Episode 46 :"Bruised and Bounds"
1690 Words
(Neha's POV)
It had been two days since the night I fainted. My body hadn’t stopped aching since.
The mansion never slept, and neither did I. Veer made sure of it.
My days began before sunrise. I was assigned every imaginable task—cooking every meal from scratch, scrubbing the marble floors of the endless halls until my fingertips cracked, washing piles of clothes with my raw hands, cleaning dishes until my reflection in them was clearer than the mirrors I hadn’t looked into for days. At night, my tasks didn't end. He summoned me to his room with the same cold command every time.
“Come.”
I'd press his clothes, wipe down his body after his showers, dress him like I was his servant—his personal slave. His touch was calculated, his gaze cold. There were no more moments of rage like before. This was worse. This was premeditated cruelty. This was Veer making sure I understood that he owned me.
I got food, just enough not to collapse again. One dry roti. A spoonful of daal. Just enough to breathe. Enough to survive.
The other maids looked at me like I was filth, a stain they couldn’t wait to wipe away. They mocked me in hushed voices, scoffed when I passed, slammed doors in my face. Except Mary. Her kindness was a fragile thread keeping my spirit from shattering entirely. She would sneak me an extra bite of food, give me a damp cloth to soothe my sore hands, or just hold my hand when I felt too hollow to speak. She didn’t say much. But her silence meant she still saw me as human.
I hadn’t seen Ruhani since that night.
Until today.
I was in the kitchen, bent over the sink, my hands trembling as I washed the last of the plates. My back ached. My legs shook. My mind had grown numb from the monotony of exhaustion. That’s when I felt her fingers—ice-cold and merciless—wrap around my hair.
Pain bloomed at my scalp as she yanked me back.
“Ahh—!” I gasped, barely catching my balance before she dragged me out of the kitchen.
Her fury was radiating off her like fire. She didn’t speak, didn’t explain—she just hauled me through the house like I was garbage. The other maids backed away as we passed, but no one intervened. Not even Mary this time.
She flung me into the hall like I weighed nothing. I hit the ground hard, the cold marble burning against my bruised knees. Veer was already sitting there, his eyes locked on me. They were unreadable. No mercy. No empathy. Just rage, coiled and silent.
Ruhani stormed over to him and said something I couldn’t hear. All I could focus on was his eyes. They were colder than I’d ever seen. Something inside him had snapped.
Without a word, he stood and walked to me.
I whispered, “Please…” but that was all I managed.
He grabbed my hair with brutal force and yanked me to my feet. “You think you can play with people’s lives?” he growled. “You think this house is your playground?”
“I didn’t—” I began, but he didn’t care.
He dragged me through the halls, past every corner I had scrubbed, every surface I had cleaned. I struggled to keep up, my feet barely holding me. My scalp screamed in pain as he took me down, down the back staircase. A path I had only seen once—the one that led to the dungeon.
No. No, not again.
But he didn’t stop.
He threw open the dungeon door and hurled me inside. The walls seemed to breathe with dread. Chains hung on hooks. The air was damp and smelled of metal and fear. I stumbled, falling onto the hard floor.
Then came the belt.
He removed it in one fluid motion. The sound alone made my stomach twist.
The first lash hit my back.
I screamed.
Not just from pain, but from betrayal. I thought… after those two days, after all the labor, he wouldn’t touch me again.
But I was wrong.
Each hit came sharper than the last. I couldn’t even cry out after the fifth. I begged him. I sobbed, “Please stop,” but he didn’t.
The leather kissed my skin again and again, carving pain into me until I could barely breathe.
My body curled into itself, bleeding, trembling, broken. I tried to protect my face, my stomach, but he didn’t stop. I could hear Ruhani laughing behind him. My vision blurred from the tears and the pain. My heart begged for mercy.
Then, silence.
A breath. Then a fist in my hair again.
“No more,” I gasped. But he wasn’t listening.
He dragged me again—out of the dungeon, through the side path of the estate.
I heard it before I saw it.
Snorts. Shuffling. The soft, unsettling clatter of hooves.
The horse shelter.
He opened the gate and shoved me inside a cage like I was an animal.
“This is where you belong,” he said.
And he left.
The door slammed shut.
I lay there—my body unable to move, my skin burning, my soul crumbling. I couldn’t breathe deeply. Every breath scraped against pain. I touched my arm and winced. My own fingers hurt against my bruised flesh.
In that moment, the only thing I wanted was to disappear.
The straw beneath me smelled of dust and dung. My clothes was torn. My skin was streaked with blood, dirt, and humiliation. I was shivering. The night had fallen again, and the moonlight crept in through the cracks in the stable walls.
But even in the agony, the question repeated in my mind like a curse:
Why? What had I done to deserve this?
And still… no answer.
Only silence. Only pain. Only the darkness closing in again.
---
(Mary’s POV )
I have seen too much in this mansion to be shocked. I’ve seen deals made in blood, promises broken with bullets, and people thrown away like garbage. But nothing—nothing—has hurt me like watching her… Neha.
From the very moment she stepped foot into this house, I knew she was different. Not like the others. Her eyes—haunted, kind, lost. She wore pain like a second skin, and yet, not once did she complain. Not even when the other maids turned their faces away. Not when they sneered. Not when they tossed the work she did and laughed as she picked it up again.
They hate her. Why? Because she’s soft in a place that has no room for softness. Because she still holds her head up—barely, but she does.
Two days ago, I watched her faint. Her body crumpled to the cold floor like a paper doll—fragile, starved, exhausted. I rushed to her. Splashed water. Called out. Nothing.
Then he came.
Veer sir.
His expression was unreadable at first. Cold. Distant. But his eyes flickered with something—panic, maybe? He didn’t yell. He didn’t command. He picked her up like she was a whisper about to break and laid her gently on the couch.
I stood by quietly as the doctor came. “She needs nourishment. Rest,” the doctor said.
But Veer only nodded once and told me, “Once she wakes up, feed her and send her to the guest room.” Not his room. Not the dungeon. The guest room.
“I don’t want her to die. I want her to suffer.”
His words chilled my blood.
How can someone want this? How can anyone hold this much darkness inside?
That night, I sat beside her bed in the guest room until her eyes fluttered open. Pale. Confused. Scared.
I fed her, slow and gentle, like a mother would feed her child. She cried in my arms, sobbed like a baby, shaking and whispering, “I did nothing wrong. Why are they doing this to me?”
I didn’t have answers. Only silence. I just held her.
But peace doesn't last in this house. Not for people like her.
By morning, the cycle began again. Work from dawn until Veer sir snapped his fingers. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, pressing his legs, wiping his body after his bath—it wasn’t servitude, it was slavery masked with routine.
She bore it all.
Not a single complaint. Not even when her hands blistered from the soap. Not even when her knees bled from crawling on marble.
Today… everything snapped.
I was washing dishes when I heard a crash—glass, heavy. My heart dropped.
Then Ruhani stormed in like a vengeful wind, eyes blazing. She yanked Neha by her hair so hard I thought she’d rip her scalp off. I screamed, but she didn’t listen. Neha didn’t even fight. She just whimpered, stumbling behind her.
They dragged her outside.
To the dungeon.
I’ve cleaned that place. It smells like rust and mold and fear. I ran behind, hiding in the shadows.
What I saw…
Veer sir stood like a shadow himself. Cold. Quiet. Then his hand reached for his belt.
The sound of the first strike made me sick. Her scream was worse.
She begged.
She cried.
She bled.
But he didn’t stop. Strike after strike. Until I thought she would collapse right there. Then he dragged her again. She looked half-alive, her body sagging like broken porcelain.
To the horse shelter.
To a cage.
He threw her in. Like an animal. Locked the gate. Walked away.
I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I kept hearing her cry.
Even now, I hear it.
The wind carries her broken voice.
I want to help her. But I can’t. Not openly. Not here.
But I can keep watching her.
Feeding her when they don’t look. Whispering words of comfort when the walls aren’t listening.
Because even in hell—someone has to care.
And in this cruel, cruel house… maybe that someone is me.
- Writer
