Forced Submission (22 page)

As tempting as it was, she didn’t dare take the time.
Instead, she logged out of his account and typed in her own information.
Ignoring the few unread messages in her account, she hit the compose button.

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

I don’t have a lot of time to type this. He might wake up
at any second. I am in terrible danger. Zahara said you would come to me if I
reached out my hand. I am reaching now. Ellis Hughes is insane. He took me
against my will and brainwashed me. You started the process of reawakening my
mind, and I remember now who I am. I am not M. I am Mia Roberts and I need your
help. He means to entrap and abduct another girl. He keeps me locked in his
house. Jira said I could stay with you. If that is still possible, please come
or send someone for me.

She had typed the words so quickly she wasn’t even sure what
she’d written, but it would have to do for now. She added Ellis’ street
address, praying her memory served her correctly, and hit
send.

Now to find a phone and call 911! She looked frantically
around the study, though she already knew there were no landlines in evidence
in the house. The only phone she knew of was the one still in Ellis’ pocket.
Did she dare…?

No. She did not.

She began to pull open the drawers of the desk, not even
sure what she was looking for. She pulled open the center drawer. It contained
only pens, sticky notes and other office supplies, along with some loose change
and a few random keys. She opened the drawers along the right side of the desk,
one after the other, but all she could see were files and more files. The
bottom drawer was locked. She tugged at it in frustration and then remembered
the keys in the center drawer.

Might one of them fit? Unlikely. Why lock a drawer but leave
the key? Still, it was worth a shot. She jerked open the center drawer again
and pulled out a pair of what definitely looked like desk drawer keys. Her
hands still shaking, she finally managed to get the key into the small lock. To
her shock and delight, it turned.

She yanked open the drawer. Inside was a bottle of some
expensive looking scotch. Peering more closely, she didn’t see anything else.
Why bother to lock up his liquor? Though she knew she needed to find a phone
and then get the hell out of that house, something made her stick her hand
deeper into the drawer. She touched something cold and hard—something made of
metal. As her fingers closed around it, Mia realized what she was holding.

With a gasp, she withdrew a small black handgun, from the
looks of it, a Colt semi-automatic, the slide locked in an open position to reveal
the empty chamber within. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” she whispered as
she reached again into the drawer, this time closing her hand around a box of
ammunition.

While Mia had never especially liked handling guns, her
father, who loved to hunt, had owned an impressive collection of firearms, and
used to drag a grumbling teenaged Mia to the target range on Saturday mornings.
“It’s important you know how to load and shoot a gun, Mia,” he would tell her.
“You just never know in this world.”

Now she offered a silent prayer of thanks to her dad as she
picked up the magazine, thrilled to see it was already loaded with bullets.
Hoping she remembered her lessons, she held the gun in her right hand and slid
the magazine firmly into position, waiting for the click to tell her it was
locked. 

Standing, Mia released the safety. Adrenaline coursing
through her body, she pulled the slide back and let it snap into place,
allowing the bullets to enter the chamber. Armed, she could
take
what
she wanted. She could get Ellis’ phone and call the police.

She sprinted across the room and out the door of the study
as if she were being pursued. She wanted to race up the stairs, taking them in
leaps, two and three at a time, but the hard fact was she was too weak to do much
more than drag herself upward, one hand clenched on the banister for support,
the other clutching the loaded gun, which suddenly felt too heavy in her hand.

She moved on leaden legs toward Ellis’ bedroom, gripping the
gun in both hands, one finger on the trigger. Her heart was thumping as she
entered the room. A wave of dizziness moved through her. She stood, naked and
swaying just inside the door. Ellis lay in a drunken heap on his bed, his
handsome face slack, a soft snore issuing from his parted lips.

Mia saw someone in the corner of her eye. She whirled toward
the intruder, the gun burning in her hands. She realized with chagrined relief
she had only caught a glimpse of herself in the tall mirror Ellis kept in the
corner of the room. Though she didn’t want to look again, some perverse need
drew her eyes back to the mirror.

The person who stood before her didn’t match the image she’d
had of herself for so long, before Ellis had stolen her life. Gone was the
plump girl with long shiny hair and pretty blue eyes. In her place stood a
too-thin waif of a thing, her haunted eyes overlarge for her face beneath the
shaven head. Her pale skin was mottled and marked by welts and bruises. She
looked, she realized with horror, like a concentrate camp victim.

“No,” she whispered fiercely. “A concentration camp
survivor
.”

All she had to do was get the phone, which she could see
bulging in the pocket of Ellis’ shorts. She would call 911 and then… A moment of
uncertainty hit her as she envisioned how the scenario would unfold.

Police cars racing toward the house, sirens blaring. Hard
fists banging on the front door and shouts of “Open up! Police!” She would have
to get down there and let them in. But she didn’t dare leave Ellis alone. So
they would have to break down the door. She could almost hear the crunch of
wood and the sound of heavy boots as they burst inside. They would find her
still rooted to the spot, naked and trembling, her gun aimed shakily at a drunk
asleep on the bed.

They would stare at her in horrified disbelief. “What the
hell?” they would exclaim to each other, their eyes registering both the pity
and disgust they would feel at the sight of her. They would demand to know what
had happened and what was going on. She would be forced to tell them what Ellis
had done to her.

She would have to spend hours, even days, as they
interviewed her, examined her, prodded her, humiliated her… She had read enough
crime novels and newspaper accounts to know assault and rape victims were often
dragged through the mud right along with their aggressors. She would be put on
trial alongside Ellis in the court of public opinion as people wondered just
what part she’d played in the sick BDSM games of a pair of lovers gone sour.

There was no telling how long the process would drag out,
preventing her from leaving the country for months or even years. Ellis, of
course, would get the best defense attorneys money could buy. He would find a
way to turn this all on her, or at the very least to make her complicit. After
all she’d endured at his hands, she would be further humiliated and shamed
before the world. The thought was unbearable.

As quickly as this hideous scenario unfolded, Mia gave it a
mental kick, sending it tumbling away. She had endured enough humiliation and
shame to last a lifetime. To last ten lifetimes.

She had a gun in her hands.

And all at once, she had a plan.

Why involve the police? Why give herself and Ellis over to
the slow, grinding gears of a huge, disinterested legal machine, and have no
control or influence over the eventual outcome?

No. She would take her own revenge. Ellis Fucking Hughes
would pay. And he would pay her directly for all that she had suffered because
of him.

Her hands no longer shaking, Mia walked through the room,
stopping just a few feet from her tormentor. She assumed a steady stance and
cocked the gun, aiming it directly at Ellis’ head.

“Open your eyes, you son of a bitch,” she said in a loud
voice, pleased to note there was no waver in her tone. She half expected Ellis
to continue to snore, lost in his whiskey-sodden dreams. But the sound of her
voice seemed to penetrate his stupor, and his eyes slowly opened. He stared at
her, though he didn’t seem to be focusing properly. He started to lift his hand
in her direction.

“Make one move,” Mia said more forcefully than she’d ever
said anything in her life, “and I’ll blow your fucking brains out.”

~*~

Ellis closed his eyes as he waited for his head to clear. He
must have had more to drink than he’d thought. He’d been startled out of a
rather pleasant dream involving several naked women servicing him at once, by
the sound of a woman shouting at him.

As he came more fully awake, his brain processed the words
that had ripped him from his dream. His eyes flew open and he stared in
disbelief at the shocking sight before him.

M was standing near the bed like some kind of naked
vigilante, waving a gun in his direction, her usually submissive countenance
twisted unattractively into what could only be called a snarl. The image didn’t
compute in his brain. 

“What the fuck?” Ellis spat, pulling himself fully upright.
Any vestige of alcohol still lingering in his bloodstream burned away as he
stared at the dark round mouth of what he now recognized as his gun.

“That’s my gun, you little bitch!”

“It’s my gun now, cocksucker.”

Ellis didn’t recognize the voice issuing from his slave
girl. Where was the submissive who worshipped him? What the hell was going on?
He forced his gaze from the gun to M’s face. Her eyes were wild and she was
breathing hard through flared nostrils. There was a sheen of sweat on her skin,
though the room was cool. She was, he realized with a small measure of
satisfaction, terrified. As well she should be. Because when he was done with
her, she’d wish she’d never been born.

“M,” Ellis said sternly. “Put that thing down. You don’t
know how to shoot a gun. You’re going to hurt yourself.” She didn’t move. “I
don’t know what game you’re playing at, but it needs to stop. Now.” He swung
his feet over the side of the bed. M took a step back.

Good. She wouldn’t shoot him. She wouldn’t dare. He would
put an end to this nonsense once and for all. How the hell had she gotten hold
of his gun, for fuck’s sake? He must have passed out from too much booze, and
forgotten to lock her into her cage. The ungrateful little cunt had seized the
opportunity to go rummaging through his things.

She was going to pay, big time. He wouldn’t even bother
filling the bathtub. He’d just drag her to the toilet and shove her face right
into the bowl. He would dunk her again and again, until all the fight had gone
out of her. Then he’d beat her bloody. He’d drag out the punishment, giving her
time between sessions to ponder her mistake in daring to defy her Master. Then
he would put her in the punishment cage with no food or water until she begged
for forgiveness.

He stood, clenching his hands into fists as he took a step
toward the willful, disobedient cunt.

“Don’t move!” she shouted, and he noted with satisfaction
that her voice and her hands were now shaking. “I said not to move, asshole. I
know how to use this thing.”

Ellis shook his head slowly, keeping the rage out of his
voice. He would play along for now. He held up a placating hand, palm forward.
“M, have you forgotten who you belong to?” Her eyes flickered, but she didn’t
answer. “Let’s say it together. Come on, you know the words.” He spoke in a low
soothing tone. It was like gentling a skittish mare. He just had to be careful.
There was no way she had shaken off months of intensive training, just like
that.

He took another step toward her, arms open as he began the
mantra, confident she would take over as she had a thousand times before. “I
belong to you, Sir. You are the Master—”

The sudden explosion of gunfire nearly deafened him. “What
the fuck!” he roared, falling back on the bed in his shock.

“Damn it, Ellis! You move again and I’ll shoot
you
.”

How dare she address him by his first name! He could hear
the terror in her voice. She didn’t even know how to use a fucking gun. She was
going to kill someone if she wasn’t careful. It sure as hell wasn’t going to be
him. This had gone far enough. It was time to put a stop, once and for all, to
M’s audacity. And then she would pay. And pay, and pay some more.

Ellis stood again, the scenario already unfolding in his
head. Before she had a chance to react, he’d get his hand on her wrist. He
could almost hear the snap of bone as he closed his fingers hard around it.
He’d wrest the gun away, get her in a choke hold and shove the muzzle of the
thing into her goddamn mouth. He wouldn’t shoot her. Death was too good for her
now. No, he would make her suffer, dragging it out over days, weeks, even
months, until nothing was left but her body—her mind wiped free of any thought
but serving him. She would never defy him again.

Another deafening explosion tore through the air and all at
once Ellis felt as if someone had punched him hard in his right deltoid. A
second later came a deep, burning sensation. Instinctively he grabbed his arm,
stunned to see bright red blood oozing between his fingers.

Shock and rage surged through him. “You fucking cunt! You
fucking
shot
me!”

“I told you I know how to shoot, asshole. Next time I’ll
kill you.”

Where had M gone? Who
was
this woman who had taken
over his passive, obedient sex slave? Ellis tore his eyes from the flesh wound
to stare at the naked, trembling maniac who still gripped the gun tight in her
hands, its muzzle aimed at his heart. For the first time he realized the crazy
bitch might actually kill him.