The door to my right whipped open. A barely-out-of-her-teenage-years girl peeked inside, a clear bag pressed to her chest. Once inside, she lowered the door handle, checking if the lock had engaged. But the door remained unsealed, and she gave me a sheepish smile.
Her shoes made no sounds as she tip-toed toward me, her medical gloves squeaking as she adjusted her grip on the package. The sleeves of her white tunic were tucked under the latex, hiding the color of her wristband.
I wondered if green-banded were permitted to work in Ardaton’s prison. With the majority of criminals undoubtedly non-fertile, it wouldn’t make sense to allow their kind to look after the prisoners. But I couldn’t believe that rich folks would ever agree to servicing the commoners.
The plastic crunched as the girl opened the bag, but I didn’t pay any attention to how she was about to hurt me. My world had narrowed to the meat pounder the man was raising above Zion.
Though the speakers allowed me to hear what was occurring in the room behind the glass, I didn’t listen. All I could focus on was how the instrument glinted in the harsh overhead lights as it fell?—
And struck Zion’s forearm.
Thecrunchmade my diaphragm spasm. His howl caused bile to rise up my throat. And the man’s sickly smile as he yanked Zion’s head back sent shock waves through me.
I swallowed the saliva from nausea swirling in my stomach. Ivory peeked out of Zion’s skin—a jagged piece of bone surrounded by an ocean of red.
The flaming aches radiating from numerous areas in my body fell away—dissolved. The pain was nothing compared to how the torture unfolding before my eyes was shredding me. How powerlessness paralyzed me. How I would’ve given anything to switch places with Zion.
Kneeling beside me, the girl warned, “This might hurt. But I have to do this or…” she trailed off, biting her chapped bottom lip.
Ignoring what she didn’t say, what she kept to herself, I stepped on my pride, begging, “Please let him out.”
Without gracing me with a reply, she unchained my left hand and bent my three remaining fingers to inspect them. A tear-inducing burn spread in the stumps that once had been the roots of my two missing fingers.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” I croaked out as she pressed a non-fluffy cloth to the two open wounds. A sniffle escaped me, but not from the sting. “I’ll wear the green wristband. I’ll give birth to as many kids as you want. Please, just”—my lips quivered—“release him.” My plea came out as a whoosh of air, so quiet I feared she hadn’t heard it.
Wrapping a roll of gauze around my hand, the girl murmured, “I can’t.”
“Pl-Please.” The years Zion had collected, the ones forming his past, were so dark, I dreamed of painting them in white—of erasing the hurt and the pain.
“I can’t afford to lose this job,” she muttered as she tied a knot on my palm. “I haven’t worked here for long, and if I do something like that…my employer won’t be happy.”
Choking on the ball in my throat, I peeled my attention away from her. The meat pounder was swinging once more, drawing an arc in the air?—
And landed on Zion’s elbow.
The crushing soundand Zion’s scream were going to haunt me in my nightmares.
But Zion refused to answer the man’s questions again, and I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to watch the next blow. Only the blackness invading my vision couldn’t stop the tears of fire from singeing my face.
“You have to give them what they want,” the girl said. “Lenus won’t stop if you don’t.”
I nearly laughed at her suggested course of action. “Zion won’t talk.” The combined armies of the three cities wouldn’t succeed in breaking him. Once he’d set his mind on something, he got it. “Can you?—”
“I can’t.”
I flinched at her harshness.
“I’m sorry.” She stroked my bare thigh, and a hiss slipped out of me from the contact. In Ardaton, like in Ilasall, people tended to touch you without asking first. “All I can do is give you this.” Peeking inside her transparent bag, she pulled out a small, rectangular box. “I’ll tell them it was necessary to slow the bleeding.”
No.
This wasn’t going to happen again. I wouldn’t allow it. As I writhed in the chair, my muscles began to cramp, but I paid no heed to their protests. I was too busy tracking how she used a syringe to draw clear liquid out of a vial.
The chains pinched my skin as I squirmed, fruitlessly trying to escape the needle.
Not again. Gods, not again.
“Please, calm down.” The girl pushed the plunger, and the liquid misted the air. “It will help you, I promise.”
