Page 56 of Chained

"I'll leave you be, brother." Melina's voice is soft as she moves through the crowd, vanishing before he can even reply.

Brother.

She's his sister. I don't know how I didn't notice before. Maybe I never really looked.

The word lands wrong in my chest, another piece of this place clicking into place that I didn't ask for and don't want. Everyone here is tangled up in everyone else, blood and ownership blurred into the same thing. And somewhere in that tangle is me, caught like a fly that never even saw the web.

I turn my head again as I'm snapped back into the moment by the sound of John's sobs.

"Vincent, what—" I try to speak but he turns, shooting me a deathly glance. I swallow. This is my fault. It's all my fault.

You did this. You ran, and now someone else is paying for it, like they always do, like they always will as long as you keep breathing. The thought claws its way up my throat, threatening to spill out as a scream, but I hold it down. Screaming won't save him. Nothing will save him now. I think I've known that since the second I saw the chains.

"Now everyone has arrived, we'll get down to business. Here is one of my own, someone who'd promised his life in exchange for loyalty. I kept his family safe, I paid his debts, and how does he repay me?" He turns, gripping my waist tighter as the crowd watches on. "He tried to touch what was mine."

My face drops. "Vincent, no," I try to argue. "He didn't—I tried to run."

His fingers pinch against my hip, digging in deep. "I know what he did. You'd never leave me. No one leaves me."

I don't understand—nothing makes sense. Why did she lie? What story has his sister spun that I come out saved whilst John suffers? It makes no sense. I'm so confused. "He didn't do anything," I sob, my heart in my throat. I try to reason with them and tell him it was me, but he doesn't care. He doesn't even acknowledge my voice. This is all my fault, I did this, I should never have run. I watch as two guards step closer, John's face wide with fear as the sound of a whip slashes through the air, John's scream piercing through me, loud and harsh. My eyes fill with tears that glide down my cheeks. I try to move, to run to him, to stop them, but Vincent's grip is too tight.

Every part of me wants to be sick, wants to scream until my throat gives out, wants to claw Vincent's hands off my waist and put myself between the whip and John's body even if it means I'm the one bleeding next. But my legs won't move, my body frozen in the same useless, cowardly stillness that's kept me alive this long. I hate myself for it. I hate that some small, ugly part of me is grateful it isn't me chained to that post.

"Admit what you did." Vincent's voice calls over the screams. The crowd cheers with every whip lashing. I watch them leer, their eyes never moving. Each face is more disgusting than the last. How? How can you sit here and do nothing?

I search their faces for anything that matches my own, but there's nothing. No disgust, no hesitation, not the smallest flicker of the same horror clawing through me. There's nothing. Just hunger. Just entertainment. I wonder how long it takes a person to get here, to this place where another man's suffering is simply something to watch with a drink in hand. I wonder, with a sick lurch, if I'm already halfway there myself, still standing, still breathing, still alive because I let it happen.

"Please, sir. I have a wife, a family…" John's pleas tear into my heart. I can't sit here. I can't.

I push myself from Vincent's grip, running to John as I extend my arms to shield myself over him, my heart hammering so loud in my chest, pounding in my ears as the courtyard goes silent.

"You have five seconds to move or I'll kill you both."

I clamp my eyes shut, ignoring Vincent's threat, my body trembling against John's broken body.

"Five."

I hope you know I love you, Rosa. That I'll always love you.

I picture her face. Not the last one I saw—terrified and screaming behind a slamming door—but an older one. Sunday mornings. Her hair still damp from the shower, complaining about the cold as she stole my side of the duvet, anyway. I want that to be the last thing in my head if this is it. Not this courtyard. Not the smell of blood and fear. Her.

"Four."

I hope I make you proud.

"Three."

I hope you know I tried, that I tried to fight for you. That I died saving a life even if it meant losing us both.

"Two."

I can hear Vincent stepping closer, his expensive shoes tapping against the stone floor, slow and measured. With every step, my heart thuds harder against my chest, every hair on my skin raised. I can feel John trembling beneath me, or maybe it's myself. Maybe it's both of us.

"Let go, miss." It's barely a whisper. "Don't die for us both."

The exhaustion in it breaks something inside me. He wasn't asking me to save myself. He was letting me go.

I want to argue with him, to tell him no, that I won't move, that someone in this godforsaken place should be allowed to choose mercy over cruelty just once, but the plea in his voice stops me cold. He isn't fighting for his life anymore. He's fighting to make sure mine doesn't end here, too. And somehow, that's so much worse than if he'd begged me to stay.