67. Brynn
I t’s too bright. Everything is too bright.
And the noise, the sound. I want to block my ears. To shut the world out.
I’m covered in dirt, in blood, in my own shit too.
And I can’t stop shaking, I can’t stop trembling. Though I know that’s not from fear. I no longer feel fear, do I? My husband saw to that. He fixed me.
I’m so cold. I can’t feel my fingers. Have they gone too?
And I’m stark naked, sitting in the back of this car, waiting for Conrad to return.
As he clambers in beside me, he wraps a blanket over my shoulders and it’s the most incredible feeling. The blanket is wool but it’s not soft, it’s the kind you’d use for a picnic or a dog. And yet, right now it feels like the softest most incredible thing.
“I’ve got you.” Conrad says, pulling me in.
Someone gets in the driver’s seat. The engine starts, and I focus on the minute by minute of what is happening. On the sound of the engine purring as we drive off. On the sound of the gravel crunching under the tyres. On the wheels turning.
Going round. And round.
The moon is up. It’s bright. It’s a full sphere in the sky, and it feels almost prophetic to be rescued on a night as beautiful as this.
I stare at it, half in disbelief.
And then a voice questions in my head if I’m really being rescued right now, or simply being taken to a different form of hell.
My hands are still bound. Conrad might be saying all the right things, but then he was always good at that, wasn’t he? He always knew what to say, how to manipulate me, but actions speak louder than words.
He hasn’t set me free. Not truly.
I gulp, swallowing and that awful sharp wound in my mouth protests enough that my eyes water. I want to ask where they’re taking me. After all, my father burnt down his house.
Where the fuck am I going now?
I want to ask about them too, about Xavier, about my father. Has he found them? Has he got them locked up safe and secure? Or are they out there still? Are they going to come back and do this to me again? Hurt me more?
Hurt.
Hurt. Hurt. Hurt.
The radio crackles. A man’s voice comes over it, saying that my father is gone, that he’s not there.
I open my mouth to speak, to tell them that he left days ago, but the words don’t come out. Nothing comes out but an awful gurgle of noise and then the taste of blood that tells me I’ve popped the stitching again.
“It’s okay,” Conrad says. “We’ll get you fixed. I’ll sort everything.”
Fix me. Fix me.
But that’s not true, is it? You can’t regrow a tongue, you can’t fix what they did to me. I’ve been mutilated to the point of no return.
He cups my cheek, staring into my face with that same intensity he’s always had. Should I be grateful then that he still wants me? Should I feel happy that he doesn’t simply do me in now, and pretend this marriage never happened?
I’m not perfect anymore, I’m not his beautiful little doll to dress up. I’m ruined. My father ruined me, and Xavier butchered me.
Conrad can’t pretend that didn’t happen. He just has to look at my face, look at my body to see the damage.
I’ll never be perfect again.
And yet, he came back, he came for me.
He rescued me.
I don’t know what to think of it and on some perverse level, I’m almost grateful that my brain doesn’t process emotions properly anymore.
It spares me the true horror, it sugarcoats what this is.
The lull of the engine makes my heart slow. The sound of it seems to hypnotise me, calm me even. My eyes grow heavy, my body seems to give in, and I slump against Conrad’s chest.
His nose wrinkles enough to tell me that I stink and yet he doesn’t shove me off, he doesn’t act like he’s repulsed by me.
He just holds me, and for once, he gives me what I need. What I so desperately need.
I wake up, blinking as I’m carried into a house. My hands are untied, my legs are dangling free, but I don’t know when that happened.
My mind registers the ornate carvings, the fancy entrance hall, even the stiff uniform of the servants as I’m carried past.
Whispers seem to float above my head, but I’m too exhausted to listen to what is being said.
On some level, I realise where I am. Where we are.
Magnus’ house.
Crystal glass glints with the first hint of sunrise. People seem to flit around, and the word ‘doctor’ seems to echo and echo.
I’m laid down in a room that doesn’t feel warm or welcoming. It’s sterile. The bed isn’t a normal one, but the kind in a medical facility. Does Magnus have a whole damn hospital hidden in his house?
As his face comes into view, I whimper. It’s not so much that I’m afraid, it’s that I don’t get what is going on. Why has Conrad brought me here of all places?
The blanket is pulled back. My hands seem to move on their own, grabbing hold of the ends, trying to cover myself. Someone tsks, and it’s yanked away, leaving me naked.
“Jesus.”
I know it’s Magnus who speaks, but I can see the disgusted look on Conrad’s face as he stares down at me.
It shouldn’t affect me the way it does, it shouldn’t upset me. For so long I’ve wanted to be something repulsive and not an object of desire. I guess I finally got what I wanted now, didn’t I?
As his eyes land on my chest, I feel every second of his fury.
“They cut it out?” He snarls.
I shake my head. They didn’t cut it, they burnt it. They seared my skin until there was nothing but a mangled mess of blood and blisters and melted flesh.
They fixed me too. Everyone wanted to fix me.
I pull my hands up, feeling the sting of where it’s still not healed. Is it fucked up that I want that brand back? Yes, yes it is.
A stranger rushes in. He starts flapping around, grabbing instruments, asking Conrad questions and most of them, he can’t answer but I know I can.
I even try, but they simply tell me to calm down, as if my attempts at speaking are signs of distress.
I’m poked, prodded and examined as if I’m a science experiment and not a real person while I just lie there, I just let them do what they want.
It’s not like I stand a chance against them anyway.
When the stranger tries to get me to open my mouth though, that’s when I stop being compliant. I don’t want to show them, I don’t want to actually acknowledge it and hearing the words spoken will make it too real. I silently plead with Conrad. Perhaps this would be better if he wasn’t here, if he wasn’t seeing how truly broken his little doll now is.
No fix this time. No fix.
Magnus tries to take charge, as if he’s bored of this and it feels like it’s a waste of his time.
Conrad shoves him off before he takes my hand and demands I open my mouth and stop being difficult.
Fine. That’s what you want. You want to see the destruction? You want to see how they took me, and they broke me more than you ever could.
I narrow my eyes, take a deep breath and open my jaw.
Conrad’s face changes almost instantly. I know the man has seen and done terrible things, and yet the way he reacts, the way he takes a step back before getting control of himself? Yeah, that tells me everything.
The doctor somehow manages to master himself. He uses some cold metal stick thing to check the wound while I try not to whimper from the pain.
“It’s a mess.” He says. “They must have hacked it off. No surgeon would have done such a thing.”
“Can anything be done?” Conrad asks.
I know the answer before the doctor speaks, so I don’t feel anything as he confirms it.
“No. It’s too late to re-attach. The best I can do is give some antibiotics to stem off any infection and we’ll monitor the healing.”
Conrad lets out a growl. Clearly, he wanted a different outcome, and I wonder if this moment here will be what does it, what makes him decide I’m too trashed to bother with.
“…She’ll be able to eat, but only small amounts. There’s enough muscle left that we won’t need to put an NG tube in…” He continues, but Conrad isn’t listening.
He’s staring at me, staring at my face, my body, every bit of my ruined flesh.
And I stare back, waiting for him to say it, to order the man to give me some injection or other and to ‘put me out of my misery’, only, he doesn’t. He just looks at me as if daring me to question him.
Once I’m given the ‘all clear’, Magnus orders the servants to come and bring some things to clean and dress me. But Conrad dismisses them, telling him that no one is touching ‘his wife’ ever again.
I gulp. I seem to shatter what tiny grasp I have on my nerves, and my tears spill down my cheeks like a waterfall.
Magnus pulls Conrad aside, growling in his ear that he’s being a fool. “The girl is too damaged to bother with…” he begins, but Conrad cuts across him.
“Like you didn’t damage your wife.”
Magnus scoffs, shaking his head. “It’s a completely different set of circumstances.”
“Is it?” Conrad counters. “You had your wife shot, remember…’
The look on Magnus’s face says it all. Clearly that’s information he didn’t know Conrad was aware of. His eyes then dart to me and it takes all I have not to blink, not to look away.
“She’s a Founder,” Conrad states. “A Founder. You know what that means. You wanted an heir? Well, now you’ll have one. Blake blood mixed with Founder blood.”
Magnus sneers. “We have no definitive proof that the girl is a Founder,”
“That’s not how this works.” Conrad smirks. “What we say goes. And besides, you know it’s true. Why else would the Esau’s have been involved in all this?”
“To bring me down.” Magnus snaps.
“Not just you. Us. Our family.” Conrad states. “Brynn’s bloodline legitimises your leadership in a way Antonio could never have created by himself. Once she gives us a son and heir, we’ll be unstoppable.”
“We?” Magnus repeats. “Since when has it been ‘we’?”
Conrad puts his hand on his brother’s shoulder, shaking his head slightly. “It’s always been ‘we’, Magnus, you just never allowed anyone else to do anything to help you. You’ve been too determined to prove you could rule all by yourself.”
“And you're saying you’re stepping up?” Magnus growls.
“I have your back as long as you have mine.” Conrad says pointedly.
Magnus narrows his eyes, glancing at me like he wants to argue more and then he looks back at his brother. “Your wife will never suck your cock again. You know that, right?”
Conrad’s lips curl and he moves closer to me, cupping my cheek in a way that is far too sensual considering the obscenity of the conversation. “She can still choke on it though, can’t she?”
I guess that answers the question then.
I guess that solves it.
He’s keeping me after all.