Chapter 4:

It was the dead of night. James and Calvin were camped outside the school in the bushes. They watched every staff member leave slowly but surely. Even Principal Driscoll eventually left at the shocking hour of 11 p.m. The boys wondered why she had to stay that late, but it didn’t matter. Once they were sure everyone was gone, even the cleaning staff, they put on their ski masks and entered the building through a classroom window they’d purposely left unlocked earlier in the day. Once they were inside, they walked through the school with baseball bats in hand. They were headed toward the shrinking machines.  

“Thank you Arlia,” Calvin said as James jiggled the key inside the door. 

“I still feel guilty about this,” James whispered, “I just hope she doesn’t get in trouble for what we do in there.”

Their conversation ceased when the door swung open. Motion sensor lights went on immediately, and the boys panicked. 

“Shit! Is there a light switch?” James asked. 

“Relax, dude. No one’s here,” he said as he flipped the light off once again. 

“Well, now it’s gonna be super obvious who destroyed the machines! There are a million cameras in here!” James yelled in a hushed tone.

“We have masks on. You need to relax. Now, let’s get to smashing!”

There were ten shrinking machines in the room, arranged in two lines against each wall. Every machine had a protective chamber that the student would step inside to protect bystanders from radiation leakage. But it was the ray inside the chamber that would need to get destroyed if the shrinking machines were to be incapacitated. 

Calvin and James started at the end of the room and stepped inside their respective shrinking machines. 

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” James said. 

“Me neither,” Calvin said, chuckling as he took the first swing at the shrink ray. He cracked the entire piece with a single swing, and he was not that strong. The machine was built delicately it seemed. This gave James hope. They could take five swings each and quickly get out of there.

The boys moved down the line of machines, whacking each shrink ray inside to pieces. Once they were on the second to last row, James swore he heard heels clacking. 

“Calvin,” he whispered, “You hear that?”

“No.”

He proceeded to take a super slugger swing at the shrink ray before, seemingly without a care in the world. 

“Calvin!”

Calvin quieted down so they could listen. The sound of high heeled footsteps was closer. The slams of the heels against the hard tile floor outside was getting louder by the second. James was certain who those footsteps belonged to.

“Driscoll!”

Knowing she was on their tail, the boys rushed into the last shrinking machines left to smash them to bits. As they made it inside the chamber, Principal Driscoll let herself in the door. James and Calvin looked through the eye holes in the ski mask at her. Her teeth were clenched, and her face was red with anger. To his dismay, she sprinted toward James, but that didn’t stop him from winding up and connecting his bat with the shrink ray. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t completely destroy the ray because as he went to take his next swing, the chamber lit up green all around him. 

“Run!” Calvin screamed. 

Driscoll had turned on the shrinking machine with James was inside. His second blow to the shrink ray destroyed it, which slightly blunted its effects. With the ray activated for only a few moments, James shrunk down enough to be looking right at the principal’s knees. Before, he was just shy of her shoulder. 

James saw Calvin run out of the room and out of view. He was getting out of dodge because the principal had already made him a two incher. If she caught him here, she’d make him an inch tall or smaller. Part of James was furious at him for abandoning him, but even in the moment, he understood why he was fleeing. 

Driscoll ripped open the door to the chamber he was inside and yanked James out by his tiny arm. She held him up to her face and examined him closely. It was as if she was trying to guess who he was before she inevitably took of his mask. 

“I knew one of you boys had some evil plan in mind. You’ve made a horrific choice,” she snarled before grabbing the top of his mask and revealing his face. 

“James?! I saw you hanging out with Calvin, but I didn’t think he rubbed off on you this much! Was that him? Who ran out? Was that Calvin? Tell me!”

Driscoll still had James by a single arm. Her hand was wrapped completely around his forearm, and it was beginning to hurt. But more than that superficial pain, he was terrified of what consequences he’d surely face now. He had to know how he got caught.

“Didn’t you,” he paused and swallowed his nerves, “Didn’t you leave the school, like an hour ago?”

“Yes, I did. But I came back because I forgot my phone. Good thing I returned, or else I wouldn’t have been here to catch you in this brazen act of vandalism. What happened to you, James? You were such a good boy. Arlia just took you under her wing, and for what? To make a mockery of your duty to shrink to save this planet?! You’re coming to my office. This needs to be resolved now!”

Driscoll slung the toddler-sized vandal over her shoulder and stamped back to her office just down the hall. Once inside, she slammed the door shut and plopped him on a chair across from her desk. His feet didn’t even reach the end of the seat, and his head clear the back of the chair either. If he felt this tiny and inadequate at this size, he couldn’t imagine how he’d feel when he was dozens of times smaller.

Sitting just feet across from him, Driscoll loomed over her now tiny student in harsh judgment. Her face was twisted into a nasty expression. After a minute of simply staring daggers at him, she took a deep breath and calmed herself down. 

When she finally spoke, her tone was that of an understanding, yet disappointed authority figure. It was something James didn’t anticipate. He expected anger all the way through.

“Clearly, you didn’t act alone. There was another boy with you, who I believe was Calvin. I refuse to believe that this was your idea. I’ve read your essays on the virtues of shrinking all males for your English class last year. I know you support universal male shrinkage. There must be another reason why you did this. Please tell me why you destroyed those shrinking machines, and trust me, I can and will put in a good word for you with Judge Cassidy.”

“Judge Cassidy? What are you—?"

“Sweetheart, I’d love nothing more than to lay you over my knees and spank the crap out of you and have that be your punishment. I think it’d teach you a damn lesson, and it would be justice enough for me. But what you did is a Class D felony. I have to report this to the police.”

“Will I, will I go to jail?”

“No, you won’t go to jail. It’s senseless for you to go to jail. Now that you’re two feet tall. That’s right, I checked. Now that you’re that height, you won’t be going to jail. You’re harmless. Once you’ve selected your female guardian, you’ll be remanded into her custody until your trial date. I estimate you’ll be expected in court a week from now at most.”

James’s head was spinning, and it wasn’t even because a judge he didn’t even know would be sentencing him next week. His head was spinning thinking about how his mom would react, how his friends would react. But most of all, he couldn’t bear to imagine how Arlia would react to what he did. Would she even want to be his guardian after destroying the machines in the room he conned his way into? Would she even stay his friend? His whole life as he knew it seemed over. 

“Is there a way to keep my friends out of this? So, they don’t know what I did?”

She answered bluntly. 

“No. But there is a way to make your punishment less severe. If you admit to me or the police that you had an accomplice, whoever he may be, that will go over well with the judge.”

James thought about it in real time. It would be so easy to just say Calvin was the mastermind and leave it at that. But he knew what was in store for Calvin if he ratted on him. He’d most likely end up under an inch tall and have a lonely, lonely life. If he didn’t rat on him, he could perhaps strike up a relationship with Mia and maybe get her to be his guardian. In a perfect world, Arlia would own James, and Mia would own Calvin. They’d get to hang out all the time. 

“I can’t do that,” James said.

Driscoll walked around her desk and kneeled in front of his chair. Even with her on her knees and him sitting up in a chair, all he could see was her belly and her breasts. Realizing this, Driscoll got down even further until his eye level was at least above her breasts. 

“You’re making a huge mistake, little man. Now that you’ll be classified a felon, your maximum height for the rest of your life will be an inch tall. You’re going to need to accept that. But can you accept being three quarters of an inch tall? A half inch? A quarter inch? Because I’ve seen Judge Cassidy make male graffiti artists a quarter inch tall for five years. Graffiti isn’t nearly as serious as what you and your partner in crime did. I implore you to tell me who helped you in this plot. Because if you don’t tell me, I can’t vouch for your character.”

James sat still, not sure how to carry himself in front of his now hulking principal. She practically filled up his entire field of vision. Her hands were on the arms of the chair and she was leaning over him, surrounding him completely. He was about to open his mouth, but then she added the cherry on top that would get him to spill.

“Besides,” she said with an elongated sigh, “If you don’t tell me, the authorities will search your phone. I’m guessing they’ll find everything they need to know. Am I right?”

Her eyebrow was raised at him, daring him to defy her. All of it was too much. The size disparity between him and her, the way she was invading his personal space, and the slow, deliberate cadence of her words. If she wanted to, she could coax him to tell her any secret of his she wanted to hear. 

“Fine! It was Calvin! I worked with Calvin!”

She put a hand to her chest and fell backward a fair bit, letting him reclaim his personal space. She no longer needed to put the pressure on him.

With a relieved sigh, she said, “I knew you were a good boy, Jamesy. Your mother must be worried sick, so I’ll drive you home now.”

His heart went up into his throat. He had no idea how he was going to explain everything to his mom. But he knew it would have to be done. 

***

“James Curtis Ford, I hereby sentence you to 18 months of labor in Scarlet’s Bouquets. The jury also recommended the defendant ought to serve his sentence at a further reduced height than one inch. I believe that the jury’s recommendation, while harsh, is fair, especially considering the defendant’s county-wide conspiracy to destroy shrinking machines. So concurrently with his 18-month sentence, I’ve deemed it necessary to shrink the defendant down to a half an inch tall. The owner of Scarlet’s Bouquets assured me it would not affect his work in the slightest.”

It took all of James’s willpower not to let his head hit the table in front of him. His lawyer, who was a ten-inch-tall man, told him it was crucial that he not get emotional when the verdict was read or when he being was sentenced. James was still two feet tall, as shrinking machines all around the area were still in the process of getting repaired. But earlier in the trial he was informed that there was a shrinking machine in the courthouse which would be used on him at the conclusion of all court proceedings. 

James swung his head around to look at the gallery. The first person he laid eyes on was the despicable Scarlet from the flower shop. He didn’t know whether to thank her and hate her because originally, the judge was going to shrink him down for four years. Scarlet intervened and said he had a debt to pay to her. Therefore, a compromise sentence was reached. Scarlet waved at him and wore a mocking grin. 

His mom was tearing up and his dad was in the palm of her hand caressing her forefinger. His friends Mia and Julia were there too, eyes wide, unable to believe what had just happened to James. But Arlia’s presence was the most heart wrenching of all. She wasn’t even looking at him. Just staring down at the ground. He had no idea how she felt about all this, and that was the hardest part of all. 

“Bailiff, take the defendant to the shrinking machine so that he may be reduced to a half an inch tall for the next year and a half of his life,” Judge Helen Cassidy said. 

“With pleasure, your honor,” the tall female bailiff said as she approached James from behind and slapped a pair of pink toy handcuffs on his wrists. James looked up at her in confusion.

“These are my two-year-old daughter’s. We had nothing smaller,” the bailiff said.

“Do you really need to restrain me? I’m not going to run away or anything.”

“It’s a formality, Mr. Ford. Now, come with me and be quiet.”

She lifted James up onto her hip and to his surprise, the bailiff also took his lawyer into her left hand. His lawyer gave me a look that suggested that this bailiff grabbing him with a single hand was a common occurrence. Clearly, James still had a lot to learn about the dynamics between shrunken men and giantess women. School never teaches you everything. 

After going down a long corridor and down two flights of stairs into the basement of the courthouse, the bailiff arrived at the shrinking room. James caught a glimpse of the shrinking chamber at the center of the room and his stomach twisted itself into knots. Then he noticed a long mirror behind him as the bailiff put his lawyer down on the only table in the room. 

“What’s that mirror for,” he asked. 

“That’s not a mirror, sweetie. It’s one-way glass.”

“What? Does that mean everyone from the courtroom is watching?”

“Yes.”

His heart sank. He knew even if his graduation had gone off without a hitch, everyone would have watched him shrink anyway. But the plan was he was going to be nine inches tall, not a half an inch. Nobody would be able to interact with him unless they had an earpiece. He’d be smaller than a penny. And even after all of this was over, after he’d served his time, he’d only be grown back to an inch tall for the rest of his life. An inch!

“Remember bailiff, James has the right to address his audience before he shrinks,” his lawyer shouted from the table. 

“That is correct. Do you wish to address your audience, James?”

He thought about it for a moment. This was likely the last real chance he’d have to tell the people he cared about most the truth before he was minimized into an afterthought for the rest of his life. His choice was obvious.

“Yes, I’ll address them.”

And just like that, the glass slowly defogged until he could see everyone in the gallery. He cleared his throat several times as his gaze jumped from person to person. He settled on his mom first.

“Mom, I’d just like to say that I’m sorry I acted out these last few weeks. You know I’m a good kid, and I did what I did for a good reason. I’ll explain everything the first chance I get. 

He shifted his attention to his friends.

“Mia and Julia, you are the two best friends a guy could ask for, and I hope we can remain that way. You’ve always had my back in school, and you’ve always been there through the tough times. 

Now, on to his lover.

“Arlia, I know you must hate me right now. You said you wanted to wait to talk about ‘us’ until after I shrunk, and I understand that. But somewhere inside of me, I knew that you and I would eventually end up together. Now, I’m not so sure, and that breaks my heart because, well, I’m in love with you. Just know that I destroyed those shrinking machines for you. It probably makes no sense to you, but I’ll explain it in time. I can’t make you promise to not move on from me, but if you still care about me, please promise that you’ll at least hear me out when I finish out my sentence.”

He stared intently at Arlia. At first, she gave no sign that she acknowledged anything he said. But with each passing second his eyes remained glued on her, the façade slowly faded. Her expression softened, and she mouthed the words, I promise.

James breathed a sigh of relief as the bailiff placed him underneath the shrink ray. He stood tall, with his shoulders back and his chest out. As long as there was a chance Arlia would forgive him after this, that was enough to get him through the next year. 

The bailiff stepped off to the side and called someone on the phone. A minute later, a blonde woman with a white lab coat walked through the door. She walked right up to the glass of the shrinking machine and introduced herself to him. He guessed her to be in her mid-thirties. 

“I’ll be your lab technician and physician, should anything go wrong. Are you ready?” she asked. 

To see the world from an ant’s perspective? To be shorter than a fingernail? To work in a nasty, manipulative woman’s flower shop for no money for a year and a half? Of course, he wasn’t. 

“Yes,” he nodded. 

With the press of a single button, a hot, white light blinded him, and he fell to his knees. When he was sure the shrink rays were done pulsing through his body, he was still reluctant to open his eyes. It was too scary. Everything was going to look different. He wasn’t ready for that. 

“James, honey? Are you OK? You can speak, the microphones in the chamber will pick up your voice,” the lab technician said. 

“I’m fine. Just scared,” he said, his voice quivering. 

“There’s no need to be scared. No one is going to hurt you. Additionally, if you’re afraid of going into Scarlet’s custody, you need not be. She aced her Home-Et exam in high school and has a great track record of taking care of little convicts.”

Deep down, James knew things wouldn’t change. Even if he kept his eyes shut for the rest of his life. He was a half-inch tall, and he’d be like that for a year and a half, until the court grew him back to an inch tall. His permanent height. 

He cracked his eyes open and saw his new world through slits. Even from his limited point of view, James could see how much bigger the world had gotten. He couldn’t even see the gallery anymore. All that was in view was the bailiff and the lab tech. And only their shoes and lower legs. 

With his eyes a little more open, James realized he couldn’t even see the end of the room. It was too far away. It was almost like there was a horizon. That’s how freaking small he was now. 

With his eyes fully open, he flitted his head about and took in his surroundings. The shrinking chamber had the same volume as a professional sports stadium, when before, he felt like a mouse inside a zoo enclosure. Things had gotten a lot bigger, and he wasn’t used to it yet. 

The lab tech opened the enclosure and reached inside to grab James. He didn’t run, even though the impulse was strong. However fast he could run, her hand was literally the size of a basketball court to him now. He could never outrun that. Soon enough, fingers the length of school buses clawed him until he was firmly between them. Then he was whooshed out of the enclosure and up to the face of the lab tech within seconds. James’s head was spinning from motion sickness. 

As he tried to not throw up, something was haphazardly shoved into his ear. He tried to swat it away instinctively, but before he could, he heard a voice through it. 

“James, can you hear me? I’m whispering so you don’t hear me talking right in front of you and on your new earpiece.”

Earpiece. So that’s what was in his ear. 

“Yeah, I can hear you,” he said, not sure she’d be able to hear him. But her gigantic eyes, easily double the size of James’s entire body, widened even further when he spoke. A low rumble shook below him and in his earpiece. He shifted his head downwards as far as it could go. He saw the lab tech baring her teeth and her chest vibrating. 

It took few seconds to put it together because at her enormous size, normal human reactions didn’t look normal anymore. But it became clear that she was laughing at him. And each laugh was creating shockwaves that ran through her fingers. Seismic booms caused him to quake as his whole body was smushed in between this woman’s incomprehensibly large finger pads. So for him, her giggles less an auditory experience and more a tactile one.

Once she stopped cracking herself up, she explained what she was laughing at. 

“I’m sorry sweetie. It’s just that shrunken men’s voices are three octaves above a normal human voice. It never fails to amuse me.”

He didn’t speak, not wanting another earthquake to come via her fingers. But now that she was holding him steady, he could truly take in the sight before him. Her face. To him, it was more akin to a ten-story building than just a human face. Larger even than the heads on Mount Rushmore. 

But the size of her face wasn’t the only alarming thing to James. It was how huge all her facial features were compared to him as well. Her lips were almost certainly as wide as he was tall. And not both lips combined. Her bottom lip was even more thick than the top one, definitely making it taller than him. 

Her nose jutted out so far, he felt like he could touch it if he reached far enough. And he didn’t think this woman even had a large nose before he shrank. But now, it seemed disproportionately huge compared to her other features. He chalked it up to his new, reduced perspective. 

But even weirder than her nose seemingly getting way bigger, James could see every imperfection on her face. She was a white woman with fair skin and freckles dotted her cheeks, but especially around her eyes. But they weren’t big freckles. He tried to remember if he’d noticed them prior to shrinking. He couldn’t remember. All he knew was that now, they were unmistakable. 

And her eyes were the most intimidating thing about her at his reduced size. She blinked every two seconds or so, and he wasn’t sure, but he could swear he could feel the wind being created by the rapid shutting of her eye lids. It was slight gust but given that he was only several inches away from her eyes, he didn’t deny the possibility that her eyes were so huge compared to him that they were able to create a breeze strong enough for him to feel it.

As a whole, her face resembled being up close and personal with a gigantic billboard or watching something on a jumbo screen in Times Square. Having size difference this stark between humans seemed impossible, even as he was living it. 

“OK, James. I’m going to ask you several questions,” the lab tech said, while he remained in between in her fingers, “They’re all about your health. We want to make sure there are no side effects with the shrinking. Are you ready?”

Dreading her reaction, he answered, “Yes.”

And as he predicted, she had to stifle a giggle. The same shockwaves rumbled through her fingers and made his stomach flip upside down and sent his heart into his throat. Thankfully, this time, she didn’t burst out laughing and was able to get herself under control relatively quickly. 

“Are you able to see clearly.”

“Yes.”

“Can you feel? Do you still have your sense of touch?”

“Yes, I do.”

The questions went on like this for a minute or two. Then she brought him even closer to her eye—probably only an inch away—so she could get a closer look at him. She deftly flipped his whole body around in her fingers so she could see his backside. Now, that he was facing away from the lab tech, he could see that Scarlet was right in front of him. 

He just couldn’t believe how huge she looked now. She was a head shorter than him a few weeks ago and now she was a literal skyscraper to him. And despite her mammoth proportions, James happened to be the exact right distance away from her to make out her smirk. She could barely see him in between the lab tech’s fingers, but she knew he was there. He, on the other hand, couldn’t ignore her presence. 

As the lab tech grazed her finger across his back and butt for some unknown reason, Scarlet shot James a quick, flirty wave and a wink. Hot rage boiled in his gut upon remembering that this flat-chested waif would be his warden for the next year and a half. Just two weeks ago, James would have been able to strangle her. Now, she could throw him in her mouth as if he was a single sprinkle on an ice cream cone. She could smash him into a bloody spot with a finger. He was a bug to her now. 

“Fuck,” he breathed absentmindedly. 

“What was that?” the lab tech asked through his earpiece. 

“Sorry, I was just talking to myself.”

The lab tech flipped him back around with her fingers, sparing him from looking at Scarlet. Now he was facing her once again. 

“You appear to be healthy. I will get you ready for transport now, OK?”

“Sure?” James was confused by what she meant, but he wasn’t about to question her. The lab tech began walking to a small table in the middle of the room. Out of the corner of his eye, he Scarlet’s short black hair bobbing. She was following. 

“OK, Scarlet,” the lab tech said. “This is how you will carry James safely in public.”

As she lowered him down to the table, he could see there was a necklace on the table with something made of a shiny metal at the end of it. Once he was closer, he could see exactly what it was. It was a cage. For him. And to add insult to injury, there would certainly be room to spare inside. 

Once he was lowered into his neck-wear prison, he found that there were four chains. The lab tech had Scarlet restrain him with the chains so she could practice handling him, who was so tiny, with her comparatively gigantic hands. He had to admit, Scarlet’s hands were quite soft: softer than the lab tech’s. 

Scarlet gripped James by the chest and back with her thumb and pointer finger, while her other hand grabbed the chains. Amazingly, once she brought the chains close enough to his hand, a retractable piece of stainless steel came out and clamped around his wrist. She did this three more times until he was suspended up off the floor of the cage by his arms and legs. 

“Nice job,” the lab tech said to Scarlet. “I see you have experience handling tinies.”

“More than you know. James will be in very good hands.”

The lab tech explained to him that she was going to be handing off the companion earpiece to Scarlet so she could communicate with him and vice versa. Scarlet lifted the necklace, and James, off the table and put it around her neck. He hung on the outside her oversized white shirt, gritting his teeth at the injustice of all this. Part of him wanted to cry, but he wouldn’t give Scarlet the satisfaction. She knew she aching to see him break down in tears. Once his damn earpiece was out, then he could release his emotions. He just didn’t know when that would be. 

“Hello, James?”

It was Scarlet. He could tell because her voice was a touch deeper than the lab tech’s. Sultry. Her voice certainly didn’t match her exterior. But as gigantic as she was to him, it was more fitting now. By this point, she’d begun walking out of the room. 

“Yes, I’m here,” he said, trying to sound blasé as he stared forward through the bars of his tiny cage. 

“Good, I’m glad you can hear me. As we walk through the city back to the flower shop, I’m going to make a few proposals to you.”

“OK,” he responded curtly.

Scarlet pushed the doors to the courthouse open and James could feel the warm, summer air on his nude body. It felt good, even if he couldn’t move a muscle and was inside a cage that was bouncing with every step his giant owner made. 

“I’m a fair woman. Even if you think I’m not,” she said. “The judge may have sentenced you to 18 months of labor at my shop, but we can cut that by half or more if you choose to.”

He couldn’t believe it. Was she actually letting him off easy?

“Of course, I choose that!” James shouted. “I don’t deserve 18 months, it’s crazy!”

“Not so fast, Jamesy-boy. I think you’ll wanna hear what I have to say before you make any rash decisions,” she said, finishing with a condescending snicker. 

He remembered back to shop where Scarlet had manipulated him. He was intent on not letting that happen again. 

“Like I said before, I’m a fair woman. And the judge’s sentence was based on the fact that at your size, your labor is worth 5 cents an hour. That will take you a year and half almost exactly to pay off your $150 debt to me. That is, if you work a traditional 40-hour work week. The judge never said you couldn’t work more.”

Now, James picked up on the catch. If he wanted to get off early, he’d have to work harder for longer. 

“If you work seven days a week for 12 hours a day, you’ll be free of Lil’ Miss Scarlet in oh, just under 9 months.”

He couldn’t see her; only the sidewalk and other, full-sized passersby. But he could imagine the pure delight on her face as she delivered this supposedly “fair” offer to him. 

“Up that to 16 hours a day every day, you’re looking at getting out of the cage in six-and-a-half months from now. Maybe that’ll be just short enough to win your little girlfriend back. But a year and a half, you really don’t think she’ll meet some other strapping nine-inch-tall guy?”

That was it, he lost it. 

“Shut the fuck up, you evil cunt! Where do you get off, torturing me like this? I will burn your stupid store to the ground when I’m free! FUCK YOU!”

Just then, he heard a click on his earpiece. Could she hear him?

“Scarlet! SCARLET!”

“I cut your mic, so, best not to waste your breath. If I were you, I’d listen and I’d listen good. You don’t truly comprehend the power I hold over you. I still have the receipt that says you owe me $150. I could easily alter that receipt and add an extra $300 for even more flowers. Who knows, maybe you were buying them for your mom and your girlfriend. What a good boy treating the women in your life. But, the more important point is, with that extra $300 or whatever number I decide to put on that receipt, I could keep you even longer as you try to work off your pathetic debt. Five years. Ten years. Forever if I wanted to. You think that judge will care? She views you as a rotten anti-shrinking terrorist. So, do you understand now? You do not want to fuck with me, James.”

She paused, as if she was thinking something over, then continued. 

“That little outburst of yours, while disgusting and unacceptable, will be forgiven this time. But every time you disobey me or curse at me or disrespect me, I’ll add more time onto your sentence. My advice for you? Keep your head down, work hard, and zip those little lips. Maybe then, you’ll have a slim chance to reunite with that gangly bitch Arlia.”

James wasn’t angry anymore. He wasn’t outraged at the lack of justice he was receiving. No. Fear was all his mind could make room for. He never thought he could be this terrified of any one person as much as he was currently afraid of Scarlet. She’d made it clear that she could keep him as her slave until the day he died. She held his life in her hands, or more accurately, around her neck. 

Right there and then, James decided that he would work his balls off for Scarlet. Even if she was lying about the whole “getting off early” thing, he couldn’t risk getting on her bad side. So, he’d be an obedient slave for however long it took for him to get free of this psychopath.