I sit with my feet up on the cot, arms around my knees and my head resting against the cold stone. I don’t know how many days it’s been since I stood before The Tribunal and heard what I’d been accused of. Four or five? A week? Two? It’s impossible to tell with that small window as my only source of light and the trees too dense for sunlight to filter through properly.
They think I tried to kill him.
They think I smeared poison on my lips and kissed him in order to kill him.
And I’m still in a little bit of shock.
I asked how I could have done that without succumbing myself, but they dismissed that with talk of an antidote. I don’t even know the poison they named. I don’t know what it is. Where I would get it. How I would use it.
But they’d have none of it, then absurdly claimed it was a fact-finding mission. A preliminary and not a proper trial.
I guess I still have that to look forward to.
But I don’t think they were after facts. For someone to be poisoned, they need a poisoner, and I fit the bill. Multiple witnesses, including Mercedes, saw me kiss my husband. And besides, there was other irrefutable evidence even if witness accounts were wrong.
They lied, those “witnesses.” I never kissed him. Not that night.
Not that he’d let me on any night even if I wanted to. Santiago has kissed me twice, maybe three times, but never has it been me kissing him. He must allow it. Don’t they know that?
I wipe my eyes with my sleeve. At least my captor hasn’t bound me since I’ve been back. I’m still barefoot, still wearing that white dress although it’s not white anymore. Nothing can stay clean in this place.
Someone tried to kill Santiago. The thought boggles my mind.
And the fact that they think that someone is me? I can’t wrap my brain around it.
But then I get to the next part. The more important part.
He’s alive.
There’s a part of me that feels relief. And, if I’m honest with myself, something else. Something like a spark of hope. And a small bubble of something I don’t want to name that quickens every time the door opens.
I shake my head.
God, what is wrong with me?
When it comes to Santiago and my situation, there is no hope, no spark of some other nameless, ridiculous thing. I can be relieved that he’s alive. But I can only be relieved that he’s alive. That’s just being human. Even if I hate him, it doesn’t mean I want him dead. And the hope I feel is only for my freedom. Hope that when the door opens, it will be him. My husband will come for me.
The devil you know. That's all this is. It’s not that I have feelings for him.
And besides, what would they do to me if he hadn’t survived? If he’d died? The Society and their precious Sovereign Sons. I don’t delude myself into thinking I could ever be precious to anyone but this? Accusing me of attempting to murder my own husband no matter how much I hate him? It’s insane. Unbelievable.
But he’s alive.
And my mind begins its incessant circling again.
I pull at my hair to distract myself. If I could just see him. Talk to him. Explain that I was in the chapel, and when the second gong rang out, I had been hiding in one of the bathrooms. Explain that I couldn’t get out.
Coincidental. Convenient. I can hear him now.
He hates me. He already believes the worst when it comes to me, and this will not alter his feelings. Not in a way that would benefit me.
I tried to explain it to the man who is holding me. I tried to tell him what happened, but he wouldn’t have it either. He threatened to gag me if I wouldn’t keep quiet on the drive back to this horrible place, and when he’s come in to feed me and empty the bucket, he has refused to speak to me.
But Santiago is alive. He’ll come for me. I have to believe that.
I stop, though, because another thought interrupts that never-ending cycle.
What if I’m wrong? What if he doesn’t come? What if he leaves me here to rot until I’m expected to appear before The Tribunal again? What if he’s alive but not himself? Hurt. And what if he’s alive but doesn’t want me back?
At that, I let out a strange, snort-laugh. It’s ugly.
Yes. He’ll want me back. He’ll want to be the one to punish me.
I close my eyes, confused by all this, my own thoughts, my feelings, this isolation, this darkness. I tug the blanket closer, rubbing warmth into my freezing feet. It’s so cold here. My captor must realize it too because he gave me a second blanket. Same as the first one. Rough and terrible but at least it’s something.
Does he think I’m guilty of what they’re accusing me of?
I drift off, snatching sleep when it comes before the cold, and my dreams wake me. Tonight, though, when I startle awake, it’s not either of those things that rouse me. It’s the key in the lock.
I blink my eyes open, my brain in a fog from the lack of sleep, lack of sunlight, and no exercise. Lack of nutrition. A half bowl of cold soup, a wedge of stale bread, and an apple a day are not enough to sustain me.
Whoever it is is carrying a lantern and there it is. That spark of hope inside me. I sit up, but the moment I recognize the cloak, the hood, the spark is extinguished.
He walks in without a word to me. That’s not unusual, though.
I fumble for my blindfold. I forgot to pull it down, but I do now. I wonder if I should ask for a new strip of cloth. This one is disgusting.
“Stand up,” he says.
“What?”
“Up. On your feet.”
This is different. I release the blanket, shuddering as I stand. I’m not sure I’ll ever get warm again.
“Arms.”
“Why? I haven’t done anything.”
“Arms.”
I extend my arms out to him and feel the familiar rope wrap around the healing, scabbed skin. I feel the warmth of tears slide down my face again.
“Are you taking me back? To The Tribunal?”
He doesn’t reply. Weaving the rope around and between my wrists, he pulls me to the center of the room, where I know the ring he has hooked me to on the ceiling is. He turns me to face away from him, my back to the door.
“No, please. It’s too high. It hurts…”
But my arms are stretched above me, and I’m bound in place before I even finish, and then he’s leaving. Gone. I hear him go. Hear the door close. Hear the lock turn. And then the crunching of dead leaves and branches as he passes by my small window.
What does he mean to do? He can’t leave me hanging like this all night, surely. All day.
I rub the side of my face against my arm and manage to push the blindfold up enough to open my eyes. I turn to look behind me, all around me. Can I at least reach the bucket? Turn it upside down and stand on it to alleviate the pain in my shoulders? I try to extend my leg, but it’s too far. I’m stuck with only the tips of my toes on the floor. I shiver as a cool wind blows outside, and the rain starts to fall, the sound pretty, musical almost on the lush floor beyond my cell. It would be pretty if I were anywhere else. Even in my room which felt like a cell at The Manor. What I’d give to be back there now.
I drift in and out of sleep, jolted awake when my head lolls to my arm then drops. My shoulders ache. My stomach is rumbling. I’m hungry and thirsty. I’m exhausted. So exhausted I can’t think straight.
Rain now pours outside, sliding along the wall beneath the window over the trail of moss and growth on the path it must normally take. I sneeze. I’m freezing. How long has it been? How long has he left me hanging here? And how much longer does he plan to keep me like this?
Something crunches outside. A branch breaks. I hear it even through the rain. Then a moment later comes the familiar sound of the key in the lock.
I turn to look over my shoulder to watch for him, wondering what the point was to stringing me up. The door opens, creaking heavily on its rusted hinges. He’s back, and I’m relieved.
“Thank God,” I mutter. My shoulders ache, and my toes have gone numb.
No lantern this time. Only blackness around him.
I rub my face on my arm but fail to get the blindfold down, so I keep my face averted, my back to the door. To him. I don’t want to anger him. But I listen for him. His steps are always so quiet that only the crunching bones give him away.
I swallow as he nears me, my heartbeat accelerating even more than usual. He lifts my hair and sets it over one shoulder. He’s closer than expected, and I stiffen, feeling the leather of his gloved fingers running down my arm. The warmth of his breath at my neck makes me shudder.
“I…What are…?” I start, but something tickles the back of my neck, scratches the mark there. It makes my breath catch.
I swallow, my throat dry, a croaking sound coming when I try to speak and tell him to stop.
His hand slides down my side and over my thigh.
“What are you doing?” I ask, voice small as I look down at his big hand, the black glove working, fisting the fabric of the dress. “What are you doing?” I ask again, this time more forcefully. He hasn’t touched me more than he’s needed to since I’ve been here. What’s changed?
But it was only a matter of time, wasn’t it?
I just keep watching as my legs are exposed, my thighs, and I tug against the rope needing my arms to fight him when the fingers of that gloved hand brush against my clit.
“Oh god. Please don’t. Please.”
“No?”
I freeze. Even my tears seem to come to a halt.
He draws his arm around my middle and tugs me backward into his body with a jerk. He’s hard and warm and familiar, and my heart beats wildly as a thousand butterflies take wing inside my stomach.
I turn my head just a little, but he clucks his tongue, and I stop. I lick my lips.
“Santiago?”
Something cold and heavy drops over my head then, and I gasp, looking down at the rosary, the cross dangling between my breasts and over his arm, my feet off the floor as he takes my weight.
“Who else?”
I laugh. Almost. I mean, it’s the closest thing to a laugh. It sounds insane, and I feel fresh tears of relief. He’s come for me. He’s alive, and he’s come for me!
“Santiago! I was so scared.” I’m sobbing, trying to turn to him, but his arm is too tight, hurting me. I hear the tearing of fabric and feel the tugging of the dress at my neck before his other hand closes over my buttock and squeezes so hard that I cry out.
He rubs his chin against my face, his rough with scruff, mine unwashed and dirty and tearstained.
“Were you?” he asks.
I nod, my eyes wide in the darkness because this is not going as I expect. He’s not taking me down. He’s not wrapping me in his arms like he has before.
Of course he’s not.
He thinks I poisoned him. He thinks I tried to kill him.
“I didn’t—”
He lifts me a little higher, arm crushing my ribs which still feel bruised from when the other man took me. With his other hand on my butt, he pulls me open. And then I feel him, his hardness, and some part of me, some sick part of me wants this. Wants him.
He brushes his cheek against my cheek, and I can just see the shadow of his face, his dark eyes black in this night. He drags his lips along my cheekbone, then closer to my ear, not quite kissing me. This is something else.
“You didn’t what?” he asks.
I swallow because what I hear in his voice is not any different than the contempt I heard in the other man’s voice. In the voices of The Councilors when they spoke, condemning me before my trial even began.
Contempt.
Hate.
The only one at The Tribunal who seemed conflicted was Mercedes. It surprised me. Although conflict wasn’t what The Councilors heard. They heard fact. And maybe I’m grasping at straws because Mercedes has no love for me.
“What’s the matter, sweet, Poison Ivy?” he asks, then bends his head to lick my neck, to close his lips over my beating pulse and suck, his mouth wet and hot and his cock when he thrusts inside me unforgiving.
I gasp, the breath forced out of me.
“Tell me,” he says low and quiet, but not quite a whisper.
“I didn’t…” I grunt with his next thrust. He’s released my bottom and has got my jaw in his hand now, fingers digging into soft flesh.
“Tell. Me.” It’s a command. Voice loud. Firm. Angry.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” I say it wrong. It comes out all wrong. It’s not what I meant. I meant…but it doesn’t matter. Santiago laughs. He just laughs this dark, ugly laugh and shifts his grip to my hips and draws back, lifting me, bending me to fuck me. To hurt me.
And he does.
This is a punishment fuck. The first of many punishments. I know it. I feel it. And as my legs quake and my insides go raw, I realize how stupid I’ve been. How naïve I’d been thinking he’d come for me, come to rescue me.
When did I forget that he was the devil?
And what will he do to me now that he thinks I tried to kill him?
His thrusts come harder, his fingers agony on the flesh of my hips, my shoulders aching with his tugs, wrists raw and bleeding.
I don’t come, but that’s the point. He takes me. Takes his pleasure from me. Lays claim to me. And even as he comes, I feel his rage. I feel his hate.
And I know that now, not like before, I am finished. I know that how it was before will be a thousand times preferable to what I have coming. To what he’ll do to me now.
He pulls me close with his final thrust, and I feel him throb and shudder, releasing inside me. I hear his breath, his groan, and I think about what it is between us. What it is that binds us.
Because we are bound.
And he will keep his promise. He will kill me. But not before I am begging for it, begging for mercy in death.
One gloved hand comes to my face, and I wonder if he can feel the tears he’s smearing away. I think he can. And I know how much he likes my tears.
“No, sweet, Poison Ivy. You didn’t hurt me,” he says, voice dark and low. “But I will surely hurt you.”