Master A-0011 (Garden of the Gods #11)

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“ D on’t stop. Don’t stop.”

Every part of Ethan consumed me. From his kiss to his cock, I wanted nothing more than to show him how much I wanted this: wanted us and our future together. I breathed to pleasure him. I melted at his touch. For hours we lost ourselves in the blood and lust. So many orgasms. So much cum filling me up. And I had encouraged every drop. Hell, I’d begged for it right there on our bathroom floor as I stared up at Sissy’s unconscious, mangled mess of a body.

Had I done that?

Had that been real? Or had I dreamed it? Was I dreaming?

There was a hum mixing with the screams through the darkness. A voice that soothed a deep part of me that I couldn’t quite reach. The tone left me floating in the heaviness. I knew that voice, but for the life of me, I couldn’t force myself to think clearly enough to figure out who it must be. Was it still Ethan? Was I at our apartment?

“Pearl, you did amazing. Open your eyes. It’s time for you to wake up.”

Open my eyes? Light flashed as I tried to get my lids to obey.

“There we go. That’s it.”

I think she’s coming around, Main Master. We’ll continue to monitor her. It went beautifully. In a few weeks, no one will ever be able to tell she had a scar there at all.”

“Excellent. I knew you could do it. Thank you, Dr. Wu.”

“My pleasure.”

Seconds.

A minute.

Longer.

Time went in and out just like I did. It was nausea that had me finally managing to open my eyes. When I did, I thought the room was empty. As the Main Master stood from a chair on the far side of the room, I realized that wasn’t the case. My pulse raced on the monitor, speeding at some accelerating warning inside me, and he didn’t miss it as his attention went between us.

“There you are. How do you feel?”

“Am I fixed?

My voice sounded different. Far away and slightly slurring. Elec walked over, helping me to sit forward and take a sip of water before he spoke.

“You don’t remember waking up a little earlier?”

My head shook. “No.”

“I had them show me your face when they came in to check on you. You came to, but you were still pretty groggy. It’ll take a little time but…Pearl, it’s perfect.”

Tears clouded my eyes. “No more scar?”

“You’ll have to heal, but that’ll be nothing. You’re done. It’ll be completely gone.”

A sob left me as I rested my head back against the reclined top of the bed.

“Thank you, Main Master. I can’t believe it. I…Can I see?”

“Not yet. Not until you’re healed. I want it to be a surprise for both you and Ethan. Lay back and rest. Your life is just beginning. There’s no point in rushing things now. Close your eyes, Pearl. Dream of your new life outside of these walls. Imagine being happy with Ethan and the big family you’re going to give him.”

“I do want that,” I managed, already obeying and closing my lids but snapping them back open. “He’s okay? Ethan?”

The Main Master smiled. “Better than okay. He misses you already.”

“My dad? Quincy,” I forced out. “He’s not dead, is he? I want to be there. I?—”

“Calm. He’s not dead. None of them are. They’re suffering but still alive.”

“Good.” My heart was racing for reasons I couldn’t begin to decipher. “Ethan will make them pay. “Ethan will—Quincy will pay. I miss Ethan. I’m going to be his wife.”

“I know,” Elec laughed. “You’re going to be an amazing wife, Pearl. And a great mother.”

“The best. It’s all I want.”

I barely managed to get the words out. Words that didn’t feel like my own. I was tired, but did I really want that? I felt like I did. I must. So what were those voices? The fight continuously raging inside me?

The questions ended as soon as I could even contemplate them. The wonder faded into the background, disappearing with dreams of happiness. Of having friends and being a mother. I wanted that. I…wanted it. I did. I always had.

Something.

Something.

Sleep.

More sleep.

A day.

More.

Time flew as I obeyed the Main Master’s orders. I woke. I slept. I wasn’t sure if the nurses who checked up on me were giving me medication to knock me out or I took Elec’s words to heart. It was the morning of the third day that I awoke from the sound of that familiar voice. But it wasn’t the Main Master’s foreign words that had my lids shooting open. It was the sudden silence. The calm yet tidal wave of unexplainable panic that came with it. No screams. No distant voices.

“It’s time to wake up, Pearl. How’s your sleep been?”

I took in blue eyes, swallowing past the lump in my throat. My hands were trembling, and it only spread to my body as those odd words repeated in my head. I felt like I was having convulsions as I searched for words.

“G-Good.”

“And your head? How’s that?”

Elec glanced back at the heart monitor, stopping next to my bed. Him being that close made me want to scream out in terror. I wanted to run. To hide. To attack if that’s the only option I had left. But I couldn’t do any of it. All I could manage was to try to calm the trembling controlling me.

“My head?”

“Let’s not play na?ve, Pearl.”

“Clear,” I managed. “It hurts. It’s too quiet. Almost to where my ears want to ring. P-Pressure.”

The Main Master nodded.

“It’s been quite a long time since you haven’t been… persuaded . It can be quite the jarring difference at first, but nothing you need to worry about. Soon, it’ll all feel like a dream. You’ll go back to your focus, and I’ll go back to helping Ethan plan your wedding.”

“Wedding?” I breathed out, momentarily confused. My eyes lowered, taking in the small, healing heart that was between my knuckles on my ring finger.

Memories came crashing through making me gag at the force. What I’d done to Sissy. At what was planned for my life, I gagged again.

Mother, yes. Wife, okay. But to him? To Ethan O’Brien, murdering cannibal? He was going to fillet my body alive. He’d already admitted to wanting to cut more of me. I had even agreed to allow it! Had I really done that? Had I eaten slaves? Had I cut them apart? Skinned them? Prepared and processed them for me and Ethan to eat in the future? Planned to eat my family? Even wanted it?

My hand shot to my mouth as I tried to catch my breath and swallow back the sensation to be sick. Elec waited, barely moving as I calmed enough to bring my attention back up.

“You wouldn’t imagine how often I see that reaction. It’s normal, and you won’t have to endure it long. I just have a few questions, and then I can put you back together again.”

“I don’t want to go back.”

A stoic expression stayed on the Main Master’s face as he looked down at me. But something was different with him. Off. I could sense something was wrong, and I had a feeling it had nothing to do with me or the man I was supposed to marry.

“Ethan is curious where you want to go for your honeymoon. Since he can’t see you yet, I told him I’d ask.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks. “Please. I don’t want to marry him. This was a mistake. I don’t want this.”

“If you didn’t on some level, you would have given me more resistance. You didn’t. You want it, even if you won’t admit it to yourself. All I’m doing is erasing the doubt. Answer, Pearl.”

Even as I tried to think, my eyes searched the room for an escape. There was only one door and there was no way I was getting past Elec. I had to buy myself time. I had to…do something. But could I? I knew there was no escape from the Gardens. But maybe after? After…. nothing. There was no escape.

“Pearl.”

I jumped at the hard, impatient tone, trying to get my memories to make sense. Was it true? Did I really want this and just not know it? We had been…good together since we decided on this. Ethan worshipped me . That morning as he brought me in…he’d been so upset that we had to be apart. No one had ever wanted me around. Ethan did. We’d spend the last few hours making love. Kissing just to kiss. Staring into each other’s eyes through foreplay. So many declarations. So many plans for our future. Had I really meant those things? Had he? Was that really what I wanted? Maybe it was my true self. The one who I never got to be? I was so confused. Nothing felt right. I was two people, but which one was really me?

“I can go anywhere?”

“Almost. You tell me where you want to go, and I’ll say yes or no.”

“Paris?”

“Done.”

Finality. It gutted me. Gutted me just like I gutted slaves during training to cook for Ethan. That wasn’t something I could justify or ignore.

“ Elec .”

“Don’t do it, Pearl. Don’t even think about anything other than your fate. You will be Ethan’s wife and you will love him. You will make him happy, and I give you my word, he will do the same for you. I’ve given you this new life. Don’t try to betray me and make me take it away.”

His arms came up, crossing over his wide chest.

“Next question. Your mother died when you were eight. Before she passed, you had a very close family. Would you say your life was good?”

The question was like whiplash. It was hard and clipped and confused me even more. I hadn’t thought about my family in years. It was too painful. Too raw and devastating. If I had memories, they revolved around the accident. I was stuck there. Trapped in a nightmare. “Yes,” I forced out.

“But when she died things changed?”

“They did.”

His brows drew in as he blinked through thoughts. “Your mother had a sister.”

“My aunt Carmela.”

Elec gave an encouraging nod.

“Yes. Did she ever come to you? Try to take you in after your mom passed?”

Seconds went by as I waded through the sludge in my mind. “She came over a few times. I can barely remember. My father didn’t allow me to see her. He told me she went crazy. That she wasn’t to be trusted, and that I could never see her or my mother’s side of the family again.”

“Of course he’d try to keep you away from them.”

“But…why? My father is with Ethan. He wouldn’t even speak to me before I left.”

“He’s speaking to Ethan just fine. Your father killed her Pearl. He killed your mother because of an affair she was having.”

“W-What?” Silence. I could barely see his face through the welling tears. My heart squeezed, and the ache was unbearable as I tried to search out words. Memories. Nothing. Nothing was there that would have shone guilt on my father’s account. “I don’t understand what’s happening? This isn’t making sense to me. She had an affair with who?”

“My father. But that’s not important. Or maybe it is. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. You had a cousin.”

More tears. They came with shock and pain. I sobbed, trying to hold in the heartbreak for my mother. I couldn’t, but I couldn’t keep crying either. Not at the new fear growing at the Main Master’s intensity.

“Your cousin, Pearl.”

“Vivia.”

“ Yes .” He stepped closer. “Tell me what you remember of her death.”

“I feel like we’ve talked about her before?”

Elec’s jaw flexed. “Never like this. Never with you so open. We had no reason to. Not until…Your father just confessed to your mother’s murder. I didn’t know that. No one did. If he killed her because of my father. If he...” His head shook and a wildness flared in his depths as his attention cut back up to me. “Vivia. What do you remember?”

Fear. It engulfed me at the expression the Main Master wore. “I was young. My mother was still alive. Aunt Carmela was…screaming.”

“You’ve told me that. Can you remember what she was saying? I need you to remember this time, Pearl. Remember .”

Color faded, blurring and warping as I tried to think back.

“‘ My baby’ ,” I whispered. “I could barely understand her. She was going between languages. I don’t even know which one it was.”

A momentary flash of encouragement twisted with desperation. “Think. Harder. Close your eyes. See yourself standing where you were that day.”

I bit into my bottom lip as I obeyed, closing my lids. Dark green and blue appeared at my feet. It was a carpet.

“I’m in my father’s study. He’s…standing from his desk. The screams.” Just hearing the pain in my aunt’s cry broke me. “She’s…calling out to my mother. She’s screaming. My baby. Claudia, my baby . She’s not stopping.”

“What do you see now? Push your mind further. When does she stop?”

A whoosh of air had me gasping as it shot by my small frame.

“My father. He’s rushing from the room. The door is open. I’m…walking to it. Standing in the doorway as he’s running through the hall.”

“Stop right there.”

Deep breaths left Elec, but I barely heard him as I soaked in the memories of my old home. Once a happy home. Murder. My father murdered my mother? Murderer!

“Take a deep breath, Pearl. This next part is very important. You’re standing in the doorway listening to your aunt Carmela yell out. Your father has run from the room, and your mother is now in there with her sister. Carmela is screaming. What is she saying?”

I sobbed, twisting my hands so hard through the racing of my heart. Murderer! Murderer! I felt rage like never before at my father. It was mixing with who I was and who I was becoming. Betrayal and abandonment was one thing. But killing my mother? Taking her away from me? Condemning me into this life because of the new woman and daughter he’d chosen? I felt sick again, like I was going to gag and throw up through the overwhelming emotions.

“ Vivia is dead. He killed her. I knew he would. I told you he was no good for her. Vivia is dead. She’s…gone. Dead. Dead.” My head shook as I could feel my smaller self take steps closer. “ She’s…nothing. More language I don’t know but …they say she’s...unrecognizable? Beaten? They’re getting further away. I can’t hear anything but the screams. The screams . They don’t end . ”

“ She said that? Carmela said unrecognizable? Beaten?”

Brightness returned as I opened my eyes. “Yes. I think so. That’s what I hear. Main Master.” My words got caught in my throat as I took in the pain and panic on his face. “Why are you so concerned with Vivia? Did you know her?”

His round eyes were blinking through thoughts, and he was running his fingers through his hair as he looked ahead. Seconds played out and his pale face slowly turned as he reached and grabbed the railing of my bed. “Know her? I think… no … “ He stopped. “I was the one who killed her. I… I did. It’s the pattern. Her pattern. I killed Vivia. I really did.” He swallowed hard, once again going blank but staying quiet. I was trembling. Back to shaking through the realization that my life was crawling with killers. My cries increased, and I reached for the gauze covering my throbbing cheek, stopping as Elec’s hand shot up. “Don’t touch it. This was too soon. I shouldn’t have made you cry. I’ll get the doctor.”

And he was gone…

There was no pause in his stride. No sign of emotion anymore. What had been there was just as fleeting as any humanity he hid away inside himself. And me, I was more terrified than ever. It enveloped me like a noose, choking and stealing any air I could breathe in. The man who controlled my mind murdered my cousin. I had always heard whispers that she’d been killed by her lover. By a man she turned down, but I never knew his name or who he was. After my mother’s death, I was raised by my nanny. That only lasted long enough for my father to meet Vicki. Then I had the accident. Socialization was few and far between after that.

“I hear we had some tears.” Dr. Wu and a nurse swept through the door with the Main Master right behind them. I was doing my best to stop the sobs and catch my breath, but it was impossible as I took in Elec. He was so close, but I couldn’t unsee what I’d glimpsed on his shocked face. He hadn’t been sure he killed Vivia. Now…he was, and that was because of me. But…was it me? Was it…her? The screams. Mine? Carmela’s? There was something I wasn’t remembering. Something…wasn’t quite right. That fed the panic. I wanted to attack the Main Master. Try to hurt him for hurting me with this truth. I couldn’t. Not when I saw him hurting too. And I did see that, even if I didn’t want to. It was all too much.

“I should have waited. I hope I didn’t ruin your work.” Elec’s mouth tightened as his arms went back to cross over his chest. The doctor reached up, pausing to take in the monitor with my racing pulse.

“There we go. Something for the nerves.”

I glanced over to tell the nurse thank you, pausing on her red hair. It was pulled back into a ponytail at the back of her neck, but the color.

Something.

Something.

Screams.

Screams.

“Red.” I was breathing heavier again. My heart hit against my chest so hard it stole the oxygen I was already having a hard time finding. “Red hair. Red.”

“What’s that, Ms. Mallory?”

I ignored the doctor, meeting the Main Master’s hard eyes.

“Long hair. Red. Lots of hair.” He stepped in as my gaze mindlessly went back and forth, trying to recall what my brain was so desperate for me to know. “A woman…I think. I’ve seen a woman. Long hair. A…woman. The screams. Screaming. A woman.”

“What woman, Pearl? Do you know her name? What about this woman?”

“I-I don’t know. There’s…something. I’m scared. But I’ve talked to her. A woman…”

The rail went down on the side of my bed and Elec quickly eased to sit. His tone turned smooth like satin.

“Look into my eyes, Pearl Mallory . This long-haired woman. Did she ever tell you her name?”

Blue sucked me in, and I felt my body turn just as calm as my mind was starting to.

“I don’t think so. But she came to me. Or…used to come? I think…I was with her? Lived with her? Or…saw her? I don’t know .”

“It’s okay.” He snapped his fingers next to my ear. “We’re going to go slow. I’m going to lift my hand, and I want you to follow my finger, okay?”

“She scares me. She…scares me.”

“Watch my finger, Pearl.”

I didn't look because I was obeying. I didn't have a choice. My eyes were stuck to his finger like a magnet. As it started to travel through the air. I couldn't turn away.

“Everything you tell me is very important. You’ll tell me nothing but the truth. How old were you when you saw this woman?”

“Thirteen…maybe? Young. No. Before that. Way before that. I don't know . I can't remember the first time she came to me. I think I was sleeping. But…something. I….”

“Do you remember the first thing you heard her say?”

“She didn’t come to me the first time I heard her. I just heard her voice. It was like yours. It…pulled. She was speaking to my father.”

“Your father?” Elec’s tone shifted to an emotion I couldn’t quite detect. “What did she tell your father?”

“I…don’t…” Pain split in my head making me wince and cry out. “I don’t know. She…”

“You’re going to do it because I told you to. We all have our roles, Quincy. You made a promise. You have obligations.”

More, the pain in my head had me crying out.

“Main Master, her heart rate is at dangerous levels. As her doctor?—”

“A little more. Pearl, what do you hear her saying?”

“Roles,” I sobbed. “She’s talking to my father. We have roles. Obligations. She wants him to do something. To….” My hand shot to my head. “To…kill…kill. Her voice is…changing. Kill Claudia. Kill my mom.”

“Okay that’s enough. Shh. Okay. Pearl Mallory, back to Pearl O’Brien. Back to your place as a wife and mother. You’re better now. You’re at home. Happy. Be happy.” The snapping by my face had me retching on recognition. The Main Master’s eyes were big, and he was breathing just as hard as me. But he didn’t stick around. He was spinning for the door. Running. Racing. To what, I wasn’t sure. The fog was heavier than ever. The doctor was helping me lay back and I was tired. So tired. So…suddenly…happy.