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He followed Lewy and Freddy back up into the main part of the castle, counting steps, filing away every inch of space they passed in his mind. Planning.
It wasn’t until he got up into the north tower where a bed awaited him and he closed the door that he collapsed onto his knees, grabbed the chamber pot, and spewed all the contents of his stomach up with heaving spasms.
Done, he fell back onto the floor, his back against a wall, his forearms propped on his knees.
And he planned.
{ Chapter 28 }
A scream on her lips tore her into consciousness and Victoria jerked upright, the pain she had when she blacked out still ripping through her.
A hand was instantly at her forehead, pushing her back downward and dizziness instantly sent her head into a spin. She let the hand have its way.
A lap.
She landed in a lap.
A soft lap with a skirt involved.
The scream at her lips edged off and she opened her eyes.
Torrie above her, her face concerned. Torrie’s lap.
The hand at her forehead smoothed back the hair from her brow.
“Sweet Vicky—don’t worry. You’re safe, your leg is fine.” Eva’s voice.
Victoria tilted her head on Torrie’s lap. Eva. Eva above her with blood smeared across her cheeks and lips. Dirty, with one eye that was half swollen shut.
“Eva—your face, my God.” It took a spurt of energy she didn’t think she had in her, but she twisted her body, pushing herself upright so she could see both of her aunts. Eva. Torrie.
She found them.
Her look searched Torrie’s face, then Eva’s. Both had bruises. Face, neck, eyes. Puffy lips with cuts in them. “What have they done to you?”
Eva’s shoulders lifted. “I’m not a very good prisoner. Torrie isn’t either.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Not long, maybe one or two hours,” Torrie said. “It is hard to track time down here.”
Eva stretched herself forward and her hand dragged along the side of Victoria’s face. “I am so sorry you are involved in this, Vicky. My stepfather—he is a madman, but I never imagined he would do…he would do this. So much mercy has been bestowed upon him through the years—from Lach, from Reiner—but now this. The bastard doesn’t know when to stop. Doesn’t know how to stop torturing.”
Victoria’s hand went down onto her left thigh, the dull ache in her flesh pulling her into reality.
Torture.
Rafe did this.
Rafe did this to her. His thumb in her wound. Torturing her. Torturing until she heaved and blacked out.
Bile chased up her throat. The phantom pain from hours ago striking her just as harshly as though the moment were still at hand.
Her fingers tightened around the wound. But now, her leg felt to be bandaged.
She reached down and pulled her skirt up, only to stop when she saw the black iron shacklesclamped around her ankles above her boots which had been unlaced, the leather shoved downward. Tight. There was no slipping out of those.
No getting out of here.
