Unbroken

Chapter 12

I was drug between the two men who had held me upright when I was branded. I let my feet roll through the dusty ground because it was too much effort to walk. I was in too much pain to walk on my own.I didn't care about anything at the moment. My side still felt like it was on fire even after Tarra ran cool water over it and gently rubbed on a salve. She assured me that the salve would take out the sting and help it heal faster. My nose was still full of the smell of my own burning flesh which made it difficult for me to accept what she was telling me and be happy about it.

One of the men reached out to pull open the door of mine and Grants shack and they hauled me in. Grant looked up from his spot on the floor when they put me on the bed. I laid there on the greasy sheets and pulled my knees up to my chest. They shut the door and Grant rushed over to me.

"Rose?" he whispered. His hands gently roamed over me as he checked for wounds. I gasped as he touched the brand and his hand recoiled. "What happened?"

I answered his question with a sob and turned around to face him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and sobbed against his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around me and held me tight against his chest. We couldn't do anything except hold each other in our pain. He stroked my hair as I sobbed against his chest. Everything hurt and I felt like it was hopeless.

We hadn't been there for that long and they had already done this to me. I was already letting it get to me. This wasn't the end. This was just the beginning. I didn't want to go out like this. The broken little girl who needed to be put back together.

"They branded me." I choked out against his chest and I felt his arms constrict tighter around me.

"I'm so sorry Roslyn." He whispered.

It was still dark outside when the guards came back. They pulled me from Grants arms I heard him yelling behind me. Instead of the tent from earlier they took me somewhere else. Through the trees there was a vertical rock wall. We were at the bottom of a cliff. They pushed through a curtain of tree branches that were concealing a cave. Inside the ground was lined with furs. Up ahead there was a fire crackling.

Tarra walked around a corner of the cave and when she saw me a large smile split across her lips. "Roslyn!" She said and hurried towards me. "It is so good to see you." She took my hand in hers and pulled me against her in a crushing hug. I almost passed out from the pain. "Let's take a look at that shall we?" She said when she noticed my gasp.

She dismissed the guards with a wave of her hand and they obediently left after giving a bow. I watched them leave and almost missed them. They had left me behind with this crazy woman. There was no telling what she would do to me. What she had already done was bad enough. I stood there slightly hunched over because standing upright pulled at the skin too much and the brand would start bleeding.

"I know exactly what you need right now." Tarra smiled when the guards disappeared from sight. "Take that off." She said pointing at my clothes. Again I stood there and looked at her in shock. "Really Roslyn? This again?"

I didn't need to be told twice. I reached up and started unbuttoning my shirt. I left it open like she had done the night before. "All the way off." She said with a wave of her hand. I let the shirt fall to the floor and I wrapped my arms around myself like a shield. She pointed at my pants too and I untied them and let them fall. I stood there in my underclothes for her inspection. "Are you just going to stand there all day?" She asked then walked off towards the back of the cave. As we walked the air became more and more humid. I heard the sound of rushing water and I was confused. I had heard of caves with natural water running through them but I hadn't ever seen one. Tarra snagged a torch off the wall and led the way.

She stopped at the edge of the water and held out the torch so I could see. There was a little pool that was full of water. Because of the darkness the water looked like it was black. I wondered how deep it was and Tarra lit another torch that was on the wall. She lit a few more torches that were attached to the walls all around the room. Eventually the room was flooded with light and I could see that the pool eased out below a large rock and disappeared from view.

"It is a bit deep right here so you should be able to have a nice bath." Tarra giggled. "Hopefully that will make you feel better. There are all kinds of exciting things that you will get to see while you're here with us." She said.

I looked down at the water and then back at her. It was surprising and a bit unbelievable that she would bring me here like we were the best of friends. She acted like it was nothing that she had branded me just a few hours earlier.

"Just take your things off and get into the water. There's some soap for you to clean up with." She said pointing over at a small tray that was at the edge of the water. "Just give me a holler and I will be back with some clean clothes for you to wear. I want you to feel like a lady. Those horrible man clothes that you wore in here couldn't have made you feel like the princess that you are." She smiled at me and slipped out of the cave. I could hear her footsteps echo off of the rock walls as she retreated. Eventually all that I could hear was the sound of the rushing water. I wondered how far the pond went and if I could get in the rushing river that I could hear. I would most likely be bashed against rocks and drowned before the river ever surfaced. Tarra must know this or she wouldn't have let me have a bath here all on my own.

I didn't really want a bath. I wanted to leave here but that wasn't an option. I knew that I was an absolute mess. There was blood in my hair. The strands stuck together in large clumps. I had scabs across my cheek. The cuts had burned as my tears washed over them last night in Grant's arms. I thought of him back at that shack. He would definitely be wondering what had happened to me. Right now there wasn't anything that I could do about that. I had the option of taking a bath or just standing there and waiting for Tarra. She would get me in the water no matter what. Proper behavior wasn't a choice. I eased towards the edge of the water and was surprised to feel that the water was actually warm. Without taking off my underclothes I sunk in beneath the surface. My many cuts and bruises stung at the contact with the water but they didn't matter. The water felt amazing and eventually soothed all my wounds.

It felt amazing to be clean. I stayed where I could touch the bottom of the pool. Swimming wasn't something that was proper for princesses so mother hadn't ever bothered to teach me how to swim. I walked over to the expensive soaps and selected one to scrub with. I washed away all of the dirt and grime from my journey.

I sighed contentedly and noticed something. A prickle on the back of my neck caught my attention and I spun around. Standing in the middle of the cave was a man that I didn't recognize. He smiled at me and I wiped the water off of my face. When he took a step into the water I took a step back into the deeper part of the pool.

"Tarra!" I screamed and he launched towards me. He never even touched me. Tarra seemed to appear out of nowhere and she was on his back driving a long knife into his back.

"What happened?" She asked as she stood up in the waist deep water.

"I don't know! I just looked up and saw him standing there."

"Oh you poor thing." She said and walked towards me pulling me to the shallower water. There she wrapped her arms around me. "It's alright."

We walked out of the water together and I glanced back at the corpse that was drifting to where the pool opened out into the rushing river. Tarra smiled at me and I watched as his foot disappeared from view as he was sucked out by the current.