Jolting awake at more noises, I hear what sounds like boots stomping down the tunnel. I see the dim glow before any people make their way into the cave with me. The first person is backlit by a torch. His presence is intimidating. He wears an incredibly cliché pirate hat with a giant feather sticking out.
They enter the cavern, and he is illuminated. Though his arms are crossed when he enters, I see his hook hand gleam in the torchlight.
I suppress a laugh at how amusing his presence is. My bottom lip smarts as my teeth dig into it, doing my best to keep my laughter inside.
“Something amusing to you?” he asks. With every fiber of my being, I manage to keep my mouth shut. I do not want to give these men anything else to use against the king.
“It seems we have a bit of a problem. You see, your king has taken something that does not belong to him.” While he talks, he walks around me, eyes wandering over my body. I shudder.
“Really? What’s that?” I ask, wondering why the king would take something that isn’t his. He never struck me as a thief.
“You.” He now stands directly in front of me. Reaching out with his filthy hand, he grasps my chin. I try to jerk it away, but the chains keep me from being able to move much.
“And why would you think I belong to you?”
“You see, we have a little, silent treaty of sorts…” He trails off in thought. “Every time a new prisoner comes here, we have always divided the captives evenly. But, you were to be our captive. It was our turn, and I heard through the… grapevine that there was a new person here. And to my surprise, I found out the rumors were true when you were spotted wandering among the villagers.”
“There seems to be a teeny tiny problem with your ‘silent treaty.’”
“Oh, really? And what’s that?” He leans in to me, his warm, disgusting breath wafting over my face, and unfortunately up my nose. I suppress a gag.
Even though I know I’ll regret this later, I use all of my strength and bring my knee up into his groin. The satisfying “oof” afterward makes it worth the backhand that jerks my head to the side, spit flying out of my mouth with the movement.
When he recovers himself, he spits in my face. He pulls the same arm back and lands the first shot to my body, and all the air whooshes out of my lungs. I gasp for breath as he lands a couple more shots to the rest of my body, thankfully not using his hook hand. Then he stomps back out of the cavern, his lackey following behind him, taking away the source of light again.
Tasting blood as it pools in my mouth, I spit to rid myself of the taste. Now I need to figure out how to get myself out of the chains. Unfortunately, with both hands tied so far above my head, I can barely stand flat-footed without the manacles digging into my wrists. I hiss at the pain as I try to tug them and see how tight they are.
I’m unaware of how much time passes while I drift in and out of consciousness. My head jerks back as someone grips my hair and yanks my head back, making my face accessible for more vile words.
Several more men come and go while I hang from the chains, laughing at the tears that won’t stop. They all take their turn, landing punches over and over in my ribs, more to my face. I’m almost certain my ribs are broken. I pray to any god who’s listening that they’re not.
No matter how much I wish I could wrap my arms around myself to make the pain go away, I am instead forced to stretch painfully. Each breath brings pain. Despite this, I go several more rounds with the many people who come in. They try to get information from me, employing various torture techniques I’ve only seen in movies, thankfully stopping short of slicing into my skin. It seems they don’t want to mark my skin, damaging the “king’s whore.”
Every breath I take hurts. I’m sure now they’ve broken several of my ribs. I do my best to take shallow breaths. My shoulders are killing me from being tied above my head for so long. And my wrists have started to chafe and bleed from the cuffs. I lost feeling in my feet some time ago, hours, days, weeks? Time has lost all meaning to me.
I open my eyes at the sound of a new person entering the room, and I blink my swollen eyes open the best I can to see who approaches. “Oh, dear, look at what a mess you are. Here, let me help you,” he taunts. He sounds young.
He brings a chair from one of the walls to touch the backs of my legs and moves to the chain holding my arms above my head. Slowly, he lowers my arms just enough for me to sit in the chair. I fall into it gratefully, tears flowing down my cheeks at the immediate relief in my legs. Gently, I flex and point my toes to help get some feeling back into the limbs.
He pulls up a second chair and sits across from me. “I’m truly sorry for the way my people have treated you. I assure you, I was unaware of the depth of their depravity, my dear.” I’m now finally able to get a good look at him. While his body is the size of a man, his facial features are more childish, but the venom in his tone leaves no doubt in my mind he is a fully mature asshole of an adult.
I keep my mouth shut. If his men are the ones who have been repeatedly abusing me, I don’t trust a word that comes out of his lying little mouth.
He gestures for me to give him my hands. Stubbornly, I tuck them up against myself as best I can. “You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you?” He snickers at the dirty look I throw his way. “Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Peter.” He holds his hand out to me as if he wants to be fucking friends or some shit.
At my refusal to acquiesce to him, he leans forward and yanks my hands toward him. “Really, what could your king have expected? You belong to me.”
“I belong to no one,” I growl. His eyes shine with mirth, like he thinks this is all some kind of joke.
“I assure you, my dear, you will tell me what I want to know, or you will not like the consequences.” He actually kisses the back of my hand and I spit on whatever part of him I’m able to hit.
He abruptly stands and throws his chair across the room. “You really shouldn’t have done that!” he roars, moving swiftly back to the wall pulling the chain fast. I am forced back into a standing position, my chair flying backward. I cry out from the pain in my sides. He continues to pull on the chain until this time I am standing on my tiptoes. My shoulders feel the pressure of the new position and I hiss in a breath as pain shoots throughout my bruised torso.
He leaves me alone and I lose track of time again. My mind can’t focus on anything other than the unbearable pain throughout my bruised body. I can’t keep the sobs from escaping. I feel a warm liquid trickle down and know the new position has torn open the flesh of my wrists. The blood runs down both arms in a steady trickle, and briefly I wonder how long my body can take it.
My calves begin to cramp, forced to hold most of my weight on my toes.
First, I pray for rescue.
As the time continues to drag by, I promise anything I can think of to whatever god will listen if only someone will save me.
Next, I pray for relief.
If I could only have a little bit of relief from the pain, I could make it longer. I could handle it if it just hurt a little less.
More and more time passes and I don’t hear a single sound other than my own labored breathing.
Finally, I pray for death. A swift, sweet, painless death.
* * *
I jolt awake sometime later when I hear footsteps coming down the hallway. I cringe, wondering who’s here to abuse me this time. My sides ache from the rounds I took with the fucking pirate and the other men. My eyes are nearly swollen shut. I’m not sure how much more I can take.
When they round the corner, I recognize the voices of James and Steve. I let out a sob of relief and try to stand up as straight as I can to relieve the pressure on my wrists. Tears roll down my face when the next person around the corner is him. In my current position, I can’t even cover my mouth to hide the sob that escapes my mouth.
He comes to me and lifts my body in his arms. With my hands still secured above my head, I do my best to hide my face in his shoulder. “Get her down,” he demands and Steve moves to the wall where they’ve secured the chain, releasing it from its place. My arms slowly lower and James produces some weird twisted piece of metal, using it to pick the lock on my cuffs.
As soon as my hands are free, I try to wiggle down from the beast’s arms. Instead of letting me go, his arms tighten around me. “You’re not going anywhere, Callie,” he whispers in my ear. “They will suffer for what they’ve done to you.”
Steve and James exit first, the beast following closely behind with me in his arms. They methodically check each branch of the tunnels we pass on our way out, looking for any other people down here. “How did you find me?”
“Shhh, we’ll answer all of your questions when we’re out of danger,” he breathes into my ear. The words are barely audible over the nearly silent footsteps of our small group.
* * *
We finally exit the tunnel, and are surrounded by trees. I don’t recognize the area we’re in. “Are you okay to walk on your own?” he asks.
“I don’t know…” I respond slowly. “How long have I been gone?”
“Too damn long.” The beast carefully lowers me to my feet, wrapping his arms around me in a hug. I yelp out in pain and he immediately stands back, inspecting my body. “Show me where it hurts,” he demands.
“Everywhere,” I sob.
He whisks me back up into his arms and motions with his chin for James and Steve to continue to lead the way. They both hold a blade in either hand, and for one ridiculous second, I wonder where my bow is so I can help them scout the area.
All three heads swivel back and forth as they continue to move through the forest. Finally, the quiet and the rocking motion of being in the beast’s arms lulls my exhausted body to sleep.
When next I wake, we’re in some kind of tent. They’ve wrapped my wrists in bandages and through the slits I can see that someone tried to clean the blood off my arms.
I can hear hushed voices nearby, the growls of the beast, and what sounds like a woman’s voice. “She’s awake,” she says, and I hear them move closer to me. “How are you feeling, dear?”
Coming into focus, I see she’s elderly, wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth. Her eyes are kind and she reaches out to hold my hand in hers.
“Water,” I croak out. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the beast move to grab a cup from a nearby table. He brings it to me and they help me lean up to drink some of the cool liquid. I wince at the pain in my ribs.
When I’ve had my fill, they lower me back down onto the mattress. “Now, dear, tell me how you’re feeling.”
“As long as I don’t move, it’s not too bad.” Next to me, the beast makes some kind of indistinguishable grunting, laughing noise.
“You’ve had quite the ordeal, dear. I’ve treated your wounds and bandaged them as best I can. Unfortunately, the rest of the healing will take time.” She moves to the table where there are some jars lined up. “I’ve instructed the king on how to apply the different salves and how to wrap your wounds, should you be unable to handle it yourself. I’ll be nearby if you need anything else.”
“My ribs, are they broken?”
“Oh no, dear, I assure you they’re pretty bruised but, you’ll recover.” She nods to us and then leaves through the opening in the tent flaps.
“How are you really feeling?” he asks.
“Like I’ve been repeatedly beaten and hung from my wrists for days.”
He grimaces at my honesty. “If only I could have found you faster, sooner, protected you better…” His voice fades out as he talks. I gently wrap my hand around his wrist and he looks down at my hand before looking into my eyes.
“Did you do everything you could? Did you know where they had taken me?”
“Well, no.”
“Then stop beating yourself up over it. You saved me when you could.”
“But maybe if I had seen you go missing, I could have gotten to you sooner. I could have followed th—”
“And probably gotten yourself captured in the process,” I cut him off.
He moves to me and brushes hair out of my face, his warm fingers lingering as he follows the various bruises down my body.
“How long until the ribs heal?” I ask, grimacing when I try to turn over to face him. His long brown hair looks like he’s been running his hands through it over and over.
“Several weeks.”
“When do we need to move?” I’m not even sure which side of the line we’re on now.
“We have to move tomorrow.” He stands and moves to the table, grabbing a spoon and two of the bottles. When he reaches my side, he says, “I think it would be a good idea for you to take these.”
“What are they?”
“This one is a kind of tonic to help you sleep. The more you sleep, the better for your wounds to heal.” I nod and he carefully pours some tonic into the spoon, bringing it to my mouth slowly to avoid spilling it. It tastes like some kind of berry and I lick a stray drop off my lips. When I look up, the beast’s multi-colored eyes are glued to the spot my tongue touched. “And this one is the same healing tonic they gave me. Normally, I wouldn’t recommend this one. All magic comes at a price that will have to be paid back, eventually. But since we don’t know what awaits us in the morning, I think it wise to take it now and we can both deal with the consequences later.” He uncorks and hands me the second bottle, which I drink and hand back to him.
“Thank you.”
“It won’t take away all of your pain, but it will drastically reduce it, for a time.”
It doesn’t take long for the tonic to kick in and I start to drift off. A big yawn escapes and I reach up to cover my mouth. I take a second to inspect the bandages on my wrists again. When I’ve settled them carefully back across my stomach, my eyes close involuntarily and I fall asleep.
Briefly, I stir when I feel the bed dip behind me. Warm arms draw me in, and I let out a sigh of contentment, relaxing into his arms and falling into a deep sleep.