Part I here

Alice was feeling sorry for herself but at least she had stopped crying. She lay face down and dejected on her bed tracing the pattern of the bed pane with an idle finger. She should be bored, she should have been mad; she sighed and rolled over onto her back. Her thoughts strayed to John and Adam and their nights together and her hands drifted sensually to her thighs. She thought about taking a shower and where that might lead.

The knocks at the door arrived in her thoughts four or five seconds after they started and Alice slumped back with a groan, her hands settling safely behind her head.

“Come in,” she called, half expecting to see one of Augusta’s girls summoning her for chores.

Stacy was a mess. She looked beyond forlorn and she had been crying at least as fiercely as Alice had been.

“Stace…?” Alice sat up and let her mouth hang open while it caught up with something to say.

Stacy had never looked so miserable in her life. Despite the conviction that a pack of harnessed wolves could not have made her tell about her encounter with Augusta, she sagged against the door and blurted, “She spanked me.”

Alice ran a full facial display of consternation and then gasped, “What…?” and then, “Who?”

Stacy started to cry again just allowing her contorted to face to wail, “Augusta.”

“What? Augusta spanked you? Why?” Alice exclaimed.

“I…,” Stacy sobbed and gathered up the words. Now that they lay before her they looked pathetic and completely devoid of any defence. “I…” she repeated.

“Stacy, what happened?” Alice swung her legs off the bed and crossed the room to help her friend to a chair.

There was a reluctant limping compliance from the writer before she held up a hand and muttered, “I think I’ll stand.”

“Stand? But… oh,” Alice heard a pin drop and said with more emphasis, “Oh. That bad?”

Stacy grimaced and returned a small nod.

“Come on, come over here,” Alice suggested and helped Stacy move to the bed where the girl carefully knelt before sprawling onto her tummy.

“Oh God, I don’t suppose you have any ice?” Stacy looked rueful.

“A cold flannel maybe,” Alice offered.

Stacy nodded gratefully and while the lawyer went to the bathroom to run a cloth under a cooling tap the writer began to ease her jeans down over her seemingly enlarged bottom and with a gasp dragged them with a chafe over her sore flesh, taking the panties with them.

“Ouch,” Alice whistled as she eyed the very red sore bottom presented to her. “I might just go wrestle up some ice at that.”

“Oh God, don’t tell anyone,” Stacy protested.

Alice shook her head and moved forward with the flannel. The cooling wetness made Stacy sigh as the folds of cloth did their work.

“Stacy?” Alice asked, “What happened? What did you do?”

Stacy made with the frog lips but abandoned the pop halfway through in favour of a pout. “I went to check out an old office I found,” she groaned, pushing her bottom lip out in a sulk.

“And?” Alice shook her head impatiently.

“Augusta found me,” Stacy shrugged.

“You were snooping?” Alice accused her friend.

Stacy made a face but had to nod. “Kinda,” she said.

“And she spanked you, what like Garrick did with that girl?” Alice tried to be outraged, but somehow it didn’t quite land.

“No, not really,” Stacy made a reluctant grimace and looked shifty.

“Then… what?” Alice was confused.

Stacy began chewing at her lower lip like a grounded teen and evaded Alice’s gaze.

“Stacy? What happened?” Alice pressed.

“I told you,” Stacy pouted, “She spanked me.”

“Just spanked you? I mean… what like a kid?” Alice remembered John and Adam and blushed.

Stacy nodded and chewed ever harder at her bottom lip. “And sent me to the corner,” the words were mumbled. Oddly the embarrassment of the admission felt strangely good, kind of like a verbal probe of a bruise.

“Sent you where?” Alice tilted her head as if to hear over a shout.

“She spanked me over her knee and then sent me to the corner,” Stacy said sharply and not without annoyance. She was blushing furiously.

Alice gaped. “Oh my God,” she gasped and then she couldn’t help smiling. She had to raise a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle.

“It is kind of funny,” Stacy said grumpily and then added an ‘ouch,’ as she grabbed at her bottom. “Maybe I could use some of that ice after all,” she sighed.

*

“I thought you wanted to get in here,” Alice said in surprise. Stacy Dane had just told her she had decided to escape. The volte-face was unexpected.

“Yah,” Stacy spat, “But that was before. All there is now is chores. I know all I am going to and I think I will pass on sneaking around.” Stacy hoped Alice wouldn’t see through the lie.

Alice drew her mouth into a thin line. She knew what Stacy meant, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to go, but what was there to keep her? “Are you thinking Augusta might spank you again? If she catches you mean?”

Stacy glowered at the older girl and made a pout. She was afraid, but not in the way Alice meant. Augusta had got to her like no one had for a long while. Maybe it was just Stockholm syndrome, but she couldn’t summon a fibre of hatred for the woman. Also Augusta had threatened to spank her in front of everyone if she caught her snooping again. It was not so much that the humiliation of that would be too much to bear, that was only part of it. She knew that on some level she might deserve it. What did that leave her?

Instead of trying to explain that to Alice she took a deep breath and whispered, “I was thinking about Marsha and the barn. I doubt if I could handle that.” It was a lie of sorts. She wasn’t physically afraid, not of that. But the intimacy it represented was something else.

Alice felt some rise within her as she pictured the scene. Only in her scenario it was Adam and John punishing her. She shuddered and told herself how much she would hate that.

“What about the hunters?” Alice said, that was one reason to stay put surely. It was as good an excuse as any.

“They are after the Stones not us,” Stacy said in an eager hushed voice, “Once we got shot of Pulver they wouldn’t bother us.”

Alice thought about the hunters beyond the wall. With Adam and John she at least felt safe. Being sent to the corner incongruously popped into her head. The onrush of emotions confused her and she remembered her legal training. The hunters were only the bad guys if they were wrong, surely that made sense. Adam had been there with a wolf; she forced he phrase in her head because her logic couldn’t hold it any other way. John and Adam were monsters, weren’t they?

She thought about all the things she had done with them and felt her heart race. Her solid train of thought demanded honesty and she couldn’t find any.

“Alice, we have to escape,” Stacy said desperately.

“Yes,” Alice whispered and nodded vigorously, “But how?”

“We could steal a car,” Stacy suggested.

Alice rolled her eyes. “Oh sure, there are bound to be keys under the visor and then all we have to do is ask nicely for the barrier to get raised,” she said sarcastically.

“There has to be some way,” Stacy pleaded.

“Maybe,” Alice said thoughtfully.

“They are watching the outside for intruders, not escapees,” Stacy said urgently.

This reminder that they weren’t exactly prisoners was uncomfortable one to Alice and she had a sudden urge to shut the writer up.

“There must be,” Alice agreed.

*

Less than a mile away Danny Brady hunkered down Special Forces style and pulled out his mega-nocs. He had found the same spot that Alice and Stacy had during their reccie of the ranch. The powerful binoculars gave Coleridge’s right hand man a good view of the compound and its weak spots.

Without either fumbling or so much as a glance he reached for the encrypted walkie and activated it before whispering into the throat mic.

“Okay boss, I am in position,” he said.

“Roger that,” Coleridge answered in his ear.

To be continued…