The Dark Forest: A Collection Of Erotic Fairytales(123)

“Please, let me go. You can still just let me go, I don’t know who you are, I don’t—” Another sharp slap silenced her, and then he moved behind her again. She was crying hard now, the ache in her cheeks overwhelming the pain in the other parts of her body.

His breath brushed over her hair before he spoke, “Good girl, cry for him. Tell him to do whatever it takes to bring you home.” The crop snapped across her thighs again and she sobbed. “Say it.”

She was weak. Tired, in pain, and terrified. So, she obeyed. “Dad, I’m so sorry. Please just do what he says. I just want to come home. Please, Dad, help me. I just—”

A gloved hand covered her nose and mouth, pinching off her air so that she panicked and jerked against the bindings. “Perfect,” he cooed against her ear as she struggled. “Now we get to see if he really loves you, Rapunzel.”

Rebecca waited for him to release her, but instead he simply dropped the crop and wrapped his other arm across her throat. Terror took hold, tearing the skin at her wrists as she struggled against the cuffs, making pathetic, muffled sounds.

“Shhh…” His voice whispered against her cheek, and then she felt the black closing in again, fear warring against the inevitable. Desperate, she tried to stay conscious, to fight—but there was no fighting this.



Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair to me.

Memories were clashing inside her as she fought her way free from the depths of sleep, strange and twisted flashes that surfaced and disappeared as fast as they appeared. Her father’s voice reading the story from memory as he brushed her hair as a child. Small hands turning the colorful pages of the book. The twinge when one of her long strands caught in the brush as a woman’s voice overwhelmed the story, crying and screaming just out of sight. Whispers. A door shutting. Another page turning as her father’s baritone washed over her. Rapunzel, Rapunzel…

With a groan, Rebecca tore herself from the haunting dream and turned over on the cold cement, opening her eyes to dim light. Still naked, but no longer bound. The chair was gone and the room was empty now. Well, empty except for a recessed corner that held a toilet and the kind of water faucet usually found outside. Her eyes wandered up—every one of the red dots in the ceiling were on.

Damn him.

He was watching her.

She sat up and pulled her knees to her chest to hide her nakedness—not like it mattered—he’d seen every inch of her, and so had the cameras.

Tenderly, she touched the raw skin of her wrists, the flesh broken in places, already scabbing. Nothing to be done for them. Her ankles were reddened but otherwise okay, however the welts across her thighs and breasts were impossible to ignore. Angry and red and raised on her skin. She wanted to scream, to rant and rave, but there was no use. The only one who would answer was the one she didn’t want to.

Rebecca wrapped her arms around her shins and curled up tight, rocking slightly as she tried to make her mind work. She was smarter than this. Smarter than this damsel in distress act. Assholes always underestimated her, never looking deep enough to figure out that she might actually know something. It had happened during her double major in Business and Art History, and she dealt with it every damn day at Monarch Systems—but unlike all of that bullshit, in this case being underestimated might just save her life.

Think. Fucking think, Rebecca. What information do you need?

Too many questions assaulted her at once and she forced them into categories and then prioritized them.

First, who is he? She made herself remember the outline of him, the rough timbre of his voice, but she had no idea. His voice wasn’t familiar, nothing about him drew on a memory, but he obviously knew too much about her already.

Not a good start.

Okay, why is he doing this? That was at least a question she had some data behind. He had said her father had ruined people, but what had he meant? As far as she knew, the company had never done a lay-off, Monarch Systems had expanded too fast for that. In fact, they were actively recruiting. And how the hell would a software developer ruin anyone? Malware? More bullshit. He was probably just insane. After all, sane people didn’t kidnap other people.

Move on, Rebecca.

She started to braid sections of her hair, an old, nervous habit that let her focus as her eyes traced the room. There were thick metal rings embedded in the concrete in seemingly random places—the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Their presence was subtly threatening considering what he’d already done to her, but she couldn’t afford to think about that for now.

Ignore it and find a way out. The television was off and useless, especially behind the thick plastic case surrounding it. Near the door a small tray caught her eye, but she stared at the door first. Heavy, industrial in nature, and likely locked. A guaranteed waste of time.

A shiver rushed over her skin, goose bumps appearing in its wake, and she tried to curl tighter to preserve warmth as she continued to think. There had to be a way out of this. Did he want money? No, money was too simple. He’d asked her to convince her father to do what he wanted, not pay. As her mind spun in circles, her eyes drifted back to the door.

‘You know it’s locked,’ her mind chided her.

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered under her breath.

Deciding it was better to know, she rolled her eyes at her own thoughts and stood. As she moved towards it, she kept one arm across her breasts, realizing the futility of the action even while she maintained what little modesty she could. Testing the handle gingerly, she sighed when it barely shifted. Not just locked, but impassable. The thing might as well be another part of the concrete.