Page 270 of Sinister

Does he know? Can he feel my anguish, my pain? Why is he not here?

He’s helping his friend, I tell myself. It’s not his fault that this happened. It’s only my fault for not agreeing to flee with him when he asked.

I gulp down. There is a metallic taste in the back of my throat—blood.

What does that mean? Am I worse than I previously thought?

If I taste blood, it means there is bleeding somewhere inside of me. Fear spears through me. Perhaps if it were just my body, I could at some point heal and mend, though not to who I was before.

But if I’m bleeding on the inside? Doesn’t that mean death is near?

“I don’t want to move her,” my brother comments. “It’s gross.”

“If I tell you to grab her, you will grab her,” my father raises his voice.

A few moments pass as my brother walks in circles around me, trying to find something to grab onto. At first, he pulls on my legs, and a strangled sound erupts from my throat.

It hurts.

It hurts so badly.

He shakes his head. I can’t see his expression, or the state of my lower body, but I hear a string of curses and a few mutters of disgust.

He moves to my arms, then jumps back and curses aloud.

“The bone’s sticking out,” he cries out.

That confirms more of my suspicions. I am in a bad, bad shape.

“Oh, be a man,” my father snickers.

My brother, trembling with revulsion, decides that the best way to grab me is by my hair. He wraps his fist into the back of my head, pulling me toward the door.

My mouth parts, and I let out a few barely audible moans of pain. He turns his back to me as if looking at my face while he’s dragging me by the hair offends him.

There are a few bumps as he drags me out of the house, all of which only amplify my pain. At some point, my mind becomes foggy. The next time I recover consciousness is while I’m strapped onto a horse like a piece of cattle.

The horse starts with a slow walk, though each step sends a fresh new wave of pain through my body. But then it goes into a full gallop, and the pain intensifies to such an extent, I struggle to keep myself awake.

I’m in and out of consciousness, though I force myself to bear it as much as I can, fight against the weakness of my body while I count down the minutes.

Please be fast, Sin. I’m waiting for you.

He’s going to come. I know it. I trust him.

We walk for what seems like forever through the dead silence of the night. Yet at some point, something changes. I hear voices—many of them.

Some are louder than others. Some are shouting. From my position on the horse, I cannot quite see far ahead, but as the noises intensify, I realize we’ve reached an area of town that is very poor.

The horses trot on, slowing down as a crowd of people parts to let them through. I only see some of them. Though it is dark, I recognize faces—people from our congregation, from our church.

But why would they be here at this late hour of the night? Why would they be gathered?

My train of thought is stopped by the sudden halt of the horse. My brother gets off and, not too carefully, pulls me down. I fall to the ground. Pain unlike any I’ve ever known shoots through me, and I teeter on the edge of blacking out.

The crowd cheers.

What is happening?