Lies

Chapter 48

**Will**

I couldn't believe it. I was travelling with Artemis, the man-hating goddess. We sprinted across to a boulder large enough to hide us, and then ran to a different one. Eventually we made it to where the flashes were coming from. Zoë was chained to the ground on her stomach. Tartarus was pushing her face into the ground with his foot. So he could have a form here, just not up in the mortal world I thought. Zoë's back was torn open and blood had dried around the edges, so it wouldn't be closing anytime soon. Whips had torn open her t-shirt and Tartarus had obviously tried to whip her very hard, because a few ribs were broken. The chains on her wrists and ankles had blood all over them, from Zoë tugging to hard to get free. She was mumbling something insulting to him but it was too incoherent to be able to understand. Zoë's jeans were stained red and the knees of them were ripped open, probably from being chucked on the ground so many times. Tartarus ripped her from her chains and flung her at a rock without letting go of the chain. I heard a series of cracks and instantly knew that all her ribs were busted. He flicked his wrist and Zoë came flying back to him. She gritted her teeth, sliding down the boulder to the ground. There she sat, half conscious. She spotted me and shifted into a more comfortable position.

"Why—why are you ... you doing this?" Zoë managed. 

"Because!" Tartarus yelled. "Because I can, because I want to, because no one can stop me!"

"You're insane," Zoë gasped. 

Tartarus laughed cruelly. "And no one can stop me."

He lashed out with his hand, striking Zoë across the face. While he was doing that, I looked around the place. We were in a kind of cave-like place. Rocks towered around us so that we probably wouldn't be seen by anybody walking past. Tartarus had chained Zoë to some of the rocks before, I could tell. They were usually splattered with blood or hand faint outlines of where she'd been. A sharp scream jolted me back to reality and I looked at Zoë instantly. Her face was contorted in pain. Tartarus had lipped her onto her back and pushing across the ground so the grainy bits of ground would stick or go into the wound. I glanced over at Artemis and saw her struggling to keep her tears in. I put an arm around her, and was so relieved when she didn't turn me into a jackalopes. I looked back at Tartarus who has now been handed a whip. The whip came down hard on Zoë's stomach, legs, back and once even on her face. Her face was drenched with sweat and there were a few little white scars on her jaw. There was a cut on her forehead that wasn't too deep. I didn't think that would scar and if it did it would most deco agley fade away over time. Going down from near the corner of her left eye, across her nose and ending about a centimetre from her top lip was a jagged scar, almost closed but part of it was still bleeding. The closed part of it was thin and a light brown colour, going whitish. Zoë's back had roughly thirty or so whip marks going across her back. Her wounds were unable to heal, on the account of being reopened every time they tried to heal. After seven more hours of horrifying torture Tartarus left, walking away slowly like he loved hearing her scream and grunt in pain. Although, Tartarus was a psychopath, so I guess he probably did. We stepped out from behind our boulder and I noticed Zoë tensed, as if waiting for us to inflict more terrible pain on her.

"Oh gods," I whispered.

"Oh gods," Artemis agreed.