Bloody Shackles

Chapter 14: Carry me, and please don't go

Happy Halloween everyone!  This was inspired by two songs this time, Carry Me by Papa Roach and Please Don't Go by Barcelona.  I hope you all enjoy the chapter! :)

Marcus’s POV

            I didn’t care.  I didn’t care that I had sent her out into the heat.  I didn’t care that her guilt and shame and regret clenched her heart.  I wanted her to feel the pain and suffering that I felt when she betrayed me.  I didn’t care.  I didn’t care how long it had been.  How many hours.  How many days.  How long the sun had been beating down on her.  I didn’t care.

            At least that’s what I told myself.

            I laid my head on a silk pillow, intent on falling into a peaceful slumber, and I realized it was the third day of that wench being punished.  I closed my eyes, dull and black, and slowly succumbed to sleep.  I tried to tell myself.  I truly did.  I don’t care.

            But I knew it was a lie.

            As the darkness, something I once believed to be comforting, enveloped me, I realized that I had been lying all along.

            I saw her. 

She was sitting on the ground against a post, her head lolled to the side, the darkness covering her face from view.  The gardens, that I had thought many a time to be quite beautiful in the moonlight, mirrored monsters of childhood nightmares.  Shadows from the trees and bushes danced, like there was some secret song playing that only they could hear. 

            I stepped towards her. 

            The wind whipped about, causing the trees to dance faster and shadows casted across her body like lace.  I noticed then, that instead of her hands being tied behind her back, they were laying by her sides.  Limp.  Lifeless.  Just like the rest of her.

            Panic.  Worry.  I don’t care.  That thought was forgotten as I rushed towards her.  I knelt down and grabbed one of her hands.  Black dirt underneath her fingernails, like paranoia had ceased her and she tried to crawl away.  But if she wasn’t tied up, why did she not just leave?  I dismissed the question when I noticed what else was on her hand.  Mixed in with the smudges of dirt was something I was quite familiar with.

            Blood.

             It was splattered on her hands and traveled up her arms, where cuts marred her skin.  It was the same with her legs, I noticed.  And her dress was torn and smudged with black and red.  I inhaled sharply.  Guilt stabbed at me.   What have I done?  I held her hand tighter, clutching her fingers, my other hand grasping her wrist.  Feeling for a pulse.  I swallowed audibly.  Her pulse.  There wasn’t one. 

            My hands left hers to reach up to her face.  My fingertips grazed her jaw and tilted her face towards mine.  The shadows that had once cloaked her face from view, slid away and I could see her clearly.  I flinched. 

            Her mouth was open slightly, and ruby red dribbled from the corner, down her neck.  Her lips were stained crimson, and her cheeks smudged with blood and dirt.  But there were streaks.  Streaks from where tears had marked their place, their trail down from her eyes to her jaw.  Her eyes.  Oh, her eyes.  Eyes that had once been bright, emerald green, even when I hurt her. When I bruised her skin. When I crushed her soul.  Beautiful eyes.

            Not anymore.

            Her eyes were rimmed with black, and tears still flowed from the corners.  Her eyes.  They were white.  Dull.  Clouded.  Like she had stared at the Sun, and wondered why she was stuck in such a horrid situation.