Happy Friday!
Hope everyone’s week has gone swimmingly. This week was a bit slow for me (I still haven’t gotten around to formatting and reposting the most recent #TuesFlashFicTrain story), and I haven’t gotten nearly as much writing done as I hoped, but oh well. The important thing is that some writing got done. Even better – writing in various stories got done!
This week (on top of actually making time to exercise every day) I updated Secondhand Soul, A Vampire’s Bride, and I’ve been working on the next chapter of my Zutara fan fiction! Hooray! And today, I’ll be putting up a snippet of my major work in progress, Withered Legacy! All in all, I’d say it’s been a pretty good week.
Today’s piece comes as my offering for this week’s #FlashMobWrites contest prompt. Enjoy!
Prompt: “on my knees”, “tell me no”
~~~
I could hardly feel the sting of the impact when his knuckles made contact with my jaw. “Now, either you tell me-”
“No…” My response didn’t come off as strong as I would have liked, given the amount of blood that dripped from my mouth after speaking, but he got the idea. It was enough to cut off his words and send him into yet another furious barrage of fists against my already beaten and bruised body. When he stopped, I lost count of how many times he’d hit me, glad his exhaustion and annoyance had caught up with him.
“I’ll break you eventually – I have all the time in the world. Can’t say the same for you.” He grabbed a towel from a table on the far side of the room, wiping his hands clean of my blood. By the table, Adwin looked on, eyes hard. I wondered if my face, identical to his, ever wore a similar expression. Was it bad that I took satisfaction at the way his body contracted with each hit mine received? The session tortured him on some level, of that I was sure, which made it harder to accept that he just stood there and let it happen. He was even more careful to guard his thoughts from me, and I wondered if he’d somehow figured out a way to sever our psychic link to each other.
“Saxon – just tell us.” It was the first time Adwin spoke up. “The sooner you do, the sooner this is all over.”
“F-Fuck you.” Again, not as intimidating, but I got the message across. “Wh-What would mom…think? Or L-Lexia?” I coughed – more blood – and struggled to bring my face up to look at him. My entire body was on fire with the pain, making it more difficult to move than the chains subduing me against the wall.
He had the grace to stay silent. Moments later, I was alone. Eyes closed, I did my best to focus on anything but the pain. Adwin, for all his intelligence, was a freaking idiot if he thought a beating and some chains would keep me restrained. I took a deep breath, surprised that I didn’t have any broken ribs, before focusing my energy on my arms. I made a mental note to thank Elle for teaching me that particular trick. Yanking both arms forward, I ripped the chains from the wall with more strength than I realized before falling on my knees.
Elle! Can you hear me?
Saxon? Where are you? They lost me and I can’t sense you. Elle had to be close by if she could hear me.
Not sure. It was a windowless room, so I couldn’t even look for landmarks. Just stay put. I’ll come to you.
I pulled myself up, grabbing the remnants of the chain and wrapping them around my knuckles, an escape plan forming. That bastard was going to pay the next time he walked through the door.
~~~
Saxon’s relationship with his brother keeps getting darker every time I write more about it. It upsets me a bit, but there’s no helping it when this is the direction the characters want to go.
Be sure to check out the other responses at the prompt post, or submit your own. The deadline isn’t until tomorrow night!
As always, think happy thoughts.
FictionTrials 