Dark Leather

Celest grins and stares him down, neither faltering.

\"My mother is dead and you\'ve seen to it that my teacher is dead also, so
their is nothing left to hold me back.\"

\"You have friends do you not?\"

She turns to look at the group of teens huddled behind her, their eyes wide,
afraid, so much so she can almost taste it, smell it in the air. With a laugh she turns
back to him.

\"I think not, they are weak, expendable. I do not have use for friends, not
when I can have those I own, those who fear me.\"

Her hand twitches and the whip appears suddenly in her hand, the movement
causing Ilana to whimper and Randy to move back a step.

\"No, I think I enjoy the fear much more...\"

Flexing her wrist the whip shoots out, slashing the side of his face, and again
on the other side. Something flickers in his eyes and her smile becomes bigger.

\"Even you, a full grown man, fears me.\"

The whip lashes out and wraps itself around his neck and she pulls him
forward, onto his knee\'s. His hand makes for the gun hidden on him but before he
can reach it she throws a knife and it embeds itself into his hand, he screams out.
With a dark look in her eyes she walks up to him, raising the whip up just enough
that it cuts off circulation she looks him in the eyes.

\"How does it feel, to be on the other side? Awful, isn\'t it, you have no control,
your helpless to what I will, and you know what I will...your death! But, not now, no, in
time, because death is a release and their are more things that I can do to make
your life hell, I won\'t release you from this world, no, because you belong to me now.\"

She laughs and pushes him back, his head hits the ground with a loud sound
but he still retains consciousness, though barely. Celest turns to the other\'s, an evil
look to her eyes, a smile on her lips. Dragging Randy she walks up to the group
slowly, hips swaying. Ilana whimpers and crawls behind Michelle and the other\'s,
trying to hide from her.

\"Celest, are you alright?\"

Michelle steps forward, looking very worried and not very scared. She
should be scared, Celest thinks to herself, if only she knew the true me and not the
act I\'ve put on my whole life.

\"More then, thank you very much. It\'s time for everyone to leave...all save for
Ilana, she\'s mine, I\'ve marked her.\"

Michelle looks from Celest to Ilana who\'s curled up in a ball crying, she
shakes her head, the glimmer of fear showing.

\"Celest, what\'s going on, what are you talking about?\"

\"Get a clue, Michelle, I\'m not who you think I am, never have been. I\'m an
exceptional liar, dear, and you were so easy. Leave, live your perfect life, you
needn\'t be apart of this, you\'ve done nothing to deserve it, but Ilana and Randy,
they\'ve done plenty to deserve it, they belong to me, their Mistress.\"

Celest taps her foot on the concret floor making an echoing sound.

\"Ilana, come to your Mistress, don\'t make me angry.\"

Ilana looks up, fear distorting her face, and shakes her head. Celest
releases the whip from around Randy\'s neck and cracks it in the air causing Ilana to
jump up.

\"Don\'t anger your Mistress, Ilana. Come!\"

Ilana slowly walks towards Celest, her eyes wildly looking about her for a way
to escape, for someone to help, her eyes fall on Michelle.

\"You can\'t do this, Celest! Are you crazy!\"

Celest turns to look at Michelle and the look on her face causes her to cringe
away.

\"Don\'t cross me, we were friends once, and I respect that, but if you cross
me I won\'t hesitate to kill you. Ilana, if you aren\'t by my side in two seconds you will
taste my whip, and it will be worse then the last time.\"

Ilana\'s eyes go wider, if it could at all be possible, and she hurredly goes to
Celest, this time she averts eye contact, prefering not to look at any of the other\'s.

\"Anyone who tries to stop me will be killed. Leave now and go home before
your families start to miss you.\"

\"But...Ilana, she has a family, a mother and a father...\"

Celest raises a hand to silence Michelle, \"It mattered little to her before, and
it makes no difference now.\"

Celest and Michelle stare at each other for a long time, the other\'s slowly
start to leave, finally their\'s only Andrew with Michelle and he takes hold of her arm
and tries to pull her away.

\"We can\'t do anything, Michelle, and I don\'t want to see you hurt, come on.\"
Tears fill Michelle\'s eyes as she turns away and follows Andrew.

With them gone, Celest turns to look at the man who was once her teacher,
she hadn\'t even known his real name, he had never told her, and yet he had told her
that when he died he wanted it to look natural, because he had family and he didn\'t
want them to know about his real life.

\"Ilana, bring Randy and follow me.\"

She says and walks away, to her former teacher, leaving Ilana looking
confused. After a couple moments Ilana bends down and grabs hold of Randy\'s
collar and drags him over to where Celest is, Randy having finally lost
consciousness, it\'s difficult to drag him, Ilana not being used to doing hard work but
she doesn\'t wish to displease Celest, so she endures it.

Celest searches through her former teacher\'s cloths, taking anything of value
so that when his body is discovered in the morning it\'ll look like a simple mugging.
His things in her arms she turns around and is suprised to see that Ilana had,
indeed, dragged Randy over near where she is, though she\'s very pleased.

\"Good girl, your getting much better at obeying me. Stay here while I go get
the car, we don\'t need to be here any longer.\"

Peter had his car hidden nearby, keys inside, she would use that to transport
them. Celest pulls the car up to where Ilana stands and the two of them put Randy in
the trunk, Celest not wanting him to dirty up the inside of the car. Celest opens the
passenger side door and motions for Ilana to get in, she does so without a word
and Celest goes in on the other side and they leave the area. While their driving
Celest thinks about what has happened, and what her next move will be.
For the moment she plans on returning to her second home, a small house
just outside the city limits, she had only recently started renting it.

Pulling into the drive she parks the car inside the garage and locks the door,
then her and Ilana carry Randy to the second bedroom. They lay him on the bed and
Celest ties him to the bed. The house came with two bedrooms, a full bathroom, a
kitchen and a small livingroom. Celest had outfitted both beds with chains, one, the
extra bedroom, had extra sets for \'special\' occasions. No one would notice
anything, the neighbors didn\'t car, the house was in a neighborhood where children
kill other children and rats live happily with people, because the rats are alot cleaner
then most of the people who live in the area.

After chaining Randy to the bed she takes a chain cuff and attaches it to
Ilana\'s leg so that she\'s unable to do anything then tosses her a blanket and a pillow.

\"Get some sleep, tomorrow\'s a long day.\"

When Celest leaves, locking the door behind her, Ilana lays down, curling up
under the blanket and hugging herself. Eventually she cries herself to sleep.


****


Early the next morning Randy wakes up to find himself chained to a bed and
starts pitching a fit trying to get loose, which wakes Ilana.

\"Shhh, don\'t wake her, please...\"

Randy stops moving and turns his head to look at Ilana, her face white with
fear.

\"I remember you, you were with the other\'s last night. You may fear her but I
don\'t, she\'s just a kid with an attitude and I have connections that she doesn\'t.\"
Ilana crawls to the far corner, hugging the pillow and blanket close, she didn\'t
want to be anywhere near him when Celest came into the room.

\"Y-you should fear her, if you don\'t be quiet you\'ll wake her and you won\'t like
what she does when she\'s angry...\" Ilana shivers and moves closer to the wall.
To prove a point he starts struggling against his binds and yelling that he
must be let go. Ilana thinks she hears Celest stirring in the other room, though
Randy seems to be ignoring it if he even hears it over his yelling, and when the door
flies open Ilana makes a whimpering sound and tries to get farther away.
Celest walks through the door, her hair wild from being woken suddenly,
wearing only a large shirt and whip in hand, she stalks over to where Randy is,
suddenly quiet, her face set in anger.

\"What do you think your doing! Waking me up before sunrise. We\'ll get this
right so I don\'t have to deal with this tomorrow.\"

The whip uncoils and cracks in the air, Ilana looks away, eyes closed tightly
though she can still hear the sound of the whip hitting flesh. Randy holds out at first
but before too long he\'s screaming with every blow, finally after what seems like an
eternity the sound of the whip stops, as does the screaming and Ilana opens her
eyes to see Celest leaning over Randy.

\"Next time you\'ll stay quiet or I won\'t be so nice.\"

She turns away from him to walk over to Ilana.

\"Well, since we\'re all up we might as well start the day. Ilana, your job today
will be to clean the house, top to bottom, and I want no interaction with him, no looks
or whispers, he\'s to be ignored until I say otherwise, is that understood.\"

\"Yes, Mistress.\"

Ilana remembers what she is suppose to do from before, and at this point
she\'s not willing to do anything to anger Celest.

\"Come here.\"

Ilana pushes the blanket and pillow aside and crawls over to Celest, not
trusting herself to stand up, let alone walk. Celest pats her head then undoes the
chain from her leg.

\"Good girl, Ilana, good girl, your learning well. Now follow me and I\'ll show
you to the cleaning supplies and you can get started.\"

The day goes by in relative silence, after a few hours of cleaning Celest
decides that Ilana can eat, though they still ignore Randy who makes sounds all day,
partually out of pain and partually out of panic. Before going to bed Celest allows
Randy\'s wounds to be cleaned, then chains Ilana back up and goes to bed herself.
The next morning around ten Celest gets a phone call from a lawyer saying
that her father is dead and that she\'ll need to come into the lawyer\'s office two days
from now for the reading of the will. Confused, she hangs up, then takes a wallet out
of her night stand and looks through it, sure enough she finds the name mentioned,
her former teacher had put her on his will as his daughter.

\"This is most curious indeed, we shall see in a couple days just what he did.\"