The Brutal Punishment
BRIANNA’S POV (CONT’D FROM PREVIOUS CHAPTER)
When I woke up, I found my naked form tied to the bed. Hermes was standing beside the bed, gripping a small leather whip that looked like the one that had landed me in the castle hospital before. Only this one was smaller. His face was filled with rage, intense enough to melt a metal.
“I thought I made it very clear to you that you’re mine until I decide otherwise,” he caressed the strands of the whip, his killer gaze still intent on me, melting me to ashes. “You tried to escape once and I made sure you regretted it. And now, not only did you try to escape again, you also killed one of my guards.”
“Please, Hermes,” I choked back a cry, terrified and on edge. This was my worst nightmare. I know what he intended to do to me with that ferocious whip. And I was certain it wouldn’t end well. “Don’t… please, don’t do—”
“Don’t do what?” He flared up like fire ignited from nowhere, thrusting forward as I flinched in shock. “There is no escaping this! There is no escaping us!! Until I fucking say so!!”
Suddenly, his voice softened as quickly as it had flared up. But with a sinister motive. “I warned you, Brianna. But you always turn out as stubborn as a mule. You’ve sinned against me again. All sins must be punished. And now, I’ll punish you most painfully and dreadfully,” he struck me forcefully on my puffs with the leather whip, and I couldn’t help but let out a pained moan. My skin there turned red and started to swell, showing the shape of the whip’s impact.
I tried to struggle. But my attempts proved futile. My wrists were tightly bound to the bedposts with very thick ropes that scraped the skin of my wrists and ankles with each struggle I made. My legs were tied down too, pulled apart forcefully in a way that would make it easy for him to slide in if he wanted to defile me. Which was I sure he would.Owned by NôvelDrama.Org.
As if that wasn’t enough, he trailed the whip down to my lower and lashed me there. The pain was intense and hurt so badly that I squirmed and screamed, the thick ropes I was tied in scraping against my flesh the more.
On seeing my reaction, a satanic smile stretched across his face. He lashed me down again with a more brutalizing force, forcing out another pained moan louder than the previous from me. “This is just the start. A warm-up. There’s more in store. You’ll wish you never tried to escape from me. Guards!!” He yelled with a voice so deep it shook the room as he walked to a table at the corner of the room and to my greatest surprise, grabbed a scalpel. That was my scalpel. The one I had forgotten to take out of the guard’s shoulder. “Bring in the doctor!!”
The door flung open. And the shock of seeing the guards drag in the doctor hit me with full force. I had to blink more than usual to make sure it was really him. And indeed, it was him.
He was sweating a lot. His skin, once smooth was now red, parched and needed hydration desperately. A gag was put over his mouth to keep him quiet. When he saw me, he shook his head slowly and lowered it to his chest. But Hermes clutched his chin and forced him to meet his gaze.
“I’ll ask you one last time. How-the-fucking-hell-did-she-get-this?” Hermes glared at him with burning, reproachful eyes as he raised the scalpel to his face and pulled down the gag on his mouth.
“Please believe me, Alpha Hermes,” he begged, his voice thick with fear. “I don’t know. Maybe she stole it.”
“I gave you strict orders to make sure you take out all the sharp medical tools when you’re done using them,” Hermes fumed impatiently, not convinced with the doctor’s answer to his question. “Did I or didn’t I?”
The doctor didn’t respond. Instead, he swallowed hard, his breathing so heavy and loud I could hear it from where I lay.
“Did I or didn’t I?” Hermes vented, gripping his steel-grey hair that extended to the base of his neck and pulling so hard that his face tilted upward.
“Yes…yes,” he whimpered. “Yes… You did.”
“Then why did you defy my orders?” He asked, still gripping his hair.
“I didn’t…. I swear I took them all out.”
In a swift move, Hermes left his hair. The intensity of his anger was growing with each passing moment. He will hurt the doctor if he doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear. And I didn’t want that. The last thing I wanted was for someone to suffer and pay the price of my failure. To this day, I still haven’t seen Lily after the guards took her away from that basement. I didn’t know what Hermes did to her. Whether she was alive or dead. And there was no one I could ask to confirm.
The doctor was lying to save himself. I knew he had intentionally left that scalpel for me. In all my time staying at the hospital, he had never forgotten to take out a tool after he was done using it to treat my injuries. I had to intervene so that the same thing that happened to Lily wouldn’t happen to him.
“Yes…Yes,” I strained to speak clearly. “I took it without him knowing…He wasn’t involved… He had no part in this—”
“Just shut the fuck up, Brianna!!” Hermes lashed at me, cutting my words short as they stuck up in my throat. “What do you take me for? A little kid? Uhhh? I know he intentionally gave you this weapon to kill me with it.”
He angrily grabbed a small napkin from the dresser drawer and shoved it forcefully into my mouth, silencing me.
“You killed one of my guards,” he held my neck, forcing my head up from the bed. My air supply was cut off. I couldn’t breathe. And the napkin stuffed in my mouth was making it harder. “Now I’m going to do the same to him. And you’re going watch me do it,” he brought the scalpel very close to my face.
“No…” I attempted to utter. But couldn’t. My heartbeat was slowing gradually. My eyes were about to close when he let off my neck and stamped my head back on the bed.
The doctor on hearing what Hermes said about killing him tried to wriggle free. But his efforts were nothing compared to the unity of the guard’s stronghold. One of them pulled the gag back up to his mouth to shut him up.
“You had one simple job,” Hermes stalked towards him like a predator. “All you were brought here to do was just treat and administer the fucking pills to the girls. Yet you messed up. And tried to have me killed.”
The doctor was mumbling beneath the gag, veins bulging from his forehead and neck. I watched in horror as Hermes drove the scalpel multiple times into the side of his neck, without hesitation.
“Make sure you’re watching this princess,” he said as he did. Crimson blood splashed as though released from a sprinkler, colouring their faces.
Hot tears burned my eyes and steamed my vision. I shut my eyes so tightly they ached. I didn’t want to witness this gory scene. This cold-blooded murder. The next thing I heard was a thud on the floor like something falling. It was the doctor. Hermes had killed him. He was dead. Dead because of me!