Unforgivable Lacerations

Chapter Forty-Five

The walls around me were familiar, too familiar, too haunting, too dreadful. I had revisited this cottage every night in my unconsciousness, and every day in my thoughts. Surveying my surroundings, I saw myself, bloodied, battered and frightened, locked around the kitchen chair. I instantly remembered what Jacob did to me this horrendous night after finding the two knives that I kept for safe keeping.

"I'll make sure you don't defy me again, Isabella," Jacob warned in a low voice, stalking closer to the battered Bella tied in the chair. As a bystander, I couldn't do anything but watch and recall what it felt like. 

"No please! Jacob please!" The injured girl screamed while Jacob's eyes rolled to the back of his head as if he relished her pain.

"I love the sound of fear, the sound of your begging." The monster's voice was quieter and gave a dirty edge, making the terrified girl quiver in disgust and fear with her eyes wild. However, like a switch had been turned off, her trembles stopped and the life in her eyes dimmed.

I remember what my previous self was thinking and what had made the flame in my eyes extinguish.

If I die, I die. It would save me the job of doing it.

The two knives continued to close the distance, it was all her eyes were focused on in that moment. They were the inevitable sentence she was about to receive, with the knowledge that there would be no time nor mercy for parole. 

Terrified of the pain that was about to begin, she tried to free her tied wrists, wriggling and yanking. Even though the rope burned around them she didn't stop, determined and driven crazy but the desperation. Blood, fresh and warm, poured down her hands as she tried harder.

Jacob was close to her now. He pointed the knife at the emotionless face, which fear froze in place, making her tries of escape come to a halt. The side of the blade slid smoothly across her sweated face, she whimpered at the touch of the instrument he was about to use.

From my view, I saw him bring the second knife to the girl's thigh, its point penetrating her skin, slowly. She screamed out, so loud that my ears felt as if they would bleed. I remember that. I remember that feeling. My cry laced with hers.

Like ink spreading on wet paper, the blood expanded on her sweatpants. With the smallest movements, he moved the penetrated knife through the skin of her thigh and material of her pants, down to just above the poor girl's knee. He pushed down on the knife, not enough to kill her by blood loss, but enough to let more agony erupt. She screamed, needing this to stop. I screamed just watching.

"S-stop!" The girl and I begged simultaneously; the only difference was, the girl on the chair had turned a light shade of blue. I could still recall the ringing in the ears from that night, the feeling of the heart being in the throat, nestled and content with blocking the airways. 

He didn't, though, but take out the knife, letting the sound of the skin squelch around it call out. 

Pulling her forward, the fragile body belted forward but her wrists stayed locked to the chair, which caused the rope to press into her bloodied burns. She didn't make a sound, afraid, but the tears were beginning to make a reappearance. Ripping her shirt off her torso, he used her skin on her bare back as a canvas and began to illustrate.

"Whore!" Jacob yelled into her face, she didn't even flinch, too in shock to notice anything around her.

As the knife curved around the skin and dug deeper, she screamed; wishing this was over. As I did as well, touching the deep scars on my back from what happened.

"Bella, love, wake up!" I heard close to my ear. "Come on, sweetheart." Using the voice to shake me out of this memory, I gripped on to it and escaped my unconsciousness.