LEIGH
Sola’s voice echoed and as if they were being controlled by some powers they snapped into action. I heard the crack before I felt it.
My hands were bound so fast I didn't even see the rope come out — one second I was on the ground in the sand with Yelena beside me, the next my wrists were yanked together behind my back and something cracked against my hand so hard I screamed.
Yelena lunged forward. One of the guards grabbed her by the collar and threw her back like she weighed absolutely nothing and she hit the ground hard and I screamed her name and someone hit me again for screaming it.
Then the lashes started.
I stopped counting after eight. By fifteen I wasn't counting anything at all. I was just existing inside the pain, breathing through it in chunks, holding onto the one
