The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

It’s Saturday.

He stares up at his white ceiling, lying on his bed. His eyes are alive. They move along the smooth surface, cast in the bright light of an afternoon sun. He tries hard not to think. He knows that if he thinks only dark thoughts will come, thoughts of worry. He knows the harsh memories of a night that is still living with him. And he doesn’t want it. It’s too much for him to take now. He’s too tired of the revelation. Another one like him is out there.

And of all the girls at the party he took his.

His eyes try to just stare up at the white, the smooth surface, the bright… It doesn’t work.

He’d slept.

He’d needed it.

And Thank God no dreams or nightmares had intruded upon it. Nikki lays naked beside him, her body cradled into the side of his. He hadn’t asked for it, but she wanted to do it. His arm rested wrapped around her shoulder, her perky teardrop breasts, pressed tightly into his side. Her smooth skinned arms rested carefully over his bare chest. He feels her warmth beside him. He feels the softness of her skin, the firmness of the body underneath it, the throbbing need beating inside of her chest; the need he had placed there.

Daniel sighs.

He turns and plants a light kiss on her forehead.

He still has his boxers on.

He’d taken Sharon back to his apartment. Nikki, had been there, looking for him. She’d been worried. She didn’t know why. Somehow she’d known he’d been in trouble. He’d straightened it out.

Sharon had watched and listened as everything unfolded. If she hadn’t believed him before she would have by now. He’d gotten her a cup of coffee. They’d talked some more. Dawn had come.

She slept alone now on the couch outside his room; wrapped in a warm blanket he had given her.

Azuma did the same with Catherine even though she had wanted badly to spend the night and morning in his bed. He’d seen to that too, but…

But the idea of sleeping with his mom hadn’t struck him as something he’d wanted to do, even if she did look like she was a gorgeous twenty-something, even if he had done it before.

She’d been the first.

She’d been an accident.

And Lydia…

Lydia was gone.

Lydia had been his fault.

He sits up, turning his head towards the closed door. Nikki stirs, she groans, her eyes open, turning up to his.

“Is something wrong?” she asks

The words fall on deaf ears. His mind instead reflecting upon the early morning conversation he had with her, with Sharon.

He sat beside her on the couch, her body turned towards his.

“So…they took your girlfriend then?” Her eyes scanned him evenly.

“Yeah,” he said turning away from her. He leaned back, looking inward, “I should have done something more. I mean I had that dream and…”

She laid a hand on his shoulder then. He turned to her. Her eyes stared into his. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

Confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she began slowly, “Beating yourself up for something you had no control over.”

He couldn’t pull his eyes away.

Why did it feel so right being there?

“Daniel!”

The voice that pulls him out. He turns. His eyes look into Nikki’s. They aren’t the same as Sharon’s. They plead. They shine like Lydia’s. He should know. He’d wanted them that way.

“Are you okay?” the eyes say.

He shifts his head away, his mind thinking, “I don’t know.”

She thinks, speaking slowly, “It’s Lydia isn’t it?”

He shakes his head, thinking, his eyes turning to face her, “I don’t know.”

He climbs out of bed.

Her body moves with his, following it to the edge of the bed and stopping, her eyes follow him. She crouches forward on the bed, her head arched towards him. Her pearly teardrop breasts sway nervously in the open air.

He searches through his drawers, shuffling through clothes.

“Is something wrong?”

He continues to shuffle, pulling a shirt out and slipping it on, grabbing a pair of jeans and sliding them over his boxers.

“Daniel,” Nikki repeats,“ What is going on? Why are you doing this?”

He stops, turns to her, away, he thinks, “ I don’t know.”

“Stop saying that. You have to know.” He sits down on the bed next to Nikki, pulling on his shoes. He thinks about Lydia. He thinks about Sharon. He needs to talk with her. He doesn’t know why. He can’t stay in there. He can’t look at the naked woman laying next to him, her hand lightly on his shoulder. He wants her. He knows it. Hell every damn guy in Proctor Central wanted to bone Ms. Papadakus. But now is not the time. There’s Lydia. There’s Sharon.

He needs a voice, any voice, any person that isn’t someone he had made.

He gets up and walks away from her. His hand reaches for the door.

“Where are you going?”

He pauses.

“Please, just tell me what’s wrong.”

So much like Lydia, he thinks, she deserves better.

<Than change it.>

He sighs, his face never leaving the door.

“Everything Nikki, you, me, and now even other people that should never have been brought into it.”

She leans forward more, “What do you mean by ‘it’?” He can hear the trepidation in her voice, the need.

“This…this mess. You’re my slave. Would the real Nikki have ever wanted this to happen?”

“Why do you care what the real Nikki wants?”

He stands there thinking. Why was it wrong? Why did he care what the real Nikki wanted? After all he’d been the one to start it. He had wanted it. My God had he wanted it. Nikki Pappadakus, commanding, dressing absolutely beautifully, so hot. Ms. Pappadakus, ice queen, arrogant, blunt and cruel in the ways she would shoot down the immature advances of boys. Somehow by doing that it only made him and the boys in the school want her more. But it was always just the sex they wanted, and the fantasies he’d had of her naked before him.

And there she was now, just that, him having had the chance to live that fantasy. But that was just it…he’d lived it.

Nikki waits in silence her eyes turned towards him. The room is quiet. He turns to face her. “Nikki…your like a one night stand that’s lasted too long. That was all I ever wanted was to have sex, great sex. The only reason you turned out this way is because I began thinking about Lydia as I did it. It was a complete and utter accident. And that…it rubs me the wrong way. And it should…I mean…Christ.”

His words trail off.

She bites her lower lip, thoughtful, her body begins to tremble slightly. She stands up, walking towards Daniel. She lays a hand on him and stares deep into his dark brown eyes.

“But I love you.”

“No you don’t. And I’m not sure it would matter even if you did.”

He quivers for an instant, realizing he shouldn’t have said the words even as the last syllable is uttered.

He watches her reaction. Nikki begins to shake. Her eyes tear up. “How can you say that?” she cries, “Whatever I am you made me! This is what you wanted.”

Daniel reaches a hand upward to comfort her, but she slaps it away, turning towards the bed. She dives down onto it, her face in the pillow crying.

He stands, just staring, he moves to make a step towards her and stops. “No Nikki…this isn’t what I wanted,” He says with a sigh, “It just happened. I wasn’t thinking, and…”

The words don’t seem to make a dent in the moment. She remains stretched out on the bed, her prone body turned away from him. She cries quietly, almost inaudibly.

He moves back towards the bed, taking a seat next to her naked form. Her hand grazes the smooth of her back. “Don’t cry, please, just don’t cry. I don’t like it when I see women cry. I’m sorry I said that. I’m sorry…I didn’t mean it.”

And just like that it stops. Daniel waits for several moments, expecting Nikki to turn towards him, her eyes likely red, wet, her mouth gaping, her hand accusing.

He prepares himself for it, the moment, his hand outstretched, what to say next on the tip of his lips.

Silence…The birds chirp outside his window, further on he hears the running of car motors as they pass by the apartment complex. Horns honking off in the distance. His foot scrapes against the dingy carpeted floor. He can hear the squeak of the bed springs as his body shifts slightly. No cries…no longer a sound…just…

He reaches a hand out towards her, “Nikki are you okay?”

No response. He reaches out and shakes her.

No response.

“Nikki?”

For a moment his mind freaks out, a maelstrom of fears running through him, stricken, half-formed, reactionary; sick, dead, oh my-what-Oh God- is it-

His eyes are caught by her motion, her back rises and falls. He starts to hear her breath. The flash of fear subsides.

“Nikki?”

He turns her over. Her breasts flip out and up pointed towards the ceiling. Her soft lips are closed indifferently. Her eyes are shut, peaceful, her body calm relaxed. She sleeps.

He makes as if to shake her, his hand reaching for her chest, he stops, moving upward towards her neck and squeezing hard on her shoulder.

She doesn’t stir.

He shakes her hard.

Again her body doesn’t react.

Curiosity gives way to a feeling of strange. He steps up and away from the sleeping form, his back to her, back towards the door.

A thought comes to him, his mind turns within, to the creature within.

Did you do something?

<You didn’t want her to cry, so it stopped her.

You have that kind of control?

<It does…it guesses you do also. It’s never had to do that before.

But can I…I mean, what else can I do? Can I change how she feels? Do I have that kind of control?

<It does not know. You need to try first.

His eyes turned from inward out, gazing at the naked beauty sleeping on the bed beside him. For a fraction of a second his mind wonders…but the answer comes to him.

No.

His hand reaches for the door, turning the knob, the door closes. A light bright room is once again cast in silence. Nikki sprawled out on the bed, alone.

Daniel sighs, as he hears the latch click. He steps out towards the living room, the sofa, Sharon. He needs to-

The couch is empty.

He runs up to couch just to make sure, realizing the insanity of the response even as he lifts the empty cover up off of the couch.

She wasn’t there.

With a flash of fear his mind shifts to images of the other one, the Adonis. That smile, those words. His head jumps up, his eyes scan the room, again he realizes. Nothing is disturbed. Everything sat as he remembered it. There was no sign of a struggle.

She’d just left. No note, no farewell, just an apartment empty of her.

His eyes shift towards the door. He wonders.

Why did she leave? What had he done wrong? What had happened?

He turns towards the kitchen counter, his mother’s car keys resting on the smooth surface.

He tries to remember where she’d said she’d lived.

Why had I stayed? What had I been thinking? What had happened?

Sharon turns the steering wheel of her car. The beat-up Chevy rounds the corner, heading home. The bright afternoon sun burns bright through the car’s windshield. She can hear the motor sputter and gag as the car shifts gears, the speed picking up. Her eyes turn out towards her window, glancing at the one story houses and crammed apartment tenements of her neighborhood. She’s close.

Home.

Her thoughts drift to Carmen, to her sister. She left her alone at the party. Sharon didn’t understand what was going on when she did. She didn’t realize the people that were after her. She didn’t know about the man. The “master” her once friends had called him. Who was he and why was he after her?

Thought breeds more questions. But one thought keeps the car going homeward. They don’t know where she is, but if this “master” guy had her friends they knew where her family was. Sarah and Elizabeth knew plenty about her.

Carmen was old enough and pretty enough.

Her hands grip the steering wheel tighter. She can see the house now, small and pink and solemn. Her eyes shift over to the passenger’s seat, the kitchen knife sitting there underneath some books she had. Just in case she thinks just as her thoughts go to Daniel.

She wonders about his reaction when he finds her gone, whenever he wakes up. Is he going to be confused? Hurt? Angry? No, somehow if anything she’s sure he’s not the type who’d get angry. A wan smile comes to her lips. “If everything is okay here at home I’ll do the next step with you” she says to no one, but herself.

Her car pulls into the driveway. She pulls the knife out from under the books next to her. The car door opens and she steps out, slipping the knife carefully in the back of her pants as she stands up.

Her eyes scan the neighborhood around her, looking for anything out of place, a car, one of her friend’s face, anything.

Across the street she sees Mrs. Sandoval’s kids playing double dutch with Mrs. Flores’ girls. While young Gilbert bikes down the street, waving to her as his little mutt chases after him, nipping at his back wheel.

She waves as he passes, her eyes still searching.

Traffic proceeds as normal, some cars she knows. Some people she knows. But if they’re parked here, if this “master” guy’s car is parked here she wouldn’t know for sure.

“Get a grip on yourself Sharon,” she tells herself. She takes a deep breath. “Get a grip on yourself. Just walk up to the house. Maybe everything is fine. Just walk up to the house. You won’t know until you get there. Maybe everything is fine.”

Her mind slips back to her friends’ malevolent smile, and thirty minutes time lost in her memories. Her muscles tense. She fights it back. She closes the car door. She turns towards the house.

She walks towards it. The afternoon sun pours down upon her bare shoulders. The clap of distant jump rope striking concrete, marking her step.

Clap

The door stands in front of her.

Clap

She arches her head through the side window, peering inside.

Clap

There’s no one inside.

Clap

She pulls out her keys, placing it in the lock, she opens the door.

Clap

She steps inside, the room is quiet. The door closes.

Silence

“Hello, Aunt Mercedes, Uncle Cui, is anyone here?” Her eyes adjust, to the shade, her voice sounds hollow in an empty house. But that can’t be right. She distinctly saw her Uncle’s car sitting in the driveway.

She ventures forth, the sound of her steps amplified in the seemingly empty house. Everything is dark. The natural light of the afternoon sun pours through the open windows. She can feel the silence around her. The couch sits empty in the center of the room. Family pictures rest along the walls, staring into space. A door off to her right stands open, the bathroom light still on.

Her mouth makes to call out again, but she stops.

A sound, not hers from behind the couch.

Sharon steps up slowly, her eyes searching. Her hand edges towards the back of her shirt instinctively, towards the knife. She moves towards the couch slowly.

The bare wood floor echoes each step. Her shoulders tense. Her hand closes in a fist around the handle of the kitchen knife in her back. Her head arches over the back of the couch.

She gasps. It’s Uncle Cui. There’s some blood on his head. He’s groaning. What-

She hears the metallic snap of the screen door out back. The steps of another on hard wood floor.

The knife flies out of the back of her shirt, tightly held in her right hand. The corridor leading towards the backyard. Quickly she creeps to the wall running alongside it. Her breathing is deep. Her body shakes.

The stranger’s steps are slow, almost lazy. The voices are familiar.

“I can’t believe that bastard put up a fight like that.”

“Why did you even let him?”

A chuckle, “Because it was fun to knock him down.”

The knife is held tight to her chest, Elizabeth and Sarah, her once friends. Her eyes remain fixed on the corridor’s corner. Slowly she creeps away from it.

”They’re stronger than normal humans, you know?” Daniel’s careful warning flashes briefly in her mind.

Her head turns behind her briefly, looking towards the open door of the lit bathroom. She works her way towards it.

The footsteps stop.

“Yeah, I can totally understand what you’re talking about, I love this power we have” the pair continues.

“And it’s all thanks to the master. Can you believe it?”

Her eyes stay on the corridor, her back heading in the direction she wishes to go. The open door of the bathroom shines bright in the shade.

Please don’t notice me. Please don’t move her mind thinks.

“Ohhh…just the thought of him makes me feel warm. Do you think when he finishes healing he’ll fuck the two of us like he did that one time?”

“Not if we don’t get Sharon for him. I can’t believe that one master stopped us, if only he hadn’t showed up everything would have been okay.”

Sharon’s heart beats furiously in her chest. Her body feels electric. Her arms shake as she backs away. Her hand squeezes hard along the shaft of her naked blade.

“Do you think he took her? Made her his? That guy we fought.”

“ I would if I was in his place. I mean Sharon does have one hell of a body.”

Carefully Sharon steps over the unconscious body of Uncle Cui, being careful that he doesn’t stir. She’s so close now. She knows it. She prays that Elizabeth and Sarah don’t move.

“How many slaves do you think he has? That guy at the party?”

“I don’t know, but it can’t be as many as the master has. And think how many more he’ll have after he gets Sharon!”

That’s right, keep talking, don’t step out. Almost there, almost safe her mind thinks. Her steps edge towards the bathroom’s threshold.

“And even if he does we have enough people here, and some hostages. So we should be able to get our way.”

“Yeah, once Hannah gets out of the bathroom we should be okay and ready for anything.”

The bathroom! Oh shit- Sharon quickly turns towards the bathroom. The knife turns with her, but the hand is already there, grasping her wrist hard like iron.

“Hello,” the voice says, Sharon’s eyes gaze into the deep blue of another. Dark curly hair.

Sharon eyes bulge, her mouth gapes.

The strange woman in front of her smiles. “Sarah, Elizabeth, look who came in here today.”

The pair round the corner, looking, the same cocky smile shifts up to their lips. “Well, my God Sharon, how nice to see you here so soon.”

Sharon head shifts quickly between her once friends and the woman holding her arm. She pulls hard on the grip. Her body jerks hard and away, but the grip holds.

“And guess what, she hasn’t even been taken as a slave.”

Sharon jerks hard at the hand that holds her. Swinging wildly her hand strikes an end table sitting against the table, knocking it over. But Hannah’s grip rests like a steel clamp on her wrist. It holds, and it hurts.

Hannah pulls her closer, wrapping her arms around Sharon in a reverse bear hug. The knife clatters to the floor at her feet as Hannah applies pressure to her hand.

Sarah, steps closer to her, smiling, “Well isn’t that something, what did you have to do to that guy to make sure he wouldn’t take you as one of his slaves? Or do you even know what I’m talking about?”

“None of your fucking business!” Her shoulders push hard against the fleshy restraints. Hannah falls back against the wall. Pictured frames strike the ground shattering. But still the grip holds.

Liz chuckles from behind, “She knows, she has to know, than I guess this other master is more pathetic than we thought.”

“Let me go, damn it let me go!” Sharon’s eyes move about the room wildly, looking for something, anything. She’s trapped.

Still her mind races, trying to grasp on some way to get free.

Sarah laughs loudly, “Give it up Sharon, you’re wasting your energy, and you know how badly you’re going to need it spending time pleasuring the master.”

Sharon’s mind strikes an idea, her eyes shift to Hannah’s arm. Her mouth clamps down hard. Her teeth grind into her soft flesh.

“Ow! You bitch,” Hannah’s arm bleeds. Her grip gives. The arms open. She’s free, down, her hand grips the knife handle. She rolls away and up.

Her eyes stare out like poison at the three, her back pushed to the corner away from the door.

“Watch out for that knife,” Sarah calls out as Liz and Hannah prepare to close in.

Sharon swings the sharp blade out wildly in front of her. Her body shakes. Her voice shakes, her mind races. “Just back away, back the hell away.” Why did I come here? Why did I come alone? Daniel had people. I was so stupid. He would have helped me.

She’s shaking. She can’t stop shaking. Her breath comes in gasps, forced out through tearing eyes. The knife feels heavy in her hand. Her heart thumps like a jack hammer in her chest.

Sarah shakes her head, a fierce smirk plastered to her face, “No Sharon, you see the master wants you, and you can’t expect us to go against his wishes.”

She slides her body towards the door, her back against the wall her body facing her pursuers. The knife catches a shaft of light, shining briefly.

Hannah and Liz move between her, their bodies blocking her way towards the exit.

What can she do? What can she do? They speak truth and she knows it. She’s cornered and she knows it. She’s beat. They’ll grab her. That chemical will flow into her, and before she knows anything else she’ll be his. A fuck slave, adoring whoever this master is and submitting to his every wish.

Her body heaves. Her eyes weep. She cries out loud, “You bitches…I hate you…and I hate your fucking master. Why can’t he just leave me alone? Leave my family alone. There’s no way I’m letting you get near me.”

Liz chuckles again ,“Come on Sharon, you know that little knife of yours won’t be able to stop us. We’re stronger than you, and we heal faster than you. The master blesses us and he could bless you too.”

Her muscles tense up. She forces those thoughts back. No, bull, no way, it’s not going to be that way. There’s Daniel. He’ll come looking for her. She doesn’t know why, but she knows. He might find her in time. He has to. Her heart warms a little. Daniel… she has a chance.

But he won’t be able to find her if they take her wherever… Uncle Cui, maybe he can hear. Maybe he can pass on what he hears.

A name, she needs a name.

She faces them, her eyes still wet.“Who is this master? And how did he know us?”

“Why do you care? What’s the big deal?”

“I want to know why, why would someone be so obsessed about me, to take my friends, to hurt my family. What is so special about me!”

“Sharon, being his slaves is such a wonderful—“

“I don’t fucking care!” Sharon screams, “Who is this master?”

“We don’t have to tell you—“

“And I don’t have to make this easy on you.” She raises the knife pointing its tip at the three of them and circling the room.

“You mean you’ll come peacefully if we tell you?”

“It’s going to happen anyway.”

The three step back for a moment, obviously considering what she says. Their attention never quite leaves her, not offering the chance to escape.

Finally Sarah steps forward, “Alright, his name is Andrew Smythe, but I don’t see how that will help you.”

“Andrew Smythe? His name is Andrew Smythe?” She says the words again louder, hoping that Uncle Cui might hear, and at the same time hoping that they won’t catch on to what she’s trying to do. “Why the hell would this Andrew Smythe have any interest in me?”

“You mean aside from the fact that you have a killer athletic body that I know looks wonderful naked?” scoffs “He watched us practice soccer. He dreamed about us. And you were always the one person that he wanted most.”

“He’s from my college?”

“Ah, Yeah,” condescendingly, “now if you could drop the knife.”

“One more thing.”

“What?” irritation

“My family…”

“We aren’t going to fucking touch them. It’s you He wants anyway. Now drop the knife.”

“Okay,” she places the knife delicately on the ground. She raises her hands up into the sky even though they don’t ask for it. She’s ready for what’s going to happen next.

Daniel she thinks, as her deep brown eyes turn away from the three, find me in time. She stares out the window, the sun shines, life goes on as normal.

“Grab her.”

Please

He’s driving. The sun’s moving westward fast, sunlight gives way to twilight soon. East side he thinks Hispanic neighborhood, cherry street, pink one story house. No address given. That’s all she’d given him. It should be enough.

His eyes stare squarely on the road, his mind focused on the destination. Why had she done that? What had he done wrong? Or maybe it wasn’t his fault. Maybe it was just something she needed to do. Maybe there was nothing he could have done.

Stupid

But still for some reason that doesn’t matter much to him. He has to go. He has to be sure she’s safe.

And that’s it.

The car turns a corner, Cherry street, not far now. “Keep your eyes open,” he says behind him. Azuma and Catherine nod. Their eyes peer out from behind the windows as Daniel slows down. He wants to make sure nothing is missed.

“Keep an eye out for her car too. We just need to be sure.”

Again Azuma and Catherine nod. No detail will be missed.

His eyes turn back towards the front. He’s worried. He can’t be quite sure why. It’s just a feeling. “Everything could be fine,” he tells himself. But somehow that thought brings him little comfort.

He doesn’t know why, just a feeling that eggs him on. His hand shakes lightly on the steering wheel. His eyes stare up at the sky. The sun is closer to the west now. The shadows pull themselves out, stretching away from the horizon.

Nighttime is coming.

“I see it,” Catherine says.

“Where?”

“Over there, just up ahead on the right.”

“I see it.”

“Her car…”

“I see that too.”

He turns the steering wheel down towards the curb, two other cars filling up the standing driveway. One is Sharon’s.

Maybe everything is okay he thinks briefly to himself. She just went home. She just had to check on her family. She said that family was important to her.

He parks the car in front and walks up the asphalt driveway towards the front door. Azuma, and Catherine follow behind him.

He knocks on the front door, idly he scans the neighborhood around him waiting. Older people sit on front stoops smoking, drinking beer and talking. Many of the kids are still playing around outside. The fireflies are starting to come out, bright beads of yellowish light fade in and out in the failing sunlight.

His eyes turn back towards the door. There’s been no response. He knocks again. He turns back to the cars in the driveway. He scans over Sharon’s car, the rusted gray, the corny plush toy jammed on the beat up antenna. His eyes turn briefly back over the world around him. The children, the adults, playing, conversing, passing time. A world running normal.

And his running somewhere else. He sighs, as he turns back to the door. They have no idea what’s going on. They have no idea the creatures walking among them, the power that strangers wield over others, or the things that they have done.

Hell, even he has no idea, only the concept of what could be done, and the thought of what others would have done in his position.

He shakes the thought off. His mind turns back to the task at hand. A silent door sits in front of him.

Something is wrong. The feeling runs through him.

He knocks one more time, reaching for the knob at almost the same moment. It opens easily, exposing a house in darkness. Small shafts of light penetrate the interior, but showing little of what there is to see on the inside.

His hand searches along the wall, for that general place there always seems to be a light switch. He finds it. The room is illuminated in yellow incandescent light.

The sight he encounters is not encouraging.

Shattered frames, and overturned tables greet him. Tossed around seat cushions and ripped cloth greet him. There was a struggle. Sharon…

He runs into the room. Azuma and Catherine follow close behind him. He sees the knife laying on the floor. He moves on, a man laying face down on the floor, he goes to him. Blood, Daniel checks his pulse, watches as his back rises and falls, unconscious. His head flicks up to the pair standing over him.

“Check the other rooms.”

They nod, running off down the hall away from him.

Give me strength

<It is.>

Daniel picks the man up, moving him towards the tumbled couch. He sits him up, his head lolls over to the side. He looks him over. The blood comes from an open gash on the top of his head. It looks pretty big. The blood is already scabbing up, the wound’s excess soaking up his short cut hair.

Daniel touches the wound, the figure grimaces, but doesn’t seem to respond otherwise. He means to check more, but activity down the hall draws his attention away.

He can here voices now, cries actually, coming from down the hallway, neither Catherine’s nor Azuma’s. Hysterical screaming in a stream of Spanish.

“Mi Dios, Mi Dios, que paso? Que paso!”

He turns his head as a portly hispanic woman tears out from around the corner. She turns to the sofa, seeing the man propped on it. She runs out to him crying out in a gibberish of Spanish, crossing herself often, turning up towards the heavens.

Catherine rounds the corner in a huff. Her eyes turn to her son. “Daniel…”

He nods, “it’s okay, I’ll take care of it.”

“There’s two other kids, Azuma’s—”

“Just go, take care of them, I’ll handle here.”

“There’s a door locked too, can’t seem to get to in, don’t want to bust it down.”

“I’ll find out if she has a key.”

Catherine nods, turning around and marching slowly back to the room down the hall.

Daniel moves towards the woman kneeling at the couch. “Miss” he inquires. She ignores, her attention apparently taken by the moment, by the man propped up unconscious.

“Miss” he repeats, sidling up next to her.

Again she ignores him. Her hysterical tears continue.

Daniel reaches down to her and grabs her by the shoulders. He lifts her up, shaking her. His dark brown eyes stare into her red ringed bleary. “Miss you need to get a hold of yourself!”

She stops for a moment, her mind connecting the pieces slowly back together in her head. There’s a stranger standing in front of her. He freed her. The hysteria subsides somewhat from her eyes.

“I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“It’s okay. I understand.”

She takes in a deep breath. Her mind thinks. Realization crosses her face. “Mi Dios! Jose Arcadio, he’s probably tied up too.”

“A door was locked, I think he might be behind it.”

The old woman nods, “I think I know where the key is. I’ll get it open. We need to call the police.” She turns to leave.

“ There’s some things I need to know, and I need to know soon, before we do that” he calls after her.

The old woman pauses, turns, “We’ll see, what’s your name?”

“Daniel, Daniel Bates.”

“Mercedes Bolivar, and thank you… for helping.”

He nods, “Not a problem.”

“I don’t know anything. Thirty minutes, maybe more, I can’t remember it.”

Daniel nods looking across the kitchen table at Mercedes. His eyes stray down the hall to the living room. The unconscious man is stretched out on the couch now. His wounds have been cleaned, bandaged. All other signs of the struggle still remain. The shattered glass still sits on the floor. The knife, Daniel’s kitchen knife, waits in the deepening shade of the oncoming night.

“What is the last thing you do remember?” he says, prying harder in.

“I don’t know, what I think I remember…it’s like a dream.” Her eyes stare away, deep in thought.

“What do you mean?”

“We need to call the cops.”

“You need to know what you’re going to tell them first.” He lays a hand on hers, comforting.

“There was a knock at the door. I went to it. I opened the door and…”

“And what?”

“I saw what I thought was Sarah, one of Sharon’s friends. There were other people with her, people I didn’t recognize. She reached for me and…”

“And?”

Daniel can see Mercedes’ body tense as she thinks, as she remembers. The words come out with difficulty. “I’m kneeling in my bedroom tied to the bed post, gagged. Anna and Immanuel are in the room with me, the same. I don’t know how long we were there. And then…your friends came and Cui, my husband…do you know what happened?”

“No.” He shakes his head.

“Is Sharon in some kind of trouble?”

“Nothing that’s her fault.”

“Do you know what has happened to her?”

He stops for a moment to carefully think about his response. He wonders if telling her the truth is a good thing. Or maybe they’ll think he’s crazy. Hell, he would in the same situation. Still he wonders. They are good people, honest, kind. That much he is sure. They might not be able to take it, but at the same time they deserved better than a lie.

“I think so,” he finally says, “but I don’t know if you could possibly believe it.”

Daniel detects just the hint of a smile on the older woman’s lips. She turns from him thinking, her head shifts up towards the living room to the man stretched out unconscious. Again she smiles. “Okay…” she says as she turns back towards him, “for now…okay. You know…there’s something about you, I don’t know why, but I feel like I can trust you.”

“Then trust me when I say that that I don’t think there’s much time for Sharon, that if I don’t act quickly something very bad is going to happen.”

She shrugs her shoulders, open palmed, “I’ve told you everything I know, the only person who might know more is…”

“Uncle Cui…” the voice interrupts.

Daniel turns his attention to the old man leaning against the wall. Sharon’s father, Jose Arcadio, he’d been quiet the whole time Daniel had been asking the questions. He stood silemtly against the wall watching what was unfolding, watching him.

“Or me” Jose Arcadio adds.

Daniel turns his attention to him, waiting for him to continue.

The old man faces him. His eyes look him over, studying his face carefully. “Just understand that everything I’m about to tell you will be told to the police right after you leave.”

Daniel nods, his attention taken by the Jose Arcadio. “And there’s no harm in telling it to me anyway.”

Jose Arcadio nods. “That is the case as I see it.”

“Okay, what can you tell me?”

He steps away from the wall, his eyes look in, remembering what had happened earlier that day. “I woke up tied to my bed. I heard Uncle Cui screaming. I heard the glass shattering, the furniture thrown. Than silence. Then laughter, and not good laughter, like the laughter of a devil taking pride in some terrible act it had done.”

Daniel nods, “I understand” he says just to encourage the old man on.

“My room is closer to the living room than Mercedes was. I could hear the door opening, my daughters voice calling out. I heard the other voices. I could only make out a little bit of it. Something about a ‘master’ and ‘slaves.’ There was another scuffle. I heard Sharon crying- “ The old man pauses, taking in a deep breath of air. The breath comes in even gasps, like a man overcome with something that he is trying to hold back.

Daniel makes to move towards him, but the old man pushes him away.

“I heard a name,” he continues, breathing deeply, “my daughter, she called out a name louder than the rest, like she hoped somehow someone in the house would hear it.”

A moment of silence, Daniel looks on. “What was that name?”

“Andrew Smythe.”

He nods, thinking for a moment,“ Is that all you heard? Do you know anything more?”

He shakes his head. “Like I said, I could only hear bits and pieces.”

Daniel turns away, thinking I can check the phone book, look for that name, might even be one near the college she came from. But it could be completely wrong too. And it’s not like I have much time His attention shifts back towards the living room, the Uncle Cui, the older man laying knocked out on the sofa. Damn, I wish I knew. I wish I had time. I wish that man would wake up, who knows what he could have heard?

<He may have heard nothing.>

Jose Arcadio takes a step towards him.

Daniel hardly notices. His eyes turn towards the kitchen window. His reflection stares back at him from the darkened window pane. It’s night. How long has it been since they took her? How many hours since she left the apartment and this all happened? How long does it take for a master to regenerate from the wound he had inflicted on him? Was it to late? Was she already his? Even if he did find her would it even matter? Wouldn’t it be the same as with Lydia?

In the darkness he sees a light, bright a moment and fading, but blinking on again against the night. Fireflies, gathering in the spring evening.

“I guess I can’t know unless I try,” he says quietly to himself.

“Mr. Bates…”

Daniel’s eyes turn towards the door. He thinks about the car. He thinks about the college. He thinks about what else must be done.

“Mr. Bates?”

His thoughts drift to home, to the baseball bat laying dormant in the far corner of his bedroom. It was the tool that knocked away the darkness in the darkest moment of his childhood. It was time for it to be taken. Time for it to push away the darkness again.

“Mr. Bates!”

“Yes?”

“What are you going to do?” The old man, Jose Arcadio, stares at him intently.

“I’m going to go, and I’m going to do what I can.”