The Filler Inner

Considering the way I'd been forced to eat for the past three weeks, it was a miracle that I'd managed to eat an entire bowl of oatmeal AND three slices of toast. Or so I wanted everyone to believe. I always found a way to bounce back from the face of adversity, and the things Marco had put me through were no different. I'll admit, being tortured hurt like hell, but I was just glad no oh resorted to chopping off any of my extremities. Also, the things I'd seen my dad do were worse than what happened to me. Either way, I was glad it was all over.

Marco had only become emboldened enough to hurt me because of the whole faking death thing—which by the way I was sure was his mother's idea because he wasn't smart enough to think up something like that.

"Hurry up and finish eating, we leave in an hour."

Marco had been watching me like a hawk ever since he ordered his people to pull me down from the chained position. I'm glad to be able to move my shoulders back and forth again, but being chained up wasn't as bad this time as it had been the first time. Maybe because I was faking it the entire time. I'll be honest, being bent over and keeping my arms up behind me for such a long time was a workout I'd never forget. My slim abdomen was gone and in its place was a hard earned set of abs.

Was I excited to get back to the house? Yes. Oh, also, you might be wondering how I said that I faked it? Yes, here's the explanation. So when it comes to persuasion, I've been blessed by the cosmos. I could talk my way into anyone's head whenever I was really trying, but most of the time I refrained from doing that because it was freaky to just brainwash someone like that. Well anyway, I managed to talk one of the security guards outside my door to join my rebellion or whatever on the promise of triple pay.

That guy then seeded out everyone else who was doing this work for the money and they easily sold themselves to me as well. Necessity is charming sometimes. The only ones who were completely loyal to Marco were the ones who were getting paid well, and even those would turn on him by the time I finished finding their weaknesses and exploiting them. What? They were bad people, they deserved it.

With the new guards on my team, we managed to make it look like I was being deprived of food and water, even though they were secretly slipping me some grub and drink once a day. With the whole torture thing, I went against my trickster instincts and told them not to interfere because I needed at least one thing to be real in order to pull all aspects of this lie off. I knew the loyal guards were reporting everything back to Marco, so I mentally prepped myself and went into it head first.

By practicing the detachment exercises my dad had forced me to take when I was little—for this specific situation, in fact— I was able to make it at least bearable. I didn't have a low pain tolerance, but the things they did to me? I wouldn't want to feel those things one hundred percent if the sixty percent that I did feel hurt so badly. Electrocution was insane. It kind of felt good though, I won't lie about that. Electric currents were meant to hit my nerves, and they really did hit all my nerves. And I mean all of them. I had never considered e-stim during sex before, but now I would be looking into it.

Anyway, after the sessions of torture were finished, I would be chained up in a bleak, grey cell to await the next session. I wasn't exactly sure what they were torturing me for, but I just assumed that Marco wanted me to submit to him. Ha! As if. I would've rather died than let him control me.

I finished my bowl of delicious oatmeal—oatmeal is delicious, don't argue with me on this— and got up from the bench to pay for it. Oh yeah, did I mention somehow, throughout everything that had happened, I managed to conserve some of the money I'd permanently borrowed from Marco's sock drawer weeks before? Amazing, right? I could be trusted with government secrets.

"Are you ready?" Marco wasn't looking at me, and I could tell from the way his arms were flexing that he was holding something back. I wasn't angry at him for what had happened to me. In fact, I don't think I could blame him at all. He was so paranoid from all the attacks happening that I'm sure my insolence just made it worse for him. I could almost guarantee he hadn't slept well since I left the house. If it wasn't for the darkness inside my heart, I would've felt bad for him.

"Yes, I'm ready."

We walked out to the car together and he got into the front passenger seat while I sat in the back between the two guards on either side of me. Once again I was blindfolded for extra security, and when we were ready, I settled back to enjoy the ride.