C9 - Villaintine

I hear a sharp gasp. “Is he—”

Is he dead? That’s what the unknown man asks. The strange part is not knowing the answer.

Am I dead?

“He’ll wish he was,” Taehyung says, his voice hard. It sounds like a threat, but I feel the tension in his body. He’s worried about me. About what happened before he showed up.  Before Kim Yongdae shoved me into a black pool of water and closed a grate on top of me, trapping me inside. Before he held me down and—My mind tremors away from the truth. Maybe I would wish I were dead, by the time this is over.

“What can I do?” the stranger man more like a young omega asks.

It makes me wonder if he’s Taehyung’s captive.

His lover.

A striper.

Playtime?

His darkmoon?

I don’t know how he deals with people, except to pay them. The stranger must be close to him if he was in his house.

“Blankets,” Taehyung says. “Every single one you can find.”

That sounds practical, but I don’t feel cold. I don’t feel anything, really. Taehyung carries me upstairs and lays me down on a large bed.

His bed?

He pulls back the covers, settling my wet body into the middle. Part of me recognizes that it must be comfortable—the way I sink into the mattress, the velvet drapes hanging from a thickly carved bedframe. I’m disconnected from my body, though. As if it sank to the bottom of the water, landing on hard rocks. And my mind kept floating along.

“Taehyung,” I whisper, surprised to find my lips cracked and hard.

How can they be dry after almost drowning? Everything feels upside down, inside out. His eyes look pure black.

“I’m here.”

“Don’t leave,” I whisper, swallowing hard to get the words out. “Please.”

“Not yet.” It’s a promise, both to stay and to go. I have him for now, which is more than I ever thought I would have. More than a peasant deserves with a prince charming.

“I’m sorry.”

He swears. “Don’t.”

“You found them. Tell me you found them—”

“Yes, your breadcrumbs. My prodigy. My golden bambi.” He presses a kiss to my forehead. I know his lips are touching my skin. Some part of me registers that fact.

But I don’t feel anything.

Not pleasure.

Not fear.

When he brushed his knuckles against my cheek at the diner, I’d felt the echo of his touch for days. And now I can’t feel anything.

The stranger comes into the room with an armful of quilts and blankets. He’s older than me but not by much. Very beautiful. It wouldn’t surprise me if Taehyung and he were together, but he doesn’t look jealous. He looks...worried...about me.

Taehyung reaches to the neckline of my uniform. There’s no warning before he rips it away. I should feel something. Embarrassment as I’m exposed, naked, and bruised. At least I should feel cold as the air touches my damp skin.

I’m still separate from my body, unable to feel a thing.

“What are you doing?” the stranger asks, concern plain in his soft voice.

Taehyung gives him a hard look. “Fcuking his limp body. What do you think?”

It’s the same voice he used years ago.

What would I want with a puny omega?

And then he unclasps his belt. It makes a whip-like sound through the air as he pulls it off.  The old me would have flinched at the sound. Now I just stare, unblinking, unfeeling.

“I can do it,” the stranger says, moving as if to undress.

A cold laugh. “As much as I’d love to see the two of you in bed together, I don’t want to see what happens when Yoongi finds out I saw you naked.”

“You saw me naked at the auction,” the stranger says.

“That doesn’t count. You weren’t his then.”

So, they aren’t together. I can’t even feel relief, not with the word auction hanging in the air. Is that what would have happened to me? And as horrible as that sounds, wouldn’t that have been better than this?

Anything would be better than this.

Taehyung pushes the damp white fabric from his shoulders, revealing hard-packed muscle and lines of ink. I hadn’t expected to see tattoos beneath that expensive suit fabric. None of it peeks out onto his hands or neck. It’s all perfectly contained to his chest, his abs. Ancient scrollwork and dragon scales over a man of so little words.

What’s the point of getting such beautiful artwork on skin no one can, see?

“I’ll go find Namjoon,” the man says.

Taehyung’s voice is a drawl, closer as the bed dips in his direction. “Really intent on making this a threesome, aren’t you?”

“He’s a doctor.”

“He lost his license,” Taehyung says, his touch burning hot as he pulls me into his arms.

Oh God, I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t want to feel anything, but he was like a flame. I’m consumed by him. I want anyone but him, the stranger maybe who was worried about me now, to help me get away from this.

To pull me out of the fire, but he seems content to leave me there, especially as Taehyung smooths a wet lock of hair away from my cheek. He probably looks gentle, but he can’t see how it burns. Only Taehyung’s eyes are cold, black stones that give nothing away.

“Yoongi said it was fine,” he says. “Namjoon stitched his gunshot wound.”

Taehyung glances at him. “Yoongi was shot?”

“Grazed. On his neck. The bullet was meant for me.”

“You don’t know that Bluebell.” says a new voice, very alpha, domineering and very gravel.

The stranger sounds surprised by that voice. “You shouldn’t be standing.”

“And you shouldn’t be in Taehyung’s bedroom.” The new man, probably alpha by the way he growls.

“This is his bedroom?” the stranger asks, uncertain. So, this is Taehyung’s bed and his house.

Of course, it is.

Expensive and luxurious and completely impersonal. It doesn’t mean anything that he brought me here, that he holds me tight as if he can’t stand to let go. I tell myself that, but it still burns too hot. His arms and his abs. He’s hard and warm and painful.

And then I feel something against my hip.

Oh God. I may not have done anything with Eunwoo but I recognize the enormity of Taehyung’s cock. This one’s bigger and more insistent. When I try to squirm away Taehyung holds me tighter.

“I heard you almost died,” Taehyung says to the new man in the room, his voice casual, as if he’s not throbbing against me. “Did you lose…what? A whole few drops of blood?”

The alpha responds with equal languor. “A quarter cup, at least. We should talk.”

I can already hear the words. They whip around in the water between us. Words about Kim Yongdae and about pain. About bullets and about sex.

“You can talk in front of me,” the stranger omega with sharp voice says. “I want to know.”

No, you don’t. I want to tell him that.

Taehyung looks at me, reading the truth in my eyes. “In private,” he finally says.

The stranger omega doesn’t give up. “Why? What happened to him? Does it have anything to do with your father?”

Only when Taehyung pulls away from me do I feel the cold. It’s deep in my bones, settled like ice that will never melt. I want the fire back, but I know it will hurt. It doesn’t matter what I want. Taehyung is already getting dressed, already leaving. Already riding away on his invisible white horse.

“Stay with him,” he tells the stranger omega. “His name’s Jungkook.”

“What happened to him?” the stranger omega says again, his voice desolates, knowing Taehyung won’t answer. Of course, Taehyung obliges, leaving without another word. Then it’s only this omega and me, someone who was auctioned off like some rare and valuable object, and meanwhile I’m cracked into a thousand pieces like a worthless one.

The prince and the pauper.

!!~~~~!!

The stranger, he doesn’t undress like Taehyung, which is a small relief. I don’t think I could handle any more vulnerability in this night. But he does join me in the bed, stroking my hair gently until I fall asleep.

I wake up with the room darker, the shadows deeper. His body feels warm and still beside mine, as if he had drowsed too.

Who is he?

And why does he care what happens to me? Or maybe he does whatever Taehyung tells him to without question. I’m all too familiar with that unblinking obedience.

“Are you one of them?” I ask, half in the dream world.

“One of who?”

The omega-whores.

I can’t say the word, not only because it would offend him. Because I’m one of them. What are we called, anyway?

“One of the omegas, the ones Taehyung collects when someone can’t pay the loan back.”

“Do you mean the darkmoons?”

“Are they darkmoons?” I ask, my voice thick with sleep. I guess it makes sense. A way to make money where none had been. And probably some of the customers are the very same men who owe money. It’s a complete circuit, powering Kim Taehyung’s rise to power. But I can’t really imagine Taehyung on a cigarette littered floor, tossing dollar bills onstage.

My eyes flutter closed again.

“I thought he kept them for himself. I imagined a harem, one for every day of the month for a year.”

At least that’s how he had made it sound. Was that supposed to make it more palatable?

So, I would go more easily into my captivity? He sounds contemplative, as if he’s wondering the same thing.

“There aren’t other. At least not here. What made you think there were?”

Come to terms with what you have to do.

“He threatened to take me. If Dad didn’t pay.”

“Maybe he wanted you to work off the debt,” he says, uncertain.

But I swear to God you’ll be mine.

“No,” I say, drifting back into sleep. Taehyung said he’d make me like it. The strange thing was, I believed him. “He told me what he wanted to do. Him and me.”

The stranger holds my hand when the doctor comes. The doctor doesn’t wear a white coat or carry a black bag. Instead, he wears only black slacks, exposing his broad chest with silvery scars I’ve seen on those who fight a lot. His soft-sided grey cooler looks more like it should carry body parts rather than heal them.

“Trust him,” the stranger whispers, squeezing my hand. I close my eyes, holding onto him when the not-doctor examines me. The not-doctor may look like a thug but his manner is professional.

Impersonal, even. The not-doctor doesn’t express any surprise over finding my ribs bruised or my rectum torn. It’s with a fast, impersonal touch that he cleans my wounds and applies topical antibiotics.

And blissfully he has pain medicine. Serious, hardcore pain medicine. The kind you can get addicted to. That’s what I need right now. I need to escape my own mind, my memories. I need oblivion. The pain medicine backfires, because I can’t wake up. Not even when I want to.

In the darkness of my nightmares Taehyung can’t reach me. I’m deep underneath the water, where it’s only black. And on the surface, a thick layer of ice.

I don’t know if he could have made me like kissing, if I would have ever liked sex, but there’s only fear now. Only a cold certainty that whatever comes next will hurt.

Only the strange dread that I’ll like it that way.

 !~~~!

The next morning I wake up encased in ice, the events of last night frozen away. And I’m sure I can stay this way, as long as I don’t talk or move or think. I stare up at the blank ceiling, carefully not imagining about Taehyung sleeping in this same place night after night.

Park Jimin is the stranger’s name. He stays by my side the whole night, only leaving briefly to confer with the doctor and someone who brings clothes for us both. He dresses me in a loose t-shirt and shorts. On an intellectual level I know the clothes are comfortable. They feel like velvet against my skin. Apparently rich people even have different workout clothes. But on a physical level I don’t feel anything.

Not pain.

Definitely not hunger, especially once I see the table heavy with food. Taehyung sits with another man at the table, speaking in low tones. Both of them stand when we come into the room. It’s an old world courtesy, but one lacking any warmth.

Taehyung’s eyes are as cold as I’ve ever seen them. And they don’t linger long on me. Jimin leads me to one of the empty chairs before taking one opposite me.

I stare at the teacup in front of me, only distantly curious. It may as well be a flying saucer. Something to be poked and prodded.

Examined.

Nothing that could provide comfort. The whole world seems foreign now.

“Did you find anything?” the man with golden eyes says. I remember Jimin talking to him.

Min Yoongi.

There could be a thousand meanings, but I know which one it is. The same way I could count cards and calculate statistics—without really wanting to. Did he find anything in that abandoned mental hospital?

“Nothing useful,” Taehyung answers, his voice low and flat.

Yoongi presses forward. “You know him best. What’s his next move?”

“He thinks he’s teaching me a lesson. What does any teacher do?”

Reinforce the lesson. Give homework.

My mind flashes to Taehyung in the old trailer, holding that damned book of trigonometry.  My stomach turns over, threatening to spill over the nice shiny China tray.

“Does that mean Jimin is safe?”

A cold smile crosses Taehyung’s handsome face. “The opposite.”

Yoongi makes a low growling sound. “Then we can’t wait.”

“No,” Taehyung says agreeably.

They both will go looking for Kim Yongdae. Will they find him? That seems doubtful. This is an elaborate game. I haven’t seen enough of the cards to count them. And I’m only a chip in the pile, moved around on the velvet without a thought.

“So, I’ll bring Jimin back,” Min Yoongi says.

Taehyung nods. “We can meet this afternoon.”

Jimin seems to perk up. “Can you maybe talk to me instead of about me?”

“I’ll bring you back to my house,” Yoongi says to him, his expression a strange mix of possession and deference. “And then meet with Taehyung this afternoon.”

“What about Jungkook?”

Everyone in the room looks at me, the heat from the gazes searing.

Look away, please look away.

“What about him?” Yoongi finally asks.

“Who will take care of him?” Jimin demands.

Taehyung doesn’t move a muscle, but I feel his fury as if it flickers, his own flame.

“I’ll find someone,” Taehyung says, nothing in his voice giving away his anger.

“I’ll stay with him,” Jimin says, though I can hear the uncertainty in his voice.

“Absolutely not,” Yoongi says. “My house is the safest place for you, especially when both Taehyung and I aren’t there. The security team is already installed there.”

“Then he can come with me.” Jimin kicks me softly under the table. He wants me to say that I agree with him, but I don’t really. I like Jimin, but he’s probably safer without me.

“If it’s safer there, then he’ll be safer, too.” Jimin adds when I don’t respond.

The force of Taehyung’s discontent takes the air from the room. In the tense silence I imagine a million things he could say.

I’ll take care of you, Jungkook.

The fantasy gets stronger.

“Take him,” Taehyung says, his voice cold as he stands and tosses down his napkin. Then he leaves the room, as if he decided on his dinner order instead of my fate.

Jimin struggles to meet my eyes, but I can’t deal with that. Can’t deal with the empathy I would find. Can’t deal with the questions he would ask.

“What happened to him?” he asks Yoongi instead, a sweet relief. Someone else to answer his questions. Someone else to field the useless empathy.

“You don’t want to know,” Yoongi says, his voice hard.

“I should know if I’m going to help him.”

“I’m not sure there’s any help for someone who’s been through that.”

That almost makes me laugh. Maybe if the ice were a little thinner, I would have. But every second that Taehyung is away from me, the ice hardens. Every time he pushes me away it gets thicker. It should be a relief that he doesn’t seem to be claiming the debt.

That he’s giving me time to heal. But he’s the only person who really understands what I’ve been through. Because he went through his own hell, with the very same devil.

“Are you speaking from experience?” Jimin says, his innocence heart-breaking.

“I saw a lot of fcuked-up shit at the darkmoons growing up. Omegas...damn even betas raped, hurt, beaten until they weren’t recognizable. And still I never saw anything like this.”

Jimin makes a sound of sympathy.

For me.

For him.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, bluebell. I could have freed you. Never forget that. I could have paid a million dollars and then walked away, never fcuking that pretty little hole.”

A pause, as if to let the words set in.

“HE FCUKED HIM. AND THEN HE DROWNED HIM.” A sharp breath.

“How did he—” Jimin’s voice falters.

“Survive? He left a trail of breadcrumbs for Taehyung to find. He didn’t know if he’d make it in time. He had no idea if Taehyung would find a dead body at the bottom of the pool.”

Didn’t he? Like that day on the river, I don’t quite remember being pulled from the pool. I don’t remember much of last night except the hard currents, the sharp rocks. The metallic taste of blood in the water. That must have been horrible for Taehyung, but it’s hard to feel sympathy. Hard to feel anything at all.

“Thank God he didn’t.” Jimin sounds painfully earnest.

“What Kim Yongdae did to him…Most people would rather have died.” Yoongi says instead.

I know I should feel something about that.

Shame, probably...that I’m still alive...breathing even. But all I keep thinking is, what if I did die last night? What if the only parts of me worth saving sank to the bottom of that cold pool? I can be dressed up and fed like a doll, but I’m not a person.

I can walk around, my body controlled by the people around me. What makes me human? What makes me want to be human?

It seems like a horrible thing to be, so weak and unwilling.

!~~~!!!~~~!