He stopped pacing.
“Brand the soles of his feet once a week,” he added thoughtfully, “so every step reminds him who owns him.”
Then, almost casually:
“And if he speaks without permission—pull one fingernail.”
The room was silent.
The guards nodded in unison. Not one hesitated.
“Understood, boss.”
Chapo turned back to me one final time. His gaze lingered—not with malice, but curiosity. Like he was wondering how long I would last. How I would break.
Then he walked out.
The metal door clanged shut with a finality that vibrated through my bones.
I was alone.
Alone with the guards.
Alone with the chains biting into my wrists.
Alone with my sister’s body.
Amy still sat slumped in the metal chair across from me, head tilted forward at a wrong angle, hair matted dark with blood. The concrete beneath her was slick now, soaked through.Her blood had begun to pool, creeping outward in slow, uneven fingers.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Each sound landed like a hammer inside my skull.
I stared at her until my vision blurred, until the shape of her became unbearable. My chest seized so hard I couldn’t draw breath. The pain hadn’t even started yet—the lashes, the brands, the cold—but I already knew none of that would compare to this moment.
Because pain could be survived.
This couldn’t.
I threw my head back and screamed.
It ripped out of me—raw, animal, endless. A sound of pure loss, stripped of language or dignity. My throat burned. My lungs spasmed. Still I screamed, until my voice shattered into hoarse, broken gasps and nothing came out anymore.
The guards didn’t move. They didn’t mock me. They just watched.
Eventually, there was only silence.
Only the slow, wet drip of my sister’s blood hitting concrete.
My life was about to become hell.
But hell had already taken everything that mattered.
And somewhere deep beneath the grief—buried so far down it terrified me—I felt something else begin to form.
