9
Hands scrub at my skin, not in anyway gentle or soft,the bruises and cuts ache and sting with each pass of the sponge but I’ve become numb now. I don’t feel the burning sensation of my skin ripping or the tenderness across the bruises.
My mind is gloriously blank.
The screams of the girls all around me does nothing to me anymore. Valentine’s threats roll off my skin like water lapping at the shore.
His words don’t bite, his threats don’t elicit fear.
I’m simply nothing.
Dead but still breathing.
The same hands washing me grab at the dirty gown covering my too thin frame and rip it off, leaving me naked on the bed. I should be worried these men will do something to me, harm me in the same way, abuse the situation but they don’t, instead they continue to wash my skin, removing the dried blood and dirt caked on me like paint. My eyes drop to the large V carved into my thigh.
This way you’ll never forget who owns you. Not Alexander Silver. Not his men. Me.
He branded me.
Permanently marking me with his initial. My initial.
But it wasn’t the brutality of the act that finally broke my mind.
No, I kicked and I screamed and I slashed at him whilst he sliced the blunt edge of the knife through my skin. I even managed to get myself some slight satisfaction as my nails left angry welts in the top of his hand.
What finally broke me was what happened after.
The memories, the only memory that occupies my mind now, begins to play. Like a fucked up film playing on repeat, the stop button broken and the movie on a loop.
I felt the blood rolling down my thigh, dripping onto the floor beneath where I was restrained to a chair. I thought it funny how every interaction with the man I was always restrained. He worried what I might do.
Smart man, I had pictured a thousand ways to kill him with my bare hands. I’ve imagined ripping his eyes out with my fingers and strangling him with my hands, I’ve pictured how his eyes would beg for mercy and how he would fight but ultimately lose.
All the lessons I was forced into had taught me several ways to kill a man with only my hands. I could even make it look like an accident if I wanted.
The pain of the knife in my flesh was like nothing I’d ever felt. The bullet in my abdomen was nothing compared to the prolonged torture of a blunt edge ripping through your skin, but I kept the pain out of my voice as I told him all the ways I wanted to hurt him.
When he was done and I was marked with the V, he looked at me like I was merely a possession, a pretty little doll on his shelf, not like I was his daughter, his flesh and blood.
“All the girls are branded,” he explained, “but only my daughter gets a special kind of mark.”
“Fuck you.” I spat.
“So disobedient,” he tutted, “So mouthy. Don’t you know women are to be seen and not heard? It is the only thing you’re good for.”
“You’re disgusting. I can’t wait to watch you bleed.”
He just grinned maliciously as he jerked his fingers over his shoulders, notifying the man standing behind him to do whatever it is he asked for earlier.
“Perhaps a little motivation, hm?” He cooed, “a little persuasion. My plans are far too precious to be ruined by a bitch of a woman who can’t learn to keep her trap shut so maybe this will help you learn your place.”
I swallowed, knowing I wasn’t going to like what I saw.
Even preparing myself for it wouldn’t have ever set me up for what happened next.
The man behind him disappeared for a few minutes, but when he returned, he wasn’t alone. He dragged a small woman in with him, dressed in a blue summer dress, she sagged in his grip, her straight blonde hair hanging around her face like a limp curtain, areas matted and bloody. Bruises mark her skin, cuts and grazes down her arms, her legs. Her feet are cut up, nails on her hands torn and bleeding. Marcus continued to grin as he took measured steps back.
“I believe you two have met,” he told me, reaching beneath the mane of disheveled tresses to grip the girls chin. My heart pounded inside my chest and dread settled deep into my stomach as he jerked her face up for me to see.