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I have to wait until tomorrow? I feel sick. I need him to fix me. I need him to give me some fucking direction. I’m lost. Mast—Travis—ripped off my collar, shattered me into pieces, then tossed me to the wind. I need help.
Someone has to fucking help me.
Dr. Singh opens up the group to whoever wants to talk first. I jump on the opportunity, nearly breathless with relief. “Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but my mind has no fucking idea what’s going on.”
The man tilts his head, looking sympathetic. “Is this about what happened between you and Travis this morning?”
Oh.
My stomach bubbles with acid. Of course he knows about that. Did Nath—Travis tell him? Why does that make me all fluttery and pissed off at the same time?
“Yeah. It’s like—I spent years worshipping Mast—Nath—Travis. Travis.” Fuck, why does he have to have so many fucking names? “I think everyone here can agree, he was the nicest master to any of us, and I latched on to that. Sometimes I’d even tell myself when the other men were hurting me that it was okay because I was doing it to please Ma—Travis, and it helped. It’s fucked up, I know that logically, but that doesn’t change that it helped.” I curl up into a ball, wrapping my arms around myself. I don’t mention being in love with him. Not yet. That can be in private, when Carter isn’t sitting a few feet away, already glaring at me for daring to talk about the man he loves. “I saw him this morning and I just… was back there again. He was Master Roarke and I needed to be good. But by the time I got on my knees and my mind caught up, I remembered that it was all a lie. And then he started talking to me, and instead of all the good feelings I used to have for him, I—I hated him. I yelled at him.” I laugh shakily, feeling on the verge of tears. “I still can’t believe I yelled at him.”
“Did it feel good?” Dr. Singh asks with no emotion or judgment. “To yell at him?”
I shudder. “No. It felt… I don’t even know. It made things worse. Like the one thing I could cling to over the years was wanting to be the best slave for him, and now it’s… gone.”
It’s all gone.
“It’s all gone,” Bryce says, echoing my thoughts. It’s a coincidence, of course, but it still steadies me a little. Maybe we’re in this together. Maybe he’s lost too. Maybe they all are.
Bryce looks at me, clearly checking to see if it’s okay that he takes over. I nod, wanting to hear what he has to say. “I know some of you didn’t believe you’d survive the life, but I never lost hope. I always thought that if I just hung on long enough and fought hard enough and was smart enough that somehow I’d get free one day. And now I am, and it feels like—I don’t know. It’s wrong. Because of him. Because of Travis. And the other one. Whatever his name is. The guy that was Benny. Even Carter. They were liars. That freedom I dreamt of was right there and they kept it from us.”
“Hey, don’t rope Carter into this!” Casey growls from his spot beside his best friend. “He was hurt just like the rest of us.”
“He knew!” Bryce yells back. Then he turns his gaze to Carter and points a finger. “I spent nights awake, sick over the thought of you. Of what it must be like to be alone with him. Of how scared and lonely you must be. I thought of the way they all would talk about you. I thought of how they all planned to rape you in front of your brother one day and then kill you. I was terrified for you. And the whole time—”
“No,” Carter cuts him off, his voice trembling. “Not the whole time. I didn’t find out until the end.”
My stomach sinks. What? Even Carter wasn’t safe from the lies? From the mindfuck of being owned by a man who didn’t even want us?
“So, he lied to you, too?” I ask, needing to know. “Travis lied to you? He just… did all that shit to you and kept you in the dark?” Like me, I want to add, but the words stick in my throat.
The look Carter gives me is venomous. It doesn’t help that he already hated me before now, having caught on to my feelings about Travis.
“Don’t judge him. You don’t know him,” Carter argues.
“He sexually assaulted all of us!” Bryce shouts. “We can say whatever we want about the asshole.”
I flinch as others start agreeing.
Sexual assault.
Rape.
That’s what it was. I know that. I really do. But at some point, I had stopped using those labels to define what was happening to me. It was around the same time I fell in love with Master Roarke. Nathan Roarke. Travis. Whoever the fuck he really is.
It was easier to ignore those words.
It was easier to ignore reality.
It was easier to be in love with him.
My stomach sours, bile burning the back of my tongue.
It was a lie, wasn’t it?
All of it was a lie—even the things I told myself.
