Forget Me Not (Remember Me Series) by M. G. Morgan

I wasn’t sure what I was looking at and the sound it was making didn’t sound human. I pulled out of his grasp and he let me go so I took it as a positive sign. I crawled across the floor towards the corner. The moaning had taken on a gurgling sob and I could feel the hairs standing on the back of my neck.
    The girl was strapped naked across a wooden horse. Her hands and feet were bound and she was spread across it like a piece of meat. Her back was a criss cross of cuts and bruises. But that wasn’t what worried me, it was the sound she was making. I knew that sound. I’d heard once as a trainee nurse in the hospital and it frightened me more than anything else. The sound had kept me awake at night for weeks. It was the sound of someone drowning in their own blood. Her lungs were filling with blood and she wouldn’t last long.
    I stood and ran the last few steps to her side. She wasn’t conscious and for that I was grateful. And I knew as I stared down at her, my numb fingers fumbling with the straps that if I had the chance to kill Christopher then I would. There would be no hesitation, I would simply do it.
    “What are you doing? She needs to learn a lesson.”
    His voice boomed behind me and I jumped but I didn’t stop what I was doing. I had to help her, I couldn’t stand by and watch her die.
    Christopher’s hand closed around my arm and he jerked me away from the prone figure on the horse. He spun me around to face him and he was back to his usual self again.
    “I said, leave her.”
    “I can’t.”
    His eyes glittered with cruelty and I could see him devising some form of torture just for me.
    “Unless you want to take her place. I advise leaving her be.”
    “If I do that she’ll die.”
    He seemed surprised for a second, his eyes narrowed.
    “You’re lying.”
    “I’m not, you know I trained to be a nurse and if she doesn’t get some sort of medical attention immediately then she’ll die. She’s drowning in her own blood, and I’d be surprised if she didn’t have some other sort of internal bleeding.”
    He studied me for a second, his gaze darting between me and her before he finally made up his mind.
    “I’ll let her get help… If…” He paused as if for dramatic flare.
    I waited, a pit opening up in the bottom of my stomach. He was a cruel bastard, and what was worse was he seemed to enjoy inflicting such pain on people.
    “You take her place.”
    I waited, my mouth going dry and my breathing panicked and shallow. Give myself over to him in that way. I’d be opening myself up to him torturing me. But he was going to torture me anyway. Would I be able to live with myself if I allowed some other poor girl to die, all because I wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t brave enough to face him. I couldn’t have that on my conscience.
    “Fine.”
    “No, I want you to beg me to allow you to take her place.” He smiled, a cruel twist of his lips.
    The words turned to ash on my tongue. I didn’t want to beg, I didn’t want to ever beg him for anything. Closing my eyes I imagined Aidan bursting through the door and sweeping me up into his arms. The cool touch of his lips on mine as he kissed me. The comforting embrace of his arms as he cradled me.
    One small tear slipped from my eye as I imagined him coming for me. I just needed to hold onto the image of him. He would come for me. He would save me. And if I could then I would help as many girls trapped here as I could.
    “Please, Christopher.”
    He wrapped his hand around my throat, the look in his eyes suddenly intense.
    “Call me Master.”
    I coughed, the words struggling to leave my lips.
    “Please, Master, let me take her place.”
    He smiled, but it was more a barring of his teeth.
    “Your wish, is my command.”
     
    My eyes felt heavy, as though they were made of lead as I struggled to open them. The cold stone beneath my cheek told me I was back in the cell and for that I was grateful. My scalp tingled and as I sat up I