Purity- a Salvis story (completed)

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We'd been at it for almost 6 hours.

My bare back throbbed as I sat hunched over on the far side of the table, close to passing out, my father pacing behind my sister and I waiting for the next opportunity to use the belt in his hand. I kept my eyes trained down. Whatever I could do to hide the exhaust on my face.

The rules we simple, if either Aggie or I got a question wrong, we both got a new welt. If we got a question right, we got a break till the next question. The game ends when father says it does. When you've learned your lesson.

At the moment, I was trying with all I had to keep my eyes open. Father would be furious if I fell asleep during a punishment. Well, more furious.

"Deuteronomy 21:18-21," Father sneered, forcing a dull fear to rise in my stomach. That was by far one of my weaker chapters. Shit.

I squeezed Aggie's hand under the table in a weak attempt to get her to listen to the question. She was still, slightly slumped on her stool across from mine, shirt pulled up to reveal ugly welts. Her head had drooped long ago, 1 a.m. being far past her bed time. She stayed asleep at her spot despite my efforts.

"If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken onto them, what is to be done?"

Goddamn it.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. This was the 1st one in a while I had no clue on, and certainly the 1st one since Ag had fallen asleep.

"He- uh.." I stalled, trying to buy as much time as possible. My voice was dragged down by lack of sleep.

I racked my brain for any sort of recollection of Deuteronomy. My head was completely empty, covered by a fog of exhaustion and pain. We were fucked.

I took a breath, and prepared to spit out the most talking-out-of-my-ass sounding bullshit I've ever heard. I remembered something like this from proverbs, i was just hoping it carried.

But even through my fatigue state, I knew it wouldn't be enough.

"He- uh- he  is to have his eye torn out by the ravens of the valley. He will go blind and may not return to receive his parents charity?" I stammered, more of a question that a statement. I immediately held my breath, waiting for the belt to come whipping toward my back.

The sound of a belt whooshing though the air came, but despite my immediate flinch, pain didn't. Instead of shriek ripped across the room accompanied by sickening dull slap against skin. My head shot up.

Immediately I was on my feet, almost subconsciously.

"Ag!" I shouted, the control gone from my voice for a moment.

My sister was now hunched forward, hugging her elbows, silent tears rolling down her cheeks as she took shaky, sobbing breaths. She looks so broken, any trace of my happy little sister gone. I watched as she tried to make herself as small as possible, hoping it'd make the monster behind her go away. All it did was make him look all the more menacing behind her.

My eyes raced back to my father as anger glinted across his face. He straighten his back, locking his gazes with me.

"He is to be killed in the street."

His voice was low and angry, his teeth gritted. It make me sick to my stomach. None of the questions before that one seemed so... calculated.

I tried to control my quickening breath. I was being dramatic, I told myself. It was just meant to make me mess up. He didn't mean anything by it. Dad wouldn't hurt me...