Simmer: An Inferno World Novell - Measha Stone Page 0,35

softness made it possible for Nicolette to think she could leave us.

She shifts on the stool. The chains from her cuffs jingle, distracting Selena from her bottle.

“Sorry,” she says when I glare at her. “Can I hold her?” she asks as I sit on the bed, feeding our baby. “Please, Elijah.”

“Not yet.” I lean back against my headboard. My jeans are sticking to my damp legs, but I don’t care.

Nicolette nods sadly. She’s lost all the weight she gained while Selena was in her belly plus some. Her cheeks are sunken in, dark circles have formed around her eyes. I can see her ribs.

It doesn’t matter. At least, it won’t.

“Let’s go.” Mark appears in my doorway, knocking on the frame.

I look up at him and smile. “Can you hold her a sec so I can get my shirt on?” I ask, standing up from the bed, Selena still sucking on the nipple of her bottle.

We’ve been pumping Nicolette enough that we have breast milk to last five more months. By then, Selena won’t need it anymore.

“Come here, sweet girl.” Mark takes our daughter and bounces her lightly in his arms the way he was taught.

Papa’s been good to us during these hard months. Having our wife put away while she grew our baby girl was difficult. But he showed us all the ways we could still use Nicolette while she was getting bigger, and he offered us what was his when she got too big.

I pull my t-shirt on and tuck it into my jeans. Nicolette flinches in the corner when my belt buckle jangles as I slide it through my loops.

“Everything ready?” I ask Mark while I lace up my boots.

“Yeah. Papa said to bring her,” Mark says, still bouncing our little girl in his arms.

I walk over to Nicolette and flip off the breast pump. She winces as I remove the suctions cups from her tits.

“Am I being put away again?” she asks, disappointment obvious in her tone. She keeps trying to find a way to make us forgive her. After all these months, she still doesn’t understand she can’t be forgiven. What she did…there’s no coming back from that.

I grab her arm and haul her to her feet. The heavy chains linking her cuffs to the metal collar sag across the front of her nude body. For so long, I adored her, wanted to give her all the pleasure I was allowed to dole out, but now, looking at her, I’m sickened.

Her bare feet shuffle over the wood planks of my room. Mark leads the way, and I take her downstairs, through the living room and kitchen, then out the back door. She stumbles when I step off the back porch, but rights herself before she falls.

“Elijah, where are we going?” she asks me when we walk in the opposite direction from the shed.

“It’s time,” Mark says. He’s being cryptic on purpose, but I let him have it. She hurt him too. He deserves to punish her until he decides to stop.

Papa’s waiting for us. When she notices him, she stops dead. I yank her.

“Elijah. No. Please. Wait. Please,” she begs, sobs breaking between her words.

“Let’s go.” I yank her harder. She’s not coming easily, so I settle into dragging her across the yard. She’s crying hard by the time we get to Papa.

The shovel leans against the tall pile of dirt. Papa’s shirt is dirty. Soil covers his shoulders and his cheeks.

“Nicolette,” he says firmly.

“Papa. Please. Please,” she begs, but her sobbing is getting in the way. “Please. Selena needs me. She needs me.” She strains to reach for the baby sleeping in Mark’s arms, but he turns away from her, walking around Papa and glaring at her.

“Don’t make it worse,” Papa says. “Climb down.” He points to the hole.

“No!” She screams and tries to get away from me to run, but she’s weakened from all those months in the shed. We only let her inside to clean up enough that we could stand her smell while we used her holes or milked her. It’s left her too skinny and without muscle.

I snatch her before she gets anywhere and drag her to the edge of the hole.

“Get down there.” I shove her. She stumbles over her feet and falls down into the dirt bed. Flipping onto her back, she tries to scramble up to her feet.

“Stay down.” Papa pulls out the pistol—the one we took from her lover—and points it at her. “Be a good girl