hired mages. Why were you there?”

She shrugs. “The dvergar, that’s the people who own this paramilitary security company thing behind the scenes, hired me to help them investigate when one of their clients got taken. Not you, one of the other thralls I think.”

“So you’d already done what you were hired for. You found them.”

She pauses, and I get the impression she wasn’t ready for that line of thought. “Uh. I mean, I guess so? But by then I had a decent idea of what was going on out there and…I’m not a great person. But there are limits.”

“Honey, you did plenty,” I tell her. I don’t really know why I’m saying this, but it seems like something she needs to hear and I think I might care. “It’s okay.”

She smiles a little, though she doesn’t show teeth. “I…thanks. Also, honey. You’re okay with that one?”

I think about it and then shrug. “I think so. He didn’t really call me that for some reason.”

“It’s hard to make it sound cruel,” Kyoko tells me, and she sounds like she knows what she’s talking about and I don’t ask why. “Do you want me to call you that? It has a nice sound.”

I frown, thinking about it. I think I feel…something. Trying to figure it out is maddening. It feels grey.

Everything feels grey, now. The only thing that actually feels vivid and passionate is grief. It’s been several days since we left. This is the first day I have spent not sobbing uncontrollably with grief that’s realer than real. The passionate love I felt for Master was deeply embedded and when he died, it rebounded into grief without losing any intensity.

It figures, really. The last experience I have of those emotions, of the too-real feelings that shattered so much of me, is grief for the person who inflicted it on me. Typical.

I realize I’ve let the pause go on too long, and say, “I like it but I don’t know if I want to use it as a name. It feels like I’d get comments on it I wouldn’t like.”

Kyoko considers that. I’m sort of surprised that she didn’t start telling me that I should do what I want and not think about what others will think, since that seems like the stock response people usually have. I think I’m glad. When she does respond, her voice is still very soft. “You could do something that’s a step removed from it. That way you know but other people don’t.”

I blink. “Um. What do you mean?”

She shrugs. “Something like Miel, Melissa, I think probably there are some Persian equivalents.”

“Melissa is about honey?” I didn’t realize this and feel something that might be interest. If so it’s surprisingly strong, for me to notice it.

“Yes. Greek for ‛honeybee’. But most people don’t know that. So your name can have a secret in it, and it’ll be yours and he’ll have nothing to do with it.”

I smile slowly. I am reasonably sure I mean it. Reasonably sure. “I like that. Thank you.”

“Anytime. I have to go lie down, haven’t slept in…a while. But I can find you again, after. If you want.”

“I think so? Probably. I think it probably sounds nice.” I don’t sound very confident, even to myself.

Kyoko just smiles, though, without showing any teeth. “Sounds good.”

I fall asleep in my chair before she’s out of the hotel lobby.

---

I wake up. I stare at an unfamiliar ceiling. It smells nice. Like wolves and flowers. That’s enough to tell me which ceiling it is before I recognize it. It only takes a few more moments after that to start reorienting myself again.

It has been eight years since I was freed. It still doesn’t feel quite real. I don’t know if it ever will. I don’t know what even could. Everything’s so grey and so confusing. It’s often hard for me to think. I am still heavily reliant upon the dvergar’s support for daily life activities. I think the other thralls who made it out have mostly, from what little I have heard, either killed themselves or recovered better than I have. Apparently I was in a strange sort of sweet spot, broken badly enough I can’t live on my own but not quite so badly that I can’t live at all.

But it’s okay. I’m okay. This is Kyoko’s spare room. I’m safe, and after a few moments I manage to reorient myself the rest of the way and sit up. I’m still mostly dressed from last night but I pull the rest of my clothes back on. I look at the long blue silk scarf in my hand for a long moment, then tie it around my neck. I still don’t know if that will ever stop being a thing I need. I don’t know whether I want it to.

She doesn’t have a mirror in there, at least, so I don’t get caught up staring at it. Kyoko doesn’t like mirrors much. She has one in the bathroom and that’s about it.

I walk out and sit on the couch of her living room and dissociate. Time goes past me and I don’t really notice it very much. After a while, I don’t know how long, I hear noise on the stairs.

I turn around and see her. She looks wretched. Nightmares, most likely. We share that malady, though hers are surreal hellscapes that are highly varied and I mostly just relive the same memories I still seem unable to move past. I have been free for twice as long now as he had me. I wonder how many times over it would take for me to stop having nightmares.

She doesn’t say anything. Probably can’t. She doesn’t have language online again yet. She stumbles into the room and collapses into an armchair. A little further than I want her to be. Exactly as close as I can let anyone. If there is anyone I trust, it’s her, but even a brief hug is still very, very hard for me. I don’t know why touch is such a strong trigger. I don’t know how to make it not be one.

Kyoko has never figured out why it’s so hard for her to talk or even to understand speech after nightmares, and so we just sit there for a little while. She wishes she could talk to me and doesn’t know why she can’t, I wish I could hug her and don’t know why I can’t. The mutual understanding of this is…not as comforting as actually having either one of these things, but it’s better than nothing.

Eventually, the puppy wanders in. Raincloud, I remember after a moment. Her name is Raincloud. It’s a cute name. I don’t know how I feel about her, but I am confident that a Siberian husky puppy named Raincloud is cute in the abstract. She drops a dead mouse on the floor at Kyoko’s feet, and Kyoko looks at it and then just starts laughing. “Thanks,” she tells the dog. She sounds sincere, and Kyoko’s a bad liar, so she probably is. I wonder whether it helped her, or she’s simply grateful for the attempt without having gotten any benefit. I think the latter but it’s hard to tell.

“Thanks for having me over,” I say after a little while. She’s started on an energy drink by then, but not a lot has been said. I sound cheerful. I usually do.

“Of course.” She sounds gentle, the happiness subdued. She usually does, if and only if she’s talking to me. “It was good to see you.”

“I should probably get moving. I think I’m probably a little worn out.” I don’t sound confident. I don’t feel confident. I just know that I’m usually worn out after spending this long away from home, so it seems like a decent guess.

“Probably,” Kyoko agrees. “You should go get some rest.”

I don’t point out that I just woke up. We both know what she means and she’s not wrong. We go downstairs. She used to let my escorts stay in the bottom floor of the house while I was here, since she barely uses the space. After how things went with Audgrim, she’s understandably leery of the idea, and they wait in the car now. I am reasonably sure I feel sorry for them, but I really can’t blame her and they aren’t willing to wait any further away than that.

I think about hugging her, before I go. I want to. It has very gradually gotten easier, and with extreme care I’ve been able to hug Kyoko a few times now. I would like to do it now.

But after the nightmare I’m not in the kind of headspace that could. I know that. I can’t even make myself ruffle Raincloud’s fur. Trying would just hurt everyone involved. I don’t like it. I’m pretty sure of that. But it’s just…how things are.

I hear her lock the door behind me, when I leave, and walk out into the rain to find my escorts.
Previous Chapter Next Chapter