Erica

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!!Trigger warning!! *This chapter depicts scenes of intense torture. *

Erica's eyes widened. Walter had seen through her disguise that day. She should have never snuck out with Georgie.

If Erica was not in her current situation, the thoughts racing through her mind would have caused her to just about bite her nails off.

"You are testing my patience girl." The Countess stood up straight again and signalled the guards with a flick of her wrist.

Before Erica could even react, she was roughly grabbed and lifted, her right arm was pulled forward and her hand was slammed flat on the desk.

The Countess reached down and picked up a large sowing needle, the tip glinted in the candlelight showing off its sharpness. It was daunting.

She held up the needle right to Erica's face finding great pleasure in tormenting the girl. Erica tried to pull away from it but was held in place by the two guards.

"You know a sewing needle is such a remarkable little thing. I always keep one in my draw for any emergency fix, it is quite handy to have." She moved it away from Erica, "Not only can it be used to stitch things, but it can be used as a weapon too..." She trailed off lightly tapping her chin.

"Now you may be wondering what damage other than a few tiny pricks can a needle do. It can do quite a lot more damage than that especially if you know where to use it. For example, it could take out an eye or stab right through an oesophagus if enough forced is applied." She twiddled the needle in her fingers.

"Oh, but don't worry dear, doing something like that would be much to cruel and cause far to many problems for not only you but me too." The Countess mockingly reassured, "Tonight, your fingers will have to do."

She stopped her twiddling and positioned the needle point right at the tip of Erica's index finger, "Did you know one of the most sensitive parts of the human body are the fingertips? That is why we use them mostly when we feel different textures as we touch different things. I read that in a book, now let us see if that is true."

The Countess slowly pushed the needle down piercing into the skin. Erica had pricked her fingers numerous times, and the pain was always fleeting however this time due to the speed that the needle was moving, it hurt a lot more. The pain was sharp and searing, the Countess did not stop the needle just at the tip, she continued on until at least half of the needle remained.

Erica's was gasping and wheezing in pain as she kept struggling to pull her hand away. The pain was immense, and tears began to fall as the Countess yanked the needle out in on swift pull.

Blood squirted out and all over the desk but the Countess ignored this and moved onto the next finger. Erica was internally screaming in pain as she did the same thing again.

Unfortunately, it did not stop there, the Countess did this to all her fingers on her right hand including her thumb. The pain was horrible but not enough to cause any numbing of her highly sensitive nerves.

Most of her fingers had thankfully begun to clot stopping any more blood. Erica prayed that her punishment was over how, it hurt so much.

Unfortunately, the Countess had other ideas, her sadistic smile glinted in her eyes as she once again positioned the needle at the crying girl's index finger but this time it was held a little higher, just under the nail.

Before Erica could comprehend a thing, the needle was pushed under her fingernail. She could see it moving all the way to her cuticle. It was beyond painful. She was gasping and wheezing as more tears fell. If she had a voice, she would have been screaming her lungs out.

What made it worse was that the Countess wriggled the needle around the base of the nail, further damaging the soft skin below it. She did that to each finger. Erica was barely holding on to her consciousness when the Countess moved to her next hand.

She repeated the same torturous acts again causing immense agony to the poor girl. Not only had she all but destroyed Erica's fingertips but Erica could feel the bruising of where the guards were tightly holding her as she resisted. Her lips were also bleeding from where she bit down on them to try redirect the pain.

When the Countess was satisfied with her work, she signalled the guards holding Erica to let go. Erica fell into a slump on the floor.

Both her hands were completely numb and there were no more tears that could fall. She was defeated and exhausted.

"Listen to me girl, if you don't want something like this to happen again, don't ever leave your quarters until summoned. Your presence is unwanted, and your filth taints this family." The Countess spat while wiping the needle with a handkerchief and putting it back, "Now get out of my sight."

The guards grabbed her and chucked her out the room slamming the large oak door behind her.

All Erica wanted to do was crawl up in a bundle and sleep this horrible nightmare away, but she could not do it here. She needed to return to her room, to a safe place far away from the Countess, far away from anything that could cause her more harm.

She forced herself to stand on her wobbly legs and slowly walked gently holding her injured hands in front of her. Fortunately, the estate was quiet, all the servants had long gone to sleep, not a soul was in sight. She did not have to worry about avoiding anyone.

Her fortune did not last long. She was frozen in place when she heard the stumbling heavy footsteps of man as he rounded the corner nearly crashing right into her making his way back from a nearby balcony.

Walter had been drinking rather strong liquor, it was the only one he could get his hands on without disturbing anyone else. He had planned to just have one glass but the more he drank, the more troubled his thoughts became.

He had been out on the balcony for quite a while trying to unsuccessfully drink away his worries when he eventually decided to call it a night and that's when he saw her. The root cause of all his troubled thoughts, his little sister.

"Erica."