Marian
What was classified as a traumatic situation? What damage or benefit could come out of experiencing it? Was this justice worth the consequences of what was happening to me? Was I making my own mind worse by enjoying the blood and screaming a little too much?
So many questions.
I barely heard Drayton anymore. I was on autopilot.
My surroundings aside from my assailants and the guard giving me permission to start didn’t exist. Sadness and impatience were on overdrive.
I was feeling too much, yet… oddly not absorbing the feeling at all.
Nothing was right. I kept questioning whether I was savoring this enough.
I wasn’t skilled in torture. I was all over the place randomly stabbing, cutting, and hacking.
Where the attentive part of me craved some sort of order or craft, I was left spinning in the details.
There wasn’t enough time. This was rushed.
I wanted more. I needed to make them pay even more.
Two more acts... and then I had to kill them.
How had this gone so quickly? Why couldn’t I come up with a more befitting revenge?
I’d cut off David’s dick. I’d stabbed, removed, and even turned the wounds where his dick rested to mush with what looked to be a metal meat tenderizer.
I’d swung until I could swing no more. It.
Wasn’t. Enough. Not when I knew my other rapists were watching.
They had to know. They had to see. I wasn’t some slave they could hurt.
I had power. I was someone. I wasn’t ever going to let them forget it.
I paced between my two victims, doing nothing but waiting for the guard’s gesture for me to continue.
Drayton was growling and making deep guttural sounds.
Somewhere inside I was crying for him. I’d felt it so much more earlier, but now…
I was lost in my vengeance. I was lost to finishing this the right way.
But was there a right way? If there was, it wasn’t coming to me, and that only made me more panicked.
This time was mine. I had to end it in a way that was satisfying.
But what was that? Was it even possible?
Drayton yelled behind me again, and I felt myself mimic his cry.
I cut back around, pacing and seething as I took in the two guards.
David was barely even conscious anymore.
His head kept bobbing between groans. Simon was pure cries and slurred curses.
He wasn’t much better than David. They were fading, and so was my time.
Faster, I paced.
Faster, I prowled.
There was so much blood on the floor below them. Between them. Smears were visible where my stained dress had drug against the floor. I looked like I’d been splattered by red. And I had, at my doing. The repeated blows covered me with what was mine—their lives.
“Please.” The urgency in my whispered plea didn’t encompass how desperate I was for something. I needed… something more. Something!
Left. Right. Back. Forth.
My stare never left the guard that gave the signal. My breath kept catching. I was gripping to the handle of the knife so tightly it was the only pain making itself known.
More yells from Drayton. And me. Again, I parroted his pain without thought. It was there, inside me. Pushing. Eating away at my resolve. My sanity.
“Last wounds, and then we’ll move on to their deaths, Mrs. Pennington. Better make it good.”
I didn’t turn at The Unavowed’s booming voice.
I pivoted on my feet, waiting like a caged animal.
Waiting. Waiting! The guard nodded to me, and I didn’t have to think what I was going to do—I knew.
The fast steps had me sliding against the wet, blood covered floor at my approach, but I didn’t fall.
I leveled underneath David, pulling up the dress and sliding to my knees.
I was breathing so heavily as I looked up at the oozing, mutilated meat between his legs.
I’d done that. I had destroyed his manhood.
I’d cut and battered it into nothingness.
It still wasn’t good enough. The quick actions and kneeling had made my own pain come rushing to the forefront of my awareness. They all had to feel this trauma. They had to physically see how much it hurt me.
Pointing the blade up, I fisted the handle in both my hands, driving the long knife straight between the area where his sac had been and where his ass began.
David’s body went rigid and blood waterfalled out across my lap as I twisted the weapon in a circle.
Multiple gasps rang out, and immediate screams came from Simon as he fought the restraints beside me.
I could see his fear in my peripheral as I began pulling and pushing, carving and rounding a hole even wider between David’s legs.
Convulsions and a deep hum shook David’s body.
Vomit shot from his nose and dribbled along my bicep and into the side of my hair, but it only had me wielding the blade in the enlarging cavity even more.
I put all my strength in cutting through the muscle.
I hit bone at one point. It only redirected me as I stole flashes of his horror-filled eyes as they faded.
Burning in my arms was making it impossible to continue.
I screamed. The sounds that left me sounded distant.
I kept going as time went in and out. Horror turned to hollow.
I wasn’t sure if David passed out or died.
I didn’t care. There was a certain peace in knowing he’d been looking at me when he slipped away.
My body could suddenly feel agony, and the knife fumbled in my grasp.
I blinked away the internal screaming, trying to grasp my surroundings.
Trying to reign in the havoc taking over my mind.
I stood, not turning to Simon. I took in everything about David’s face, lifting his head just enough to slide the knife under his chin and jerk it against his throat to finish what I started.
Dead.
Silence.
More blood.
Drip-drip.
Drip-drip.
Two wounds. I was finished with my turn.
Simon would be next. I let that register as I eased a few feet back, keeping my glare locked on the one man left that I could make pay as I eased to the ground to sit.
I wanted his death to make a statement. No act big or small mattered.
If you participated, there was a chance you might pay for it.
Maybe these guards would receive my message through my violence.
Maybe they didn’t care. One day, though, they might.
Maybe I’d be back here. Maybe I could offer more to The Unavowed to let me continue what I started.
Not today. I barely had strength enough to move.
But soon… Soon, I’d try to strike a deal. No price was too high for revenge.
“Fuck. Fuck!”
Yells.
Grunts.
I rocked as I listened to Drayton. The Unavowed seemed to be also increasing his pain.
He was waiting for the end to hurt Drayton the most. My fingers pushed into stone, trying to keep me in place.
To turn around would make this worse for the man I married.
For my husband. Drayton didn’t deserve to suffer on top of what I’d done.
He hated me for everything he lost—for never speaking up loud enough.
The fact of the matter kept sinking in. Drayton was my husband.
My husband hated me. Blamed me. He had every right to.
Hate. Me. He had hoped to hurt me. Hurt.
Yes. He wanted me to pay for my crimes. Had I paid? Had I… suffered enough?
I blinked through the question, letting it consume me. The room faded as I rocked. It was a voice that had me lifting my gaze from the blurry ground.
“Last two.”
Simon was already sobbing, letting out muffled screams as I let my gaze turn to him.
I looked around the room to the guards who all watched.
Their faces were unreadable. There were too many conflicting expressions for me to fully grasp.
Hate. Fear. Uncertainty. I liked the way that made me feel.
I didn’t like the rage I saw from some. It made me want to cower again.
To lower to the ground and disappear for good.
I couldn’t do that. Not when my strength mattered the most. See…
They.
Had.
To.
See.
I stood, switching the knife into my other hand as I flexed my stiff fingers.
There were some deep cuts from the attacks.
I’d need stitches. But only a few. It was a stupid thing to realize as I headed for the cart.
My damn legs were moving in slow motion.
Each step was becoming harder. My body was shutting down, but it was too early for that. I had to make him pay. I had to—
I swayed, barely grasping to the cart in time to save myself from falling.
Voices were beginning to buzz like bees in my ears.
The weapons seemed to morph into a mass of silver and black as I stared down.
My fingers reached out, and I traced over the blob of colors, more bouncing from metal than caressing the weapons like I wanted.
With a hard blink, they came in clear, only to slightly fade with the sound roaring in my ears.
It was the hold to my biceps from behind that had me jumping back into awareness.
“Two more. You’re a shark. You can do this.” Penelope’s voice had tears blinding me. I turned, just in time to see The Unavowed stomping up from the side of us.
“You are supposed to be in our room.”
“Marian is my friend and the mother to our future heir’s betrothed. I will be here to offer my support as a good future queen would do. Isn’t that what etiquette would call for? That’s what you said you wanted. Am I wrong?” At his silent glare, she stood straighter. “I didn’t think so. Leave us.”