9 Chapter 9

They recovered the two discarded collars and the key to them after they had secured the runaway slave. Her only victory was that they hadn't caught any of the Boones. Carla had successfully escaped.

And she held onto this singular truth as if it was her only source of vitality, especially with what they did to her next.

Silus had a keen interest in slaves. Siri had told her that. Perhaps she should have taken that to heart.

They dragged her by the hair to a building, not a tent. The nearby weather station. There was no pause between recapture and punishment.

Once inside, they stripped her of her clothes, bound her hands together, and secured them on the wall just above her head, her back to the room.

She heard heavy boots pacing slowly across the metal floor.

She thought they would interrogate her to some degree. But no questions were asked. There was only the cracking of the whip—the Nine Tails.

Crack.

And she felt it tearing at the flesh on her back. She squeezed her eyes shut, tears springing from the corners.

Crack.

She bit her tongue, and blood filled her mouth.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

And she lost consciousness to a dream of broken promises.

Days of this passed.

She learned from the occasional taunting that it was Silus gladly administering this punishment. Still no questions were asked. No one was concerned with the whereabouts of Carla. All for the better, she supposed.

Her back was defaced, her face bruised. She did not have the energy to keep herself upright. She sagged against the wall, dangling just out of reach of reprieve on the floor, the metal wire cutting deep scars around her wrists.

Crack.

She was not raped. Yet. Silus took more pleasure from her torture instead, and she heard his rhythmic grunts with her cries of pain. She felt nothing.

Crack.

Her back burned with seamless open wounds. She felt whenever fresh blood trailed down the back of her legs in blazing, curling paths.

Crack.

And she wished for its end, whatever it took. The Courier Reborn prayed for her own grave.

Crack.

Silence.

In some dead space of time, the door creaked open, light briefly fanned the room from outside before the door was closed once again. She would have braced herself for the onslaught but even the dregs of her energy had disappeared. She had nothing.

But the cracking whip did not return. Instead, something fibrous draped across her back—a blanket—and she winced in pain.

A voice was at her ear, quiet and clear. "What have you gotten yourself into?" Vulpes Inculta.

And then she sobbed, unsure why exactly, turning her face into the crook of her arm, away from him. She did not understand his presence or how it made her feel.

She felt his hand stroke her hair but there was no warmth in his touch. "After much debate with Caesar, he has finally agreed to your release. The only thing that can save you, secure your loyalty, is a marriage. Marry me, and I promise you not another man will so much as touch a hair on your head."

"Except for you," she pointed out miserably from a scratchy throat.

He said nothing, waiting for her response.

And the Courier Reborn, who had wished for her own death, decided that a marriage would be better than these endless nights with Silus and nodded.