Free The Column Racer by Jeffrey Johnson

whores. He then started laughing and clapping his hands hysterically. Areli and her mother looked at each other through the corners of their eyes, her mother tightened her hold.
    The Emperor fell from his seat and started to choke on his own silliness.
    “I’m so sorry,” said the Emperor, wiping the tears from his eyes, “it’s just, it’s just.” He went into a fit of laughter again. “Oh this is priceless. Mrs. Roberts, are you planning on flying with your daughter as well?” Areli looked down at their entangled hands, white with pressure. The smile washed off the Emperor’s face as quickly as it had shown.
    “Do you think I am going to hurt your daughter, Mrs. Roberts?” asked the Emperor. Areli could feel her mother’s hand trembling in her own. “Do you think me capable of such harm, that you feel you need to protect her?” Areli focused her attention solely on the Emperor, but she could sense her mother shaking her head.
    “No, your greatness,” said her mother softly, trying to control the tremble in her voice. The Emperor walked slowly to her and loosened their fingers. Areli felt like she was falling from a mountain to a death-bed of jagged rocks. The Emperor looked at her mother’s fingers, and Areli wished she could control their quivering. The Emperor kissed her mother’s hands and stuck her fingers into his mouth, rolling his tongue around them.
    Areli wished to see no more of this disgraceful act, but the Emperor forced her to watch, grabbing her chin and turning it towards them. He did the same thing to her father. Making each of them understand that he could do whatever he wanted, to whoever he wanted, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
    The Emperor let go of her mother’s fingers, chipping the paint with his teeth.
    “Do you fear me, Mrs. Roberts?” asked the Emperor, “and be truthful.” Areli wanted to scream for the horrible man to stop, as she could sense her mother’s shuddering shoulders.
    “I know you’re not deaf, Mrs. Roberts,” said the Emperor, grabbing a hold of her cheeks and making her look directly into his eyes. And then he asked the question again, this time more slowly, as if he were talking to a child. She nodded her head, tears coming out of her eyes.
    “Stop it,” said the Emperor, “Mrs. Roberts, stop it, or I will have to stop it for you.” Areli could feel her fist turn into a ball. A scream was on the edge of her tongue, anger was turning her rigid. Her mother turned silent, her eyes straining to cut through the final tears.
    “And what about, Mr. Roberts?” asked the Emperor with a smile, letting go of Areli’s mother, leaving her quiver. “Do you fear me?” Areli’s father looked at him with spiteful and disbelieving eyes. No one ever disgraces a man, a man’s wife, or his family like that. The Emperor started laughing again, and used the shoulders of her fathers to keep from falling over. “You want to hit me!” said the Emperor with excitement, “you absolutely hate me.”
    Areli’s father was shaking with rage, tears coming from his eyes, streaking pain and shame down his cheeks. The Emperor grabbed her father forcefully by the jaw. “But you can’t, can you Mr. Roberts, because I am Emperor and you are not. Because I am worshipped and you are not. Because I wear a crown, and you cannot. Now, stop your pathetic crying, or I will tear off your wife’s clothes, and make her scream in ways you never could – in front of both you and your child. That’s a good little boy.”
    The Emperor saved Areli for last. He was arrogant, brash, and held no boundaries. He was cold, without shame or any sort of morals. Areli stayed firm, relaxed her fingers, and tried to keep her body from shaking as the Emperor touched the strands of her hair as if he was her lover. She had been lied to. The Emperor respected no one, not even his own riders.
    He smelled the side of her neck and brushed his fingers across her exposed collarbone,