Dellings Secrets of The South

Chapter 44

Nekane

I strolled my way around the group making a spectacle of themselves by fighting a lifeless puppet. It was only in Southside that this type of training existed. Weird considering how they were more ruthless than everyone but I guess dumber too. Everywhere else people knew that a cotton stuffed puppet felt nothing like a human body and most importantly they didn't fight back. It was giving a false narrative of what a fight would be like, giving false confidence. Whoever came up with this was having a laugh.

Just comical.

But still I kept my mouth shut, ignoring the curious gaze of the young commander shooting my way every time he thought I wasn't looking. I bet there were many questions roaming inside his tiny, squared shape head. But they were gonna have to wait, my attention was already on the person that I couldn't get out of my head.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to talk to her after my discussion with Dimitri, I doubted that I actually made her uncomfortable but I was curious to know. I was anticipating the response she was going to give me after the kiss.

Would it be anger? Distaste? or would she simply pretend it never happened? But whatever I was expecting, was not what I was met with.

Almost every inch of the skin on her face was bruised, purple and blue. She was fine when I saw her after training yesterday, which meant whoever caused that did it after training. And it wasn't something that was supposed to happen.

Her punches slowed down as I approached her and she almost stumbled as she turned to face me. Her lips were parted for air, eyes wide and alert and through the unbruised parts of her face was a blush of a shade of red I had never seen on her before.

She looked worse than the last time. Much worse and I couldn't help but wonder who did that. And most importantly, where was Dimitri?

There were so many things my tongue was itching to tell him if only he was there. He practically vowed to protect her and not even 24 hours later she ended up like this.

And he wanted me to stay away from her.

I could've spat in his face right then if he was there.

She slowly swallowed the saliva in her mouth, wincing at the pain before attempting and failing to look normal.

She was in pain, I saw.

Her entire body was silently screaming for help. And when she spoke her voice was a broken sound, struggling to come out.

"I'm not comfortable with you being this close." But she chose to say that instead. And there was that word again.

Comfortable.

I'm not sure my ability to mask my expression worked that day. My face must've told her how disappointing that sentence was. I raised a brow up. "The battlefield is not gonna be comfortable. What happened to your face?"

Her lips parted to say something but she stopped it. Her eyes were wet with tears, unsure if true emotions or just from the physical pain it was in. She went back to punching the doll again, this time harder than the pitiful touches she was doing earlier.

I wasn't done talking to her though, so I reached out to stop her and like a cold finger ran down her spin, she immediately pulled away, practically jumping back, startled. It took me off guard but what was most surprising was the look on her face.

She looked like she was a ghost.

Her lips were parted for air, eyes even wider than before and in them...

I had to take a moment to make sure I was right. But as my senses kicked in there was no denying it now. I could hear the pounding of her heart behind her shirt but most importantly I could smell the fear oozing out of her pores.

She was scared.

But why?

Was she jumped?

Did she think I would hurt her too?

"Are you alright?' I asked, keeping my voice low and calm to not trigger any other abrupt response.

She shook her head, trying to gain her composure but it didn't work. "I'm fine." She lied, turning back to punching the doll. She tried to keep her hands straight but I could tell they were shaking, and that was not normal.

I knew she had gone through things; I knew the deep rooted anger she had was from somewhere but this... this was fear. I had never seen her like this before. Even after almost getting killed for treason, she did not look this terrified.

My heart began a new rhythm of its own. And the only thing my brain could think of was that I needed answer. She didn't look like she was in the right state of mind to give them, so I needed to find the other person.

I scanned the area around us until finally spotting the guard that was watching over her at the end of the field, and made my way to him. His laser focused eyes glanced over at me before going back to Sakura. I stood beside him, shoulder to shoulder.

"What happened?"

I didn't need to give any further details. I saw her yesterday and she was fine, which meant whatever had her acting like that happened last night. And if he was doing the job he was assigned with then he should know.

And he did. "She tricked me that she was going to the bathroom then left out another door. A group of men had found her and..." He shrugged, "well we all know what happens at night when men see a defenceless young girl."

My heart just dropped. I felt my face physical distort with disgust, anger and most of all pain. I didn't need him to give me further details to know what happened. They touched her

They fucking touched her.

I didn't want to imagine it but I couldn't help the images running through my mind. I couldn't stop seeing the fear in her eyes earlier, knowing I had gotten a glimpse of the very same fear that they saw.

I looked over to where she was still throwing punches. And it clicked now. I understood why her uniform was looser than usual. And the blood... I smelled blood when standing next to her but I thought that-

I rubbed my face, exasperatedly, "Who?"

He shook his head, indicating he didn't know but that was not the answer I wanted. "I'm not sure. I didn't see their faces."

"Well you better remember what the back of their heads look like. Cuz I'm itching to tear out someone's gut right now and you're the closest thing to me."

I was angry. Furious and I didn't care who's throat I had to rip out to find out who they were.

He was supposed to be watching over her. How could she let him trick him with something so stupid as that. How could he have let that happened. How could I have let that happen?

His eyes bore into mine for a long second, searching for any credibility in them, he must've found them because he bowed his head. "One of them was a transfer. He was still wearing the uniform of his previous section."

And that was all I needed.

Clenching my jaw, I nodded, before my eyes swayed over to Sakura and she was staring back at us now, the look of fear was still there in her eyes but not of the same rate. She looked sad, distraught. It was nothing compared to the pain I saw in her face after Tom betrayed her. This one broke her and I couldn't stomach to continue seeing her like that.

Swallowing the pain, I blinked away and left.