Chapter Thirty-Five #2
The word fractures something inside of me—it is panic, sharp and immediate, threaded through with something that feels too much like grief. Helplessness twists inside me until it turns feral.
“Enough—God damn it, I said enough!”
The room stills. The bucket halts mid-air. Water trembles against the wood but does not spill. Even the air seems to pause, held tight in the lungs of everyone present.
Then the man at the front turns his head.
Slowly, painfully slowly, like the movement is measured by something older than time. His pale eyes settle on me at last, narrowing just slightly as though he can see me.
“Well, well, well,” he says, quiet enough that it should barely be heard.
The words slide against the inside of my skull, hot and invasive, like fingers pressing into the softest part of my mind. My stomach drops.
I step back without thinking.
Pure instinct.
My hand reaches for Deogal beside me, desperate and automatic, before I can even process what it means—that in this room, in this nightmare, I am reaching for him as if he is the safest thing here. My fingers meet nothing, only empty air and the absence of him hits harder than touch ever could.
Before I can turn, before I can understand where he’s gone, the Friar’s gaze shifts away from me and lands on the others. “Stop.”
One word. Cold. Absolute.
The water stops immediately.
Silence crashes into the chamber so hard it feels like pressure in my ears.
The others step back at once.
On the stone, Deogal jerks away from them, peeling the soaked cloth from his own face with shaking fingers. Water drips from his chin. From his lashes. From the chains. He sucks in air, chest heaving.
He coughs.
Once.
Twice.
He bows over, spluttering more. I hear the way the water sloshes from inside his body, how he forces it back up his throat and spews it onto the cobblestone floor.
It sprays everywhere. Sick. Water. Bile.
The floor drowns in liquid. It’s hot, and disgusting, seeping through my naked toes, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to stumble away from it.
Deogal remains hunched over, shoulders heaving, back arched like a wounded animal as he struggles to drag air into his lungs. It lasts far too long. I hate it. I hate watching this. But my vision tunnels on him until the rest of the chamber dissolves into a low, taunting murmur.
He stays bowed for several endless minutes, shaking with each ragged breath.
Then—he lifts his head and looks at me. Not through me or past me. At me.
For the first time in this chamber, they find me like they’ve been searching.
“You asked to know,” he says quietly.
His eyes still shimmer with tears, but they no longer fall. There’s a terrible moment where the softness remains, where I can still see the boy pinned beneath holy hands and whispered prayers.
The boy on the floor stills.
It’s as if concrete pours through his veins, solidifying everything soft.
The hasty, shallow breaths he was gasping in, stop.
He inhales deeply and I almost feel the oxygen pushing through my own lungs.
For the first time, it doesn’t feel used and damp.
It’s cold, sharp, like it’s from a place far from here. His breathing eventually evens out.
His jaw tightens, chains clinking softly as he shifts. He pushes himself upright. Water streams down his body, breathing steadies. Not because they’ve spared him. But because he’s suddenly choosing it.
The power in the room has changed.
It’s no longer him as a victim.
And then I notice—the men are gone. No footsteps. No prayers. Gone, like they were never here to begin with.
Deogal stands now. The version I know, leering in the centre of the cell like it’s his throne.
For a moment neither of us speak.
He studies me in a way that feels surgical. He watches every breath I take.
“They didn’t break me,” he whispers. “They never could.”
His gaze dips briefly to my throat, then rises again. “Not really, anyway.”
My pulse stutters.
He reaches out like he’s going to touch me. The space between us hums, but he stops.
“You said enough.” He says softly. “So, I stopped.”
The cold settles in.
“I know.” I rush. “I know, I’m sorry. It was too much, I just, I needed—"
The distance widens, subtle at first, but I feel it immediately—the shift of him pulling somewhere I cannot follow, the space between us stretching into something colder, sharper, until it feels less like standing apart and more like being abandoned.
Panic claws up my throat.
“Please,” I whisper, and the word sounds smaller than I mean it to. “I want to know more.”
For a moment, he says nothing.
His stare pins me where I stand, and I feel it like a blade pressed carefully to skin.
“Next time,” he breathes, voice dragging down the back of my skull, “don’t say enough.”
The warning settles inside me before I can fight it, like something being placed exactly where it belongs. And then, he’s gone.
The air empties first, the pressure of him leaving behind a terrible absence.
Then the torchlight begins to die, each flame shrinking inward until the room is swallowed piece by piece.
Shadow climbs the walls. Stone softens. The floor beneath me gives way into nothing.
The bars dissolve. The chamber folds in on itself like a body finally exhaling.
Everything slips.
Everything disappears.
My body jerks upright, fingers twisted so tightly in the sheets they ache, nails half-caught in the fabric like I’ve been trying to hold myself in place. My heart is pounding so hard it feels violent.
I stare at the dark room waiting for the stone walls to return. They don’t but my body doesn’t believe they’re gone either.
My lungs still drag for air like water’s being poured over my face. My skin still expects chains. I can smell wet stone. I can still hear him choking.
“No,” I whisper immediately. The word comes apart halfway through. “No no no—”
I shove myself backward too quickly and nearly fall from the bed.
My chest rises too fast, breath catching sharp and uneven, and sweat clings cold at the back of my neck. For a moment, I can’t separate one world from the other. I still feel stone beneath my knees.
Next time.
I press a shaking hand to my mouth.
Because the worst part—the part that makes shame burn hotter than fear—is that beneath the terror, beneath the panic, beneath every rational piece of me screaming that something is wrong...some part of me is already waiting for there to be a next time.
And that thought...terrifies me more than anything I just saw.