RUBY JUNE.
I couldn’t feel my body anymore. The pain was everywhere, like fire licking at my skin, burning from the inside out. Every inch of me was bruised, battered, broken. My head hung low, barely able to hold itself up. My arms, tied behind me, had long since gone numb, but I knew they were still there by the jagged sting of rope cutting into my wrists. The chair beneath me was cold, hard, its edges digging into my legs, and I could feel the faint trickle of blood sliding down my ankles.
The room was suffocatingly dark, and the only sound was my ragged, uneven breathing. I wished it would stop. Every breath felt like a knife in my chest, but I couldn’t give up, not yet. Not until I knew if my family was safe. I had to live for them. I had to survive this.
But God, I wanted to die.
