Chapter 18 Maimed Knight
Sapphire
I am in hell, I’m sure of it.
This is not a basement. It is not a pit of darkness under the house of my uncle. This has to be hell. The fiery cavity of misery and incomprehensible pain. My mouth is swollen, battered, throbbing, raw, and caked in sores and an all-consuming sting that won’t go away.
I can’t stop thinking about it.
Even if I fall asleep and achieve the sweet relief of a dream, the agony seems to permeate the walls of my mind, poisoning that beautiful hallucination I get to drown myself in to escape my own body. It sours every detail, every fictional sound and image I create.
I wake moments after drifting off. The reality slams into me like an uncontrollable, derailing train. I inhale sharply through my nose, only to find that my sinuses are inflamed and closed off.
Breathing through my parted lips is the damning equivalent of licking a hot fire poker then gargling a pile of splinters as a palate cleanser.
I am in hell.
I am in hell.
I am in hell.
“I think it’s potassium alum.” Niklaus takes a breath as if he’s been holding it. “And lye soap. Maybe salt.”
I lie perfectly still. If I move my head, I can feel the movement against the sores in my mouth like a thousand tiny daggers running me through. If he thinks I’m going to respond, he’s as stupid as he is ugly.
“Whatever she washed your mouth with,” he adds in a low, deep voice.
Why the fuck do you care?
“I read that Demechnef used that combination in training and conditioning subjects to obey without question or talking back.”
Hmm. What a wholesome family you come from. Read that in one of Daddy’s diaries, did we?
Niklaus shockingly reads my mind. “Yes. I realize you’re making many comments about my father in your head. I realize how fucked it is now…seeing it happen in person.”
Is that guilt I hear?
“But you brought this on yourself. Running that mouth is going to get us killed,” he adds gruffly.
I stand corrected.
I drift in and out for what feels like another hour of torture. I don’t even notice the door open or that anyone has descended the steps.
I don’t notice until I feel him exhale against my cheek.
“Grandmother is not very tolerant,” Abbott says.
Just kill me.
The man smells of a cut lawn, sweat, and boiled potatoes. No sense of personal boundaries. No concept of the obvious social cue I’m giving him by cringing away.
“Cold water will help.” Abbott tips a canteen against my chapped lips, letting out a slow trickle of water to wet the dry, throbbing sores and tissue in my mouth.
It’s still painful, but I can’t help but groan in relief.
I let the cold water soak and swish against my tongue for a while, allowing my throat to soften and expand enough to swallow.
“That purity wash is performed on Emerald Wives often. Did you know that? Of course not. Your skin has—what are those—freckles? Sun damage?” He gently taps my right hand. “Your fingernails have dirt under them. Calloused palms. Dry knuckles…”
Abbott trails off, zoning out as he traces my fingers in thought.
“You must have lived a sheltered life on the outside of the Chandelier City. Your poor skin probably has never seen the Lady-Doll Regimen. How deeply unfortunate for someone of your beauty.”
From across the room, I hear Niklaus taking quick shallow breaths through his nose.
“Nevertheless, Emerald Wives accept this treatment all the time, really,” Abbott says.
“W-why?” The nerves in my mouth scream from the little movement it takes to utter a single word. It escapes from my lips in a ragged, harsh whisper.
Abbott’s sparse, orange eyebrows lift in silent excitement.
“A number of reasons. Lying, talking back to their husbands, or infidelity. It’s important to wash away any lingering remnants from another man. Or even diseases carried by a man’s penis.” Those intrusive, beady eyes watch me for a reaction.
I don’t give him one. Even though that sentiment is grotesque. Talking back? Well, I guess it’s safe to say that this purity mouth washing bullshit would be a part of my daily routine if I was born in this time period.
“More?” Abbott taps my bottom lip with the canteen.
I nod.
After a few slow drips, I close my eyes at the subtle coating of relief. It’s not significant. The inside of my mouth stays dry as if it can’t absorb enough water to fully soften. But the amount I got down helped me over that deliriously painful hump.
“I see that you’re also cold,” Abbott announces mechanically.
I didn’t notice. The muscles along my abdomen are coiled tightly together, vibrating as I take unsteady breaths.
But yes, I’m cold. I’m lying here in my undergarments.
No blanket. No layers. This basement is drafty with a murky chill in the air.
There’s nothing more uncomfortable than being constantly cold but having no way to curl into a ball to stay warm.
No blanket to wrap around myself. It might be the only thing I want more than water or a bathroom break.
I nod again.
Please, bring me a blanket.
Abbott hesitates a moment, taking abnormally loud breaths as he stares down at me. He bobs his head a few times, a nod in reverse, like he’s trying to convince himself of something.
Is he going to get in trouble with his grandmother if he covers me up?
“Y-you don’t—have to—listen t-to her,” I whisper, trying to wet my mouth again between each word.
Abbott eyes me like I’m a lesser species that doesn’t understand the meaning of my own words. “She’s my grandmother.”
With a quick glance back at the basement door, Abbott nods to himself again, then climbs on top of the mattress, on top of me…
“Wait…” I gasp, grunting against his weight. “No.”
The distressed noises that come out of me through my raw throat aren’t recognizable. I buck and squirm under his bony frame, angling my face as far away from his as I can get.
“Hold still!” His hot breath brushes my cheek.
This vile, red-headed, narcissistic man with my father’s name carved into his forehead hugs my body tightly.
“I’ll keep you warm.” He’s panting. And I wince at the sheer excitement in his voice. The acne on his chin rubs against my cheekbone. His sharp hip bones pin me down. I suffocate in his stale, unhygienic aroma.
“No,” I rasp again. “No.”
The uninvited invasiveness is worse than the cold. It is the worst kind of discomfort. Intrusive. Non-consensual. Revolting. My skin crawls under his weight, itching with the unbearable need to get him off me.
“I suppose no one has ever told you how the human anatomy works. Especially a woman’s anatomy? I can share the warmth of my body with you. Did you know that?” Abbott sighs against my face. “Rhetorical question. Females often lack the understanding of science.”
I squirm and whimper under his weight.
“No, shhh, don’t worry. The average female isn’t capable of holding that sort of knowledge. You’re too busy preparing your womb for childbearing purposes. It’s the sole reason for your existence.”
Please, God, make this end.
“It’s probably all you think about, isn’t it? Reproducing and—mmm, your hair smells sweet.”
“Get off her. Now.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard such quiet, bottled anger in Niklaus’s voice before. It’s a deep, authoritative boom in this silent basement.
Every bit of Abbott’s frame tenses with annoyance.
“Please tell your travel companion he will wake Grandmother.”
I flick my gaze to Niklaus in a panic. Please, not her again. Anyone but her.
I’m not surprised to see a lack of empathy as he slides his cool, downturned eyes to meet mine. His stare is merely surgical. Measured. Calculated. Observant of a situation he knows he must step up in if he has any decency as a human being at all.
I try to communicate with my eye contact. I beg him to put his hatred of me aside for one minute. Just one.
There’s a brief hesitation in his expression.
For a single heartbeat, his focus loses its lethal precision.
That glare isn’t so familiar anymore. It isn’t warm, not ever, but it’s lingering.
No blinking. Just pausing like he’s surprised with himself for hesitating.
Like he’s holding his breath for my situation to get much worse.
“Let her wake then,” Niklaus finally barks back, breaking our unusual streak of eye contact.
That once hesitant stare lands back on Abbott.
A slow dissection of an already dead animal.
“I’m excited to see what that pious hag thinks of her grandson, groping a young woman.
What do you think she’ll call you? Perverted predator? Insidious? Spawn? Desperate virgin?”
Abbott’s face blooms with a flush of scarlet red, spreading all the way to his collarbone.
“TELL YOUR TRAVEL COMPANION TO BE QUIET!” he whisper-yells in my face.
I flinch and close my eyes again the outburst.
“Shall I call her down here?” Niklaus’s voice is smooth, but it doesn’t soften, it steadies.
Abbott puckers his lips as he considers this with beads of sweat forming around the raised pink scars on his forehead.
“Or is your small penis soft now imagining your grandmother witnessing your sad, pathetic, deeply unattractive assault?”
I forget to breathe.
Abbott tumbles off of me, squirming, huffing, and wiping his forehead clean of the trickles of sweat. He looks down at me with a soured expression, balling his fists at his sides.
“I see my good intentions as a gentleman are not appreciated.”
The agonizing chills returns to my skin, crawling under my flesh and settling into my bones. But it doesn’t matter. I’d rather freeze to death than have that sad, weasel of a man lay on top of me.
The door closes quietly despite that Abbott probably wanted to slam it behind him, leaving us in the dooming darkness once again.
Once the light disappears, I relax back against the mattress, squeezing my eyes shut to attempt blocking that memory for good. If only I hadn’t made my situation that much worse by wetting the bed from the mere terror of that interaction.
“Thank you…” I mutter, though the sound barely lives on past my lips.
Niklaus is so quiet, I’m not sure if he heard me. But there’s a shift in weight on his chair.
“Your mother would have killed me if I didn’t step in,” he says.
There’s a thick layer of defeat and exhaustion in his tone. That cold, cruelness in his intonation has lost some of its frost. That bite isn’t as damaging as it was before.
Yes, my mother would have killed him. But she isn’t here. Will I ever see her again? What if we’re locked down here for the rest of our lives? What if we don’t have much longer to live?
“Your mother would have too,” I add hoarsely.
“Yes,” he agrees, sounding so drained. “You can thank me by getting us out of here. By getting us home.”
What’s the point of having this ability if I can’t control? Come and go as I please? I’m not special like my parents. They would have figured out how to dominate this great imposition. My father would have escaped from this small slice of hell within moments of being captured.
“I’ll try.”