19. Targeting The Weak

19. Targeting The Weak

Marilynn

The rancid steam of sausageand pus-colored grease coming off the breakfast makes me vomit in front of everyone.

Niles pats my back as I get it all out. Too many people sitting at nearby tables stop their loud conversation, watching me get sick.

“You shouldn’t have hurt yourself last night,” Skylenna comments.

“I know.” Pregnant. Aurick’s baby. Prophecy.

“Was it really that important that the Mazonist Brothers didn’t hear any bits of the prophecy?” she asks.

I wipe my mouth. “You have no idea.”

“How’re you feeling?” Niles asks as he examines my sore forehead. Why does he have to be so nice? So caring?

“Splitting headache. Nausea. Tender breasts.”

He raises his eyebrows. Looks down at my boobs. Back up to my face. “Ah.”

The table laughs. But I can’t shake the prickle of nerves rising on the back of my neck. The feeling of someone watching me. A wave of unease. A stare burning a hole in the back of my head. I turn around to peer over my shoulder, scanning the sea of beat down faces, inspecting whether anyone is setting their focus on me.

We follow the single-file line to the regale hour in the stadium. I follow behind our group at the end, holding my forehead to ease the sickening throb from knocking myself out last night. I can’t even bring myself to laugh as Warrose makes a joke about Niles having baby arms. Or Niles flexing to show the group his muscles.

Everything hurts, and I feel paranoid.

We enter the stadium, but as I step forward to follow my group inside, several pairs of arms wrap around my stomach, chest, throat, and legs. I try to scream, though some kind of cloth is shoved into my mouth. A hand secures itself there to keep me from making any noise.

I know how to fight back. I know how I should manipulate my body to break free. But they have me in a tight grip, too many of them are holding me down. And my head is fucking pounding. I squirm, buck, thrash around, but I’ve gotten nowhere. We’re ushered down a private hallway, into a dark, secluded room.

The five men and two women start yelling at me in Old Alkadonian. I try to tell them I can’t understand but am unable to speak through the ball of cloth.

What if they try to hurt my belly?

Panic triggers my adrenaline. I’m tingling from head to toe. Ready to fight. Waiting to see what they plan on doing with me.

I’m slammed on a table, held down as a skinny blond man holds a tool in front of me, small like a pair of scissors without sharp blades. He waves it around with a taunting smile. Blond beard. Thin, measly limbs. It’s the same man who tried to masturbate to Ruth.

Damn it.

I try to ask what he wants, but it comes out in a muffled slur of vowels.

Without so much as an explanation, my hand is held out toward him, and he hovers the metal tip of the tool toward my index finger.

Wait…

My maneuver to swivel off the table is seamless. Judas always used to describe my stealth and fight as like a feral cat. Hitting the floor, they all reach for me, but my legs hook their ankles. A few drop. Hands latch around my throat. When did my wrists get chained together?

I’m defenseless as my vision fogs up.

With a thud, someone tosses me back on the table. I gasp into the cloth, heaving as I try to gain my bearings. Did I pass out? Ankles are chained to the table now. I sway and shift with the dizziness from being strangled.

“Holonasecoon!!!!” I try to tug my hand away, but they have me pinned to the point of dried cement, chained, and outnumbered.

“Pahhhleeese!” Do I tell them I’m pregnant? Would they care? Could they even understand me if it weren’t for this cloth in my mouth?

The skinny man smiles with his rotting, brown teeth. And with one swift squeeze, he clamps the tool around the tip of my nail. My eyes bulge from their sockets. I gasp as he rips it clean off the meat of my fingertip.

“Ahhhhhggg!!!”

The pain swoops in like an apocalyptic forest fire. Searing through my hand, winding up my arm. I howl against the rag, choke on my own screams as he does it again and again and again. The awful sound of nails peeling off raw, exposed flesh.

Why are they doing this to me? What have I done?

My thoughts rot in my brain, turning into a sour mush. My eyes go blurry and blind through the thick coating of tears. I’m shaking, suffocating, unable to make sense of the beginning or ending of my anguish.

The dark, decaying room spins, and I turn my head to the side. Vomit floods my mouth, being blocked by the gag and a hand. It has nowhere to go, nowhere to exit. I try to swallow it back down, the chunky, sour substance, but it just keeps purging back up. I convulse forward, gargle on it, fight not to breathe it in.

“Vezënzx dou naz éxvz!”

Someone dislodges the cloth from my gaping mouth, allowing me to tip my head to the side and heave.

I wince against the white-hot flames devouring my fingertips, my shaking hands. Bile burns the back of my throat, tears drip endlessly from the corners of my eyes, and I can’t catch my breath.

Did the others not notice my absence? Are they even my friends?

The shrimpy little man holds my fingers up to my face, showcasing their bloody ends where he ripped off my nails. I gag and cry out at the sight.

“Demechnef bïuzetx!”

“You’re making a mistake,” I whisper through unhinged panting, attempting to lick my cracked lips.

“Demechnef bïuzetx!” they chant together.

“My friends have—bad tempers,” I explain, knowing full well they can’t understand me.

I just have to get back to them. I know they don’t see me as one of their own yet. I know I’m new, and they don’t trust me very much. But the truth is…I’ve loved them my whole life. I’ve been distancing myself, trying to protect my own heart.

After I’m struck across the face, blood drizzles from my nose to my lips. They unlatch my chains and flee the room before my vision can clear.

With lethargic, sickly steps, I make my way back to the stadium. I can’t stop the tears from falling, can’t keep my legs and arms from shaking. I’m humiliated. Deeply ashamed. I told them I could protect myself. I told them I was an asset. But I was caught off guard and didn’t react fast enough. Maybe it’s because of a concussion? Maybe it’s because I was afraid they’d kill my child if I fought back?

I step into the circus lighting of the stadium, wobbling forward, one painful step at a time. I can’t seem to focus on anything; my mind pushes me to zone out, escape reality, get lost somewhere deep in the uninhabited passages of my own mind.

Shock.

I’m in shock.

Inmates move out of my way. Tears slip between the crevice of my lips. And my fingers are in agony. It’s as if every nerve ending is screaming, ripping to pieces, buzzing with violent electricity.

I hear my name. One glance up, and they’re running to me. Niles. Ruth. Skylenna. Warrose. And Dessin leading the way.

I bring two fingers to my upper lip, touching the wetness I feel there. Pulling my hand away, I see that I’m still bleeding from my nose. How did this happen? What did I do?

“Her fingers,” Ruth croaks.

“Who fucking did it?” Dessin growls, examining my face with a look of mass murder flaring within his pupils. “Point them out.”

Niles stares at me in shock, blinking repeatedly like he’s trying to clear his thoughts of a traumatizing image.

“You didn’t know I was gone,” I say through a dry mouth. “No one—came looking for me.”

Guilt clouds Skylenna’s forest green eyes. She looks to Dessin with determination and shame.

My eyes are stinging with fresh tears. I never cry. Why can’t I keep this under control? They just keep coming, swelling over my lids, washing down my cheeks. I taste blood, salt, and the remnants of bile.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter bleakly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m—”

Someone grabs the caps of my shoulders. They say something, but I can’t hear past my own apologies. They spill past my lips, unburying themselves from a life with Aurick. A life living under Vlademur Demechnef’s thumb. A life of the lady-doll regimen. A life of starvation and vanity. Bleeding was a reason to apologize. Being an inconvenience was a reason to say you’re sorry.

“She’s in shock,” Dessin states coldly. “We need ice water, bandages, and some kind of ointment.”

“It hurts,” I say absently. But my body is numb. Numb. Numb. Numb.

“Marilynn. I need you to tell me who did this to you.” Niles places his thumb and index finger on my chin. His touch is velvety, cool, soothing. His other hand traces the trail of my tears, wiping them away with the utmost gentleness.

I unlatch my gaze from his and look around the stadium seating. There. The six of them have their views from the sixth row, watching the show with pride.

Dessin follows my sight, glances at Warrose and Skylenna only once. It’s the silent communication between soldiers, the kind of unspoken language right before battle.

“Wait…” But the three of them break out into a confident power walk.

Niles is suddenly behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling me flush to his strong body, and resting his chin on my shoulder.

“Niles,” I say in alarm, watching Dessin, Warrose, and Skylenna race up the stairs of the stadium. The terrorizing group of six anticipating a fight with great pleasure.

“I’m not letting you go until they make them suffer,” Niles replies.

I relax against him, sobbing at how wonderful his embrace feels. His special aroma of oak, sunshine, and soap. He holds me so tightly, matching the pace of his breath with mine. There is nothing in the world like a Niles hug. No prophecy could have ever predicted it.

I didn’t realize until now that Ruth had left, racing around the stadium to find the supplies Dessin requested.

“I’m going to take care of you,” Niles promises.

I close my eyes at his sweet voice, sniffling as I hear chaos break out in the sixth row of seats. I’m still unsure if they see me as one of their own or if they just care about the safety of my baby. Either way, I’m angry, grateful, confused, timid, and terrified of getting close.

My life has been a long road of being alone. Of pretending to be someone I’m not. Of hiding out after I faked my death. I was not hugged often.

Sentinels watch from their posts as Warrose and Dessin drag bodies down from the seats, dropping them at my feet. Groans and wheezing. Blood. Disheveled hair.

“Is this the one that led the attack?” Skylenna asks, showing me the scrawny man’s face and yellow beard.

I nod.

“What would make you feel better, Marilynn? Should I remove his nails, too? Or is that too merciful? Perhaps his teeth. Or maybe leave him to walk around without a scalp.” Dessin is calm, yet something under his surface absolutely terrifies me.

I open my mouth to speak.

“Let me do it,” Niles says sternly, letting me go to stand in Ruth’s care.

“Niles,” Skylenna warns.

But Niles detaches a sharp metal rod from beneath the stage, walking to my attacker with a callous, disconnected look in his eyes. Dessin watches him, lifting his chin as his stare quickly darts from me to Niles. He nods, holding the grunting man down while Niles uses the shiv to saw off the man’s scalp.

Ruth hisses, shielding her eyes from the gory mess.

But I watch. Listen to the guttural screams of a grown (or half-grown) man. I follow the gushing of crimson liquid streaming over the front of his pinched face. Stinging his eyes. Splattering across Niles’s bare chest.

The madness implodes around me. Warrose and Skylenna harm the others. Making a point to avenge the way I was harmed. Ripping off their nails, bashing their heads to the floor. And Dessin watches Niles as he rips off the last piece of the scrawny man’s scalp. Something of concealed admiration glinting in his close-set brown eyes.

“You’ll die of hepatitis from this rusted metal before you can ever lay a hand on a member of my family again. I hope you suffer,” Niles grits, spitting in the man’s face before rising to his full height.

Dessin drops the man to the floor, narrowing his eyes on Niles.

“Niles,” Dessin says in a husky voice.

Niles wipes the blood from his face with a quivering hand, sliding his weary stare toward Dessin.

“You’ve met your monster.” Dessin puts a hand on his shoulder. “And that monster protected your family. Do not reprimand it for that.”

It’s as if he could see the war flashing through Niles’s mind. The self-deprecating thoughts for maiming another man.

Niles gives him a tight nod and turns to me. “We need to get her cleaned up.”

Ruth is already dipping my fingers in bowls of ice water, assembling bandages on the stage beside me.

“It’ll take about ten days for the nail beds to heal. And four to six months before the nails grow back,” Dessin tells me, to which I shrug against the well of pain. My fingers might as well have been cut off.

My muscles shiver uncontrollably. Each bone aches like it’s being pounded by sledgehammers, every nerve pulses painfully, and I can’t seem to get warm.

“She’s in shock,” Warrose says, pulling my hair out of my face.

“That’s probably a good thing. Ripping nails out is a form of torture for a reason,” Dessin replies.

Skylenna is suddenly at my feet, kneeling in front of me. “I’m so sorry we didn’t realize you were gone. I’m sorry we didn’t come for you.” She holds my hands in hers and squeezes. “You are family, Marilynn. One of us. We won’t leave you behind again.”

My heart swells in my chest. Family. One of us.

“Promise?”

Niles kisses me on the head.

“We promise.”