Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 68525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
I watched him sit in it, still without looking at me. He had picked up the handheld, and his eyes were on it, but when his finger touched it again the agony didn’t return, and a desperate cry for mercy died in my throat. He pressed again, with several distinct applications of his fingertip in some kind of sequence. A beep came from the lock on the cage door, and my body tensed again in alarm, sure that the pain would return but ready to withstand it, to show that he hadn’t broken me, though I couldn’t have given any logical reason why I should do anything but surrender.
The door swung open.
I looked at it as if it meant to bite me, but nothing else happened. When I returned my gaze to the man in the red uniform, I saw him looking back at me, his eyes narrow but the smug little smile once again on his lips.
“Put your hands on your head, girl,” he commanded.
I shook my head in confusion.
“I…” I started. What did the opening of the cage door have to do with putting my hands on my head?
“Surely you don’t want me to activate the punisher again?” the agent asked, his voice pleasant. He lifted his left eyebrow as if he wanted to appear truly curious about this question. He held his finger over the screen of the handheld, still smiling as if turning my body to a chaos of agonized, writhing muscles seemed like a pleasant diversion—but one he would rather sacrifice for the promise of better fun to be had with the young woman he had claimed as his company’s newest asset.
I shook my head much more violently, feeling my face twist into a desperate plea.
“No, sir,” I said.
“Then I would suggest you do as you’re told, Chalondra.” A hint of sternness crept into his voice. I had enough of my wits about me that I could tell Agent Delvik meant me to perceive him as trying to help me—as fatherly, even. He had called me a bad girl, but I heard in his “advice” a sort of promise that I could change that unfortunate impression if I could show him I knew how to behave myself.
To my distress, something deep inside me responded to this condescending, humiliating treatment. It’s the pain, I told myself, gritting my teeth inwardly though my actual mouth hung slightly open. I wanted to say something, but I had no words with which to reply.
He raised both eyebrows, his eyes flicking down to the screen and then back up to my face.
“Hmm?” he inquired.
I let out a tiny whimper, and I obeyed. I hadn’t considered until that moment why the agent would give me that command, but I discovered the answer as I realized just how exposed a naked young woman feels when she puts her hands on her head. I bit my lip at the way the posture seemed to thrust my little breasts forward and tense the muscles of my abdomen, displaying me for the agent’s roving eyes.
The left corner of his mouth went up a millimeter or two.
“Good girl,” he pronounced.
I felt my forehead work, and my teeth clamped down harder on my lower lip as I tried to quell the unwelcome wave of idiotic warmth that filled my chest at this humiliating praise.
“Now,” Agent Delvik continued, “come out here, please. You’re going to come over to this side of the table and stand in front of me. Your hands are to remain where they are.”
My feet stayed where they were. I swallowed hard, trying to work up the courage to ask the question that seemed to press against the inside of my skull, knowing more agony lay only a touch of his finger away but even more fearful of what lay outside the cage, if I did as he had told me.
“Sir?” I said, trying to gain a little time by using that terribly unfamiliar yet terribly significant word—the one he had told me I must use, the one that echoed to me from school-tales of imperial exploits, soldiers and sailors under discipline, answering to the officers and the nobles who held all the power.
“Yes, girl?” he asked, a note of impatience in his tone making my pulse jump.
“How… how are you… how…?” I couldn’t say it, but Agent Delvik obviously knew precisely the terror that occupied my mind.
“How will I punish you, my dear?” he asked, his voice suddenly patronizing again.
I nodded, swallowing again, trying vainly to clear the lump of terror from my throat.
“You’ll see, once I’ve inspected you thoroughly,” the agent replied. “I think you’ll find it easier in some ways than the cage’s punisher—and more difficult in others. At any rate, it’s a form of discipline I’m sure your master will use with great frequency to control your behavior, and so you should start to get used to it as soon as possible.”