Blood Sacrifice

Chapter Four

I followed her out of the room, but she seemed determined to avoid me like the plague. I had never seen her that distressed. It broke my heart. I knew that she was in pain; she had never been good at handling her grief. It made my heart hurt to hear her crying.

I couldn’t decide what had bothered her more; the fact that the only friend she had made in months was gone, or the fact it wasn’t us that got adopted. I felt guilty that I didn’t know how to console her, but she hadn’t given me a clue to follow either.

She ran down the hall to our room, her long blonde hair billowed behind her in a blurry cloud as she turned the corner and disappeared. I was gasping for air as I tried to keep up when suddenly I felt someone grasp my hair, stopping me mid-step. Hot needlelike pain instantly shot into my scalp, and I was forced to pause in my tracks to keep the strands from tearing out. Tears bubbled in the corner of my eyes as I tried to turn to catch a glimpse of who was holding me back. My hair was so short that it would require my neck to turn at too awkward of angle.

“Let go of me!” I gasped.

“Where do you think you’re off to, Miss Moore?” the Matron’s strict voice asked coldly. “We have some business to attend to.”

“I didn’t realize that,” I said rolling my eyes.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said tightening her grip on my hair.

I grunted in pain. “To my sister. She’s really upset,” I said. “Can you let go of me now?”

I felt the Matron’s long bony fingers slide out of my hair. I was surprised that she had listened to me. I was quick to turn to look at her, wary of her grabbing my hair again. My scalp continued to burn with the pain that slowly began to ebb away.

“Is that so? Well, you’ll have to put your plans on hold for a bit,” she said with a bitter smile twisted on her face.

I raised an eyebrow. “Why? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“It’s quite the opposite,” she said. “I’ve been told you’ve been sharing food again.”

I stared at her for a long moment. I noticed that she was clenching her hands into fists at her sides. I knew she didn’t like me. She hadn’t from the very first day she had laid her eyes on me. It was something about the way that I didn’t cower to her. She lived on the fear she caused, but that wasn’t the response she got from me. I knew it was because I always spoke my mind, and unlike the other kids, I wasn’t afraid of her.

I did what I had to do, punishment or not.

In this situation, I didn’t know how to reply to her. I wasn’t afraid to admit I had broken another of the orphanage’s ridiculous rules, especially for sharing food with my starving sister, but I didn’t want her to punish May for accepting my portion. She knew perfectly well that May was the only weak spot that I had.

Finally, I decided to hold my tongue.

“Not admitting to what you’ve done, huh?” she asked and clicked her tongue.

I stared her down. “I haven’t done a thing.”

“I guess that means that you also haven’t been climbing the tree again, and sometimes with Mr. Rode,” she said.

I raised an eyebrow. I had no problem admitting to that one. She wouldn’t punish the boy for it again, because she knew that he meant nothing to me.

“Is that surprising to you still? You know I climb that tree every day. Once in a while, it’s just for fun, but most of the time, it’s to spite you.”

I could see the rage glinting in her eyes. She wasn’t good at thinking of comebacks. With her authoritative presence she must not feel the need for them. I looked her in the eyes with a small smile on my face. I wanted her to know that I enjoyed her misery as much as she enjoyed mine. I knew she had had enough. She grabbed my wrist roughly to try to drag me back towards the front room. I pulled against her grip.

“Let go of me,” I demanded again. “I have better things to do right now. This can wait.”

“I think we’ll go with the whip this time,” she growled. She took no note of my words of protest as she continued to pull me to the front room.

I tried to get my feet to stick in the ground but they wouldn’t. They slid easily along the slick hallway. She dragged me past the area we had all been grouped in ten minutes before, and I knew she was taking me straight to the punishment room. It was a room I had seen dozens of times. She thrust me ahead of her, and I slammed painfully through the swinging doors.

I groaned in pain as my elbows slammed onto the stone on the floor. I could feel the scraps burning as they leaked blood. My knees felt the same bitter sting. Instantly, the two guards inside picked me up before I had a chance to look at them. My weight was nothing to the massive women that worked the punishment room. They were big, ugly, and cruel. They didn’t care about inflicting pain on children…they were the Matron’s drones. In the back of my mind I guessed that they shared a blood line.

They hurried me forward, one arm in each of theirs like a terrible game of Red Rover, and put my head and hands in a trap that reminded me of an old time torture device. I had been in it many times before. I knew that it was used so we wouldn’t see what was coming and try to dodge it. I gave up on struggling. I knew that once they closed the contraption around my neck, I had no way to leave except for when they allowed me to.

In the back of my mind, I knew that it wasn’t okay that I was as used to their torture routine as I was.

I felt them rip up my uniform dress so that my back and underwear was exposed. I gritted my teeth as I stared at the wall. The breeze that blew against the skin on my back was uncomfortable, but I didn’t focus much on it. I knew what was coming next was much worse. I could hear the whip swish through the air as they tested it out once before I felt it crack against my skin. I instantly let out a yelp of pain as my flesh opened above my spine to allow the blood to leak out.

That one sound of agony was all I would grant the Matron. I knew that the more I let them know I was suffering, the happier it would make them. The second crack lashed against my back, and I sank my teeth into my bottom lip to hold onto my cry of pain.

Just one, I thought to myself. I’m only giving them the one.

I was used to getting five slashes; it was the most the women were willing to put me through. Even though they were cold, it usually seemed as if their heart came to play during our torture. When I felt the whip s***h through my skin a sixth time, I felt my heart drop to my stomach. I knew instantly that something was wrong. When the seventh opened my skin, I wondered how many the Matron had ordered me to get. After the tenth s***h, my back felt as if it was a bloody mess of ripped flesh fileted with a multitude of fishing hooks. I felt as if someone had lit my very skin on fire.

I bit my lip, trying my hardest to hold in my tears that threatened to flow. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction, but I didn’t know how much control I had left over my body. I could feel myself losing energy; my very legs were shaking too much to hold me up much longer. I knew the reason for my intense torture; the Matron had ordered it. I knew that she was standing by the doors in her intense military stance, watching every crack of the whip open a new wound in my back.

I knew she was smiling as she watched it which made me glad that I was able to hold my own.

After the fifteen crack, I was positive I was going to collapse. As it slashed against my back, I could feel the plastic slice through all of the other lacerations that it had inflicted in my back. I guessed there wasn’t much space left on my back that wasn’t gashed open.

Suddenly, I heard the doors open.

“Here’s the other one you requested, Madam,” one of the orphanage workers addressed the Matron.

I listened as someone was pushed inside the room. I tried to crane my neck to see what was happening, but the device made it impossible. I gave up and focused my remaining energy on keeping myself from collapsing. It was taking more effort than I had.

“Oh, my God! What are you doing to her?” I recognized the voice instantly as the boy that had been beaten earlier.

“Silence!” one of the big torture room workers said to him as they forced his hands and neck into the other contraption beside me.

The thought that my underwear was exposed with my dress hiked up above my back didn’t seem to occur to me. The only thing I could think of was that the Matron was making an example of me. It was a message for the boy beside me and for May when I eventually stumbled back to the safety of our room.

I turned my head slightly to look at him. It was hard in the bind, but it gave me enough to see him. I realized that they had stripped him of his shirt. He was looking at me, knowing perfectly well what was coming to him. He looked worried behind belief, but I felt as if my vision was blurring from the pain. Finally, my energy storage hit zero. I collapsed to my knees. The contraption around my neck suddenly pushed against my windpipe, but I couldn’t summon the strength to rise to my feet.

I let out a squeak but did nothing else as I heard the whip begin to crack again. This time, it wasn’t used on me, but on the boy beside me. I watched as his face contorted in pain. My lungs were beginning to panic from the sudden lack of oxygen once I heard the tenth crack from the whip. Suddenly, I heard it being dropped to the ground.

One of the big women began to release my contraption while the other one helped the boy. Without the device holding me up, I fell to the stone floor. Instantly, air began to fill my lungs up once more. I coughed, desperately trying to catch my breath. I watched as the boy was released, and he dropped to his hands and knees as he tried to cope with the pain in his back.

“You’re done,” the Matron said coldly.

She turned to leave the room, and the other women followed her out without a word. I gasped for air and watched as a trickle of blood began to fall to the stone floor from my back. I looked up as the boy turned to look at me.

I saw my emotions reflected back in his eyes.