Cruel Control by Candace Wondrak
Chapter Nine – Juliet
I didn’t sleep well that night, obviously, and I was too petrified to get up. Jaxon didn’t want to talk after what Markus did to him. He hurried out of my room, not even looking at me, and I felt so bad. So, so bad, I couldn’t even describe it.
I shouldn’t care, but watching violence like that while knowing it was only happening because of me… I didn’t like it. No, more than that. I hated it. I hated it more than anything else in the world.
Even though Jaxon had kidnapped me, even though he was the reason I was here, I didn’t want to see him hurt, especially because of me. Watching Markus go at him like crazy was not something I ever wanted to see again. If that meant I had to swallow my pride and take the stupid birth control pills, I guess that’s what it meant. Markus had me caught between a rock and a hard place here.
As I lay there in the darkness, unable to sleep, I thought about running, but the realist in me knew I’d never make it out of this house, off this property—and more than that, what would Markus do to me if I failed in my escape attempt?
Of course I was afraid of him. He was a monster, a brute of a man. He could hurt others without even flinching. He was unlike the Prince Charming I’d wanted him to be in every way, the very opposite.
I should’ve known, given my life, I would never get what I wanted. I never did. Everything I was today was just so I wouldn’t disappoint others. Daddy, now Markus.
The morning came, and I didn’t get out of bed. I didn’t want to. My stomach was empty and a bit starved, but I refused to go down and eat breakfast as if nothing was wrong. But then, if I refused, would Markus just beat Jaxon again? How much could one body take?
It was as I wrestled with myself, as I lay there under the covers wishing I could blink and make everything better, that I heard a knock on my door. A knock, which meant it wasn’t Markus.
I sat up, my lips pulling into a frown as I stared at the door. “Who is it?”
“It’s Theo.”
What on earth was he doing here? Even though I didn’t want to see him, I muttered, “Come in.”
“I would, but, uh, my hands are a little full right now. Could you maybe get the door for me?”
Sighing, I rolled out of bed and headed to the door, opening it to see Theo’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed self. Clearly a morning person. I, on the other hand, was not, especially this morning. Not after last night.
My eyes fell to the large plate of eggs, bacon, sausage and pancakes he held onto, along with a glass of orange juice in his other hand… and a small plate of toast balancing on his forearm. A lot of food, and in spite of my best efforts, it all looked really, really good, and my stomach gurgled in hunger.
“May I come in?” Theo asked, giving me a gentle smile as he struggled to maintain his balance with all the stuff he held onto. He wore black pants paired with a dark blue button-down shirt, and for the first time ever, his shirt wasn’t tucked into his pants.
I nodded, stepping aside, unable to say anything else as I watched him bring in the food. He set everything on my bed, but the glass of orange juice went on my nightstand, where the emptied glass of water still sat. I’d thrown the pills and vitamins inside the small drawer after the ordeal last night, so at least they were out of sight for now.
“I brought you breakfast,” he said.
“Why?”
“Jaxon came to me last night, told me what happened. I figured you could use a good breakfast, after a night like that.”
I was at Theo’s side the next instant, asking, “Is he okay?” The food was suddenly forgotten; the only thing on my mind Jaxon and his well-being. I couldn’t imagine he felt very good today. Probably worse than last night. I wondered if I’d see him or if he’d avoid me.
For whatever reason, the mere possibility he might avoid me made something inside hurt.
Theo nodded. “He’s fine. Bruised, but fine. I gave him some painkillers, which I bet he won’t take because he’s too tough for them or some equally stupid reason.” He paused, staring at me behind his glasses, an unreadable expression on his face. “What happened to him… it’s not your fault, you know.”
I had to look away. “It is, though. It’s my fault. Markus wouldn’t have beaten him like that if I’d just taken the pill.” I closed my eyes, wanting to push away the memory of last night out of my mind, forget it completely.
His voice lowered to a whisper, “If you blame yourself for everything Markus does, you’ll be at it all hours of the day and night. No one can change what that man does, or why he does things the way he does. Jaxon will be fine. Don’t worry about him. Honestly, Juliet, I’m more worried about you.”
His words should’ve been comforting, but they weren’t. I rubbed my arm, slow to meet his amber gaze. It was strange, but I felt so seen beneath his eyes. “And why would you be worried about me?” I whispered, a part of me already knowing.
“I don’t want this place to change you,” Theo replied. His shoulders went up and down with a sigh. “Markus might say things, he might do things, but I don’t think he wants it to change you, either.”
At that, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Right.”
“No, I mean it. If you were different, I don’t think he’d care so much. It’s not just who you are or where you came from. It’s not just about who your father is and what he does for Markus. It’s about you, because you’re you, Juliet. This house has never seen someone like you before.” Theo took the tiniest step ever, inching towards me. “If you ever need someone to talk to, someone to listen, you know where to find me. I won’t judge. I won’t even talk back if you don’t want me to. Sometimes having an ear to listen can help keep you sane.”
Oh, God. Things were so messed up here, but not messed up enough for me to not realize his offer was sweet. It was sweet, and honestly, I might just have to take him up on it one of these days. The more I was here, the more I felt my sanity slipping away, intangible despite my attempts to get ahold of it.
“Thank you,” I whispered back.
“And if you don’t feel like coming down and eating, I can bring you up meals. Or, hell, we can even eat together in my office, if you want.” Theo gave me a soft smile, reaching up and gently patting my arm. “Just know you’re not alone here.”
I wanted to say something to him, something more than thank you, but no words left me, and then he was gone, shutting the door behind him and leaving me alone in a bedroom that wasn’t mine with food that smelled heavenly.
Well, I guess I’d have to eat eventually. Starving myself didn’t sound like fun, plus that bacon looked really good.
I kept to myself, sticking to my room all day. I didn’t even change out of my pajamas. The only time I left the room was to use the bathroom, and the one I used was practically right across the hall. I didn’t think any of the other rooms nearby were being used by anyone else, because I never heard a sound, never ran into anyone.
Not that I was complaining. This house was so big it had to be home to more people, but I didn’t think I could take the craziness of meeting anyone else right now.
It went like that for a whole day. I felt strangely lonely, but I refused to seek anyone out. Theo kept his word and brought me up meals, though I didn’t let him stay with me while I ate. Jaxon didn’t come around, not that I blamed him. Everything was just so messed up.
One day, after three o’clock in the afternoon, my door flew open and a short girl skipped inside. Her black hair was straight today, its lengths tumbling past her shoulders. She had a backpack, and she flung that bag down as she raced to hop onto my bed.
Tori.
“Don’t you get bored in here?” she asked, looking around.
I shrugged. “Sometimes I think it’s better to be in here than out there.” And that was the honest truth.
“Why? Did something happen? You look sad.”
I shook my head, not wanting to explain it all to a child. “I’m okay, really.”
She gave me a look she should be too young to have mastered, the one eyebrow raised look that said she wasn’t stupid. Heck, I didn’t even have that look as down pat as she did. “You don’t look okay—and you weren’t the one sitting in school bored for the last seven hours.”
I chuckled. I sat on my bed, on top of the sheets, my legs crisscrossed. “I never went to school,” I told her quietly, remembering all those years of homeschooling. Fun times. Not.
Tori blinked. “Never? Not ever?”
“Not ever.”
“I thought you had to go to school. That’s what my mom tells me when I tell her I don’t want to go.”
“My dad homeschooled me,” I said. “He didn’t like me leaving the house, so he kept me close. I never went to school, never had recess, never made friends.” Realizing what I said, I quickly added, “Besides you, of course.” She beamed at that last part.
“Well, everyone in my class is fucking stupid, so I don’t have many friends either,” she boldly declared, once again swearing like it came naturally to her. “Sometimes I hate them, because they’re so different.”
That last bit caught me off-guard, and I asked, “Why do you hate them?”
Tori glanced down, picking at her tights. She wore a black skirt, along with a dark top. I couldn’t tell if it was a uniform or not, since every Scott I’d ever met seemed to prefer colors on the darker side of the spectrum.
“They don’t have to worry about things. This girl, Bettie, she wants to be a teacher like ours when she grows up.” Tori looked up at me, her normally jubilant attitude clouded over by anxiety. “I don’t get to decide. I’m a Scott, so Uncle Markus will get to choose what I do.” She sounded quite sad about that fact.
“Why does he get to decide? Why don’t you?” This family, I swore… I didn’t understand any of them or what they did.
“I don’t know. It’s just how things are.” Tori bit her bottom lip. “I mean, I guess I could go, but then I’d have to leave everyone, and I don’t know if I could do that, not like Uncle Vaughn. Plus, Uncle Markus gets really mad when people leave. I don’t want him to be mad at me.”
Oh, that was something I could understand all too well. “But if there’s something you really want to do, you should be able to do it. If you want to be a teacher, a doctor, a—”
“A dancer?” Tori cut in with a grin.
I chuckled. “Or a dancer, you should be able to. It’s not fair to expect you to stay here for the rest of your life and do whatever Markus says.” Markus. I could not shake the image of him beating Jaxon up out of my mind, and I hated it.
I hated him. I hated that I’d dreamed about him for two years, hated I found him so unnervingly attractive. It was all just stupid on my part, utterly stupid, but I couldn’t go back and change the past.
“What about you? What do you want to be?” Tori asked, cutting into my thoughts, eager to hear all about me, as always.
Now it was my turn to fiddle with my fingers and think back to Daddy and how he never wanted me to do anything. “My dad, I think, doesn’t want me to do anything. If he had his way, he’d keep me locked up in our house until the day he died… and the sad thing is, until recently, I never hated it. I always thought he was doing what was best for me.”
It wasn’t a lie. Even when I’d tried to bust out and see the neighborhood we lived in, I got too scared, and I was too worried about disappointing him. Eventually I settled for daydreams, but even those sometimes were stale.
“He never let you out?” Tori whispered. She sounded even sadder than she had before, when she was talking about her own future, and to hear such pity in her voice hurt. To have the pity of a ten-year-old girl was not something I ever thought I’d have. Made me feel really good about everything.
“No,” I whispered, the word hushed. “Sometimes I’d do something to make him mad, and he’d lock me in my room. I always thought I deserved it. When he would leave for work, I would watch so much TV. I saw high schools and kids like me and all the drama they got into, but at least they were free. Even though I knew it was wrong, I wanted what they had.”
“But it wasn’t wrong,” Tori said. “Your dad sounds like an asshole. No one should lock you in your own room. It’s supposed to be a safe place.”
My eyes fell to the area on the carpet that had a few new bloodstains after last night. Was Daddy wrong to have kept me locked up all these years? Was I wrong for accepting it and not trying to push harder? I mean, when he left for work, I could’ve gone out. I could’ve tried more, but I didn’t.
I didn’t, and that was all on me.
When I said nothing, Tori reached over to me, grabbing my hand and squeezing with a force a kid should not be capable of. Her strength seeped into me, and I lifted my eyes and looked at her. “If anyone in this house is mean to you, tell me,” she said. “Tell me, and I’ll make sure they’re never mean to you again, I promise.”
Such bold, strong words, words I knew she believed. But of course, Tori had no idea why I was here or just how badly I could be hurt. I knew I could never burden her with anything, so I simply nodded and said nothing.
“Now, I gotta go do homework,” she whined as she let go of me, shooting me a frown. She slid off my bed, grabbed her bag, and bounded away. I watched her go, feeling strange once I was alone.
That girl, I liked her. I did. She was nice. A bit… abrasive, sometimes, with her penchant for swearing, but I guess swearing was better to take up than her family’s craziness. Yeah, that was probably something that was best left to the older generations.
I collapsed backward, my head falling onto my pillow. I stared at the ceiling, alone in my room, wishing I had normal problems like homework. But, I guess, problems like that were in the past. I’d graduated my online school, been refused to go to college unless it was also online. I’d never know what it was like to be a normal eighteen-year-old. I felt… I felt so far removed from everyone my age. I felt older.
Different. I felt different.
I couldn’t say how long I was alone in my room, but it was at least thirty minutes before I heard heavy footsteps down the hall. I sat up the same moment someone burst into my room, carrying bags upon bags. Seriously, his arms and hands were loaded with them, from stores I never even heard of. I could hardly see who it was through the plastic and square paper bags.
But then he dropped them in the middle of my room, and I saw who it was.
Will straightened himself out after the bags were strewn across my floor. He shot me a smile, and though it was a smile meant to disarm me, to make me at ease, it did anything but. My stomach twisted, and I hesitated to get to my feet and move closer to the mini-mountain of bags he’d brought in.
“Uh,” I started, feeling a bit awkward, “what’s all this?” I met Will’s hazel eyes, having almost forgotten how easily they could peer into me, how much I felt like squirming under them. It was almost like he knew all of my dark secrets—not that I had many of those.
“Clothes,” Will said. “For you. So you don’t have to wear Stella’s things. I can tell her style isn’t really yours.”
Hmm. Could he also tell I didn’t really have a style of my own because Daddy had always bought me my things? That was probably assuming too much.
“Plus those pajamas just look ridiculous,” he said. “What are you, five?”
“Hey,” I huffed, folding my arms across my chest. “I happen to like fuzzy unicorns, thank you very much.” Still, even though I was slightly insulted at his words, I was also keenly aware that he was an attractive guy and I was usually in my unicorn pajamas when he saw me. I was a little embarrassed, I guess.
Will stared at me, grinning widely. “I never thought I’d ever say this, but you might just be changing my mind when it comes to unicorns.” He chuckled. “Although, to be fair, I don’t think anyone else in this household would ever be caught dead in something like that.”
Heat crept up my neck, flushing my cheeks, and I could no longer hold his gaze.
“All that aside,” Will paused, hands shoved into his pockets as he stepped closer to me, “Markus told me this morning to go out and get you some clothes, so I did. I also got you a few things I think would look good on you—in the small black bag.”
I did not know how to respond to any of that, especially the Markus bit. Did the man feel bad for what he did to Jaxon, or was that giving the man too much credit? Psychopaths didn’t feel remorse. Guilt was not something they could comprehend, right?
“Why don’t you and I have a little date tonight?” Will suggested. “Wear whatever you like.”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to be alone together?”
He smirked. “We’re not, but it can be our little secret, just like our rendezvous in his office.” He stepped closer to me again, and I swore I could feel his body humming with anticipation. “What can I say? I’m dying to get you alone. I don’t care what Markus says.”
I didn’t say yes. I knew saying yes to his proposition would be stupid… and I also was well aware I had no idea what this supposed date would entail. Will didn’t seem like the most stable guy around; doing anything alone with him would probably be something I’d grow to regret.
But I also didn’t say no. I didn’t outright deny him or his suggestion because I knew he could tell Markus about my snooping. Or, well, my pathetic attempt at snooping in his office, trying to find out something about Daddy.
I think I might have to play Will’s game for a little bit, at least until I knew more. I’d be as careful as I could possibly be, but then again, how careful could you really be in a house like this, surrounded by people like him? Dangerous and unstable, yet alluring all the same, and what was worse, I didn’t outright hate it.
What did that say about me?
“I’ll swing by your room after dark. Wait up for me,” Will said. “It’ll probably have to be after everyone else is asleep.” He gave me a smile, a lingering look, and then he was gone, leaving me alone with all of the bags and the clothes in them.
Well, I guess I had a date tonight. Not sure what we’d do, since I wasn’t supposed to leave this house, but I had the feeling Will already had it all planned.
I went searching for the little black bag Will had spoken of, the bag containing things he’d gotten because he’d thought they’d look good on me. It took a while to search through the mountain of bags, but I eventually found it—and once I did, once my fingers dove into the little black bag and fished out one of the tiny things inside, every part of me warmed up.
Lace. Black, intricate lace that was perhaps the softest thing I’d ever touched. Something that, by the look of it, couldn’t possibly hold all of me in. It had to be a garment that was more for the man than the woman. A sexy thing.
He thought I’d look good in this? Every single part of me burned up, and I hurriedly stuck it back in the bag, glancing over my shoulder. My door was wide open; couldn’t forget that. I’d never even dreamed of having underwear like that, and I couldn’t imagine it was too comfortable.
And then it hit me, though it should’ve hit me sooner: if Will thought I would look good in something like that, it meant he’d imagined me wearing next to nothing. That thought shouldn’t surprise me at all, given how he acted around me every time he was near, but it did. I mean, that meant he found me attractive too, right?
I never got reassurance like that. I never knew what I looked like, compared to other girls. I’d never had a boy do everything he could to date me, give me compliments, tell me I was the most beautiful girl in the world. I didn’t think I was ugly, but it felt wrong to say I was beautiful. I was just me, and Will wanted to see me in a thong.
I shouldn’t even entertain the idea, not after what happened with Jaxon, and yet… I didn’t want to sit back and let Markus control me. I wanted to push back however I could, and if that meant donning that flimsy little lace for Will, then maybe that’s what I’d do.
I could be a rebel.
