[RainbowSky]

Chapter fifteen

Holly stood in front of the 'window' taking a few deep breaths to calm down. If she was going to be quizzed then she wanted to be pretty much together. She heard Luke open the door.

"Hello, can we help you?" he asked his voice scarily calm.

"Don't play games with us Luke," the voice replied. "We heard the shouting. Someone down this corridor wasn't wearing their ownership tag on return from the showers. Based on the fact that she is new and the rest know the rules we assume its..." the voice trailed off as they indicated towards Holly.

"Holly?" Luke said his voice laced with confusion. "Just because she is new doesn't mean she doesn't know the rules," he added.

"Fine, Holly rule 4 state it," the male voice said.

Holly swallowed hard but stayed facing the wall. "Any instruction received by any master must be obeyed, unless your master issues a conflicting or overriding instruction," Holly relayed her voice surprisingly steady.

"Rule two?" the male voice asked.

"Whenever leaving the allocated bedroom all slaves must be wearing their ownership tag regardless of if they are with their master or not, unless express permission is given for the slave to leave without their ownership tag," Holly explained calmly.

"Very good. Now have you broken any of those rules within the last few hours?" the male voice asked.

Holly turned to face the voices and walked to join Luke by the door. She refused to look at him as she spoke, in fact she refused to look at anyone keeping her eyes trained to the ground. "Due to unforeseen circumstances, yes," Holly said truthfully. She felt the energy leave Luke's shoulders. She couldn't work out if he was disappointed with her decision or relieved. But deep down Holly knew she'd made the right decision. Lying was just going to get her into more trouble, and maybe even Luke into trouble.

She felt a finger under her chin and her head was yanked up so that she was facing into the eyes of one of the men from the head table at lunch. "Well then, I think that safely answers that question. Follow me," he said turning away.

Holly cleared her voice. "urm... I still don't have an ownership tag. Amanda still has it. I can't leave without it Sir," she said mustering as much politeness as she could.

Luke wrapped an arm around her shoulder as the other man span back round to look at her. "That didn't bother you earlier," he said. Holly shrugged slightly. He sighed. "However I suppose you are correct. So as Deputy of the programme I give express permission that further punishment will not befall you for leaving your room without an ownership tag."

Holly smiled slightly and stepped out. She followed the man down the corridors and back past Amanda's room. She scowled at the now closed doorway as she walked past. She felt Luke grab her hand and she squeezed it, trying to reassure him that this was the best decision she could have made. She was still to scared to look at him and see his expression over her decision.

They walked down a staircase towards a lower level. That was when Holly began to panic slightly that she'd made the wrong decision. She was claustrophobic so any small room or underground room freaked her out. At the bottom of the stairs they stepped into a large open room. Holly relaxed a little, it wasn't small and if she didn't think too hard she could imagine just being on the bottom floor of a house. She glanced around the room at the objects within it.

She recognised the table and waxing machine from that morning stood in a far corner. The room was full of metal contraptions which all looked a little scary. Luke led her to the middle of the room. "Lay down," he whispered in her ear. She glanced at him in surprise but saw the grim expression on his face and quickly did as asked.

"Ah good, you are all ready. Luke go get the bars for me please," the man said. Holly watched as Luke left her line of view and her breath hitched slightly. "Panicking Holly?" the voice asked. "You should be. This is a serious infraction of the rules, although it is your first. However I'm afraid that doesn't mean we will be taking this lightly. You broke the most important rule on day 1. Not a good start," he added. As he said this he walked towards Holly and appeared leering over the top of her. "Put lightly, maybe this will stop all other rule breaking."

"I got them," Luke said his voice practically music to Holly's ears.

"Excellent. Holly spread your legs as far as you can get them," the voice said. Holly did so, despite being able to do the splits, when laying flat Holly's legs only spread so far. "Luke you know what to do," the voice added.

Luke stood over the top of Holly and mouthed sorry as he sat on her stomach, put his elbows against Holly's inner thighs and pushed outward, forcing her legs apart even more. Holly let out a gasp of surprise and had to screw her eyes shut with the pain. She felt a hand around her ankle and it was lifted slightly off the floor and placed into a metal cuff on a bar. The same happened to her other ankle and then Luke got off her. Despite no longer having her legs forced open, Holly couldn't get rid of the pain in her legs by closing them. She tried to move her ankles towards each other but just met the metals resistance. She raised her head slightly and saw a long metal bar with ankle cuffs attached and her ankles attached. The cuffs were so far apart that there was no way she was closing her legs. She let her head drop to the ground.

Luke was now kneeling above her head. He smiled weakly and grabbed her wrists and pulled them up above her head, so they were next to him. He then placed his hands against her inner upper arm to stop her from moving her arms. A few moments later and she felt another metal cuff being attached to her wrist and then the other. Luke let go of her arms but the she felt a burning in her arms as her wrist cuffs were moved further apart causing her arms to stretch and tighten. "Perfect," said the male's voice that she was beginning to associate with torture. "The chain, come on Luke quicker than that," he said. There was a rattling as a chain was dragged along the floor and the sound of metal groaning and creaking as they set about completing their work. "Excellent, now the crank," the man added.

Holly lay on the floor, unsure what that meant as both men left her field of vision. She then heard a grinding clinking noise from the far side of the room, and then very slowly she felt the chain now attached to the metal bar her hands were attached to tighten and then be pulled upwards. As it tightened and pulled, Holly's arms got pulled upwards. The burning in her arms got worse and she was concerned her shoulders were going to dislocate until eventually her whole body started to rise upwards to a standing position. Once Holly was standing, she thought she was safe but the grinding noise continued, pulling her arms higher, her body to tighten and pain to rocket down her. She had to stand on tip toes just to be able to keep the pain out of her arms, but with such a wide spread of her legs and ankles, that caused increasing pain in her legs. Eventually it ground to a stop.

Holly's body was racked with pain. If she let her feet drop to the ground, her wrists and arms began to pull and strain and hurt, but if she released the tension in her arms, her legs and feet burned in pain. Luke and the other man appeared in front of her. "Now enjoy the night Holly," the man said. "We'll come check on you later, but just so you're away. This is only stage one of your punishment." He walked towards the stairs. "Night." Luke followed dejectedly and as they left the room, they switched the light off, plunging her into darkness.