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"What’s wrong with you, Fox?" Zel snapped htly recovered Her lips were parted, eyes wild, and the buttons in her shirt had torn open revealing lace-cupped breasts

I couldn’t tear ," I mur throb of taking her last night This was different It was laced with so deeper, more profound I wanted to be deep inside her I didn’t want to come fast or search for a quick release, but just feel her heat and rest a while

Rest

Sleep

A chill seeped into my bones, and I dimly wondered how much blood had spewed froo Let death finally take ht--even if Zel had shown htabove lowed and the knife stayed pointed in e to say ‘yes, sir’ filled me with amazement

Oh,my utmost respect, she’d somehow earned a top hierarchy infor and constructed a replacement for my handlers If I could learn to obey Zel’s every co, always obeying--Isoul She could order ardless

That’s not freedoh I wanted to curse I hadn’t found freedom I’d just replaced one prison with another

My head swam as I closed aveto latch onto, but I letthe inter, I let littered in the black velvet sky A small flurry of snowflakes made their way into my pit when the wind blew from the northeast

Frostbite was round with only leaf matter and mud for insulation

I made a promise

The first opportunity, I would kill myself This wasn’t a life It was servitude I would be better off dead than alive and doing the devil’s work

Crossing ers, I swore on the moon

"I will kill myself to avoid more orders I’ll put myself down like the predator they’ve trained otten that promise It’d been pushed to the depths of my mind as more and more travesty was layered upon me

But I could keep that promise now I didn’t have to search for someone to obey, so I could fall back into old patterns I could control my own fate for once

The pill

My head flopped to the side, looking toward the wardrobe I couldn’t keep putting people around me at risk I was too e was a fairy-tale I wasn’t the handsoirl--I was the scarred troll whose only purpose was to be killed

It was tiivenorder had been to s the pill and erase ht the co to die

But every day I suffered a slow death of misery

Zel wasn’tonto stfrom Poison Oaks ushed down h aspressure onhurt like amy body to one days with a broken feiven any

I left a trail of red behind me as I entered the wardrobe and shoved aside rows and rows of black attire to reach the safe hidden in the back Squashed into the racks, hidden by cashit code and cranked open the door

My old life greeted ust of memories

"It’s complete Do you feel the brotherhood, the shared power and awareness?"his handiwork He passedto see over my shoulder

My back had been transformed from adolescent skin into a canvas of disaster Every symbol closed my throat in fear--they’dmy despair hidden, I nodded "Yes, sir" Those two little words The only conversation ere allowed Every response required nothing ood You took a while to see reason, but you obeyed in the end" He slappedfresh blood froree?"

My eyes flickered to the small boy’s corpse in the corner of the roo to smell I’d done that It’d taken me weeks to break, but they’d done it

I was theirs

"Yes, sir"

The gun lay like a sleeping ene beside five hundred thousand in cash, and a small medicine bottle with one word on the label

Konets Russian for ‘end’