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Chapter 16~ The Whipping Boy
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“EDMUND!!”
Nothing could’ve prepared me for any of this. I was supposed to be the one to get the torture. And Edmund’s job was to fix me up again for the next one. My body would eventually give out and the pain would no longer feel so repellent. Life would be frivolous.
But, the roles had been reversed. I could do nothing but watch and scream and bawl.
I found myself begging to be released and shouting his name like a Christian threatened at hell’s gate. Luckily, I could hardly see the monstrosity before me through the mounds of tears collecting up in my eyes.
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A spark had been lit in my chest and was smoking me out of my own body.
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Not even losing my father had had such an effect on me. I had only felt such a way the day Mother’s curls flew in the winds and finally settled into the earth forever. It was not like depression or grief. No, this was terror—the panic of knowing there is nothing left to fix or to save but still wishing to God that you could’ve held their hand one last time.
“EDMUND!!! Please, don’t hurt him!!”
Thomas Tew reared his head back like a bull and seethed, “It’s over, bastard girl! It’s all over for you…and for him!”
He laid down another painful lash. And I felt it tight across my breast. Edmund and I both screamed madly.
I closed my eyes, praying for some escape if only for a second. But the dark of my consciousness returned red colors and images of the horror. The curtain could not be closed.
“He never hurt a soul! Kill me instead! Get what you’ve always wanted!!”
The man convulsed a sick type of laughter that shook the whip and splattered blood. Edmund sunk lower towards the floor.
“Oh, but I have gotten what I’ve always wanted!” sneered the beast, “And your little righteous knight shall pay for his mercy towards you! You both shall die together!!”
“No!!”
When Tew cracked the whip against the flesh once again, a pirate’s hand shot out and muffled my screams. I writhed frantically and wildly, leaving my arms with claw marks from the men. The Cabin Boy, drained entirely, used any last remains of energy he had to just look at me. And that in itself was when my heart shattered.
Dark rings hung around Edmund’s eyes. The caramel swirls of his pupils no longer brought me comfort and tranquility. Instead, they hung like weeping willows and turned me to absolute stone.
I’d quieted my screams and stared, conveying a message that Edmund already knew.
But, Tew was already raising the whip again. Hurriedly, I bit down hard onto the hand over my mouth. The hand’s master howled in distress and clutched his bloody wound. But I had no time to have second thoughts anymore.
“Please!” I tried, once more with persistence, “I…I love him!”
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And we’d reached the eye of the hurricane. Movement froze and heads turned to me. The whip dripped its blood and dared others to make a single movement. Even I was motionless, stuck in my place with my gaze still tied to Edmund. Then his eyes changed.
The emptiness had been filled with something glorious. And the woe, though still leaving its shadow, had left his wonderful eyes.
I heard Edmund say in the faintest whisper, “What?”
Then all at once, the entire crew of the Amity fell into horrendous laughter that sounded like cannonballs pounding in my head. They roared and spat and pushed each other as if I’d just told them the funniest story in all of mankind.
And frankly, I became quite exasperated.
Tew, however, had the loudest whoops and hollers of them all. So much that the whip fell from his hand and curled up at his boots.
“You foolish, stupid girl! You love that?! He’s merely a disgusting, good-for-nothing imbecile. How could anyone care for that?!”
“I do,” I swallowed hard and glared at Tew with every bit of hatred I was capable of having, “He is not those things, you slug! He is selfless and kind and so very gentle. He’s more of a man than any dog aboard this ship! And I love him. He’s shown me the things I dream about and has given me much more to dream of. My father may be lost to me, but I refuse to lose Edmund! You’ll have to kill me first!”
They were quiet, thankfully. And I noticed my tears still fell in a rushed flow.
Tew bent and retrieved the whip, glanced briefly at Edmund then to me, then smacked the scarlet whip against the deck, splattering blood across some of us. He hissed, “His blood is on your hands.” The pirate captain turned and cut through the now departing crowd. Interest had at last been lost. The men holding me released and shoved me down to the ground. I fell next to Edmund. In a single look, both of us wept uncontrollably.
On closer examination, the wounds were quite gruesome. I flicked my gaze to Edmund’s face which I took between my hands. Edmund had fallen into a spasm of sobs and heaving breaths, like a child being punished. His tears rolled down my wrists and seeped into my old wounds.
“I’m so…I-I’m so sorry, Constan-Constantine. I’m so sorry…so, so sorry,” he blubbered in an unrecognizable moan.
His whole body trembled, but I couldn’t understand his jumble of words. Frustrated, Edmund smacked his head against the bloody mast harshly, and I had to pull him away just as harshly.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m so s-sorry…sorry…Constantine.” I searched quickly for the rope’s knot. My fingers shook so much that untying it was a difficult labor. But, it eventually came loose. I yanked the bonds off of Edmund’s tired wrists.
“Come on,” I assured him, lifting him to his feet. All the while, he let out whimpers and cries of pain. We struggled back to my frigid den. Once inside, Edmund’s legs gave up. I could carry no more of his weight and we both collapsed. Edmund continued his rant all the while till I could no longer take it.
“Edmund! What is wrong?! What happened?”
His eyes darted every which way before I pulled him back to me, my face close and my own gaze locked in. He hesitated but kept a hand tight on me.
“Tell me, Edmund,” I murmured in a nurturing way. It somewhat soothed him but still kept him on the edge of the cliff. It would only take a little push.
“He knows.”
“Who knows? Knows what?”
“Tew knows where your father is.”
I paused.
“What?! How…How does he know?”
Edmund choked out another small sob and lowered his eyes, expecting something devastating to make its long-awaited arrival. He continued, “I told him.”
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“You what?”
“I’m so sorry, Constantine. I just knew you were goin' to die soon, and I-I couldn’t let that happen. You said it yourself. You’d given up on him already. It was wrong. I know that. But, I don’t regret it, Constantine. I…I love you. And I just—I just can’t live without you, lass.”
My mind whirred with every thought, every emotion—so much that I’d lost all words. None of them would be the right ones anyway. Edmund had his hands grasped around my arms in pure desperation. I could tell that nothing had ever scared him as much as this moment did. Because it truly was deadly. The scourge marks upon Edmund’s back never again remained a tragedy but a stigma of his betrayal and lies. He groped for my hands, but I’d already pulled away and stood, disgusted.
“Constantine, I had to-”
“You don’t have to do anything. No one owns you.”
“I couldn’t-”
“It wasn’t your decision to make!!” I shrieked, irrevocably and more sincere than anything I’d ever felt, “I trusted you, Edmund! And now, because of your doing, my father will die!”
“What should I have done? Let you die?!” he shouted back, defensively.
“Perhaps!” I surprised myself with those words.
Edmund’s eyebrows raised then narrowed in equal passion.
“So what?! All of the bullshit you said out there was just—what?—to have a clean conscience or somethin'?! If you’re satisfied with dying so much, lass, then why bother ‘lovin’ me? Why play this twisted little game?…Why…Why let me fall so in love with you?”
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The mood had changed. Edmund looked at me with eyes of sorrow, confusion, and a certain sincerity. I hated to say it, but I believed what he said. Every bit of my mind told me to leave it all behind and give up. It was time to give up. This was a nice distraction from the loneliness that’d I’d banished beneath the cracks in the floorboards. But, it was always too unrealistic. I had no right to know what love was.
Tears streaked down my cheeks, and I wrapped my arms about myself in an endeavor to feel something other than the misery that I knew then. I’d screwed my eyes shut and felt my voice crack in wails of pain. And there he sat, watching and probably regretting every single moment he spent caring about me.
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“Just hold me!” I cried hideously, and he came instantly.
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Edmund wrapped his arms around me and let me sob into his bare shoulder. Never once did I hear a wince pass his lips. He shushed me slowly and softly, stroking back my hair. The racing heartbeat echoing in my chest had simmered drastically, and I could look at him once more.
“I’m so sorry, Constantine. Hurtin' you is the last thing I’d want to do,” said Edmund. I nodded, sniffling and draining the last few tears from my eyes.
“I know that.” I squeezed him tighter. I needed him, and he needed me. It looked simple from outside the window, but I felt every bit opposite. “I know that.”
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