As always.
Clara was so anxious she was nearly crying. “Sir, please stop! The young lady is already injured—if you keep beating her, something terrible will happen!”
Her voice floated near my ears, but Nathaniel couldn’t hear her at all. He was like a rampaging beast, swinging the belt harder and harder.
The whooshing grew sharper, piercing.
Each strike landed heavier than the last—breaking open old wounds, layering new ones atop them. Blood seeped through the torn skin, slowly staining my clothes.
My whole body trembled from the pain, my legs nearly buckling beneath me.
That leg—the one broken before, the one twisted out of shape in prison—couldn’t even support me enough to run.
I wanted to fight back, but against a grown man like Nathaniel, I didn’t even have the right to get clos
