- SEVEN #2
They weren't the kind of questions we were allowed to ask.
In fact, we were permitted very few chances to ask our parents anything at all.
We were generally left to our own devices most of the day, only being summoned for dinner where we were expected to sit silently unless addressed.
Then Jade had lessons with a tutor who taught her all about gemstones.
I had a tutor who taught me about the woods.
And then I got to accompany my father to do tasks that were meant to "man" me up.
They were, of course, all tasks that involved some sort of violence.
"I can't imagine why you'd think we had your sister," he said suddenly, pulling me out of my memories. "As far as everyone in The Green knows, you and your sister died in a horrific draca attack. There was a burial and everything."
"So that explains you keeping a draca chained up in the barn," I said, feeling the anger rise. He'd concocted a scheme that, in turn, gave him the right to hold prisoner an innocent and extremely rare, thought extinct, creature.
"Did some snooping, did you?" he laughed. "People needed proof. I gave them proof."
I shook my head, feeling a sour sensation settle in my stomach. Shame, at being related to such a man. "So what's the plan here, Dad?" I asked, spitting out the last word. "Are you just going to keep me down here forever?"
"Maybe. But just to start," he said, knocking on the cell door and two guards moved in.
So it begins, I thought, forcing myself to not react.
I stood straighter and held out my arms, wrists together.
The guard was distantly familiar, like the face of someone who used to serve you coffee every day...
five years ago. He wore gloves. Of course he wore gloves.
Because the shackles were iron. I sucked in my breath and held it, knowing what was coming and not wanting to scream.
It was going to burn, burn like being branded, a heavy, constant, intolerable pain.
I looked down at the cuffs as they got closer.
They were old, ancient, likely passed down through the generations.
They were crusted with dirt and blood, rusted in the cracks.
Countless normal, human men had been restrained with them and even more fae had been tortured with them.
The cuffs went around my wrists in one quick motion, clamping shut.
The pain was instantaneous and overwhelming.
My breath hissed out of my lips and the only thing keeping me from screaming was the towering presence of my father.
I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.
The son of a bitch knew how much it hurt.
And he would see that, even in intolerable pain, he wasn't going to break me.
"Put him in the last room," he instructed, his voice even colder than usual as he walked out of the room.
I was tugged out of the cell and walked behind the guard, remembering the rooms. The first room had tubs.
For ice baths and asphyxiation. The second room was soundproofed with chains on the walls and enormous floor-to-ceiling speakers.
For sound torture. The last room was the biggest. There were chains on the walls, chains from the ceiling, chains on the table. And a coffin.
The coffin was to make people think they were going to suffocate to death.
And they could and did if they had an anxiety attack inside, sucking up the air too fast. But I knew from my childhood that there were two strategically placed and sized holes drilled into the wood to provide just enough air for survival.
There were hooks on one wall, devices hanging from them: belts, paddles, whips, knives, bats, hammers, spikes... the list was endless.
My father was making a very clear point. He wasn't going to ease me into it. I was going to be treated with the same disdain that was saved for the worst kind of men and fae. Traitors. I was a traitor to my family and I was going to pay as one.
"Stand on that," one of the guards demanded, pushing me toward a step ladder.
I stepped up onto it while the guard jumped a few times to grab the chain hanging from the ceiling.
He attached it to the cuffs on my wrists and moved across the room toward a wheel, tightening the chain and slowly lifting me off the ladder.
My shoulders screamed in objection, the sensation of them being yanked out of their sockets as I finally started to dangle.
I took a few strangled breaths, trying to keep control.
It wasn't that bad. I could get used to it.
My shoulders hurt, but it was nothing compared to the pain in my wrists as the cuffs dug deeper.
But I was still alive. I could live through it.
I swallowed hard and offered one of the guards below me a small smile.
"Nice day to just... hang around, don't you think? "
One of the guards, the one I recognized vaguely, chuckled while the other rolled his eyes and moved to sit on a stool in the corner.
They would sit with me until my father returned.
My father would be the one giving me my punishment.
Maybe when my father tired, they would be tapped in.
That was their job. And they were very, very good at it.
"I used to climb into that coffin," I mumbled, needing to distract myself from the pain, needing to stay focused. "I didn't realize that they don't open from the inside. I was stuck in there for a full day before someone came and found me."
I remembered the original plan, to climb in and cross my hands over my chest like the dead...
or undead and wait to be found by my father.
I thought it would be funny. But as the first hour passed and the air got thicker, harder to breathe, I had started to panic.
Then I had started screaming, pounding at the fabric lining.
Uselessly. No one could hear me. A few hours later, I gave up.
My chest had hurt, my hands too. I had been tired and hungry.
Thinking there was no hope, I had lain back down, crossed my arms over my chest, and waited for death.
In actuality, I had fallen asleep.
Then I had been jarred awake by the coffin lid being lifted. "Jesus," the guard said, looking down at me. He'd picked me up and carried me out of the dungeons.
My head snapped to the guard, recognition hitting. It was him. That was why he had been familiar. He had been the guard to save me.
"I got a vicious beating for that stunt," I said and noticed the guard grimace. How the hell could he work in the dungeons when he had some sort of conscience? Well, maybe he just had a soft spot for kids.
I wasn't a kid anymore.
The door groaned open and slammed shut. There would be no more talking, no more avoiding my pain.
There was the clipped, deliberate snap of my father's footsteps.
He moved toward the wall, taking something down, and moving back toward me.
I felt the burn of iron on my back as he cut my shirt away.
The cold air made my skin prickle as my father went back toward the wall.
What was to be first? Blunt? Sharp? The not knowing was the worst.
The footsteps approached again. There was nothing for a long, agonizing moment.
Then it was the belt, landing hard, fast, furious over my shoulders, hitting the same places multiple times.
Three, four, I could feel the skin raise and blister.
Five, six, the blood started to trickle down my back, slipping inside the waistband of my pants.
Seven, eight, a cold sweat broke out over every inch of skin.
Nine, another strike over an already weeping blister, making me see white. Ten.
Then nothing.
I took a shaky breath, biting hard enough into my cheek to make it bleed. But I'd rather bleed than scream any damn day.
"Just a maintenance beating then?" I asked, knowing I was goading him, but needing him to know I wasn't broken.
My childhood was full of maintenance beatings.
Sometimes it was once a month. Sometimes it was twice a week.
They were always a surprise and always unprovoked.
That was the point. Just like my mother with her servants.
I was beat to be kept in line. I was beat to be reminded that he could kill me just as easily as he stepped on an ant.
There were quick footsteps and suddenly my father grabbed the chains bare handed, the iron burning into his palms, and spun me around to face him.
I saw anger there, a deep, irrational amount of anger and I had a feeling it wasn't just about me.
He made a motion to the guard and I felt my body lowering.
Then he cocked his arm back and swung. The blow landed right underneath my left eye, met with a crunching sound and feeling that made me pretty sure he broke my eye socket.
My vision doubled then blurred, not completely clearing fully again.
"We are just getting started, boy," he snapped, producing a long metal knife and moving toward me fast.
It was teasing at first, just a promise of what was to come. He grazed my skin. It burned, but didn't quite pierce. Then it did. It slid into the skin near the waistband of my pants and dragged upward, making me bite into my lip and snort a breath through my nose.
I needed to escape. I needed to slip out of my body and go somewhere else.
I wasn't going to be able to tolerate it otherwise.
My mind reached out to the guards. The one sitting in the corner was closed off, likely a habit he picked up from working near my father who he knew could read him.
I reached out to the other and found nothing but disgust, horror, and thoughts of all the pointless torture he had witnessed and inflicted.
That was all he had inside him: sadness, regret, helplessness.
That wouldn't help me.