MARKS - Chapter 38

Chapter Thirty-Eight

 

I can’t sleep tonight, my body too cold to let go of its shivering long enough. I’m desperate for slip into sleep. Sweet Ward, his physical size and the power of that first hit were a mercy.

Who knew mercy could be a punch to the face that knocks you out?

I rub my jaw, still throbbing with pain. Ward knows I’m here now. I hope he didn’t get punished for rendering me unconscious so soon.

Saints above, how many other girls has Ward been made to hit? I remember what Nolan said, about how being a guard erases some of Ward’s gentleness.

Oh my Ward, come find me.

Minutes pass. Maybe hours, maybe days. My brain can’t hold onto time anymore. A key scrapes against the lock, and I push off my elbows and sit. The Chancellor. I detest titles, so call him Black in my head. He is better as a color. He sets pen and paper before me and stands above my shoulder.

Skies above, I hate him.

I hate all of this.

All of us held hostage by a king with too much power and who cannot be killed. Everyone in this God-forsaken kingdom might as well be in the cell with me. If I write what he wants, he’ll win.

I grip the pen tight and wish it would break; wish I had power beyond my words. I scrawl things on the page, words the King doesn’t want me writing, but no sooner have I finished the seventh word than Black rips it from me.

I can’t sign my name in time, and when I start my sentences with my name I’m rewarded with him dousing me with a bucket of water, leaving me in my shift shivering inside these walls ripe with dark and dampness.

Black returns again. Evil in the Kingdom has probably ceased as he is spending no time doing anything but torturing me. The King is with him, and comes to stand outside my cell. “Write and we will let you go.”

I have enough energy to turn my face and look at him.

“Your words can give you freedom, Gretta.”

What an idiot. No, they won’t. I’m Lyran. I have marks on my body that remind me of my words and what they do. There is no forgetting them.

The King looks to Black, who nods. Then the King strides down the hall, his cape a storm cloud of purple behind him. Black looks to me and grins. Then he disappears up the hall, barking orders.

Two guards stride down the hall, dragging a man between them. His hair is brown with flecks of gold, and for a split second my heart stops beating before I realize it’s not Ward.

The door beside my cell swings open then clanks shut again. Black walks down the hallway and stops outside my cell. He holds a wad of papers in his hand. His eyes rake over my body; not in the way a man looks over a woman, but in the way a man lusts after some power he doesn’t have. I wrap my arms around my knees, keeping my marks to myself.

Black turns down the hallway. “Kent! Get down here.”

The man - Kent I presume - strides toward my cell and lets himself in. Black throws the papers at my feet. A pen lands on the top. “In case you want to use it.”

Use it for what? An eerie silence falls over the dungeon. The game has started. I’m not even aware of all the parts and pieces. Only my opponent. Black pushes off the iron bars of my cell and moves out of sight. A moment later a scream pierces the silence, bouncing off the rock walls. It’s so loud it seems it’s coming from right beside me.

It is. The man next door.

These are not grunts of a man being beaten or the groans of a sick man. These are the sounds of someone being tortured.

No. No, no, no.

Maybe he’s a murderer.

Or simply a rebel daring to write words or live his life in a way that displeases his King.

A rapist.

A thief.

A horrible man being punished for his crimes.

But I know that’s not true. He’s being tortured for me.

Screams reverberate off the stone walls, sending pulses through the rock floors and up my legs and into my heart. They don’t stop, Black evidently giving no pause. No small moment of mercy.

It’s amazing how heavy guilt is; how it’s a wound that doesn’t scab over. Instead it festers and grows deeper and deeper, until there’s no lack of condemnation in me. My very name is guilt, my very life my sentence.

I turn to the guard in my cell. “What are this man’s crimes?”

The guard’s eyes hold something in them. Sadness. Regret maybe? His gaze sweeps from me to the papers littering my cell floor.

A fresh wave of yells blast through the stone walls.

The King’s head looms outside my cell door. “You can make it stop, Gretta. You have the power.”

Power. It’s one of my most hated words. There is no antidote for power. No word to erase it. No words to match it. Only other words that go with it. Responsibility. Burden. Guilt.

Black ambles to my cell. “His name is Norris.”

I glare at him, and he nods to someone down the hall. Norris’ wails hike up a notch. I clap my hands to my ears, but the screams reverberate inside my head. I rock back and forth and hum, but nothing can drown this out.

Think of other things, Gretta. Streams and sunshine. Liddy laughing and Blair’s new baby. Meggie and Sam. And Ward.

Ward.

What if they’ve sent Ward to beat this man? What if he’s causing that pain, closer to the ear splitting screams than I am? I can’t save everyone. Not Liddy. Not Ward. Not my family.

Not myself.

I pick up the pen and swallow down the terrible fear I’ve lived with since birth. My words have power 

over me, and not the other way around.

I scrawl words on the page and sign my name. The screams stop as soon as my pen lifts off the page. No changes on my left arm, but when I look right a black mark appears on my right arm. I saved him.

Saved him.

No death this time.

Horror rushes through me. I only have two more saves. What will I do when I run out?