Chapter 3

Milanda’s room

As I knew, it was a dream. I woke up again with puffy eyes. I had to be crying in my sleep. Milanda was sitting on the far end of the bed, watching me like a hawk.

“Hmm, hmm. So very interesting.”

I cowered, pulling the soft duvet closer around me. 

“What are you talking about?”

“I meant your little love story. Thought you are an innocent victim that Lenard Lee just brought back to satisfy his cravings. It turns out you aren’t too pure yourself, being the other woman in a relationship.”

She uttered her words so confidently as if she had just bore her X-ray vision of me and seen the memories I kept in my heart.

“My story? How do you know?” I asked, quivering under the blanket.

“Didn’t you just have a dream just now?” She laughed hysterically. “Was it a good one? What would you rate it? A? B?”

The woman didn’t seem right in the head. But for someone to break into my dreams and tell what I just saw made little sense to me. 

“What dream?”

She laughed again. “Piper, the love of my life, will you marry me?”

Was she serious? How did she even know what I just dreamed? Could she read my mind? Nothing was making sense right now.

“What are you talking about, Sis Landa? I don’t know what is going on right now.”

It was then that I realised the absence of the excruciating pain in me earlier. Wait, how long had I been sleeping?

Suddenly, I realised the woman was just next to me. From sitting away at the end of the enormous bed, in a blink, she was at my side. Without asking, she lifted the blanket and pulled out my wrist. Then, our palms connected. I felt the power of her energy surge through me.

“You…you’re a witch.”

I couldn’t explain all the images that took over my mind. If she wasn’t a witch, then what was she? The images scared me out of my wits. But if she was indeed a witch, then what was she doing in the Master’s den?

“You can say that.”

“But why are you here, and why are you helping me?”

“I have no reason to help you, as I mentioned. As for why I’m here, you need to ask Lenard Lee. He took me here, and he won’t let me leave, either. So the best we can do is become each other’s companion.”

“Then why did you give me a dream like that?” I assumed she had created my dream earlier. “What do you want from me?”

She just smiled sweetly. “I want a companion.”

Why did the overbearing woman earlier now seem so immature? I glanced at her awkwardly, trying to find the answer.

She suddenly hardened, taking on the arrogance of the woman earlier.

“If you do as I ask you to, I can ensure your survival. Mind you, it may be your only hope,” Sis Landa hissed at me.

“So, you are Sis Landa now. Who was that earlier?”

“You don’t need to know,” she glared. “Now, go back to your cell until I summon you again.”

What did she mean?

With a ferocious push from the lady, I fell off the bed and strangely reappeared back in my cell. Feeling an icy blast hit me, I immediately checked what I was wearing, and to my surprise, I was only in underwear.

I had just encountered a witch. She gave me a dream and healed me. What did she want me to do next?

The key turned in the metal door and a guard’s face came into view through the small window of the door.

Tossing me a dress, the guard uttered promptly, “The Master is back, and he demands your presence now.”

I pulled the dress over my head. The garment fit nicely, ending just after my knees. The guard immediately rushed me to a room where the Master was waiting.

My head whirred at the familiar scent of sandalwood, which was supposedly pure, but after how many times the Master had forcefully taken me while having sandalwood in the room made me dread that scent.

“Kneel,” I heard the Master’s cruel voice.

Recalling his torturous ways, I fell to the floor in prostration. He could do what he wanted to me, but I would cling to my life dearly.

“Very good,” he said. 

“Where is Jacques?” I asked. “What have you done to him?”

It had been twenty over days that I hadn’t seen Jacques. After they imprisoned me, they had taken Jacques as well and made him do things for them, as well as to enjoy me. He couldn’t deny what they ordered him to do. But after two weeks, he stopped coming, and they threw me to other lackeys of the Master. Had they done something to Jacques?

Whenever I asked that question, the guards whipped me mercilessly. I stopped asking the guards since I learned the Master would come back and decided I would ask the Master at all costs.  

From my last conversation with Jacques, I knew he was alright because they had wanted him to do a few things with him. Perhaps my intuition was right, and he was safe but away from his tasks.

“The man is safe. Once he gathers all the information my friend needs and I get my share, he will come to claim you as his prize,” the man called the Master said in a dark voice. He lifted my chin, forcing me to look at him. 

He tore my hair tie, letting my hair run free down my back. There were no words I could use to describe how I feared this man. My knees were shaking as he ran his coarse fingers through my hair. Image clouded my mind with fear, him pounding inside me while I begged him to stop, tearing me apart with each stroke…

A stream of tears gushed down my cheek as his words repeated themselves in my memory.

“I’ll break you until you gain some strength in yourself, you weakling.” 

The pain of his powerful hand grasping a handful of my hair stopped me in my thoughts.

“Thinking of someone else, were you? I’ll see to your punishment.”

I quickly tried to think of some words, but he then promptly released my hair. 

“Get on the bed,” he ordered.