Whipping Girl Read online

  “Look at me.” I wait for her green eyes to find mine before continuing. “I hope you know how ridiculous that is. We are both here under circumstances that we can’t control and you know that I waited for you for years but I need you to know without a doubt that my love for you is real, Ally. Candace and Zeke’s relationship should prove that to you, he had the same conditioning that I did but they don’t feel the same way about each other that we do. You’re the most important person in my life... Everything that I do is for you. Please don’t ever doubt that.” I tell her with all honesty in my eyes.

  “I didn’t mean to doubt you, you’ve just been gone too long. I’m sorry.” Tears fill her eyes so I pull her further into me, allowing her to hide her face from me so I can keep my sanity.

  “Don’t confuse my feelings for you, don’t let anyone ever put that kind of shit in your head.” I realize too late that I just swore in front of her and I want to kick my own ass when she stiffens but then she giggles sweetly, I kiss her hair to hide my smile, loving the sound.

  “You just said ‘Shit’.” She whispers the words on another giggle. I relax my body but squeeze my eyes shut when that word leaves her sweet mouth.

  “Don’t swear, Ally. Good girls shouldn’t swear.” I mean it too. After all the things I have seen and heard throughout the years, I refuse to let that kind of language leave my girl’s lips.

  “Sorry, Alexander.” She says softly. My body relaxes completely at her apology, I’m not willing to let this ruin another moment of our time together. We deserve this.

  “What else is going on? Tell me everything.” I turn the conversation to her. She starts with her pottery class, going on and on as she fiddles with the necklace I gave her, she tells me about everything that she’s made and I tell her that I can’t wait to see them all. She’s made me several different pieces, the amount of attention and detail is absolutely stunning for someone so young. My girl is extremely talented.

  In some ways she has it worse than I do, she never gets to go outdoors and she only sees a handful of people on a daily basis. That would probably be extremely boring... but in other ways I sort of envy her the boring routine, I’d rather do the same old stuff day in and day out than do what I have to do on a regular basis, not that I would ever switch places with her. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy much less the girl that has become my entire life's purpose.

  Sometimes I think about what it would be like if she and I were normal kids, if we had met at a regular school or something, I know we were destined to be together but would it have taken longer for us to reach this point? I decide that I don’t want to know... maybe she wouldn’t love me as much. What if some other dickhead tried to get in our way? She’s a beautiful girl, someday she’ll be a beautiful woman, and I bet some stupid boy would try to get in my way, want her for himself. I stop myself from going any further down that path. I can’t think about any kind of obstacles between us without getting enraged, she’s mine and I am hers, it doesn’t matter how we got to this point.

  After a few hours of catching up she finally falls asleep on my chest, I need to pee badly and my arm has fallen asleep but I’m finding it impossible to move her off of me. Ally is the most angelic being who has ever walked this earth, looking at her is like Spring finally arriving after a long, harsh Winter, when everything is starting out new and the warmth is finally touching the earth. I don't know if I believed in goodness until she walked into my life, but she is the definition of the word.

  We have an amazing week together, we read and play games, she tells me about her hopes and dreams for our future once again and I tell her that I will give her the world someday.. I wish I could be certain of where our lives are headed but unfortunately it all leads to the same thing, I’m a killer, it’s who I am now and I am part of an Organization that will never let me leave it while I am still alive. Our futures are already planned. As long as I am useful to them, Ally and I stay alive but I’ve seen enough disappearances on our team to know that when they feel my usefulness is gone then I too will disappear. I don’t really care so much for my own life but the thought of Ally suddenly just not existing makes me feel sick to my stomach, it would be like the sun still trying to rise after the earth stopped spinning.

  I don’t know how I feel about heaven and hell but if it’s real then that means that Ally and I won’t be together after we die, she would become an Angel in heaven and I would be burning in the fiery pits of hell. Don’t get me wrong, no matter where we end up in the afterlife, I will find her but I’d rather she didn’t have to fall from grace for us to be together for eternity.

  “Shut it off, Alex!” Ivan’s voice can barely be heard through my screams. I’ve gotten better at being able to handle the pain but after four days of near starvation and only a few hours of sleep I’m finding it extremely difficult to withstand Parrilla torture, they might actually be killing me, it feels as if my entire body is being burned from the inside out then torn apart at the seams. If the electric shock doesn’t end me then it will be my weakened body giving up the fight. The electric current flowing through me stops suddenly and I quickly suck air into my oxygen deprived lungs, I can’t get enough, stars dance along my vision and I feel like I might pass out… but that will only lead to more torture, more pain, more endless agony. Jesus, I won’t survive this, I’m going to die. A harsh slap to my face brings me out of my panic, allowing me to suck air fully into my lungs. “You’ve got to learn, boy. You have to learn how to shut it all out. Everything, if you want to survive. I saw your eyes when you came back... they were haunted. Elites aren’t haunted by anything, Alex. Do you want to be a trainee forever?” Ivan, for some reason, has always had a soft spot for me. He’s the Handler that I deal with the most and the only one that has ever given me any solid advice about my conditioning, he likes me but that also means that he’ll never show me any kind of mercy because he wants me to be the best. He wants me to survive this. Right now I wish his expectations were lower and that he liked me a little less. He reaches behind my head and unties my leather gag so I can speak, I’d be grateful to him if I could feel anything other than complete pain and misery.

  “Maybe I don’t want to survive.” I say so low that I don’t know that he’s heard me until I feel another burning slap across my face. Fuck that hurts.

  “You want to give up, boy?” I hate when he calls me boy and he knows it, he uses it only when trying to incite me. “What about Ally, huh? What about your precious Gift?” My head snaps up at the mention of her name, I could never forget about her but I had been thinking of nothing other than my own pain and my selfish desperation for it to end. My narcissistic thoughts have me bowing my head in shame, Ivan making a sound of disgust at my weakened mind.

  He knows what he’s doing and it’s working. I glare at him with all the hatred I can muster for bringing her up in here. “Maybe I should give her to someone else if you're ready to give up… I don’t know if she’d like that so much since she loves you but if you’re going to start acting like a fucking pussy then you don’t deserve your Gift. Or maybe you need a better motivator, huh? Should I bring her in here to be your little whipping girl?” The hate that I feel toward him is immeasurable at this moment, if I weren't physically restrained his neck would have been snapped before he could've finished that sentence.

  “Fuck you! You won't go anywhere near her, she’s mine!” I rage at him. The thought of anyone else touching her, hurting her in any way is a pain worse than anything else that these assholes could inflict on me.

  “There you are, Alex. Keep that thought in your mind, let it burn through you, let it remind you of why you are here and what would happen to Ally if you ever failed!”

  “I haven’t failed! I did everything that was asked of me!” I scream at him.

  “No, Alex, you haven't failed, not yet... but I saw what you looked like when you came back. You let it cloud your mind, emotions will only get you killed here. Shut it off, boy... Shut. It. off.”
I watch as he takes a step back from me, his own mask sliding into place, as if our conversation never happened. I don’t know how he does that so quickly, it’s like a switch just gets flipped in his mind, I wish I could find mine at the moment but I’m fairly certain that they will help me to do just that before my time here is through, that’s what this is all about after all.

  I’m 13 and I was sent on a contract to infiltrate a Pedophile ring. I was too old for most of those men. Too old until I fit the tastes of a particularly sick piece of shit that wanted to see me bleed before he tried to fuck me. Apparently my scars were a big turn on, he thought it would be something that we could share together. I learned as much as I could before I killed him- I slit his throat and watched as his warm blood gushed from his neck. I don’t regret killing him, he was a waste of life and he deserved it, I only wished that I could have taped it and sent it to all of his victims so they would know that the piece of shit got what he deserved. It wasn’t the kill that put me back into conditioning, it was what I had to witness for me to get to the kill, nobody should ever have to go through those things that I saw.

  Ivan moves in close to replace my gag and I head butt him straight in the nose, the crunch of bone is like music to my ears and I smile when he jerks back and covers his nose with one meaty hand, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “If you ever threaten my girl again… it won't just be your ugly face that I make bleed.” I threaten, ignoring the pain in my head from my self-inflicted blow. Ivan takes his hand from his bloody nose and looks down at the river of blood that I've caused, I expect another slap but he starts laughing and then he gives me a look that appears to be pride. Fucking psychopath. I smile too... Until it starts all over again.

  Chapter 5 – Ally - 9 years ago

  “You’re 11 years old, Ally, when are you going to grow up and stop living in a dream world?” Candace says in her stuck up tone. She always acts like she’s so much older than the rest of us, but unlike the other girls, I don’t just hang my head and take her abuse, it’s why she picks on me the most.

  “Shut up, Candace. You’re only 12, stop acting like you know everything.” I pretend not to care that she’s getting to me but I really dislike her and all of the things that she’s always saying. I just want to eat my lunch in peace, is that too much to ask? I turn toward Mia, Andrew’s Gift, to start a conversation but Candace doesn’t let it go.

  “I know that we are all a bunch of glorified whores!” We gasp at her language, and I watch as Candace’s Handler comes running over, yanking her out of her seat but Candace continues screaming at us as she’s taken from the room. “You guys think you’re so much better than me but you’re not! You’re just sluts that they gave to a bunch of killers so that they would behave like good little doggies!” The door to the cafeteria slams closed after them, the silence afterward is deafening. What was she talking about? We weren't given to killers... were we?

  “What was she talking about?” I look around at the other three girls, none of them meeting my eyes.

  “You need to talk to Alex about that, Ally.” Mia says softly.

  “I don’t think that she’s all there in the head... I hear her talking in her sleep sometimes and it’s a lot of crazy talk. I don’t know where she came from but I don’t think she had a good start in life.” Savanna, Toby’s Gift, says. I don’t like feeling bad for Candace but that really sucks if she came from something terrible, she’s not a nice person but maybe it’s just hard for her to be nice because she doesn’t know how, maybe she was never taught?

  “We shouldn’t be talking behind her back, it’s bad enough that she’s probably being punished right now.” Jessa, Seth’s Gift, and the only one who gets along with Candace at times says. “It’s easier for us because we have our Guardians, can you imagine being here like this without having that connection with them? Her and Zeke don’t work, so try not to judge her because she wasn’t as lucky as we were.” All of us become quiet while we think over Jessa’s statement. She’s right, the only thing that matters to me in this place is Alexander, if I didn’t have him then this life would be miserable but I’m still not sure what we’re supposed to do other than ignore Candace’s abusive behavior. If she’s miserable why doesn’t she talk to us, make us her friends instead of lashing out like that?

  “You might be right, Jessa. Why did she say that we were given to killers though?” I ask them. They all start eating again, ignoring my question. I wouldn’t say the other girls are necessarily friends of mine but they are the only other people that know what I go through on a day to day basis, most of us get along pretty well but deep friendship to anyone other than our Guardian is deeply discouraged so we all have to keep it pretty casual.

  The next day Peter comes to bring me to Alexander, he leers at me the entire walk to the room and it makes me feel very uncomfortable. Why can’t he be more friendly like Ivan? Less creepy at least.

  Alexander is changing, I can feel it in every part of me- his temperament is different, he snaps at me at the smallest provocation, he demands complete obedience and that’s not all- His physical appearance changes each time I see him, he’s been getting bigger and growing hair on his face. I talked to Mia about some of it and she said that Alexander was going through puberty... I sure hope it doesn’t last long, I miss my boy. Alexander and I have five days together this time. I don’t mention Candace’s outburst until day two but he shuts me down pretty quickly when I ask him about what she had meant.

  “Jesus Christ, Ally... I said just to ignore her, how many times do I have to say it?” I gasp at the shortness in his tone, I don’t know how to deal with this side of him, it had never been directed at me in the past and I hate it. His dark brows furrow and he turns away for a moment, seemingly trying to gain patience with me. He turns to face me once again, still irritated but a lot more calm than a moment ago.

  “I just wanted to know why she would say that.” My lips tremble as I try to hold back my tears. He takes a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds before slowly releasing it.

  “I’m trying to be patient with you, Angel. I know that you’re still young but I’m going to tell you again- I only tell you what you need to know, it’s for your safety… and for mine.”

  “But all of the other girls know more than me! They don’t tell me but they-“

  “I don’t care what they know!” He yells, nostrils flaring. I shrink back, hating that I’ve angered him this way but unsure how else I’m supposed to get any answers. He breaths heavily then squeezes his eyes shut, when he finally opens them his face is softer, shame filled eyes finding mine. “I didn’t mean to yell at you, I shouldn’t have done that.” I start crying at his gentler tone, unable to stop my stupid tears. He walks the small distance between us and pulls me into him. “Don’t. You know I hate it when you cry.” I wrap my arms around his middle without thinking about it, trying to find comfort from the boy that I call mine but his words make me angry so I push him away with all my strength. The shocked look on his face spurs me on.

  “You have a funny way of showing it, Alexander! You don’t like it when I cry? Then stop being the reason for it!” I break one of his rules when I turn away from him, I know the outside door is locked so I go to the small bathroom instead, slamming the door behind me, it doesn’t have a lock so I drop to the floor to hold it closed. I bring my knees to my chest and cry, big tears falling onto my black scrub pants. I only know that he is right on the other side when I hear a faint bump on the door right near my head.

  “I don’t know what to say to you, Angel.” I hear him through the wood, he’s quiet but I listen attentively. “I can’t tell you everything but even more than that I don’t want to tell you anything... at least not about my life outside of you and me. I don’t want you to change the stories that you’ve made up about me, ‘the masked crusader that saves innocent lives!’” he chuckles but I don’t hear any humor in it. “I love being the hero in your stories, please stop trying to make me change that
.” The sadness in his voice is what gets to me more than his non-apology, I hate more than anything when we fight, it’s not normal for us and it makes my heart hurt. I stand, unable to be away from him a second longer and when I open the door, Alexander falls onto his back, making me giggle when I note that he had been in the exact same position I was. He doesn’t move from the floor, he just opens his arms and I fall into them, holding him tightly so he doesn’t turn back into mean Alexander.

  “You are my hero, nothing you ever tell me will change that. Not just in my stories but in real life too.” I tell him honestly.

  “Do you still love me?” He asks. “Even if I make you cry sometimes?” He tightens his hold around me like he never wants to let go and even though it makes it harder to breathe, I don’t ever want him to let go either.