Chapter Twenty-Four
Adam
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TIME HAD BLED INTO endless moments of protracted pain.
I always knew there would be some terrible price to pay for humiliating a man like Ian, for running away and pissing all over what he said he stood for, but I’d never really considered how I would deal with that cost until I’d been stripped of my jacket and shirt and the first brutal lash had burned across my skin.
Whipping, like the sort I’d been an unwilling recipient of, was a frequent punishment at Fortorus.
Mitchell and the other inane commanders under my command had sent women to the punishment post every morning for similar treatment, stripping them and masturbating over their torment.
Yet it had taken until that moment—until I was the one bracing for the relentless and vicious strikes—to really understand how severe the penance was.
The whip’s tail had sliced into what felt like the same section of my back repeatedly, almost reducing me to tears. Somehow, I’d gritted my teeth and pushed down the strangled emotion, but my cries had been scarily close to the surface.
It was Caroline I’d thought of whenever the tail had landed, her face appearing in my mind as the pain seared across my skin.
Kneeling there, I accepted that I was enduring the ordeal for her just as much as the ICC and any potential chances of reducing my sentence and incriminating Ian.
Taking the pain for her was cathartic somehow, delivering something we both needed; a sense that I was getting what I deserved, and perhaps, if the monolithic entity in the sky so many talked about was actually real, a path toward my redemption.
After so many years of complicity, I realized I needed both.
It was no longer enough to merely throw recriminations Ian’s way.
I had to accept my part in everything that had taken place.
I’d rolled over when I had a voice, and I’d backed down when I could have stood up to him.
Worse, I’d accepted the role at Fortorus, enjoying the glory and prestige of being commander general while so many suffered around me.
Despite my pain and the suffocating fear the whip had provoked, a part of me recognized the truth, a candor it had been easy to disregard while we’d been on the run.
I did merit the humiliating punishment being heaped upon me, and I knew neither Caroline nor the ICC had the balls to hand it out.
In the end, it had taken the ultimate irony that Ian, the man whose idea the entire terrible regime had been, needed to be the one who provided my redemption.
If I ever got off that damn ship, Caroline’s love would save me, but I’d needed Ian’s cruelty to offer deliverance.
Just hold on. My eyes slid closed at the solidifying thought.
If I could just hold on, just keep passively receiving what Ian had to give, then perhaps I could balance the scales, moving the needle and paying back a fraction of the hurt I’d caused.
I couldn’t save all the incarcerated women or take back the pain and loss they’d all endured, but I could get through the onslaught, and maybe, in some small way, that demonstrated my desire for forgiveness—not from Ian, but from those who truly counted.
Resting my head against my bicep, I risked a small sigh. With the cameras temporarily paused, I had a chance to reset.
My back was wet at the cruelty of the whip, sticky with what I assumed was my blood, and my mind flitted back to my initial encounter with Caroline, recalling how she had been caught out of bed and running across the camp to garner medical treatment for her friend, Fern.
Fern, too, had been whipped, but her wounds had become infected.
I frowned at the notion of wounds like the ones I’d received being allowed to fester and become infected.
At least I had hope for a reprieve, a plan that I’d get out of the situation.
How many others had suffered similar hideous fates on the grounds of Fortorus while I had been in charge there?
Chained to the punishment post in the freezing wind and knowing that no one was coming to save them?
The answer caught in the back of my throat, threatening to choke me.
Too fucking many.
“Fuck.” I muttered the word, contrition and agony merging to fuel me as I tried to shift position.
My shoulders were aching, not only from the lashing they’d received, but due to the length of time they’d been expected to remain hoisted up beside my ears.
My years of privilege meant I wasn’t used to being bound, and even before the new order, bondage had rarely been a kink I’d enjoyed.
I hoped that being thrust in front of Ian’s cameras would be the first and last time I found myself in the position.
The sentry who’d wielded the whip was still lurking to my side, and those working the numerous cameras were also present, but with their mighty leader departed, none of them seemed especially interested in me.
I was merely the star of the latest sickening show; a highlight reel they could boast about at a later time.
None of them cared about my wellbeing or seemed to pay attention to my profanity.
In fact, the more I tuned out of my suffering and into their conversations, the more I sensed they were growing confused about Ian’s behavior.
His abrupt departure had seemingly not been part of the plan.
“What’s going on?” the one behind the camera in front of me asked no one in particular. “I thought he’d booked us for this all morning?”
All morning?
My body tensed at the thought, the strain exacerbating my injuries.
There was no way I could withstand the whip for hours.
I had to hope that whatever had drawn Ian from his gleeful role of judge and jury was also about to board the vessel and take control.
Otherwise, I could have been in serious trouble.
Briefly, I considered the fate of poor Kaspar, whose whereabouts hadn’t been revealed to me since Ian had ordered she be taken to his room.
I prayed that neither Ian, nor anyone else, had stumbled across her since Ian had left me.
With a little luck, we might both return from the Traditional Values with only mild post-traumatic stress.
“No idea,” another one of them huffed. “He’s still going to pay us, though. Right?”
“I hope so,” murmured another. “I haven’t had a gig like this for years, and I could use the—”
His complaint was punctured by noises in the distance, my heart pounding as my head rose to acknowledge the sounds.
“What’s that?” It was the one with the whip speaking that time, the evil implement falling from his hands as he strode past me. “Is that fucking gunfire?”
“It sounded like it,” the first one agreed, leaving his post to join my tormentor. “But I’m sure it’s nothing for us to worry about.”
The two men exchanged worried glances.
“Gunshots are usually something to worry about,” I murmured, coughing to clear my gravelly tone. “Even in the president’s world.”
“He’s right.” The one behind me sounded really panicked. “Something’s wrong. We should get out of here and see what’s going on.”
“We can’t leave!” the guy who’d wielded the whip insisted. “The president was clear about what he wants, and we shouldn’t be listening to him.” He signaled to me. “We’ll all be in trouble if we get up and flee. The president will have us bound and whipped next!”
“Shit!” Another voice that time, but his timbre suggested he was equally worried. “What should we do?”
As though seeking to answer him, another volley of shots resounded from somewhere on board, and that time, the gunfire was louder, conveying perhaps that those employing the weapons were closer than before.
Chin lowering, I sent out a silent prayer that whoever was brandishing them turned out to be on my side.
If, somehow, Ian had lost his temper at whoever had delivered the bad news about the French and decided to instigate an impromptu public execution, then things were looking increasingly bad for me.
Despite my resolution to seek redemption for the atrocities I’d been a part of, I wouldn’t have looked forward to whatever the ramifications of that tirade would have been.
“Fuck this.” The camera guy to my right was the first to lose his nerve. “I’m not sticking around here. I need to know who’s firing those weapons.”
“What do you mean who is firing?” the first one barked. “It’s the president’s men. It has to be! Who else has guns on board a ship like this?”
“Right,” the one who’d had the whip agreed. “It’s his ship. It has to be his men.”
“We’re in the middle of the ocean.” It seemed that only the guy to my right could imagine a world where someone other than Ian had power and influence.
“Not on the mainland. Maybe we’re under attack.
You saw the way the president was called for from the control deck.
Something serious had to be wrong for them to have dared to interfere with his schedule, and he hasn’t come back yet. ..”
“And now there are gunshots,” I added, pouring just enough fuel onto the spark to start a fire.
“That’s right!” The one at my side seized upon my comments, his words speeding up as his panic intensified. “And now there are gunshots. We can’t just—”
Multiple rounds of fresh bullets were sprayed somewhere along the corridor outside, drowning out whatever he was going to say next.
“Oh, God.” The one who’d been content to whip me until I bled was hyperventilating. “It’s getting closer. What are we going to do?”
The noise of pounding boots on the polished gray tile reverberated in reply, my pulse galloping with every fresh stride.
Thud, thud, thud; the bang of every new step ratcheted the tension inside the room.
I was the only one who thought he knew what was going on beyond the four walls of the improvised television studio, yet even my anxiety rocketed at the escalating sounds.