You're My Medicine

Bottle and A Gun

Pain wripped through her back in time with the whip crack behind her. She bit the leather strap in her mouth to hold in her screams. Screaming only made it worse. Screaming made him angry. Tears burned her eyes almost as much as the sting of the leather bit at her bare back.

"You will do as you are told!" he demanded as cracked the whip across her back a third time, the liqour in the bottle he held splashing across the floor, "You will be punished if you do not do as you are told."

Her nails dug into her palms as she held in her screams of agony.

"You were a mistake," he growled as he pulled his arm back, dragging the whip across the concert floor and into the spilt alcohol, "I should have had your mother kill you when she got preganat. You have been nothing but a disgrace to this family. You are not worth what a pig could spit."

The whip lashed her back again and she shut her eyes tight, closing her throat to the scream that clawed her vocal cords. The alcohol stung her open wounds and she could feel it, like hot nails being dug into her back.

"I should get rid of you now," he said and dropped his whip, walking over to her, grabbing a hand full of her copper curls, "You filthy, stinking shit. I should just kill you now, no one would miss you."

She held her eyes closed tight, not wanting to see those dark eyes full of hate and evil, the black eyes that haunted her days and nights, never giving her peace.

'Then do it,' she begged internally, 'Do it and free me of you.'

"But that would too easy," he spat at her the smell of the liqour invading her nostrils and he jerked her head back hard making her whimper, "Look at me!"

She forced her eyes open against her will and was inches away from the horror of her life, those black eyes that held nothing for her but hate and loathing.

"You deserve everything you are getting," he hissed a whisper in her ear, his alcohol laced spit splattering her tear stained face, "You deserve all of it. You brought it on yourself the day you came into this world. You are no better than your whore of a mother."

He dropped her head and walked away from her, picking up his whip once again, "Five more should do for today's punishment," he said too happily and her heart dropped at the sound of the leather coated with her blood dropped to the floor, "Remember, you scream and we have to start all over again."

She heard it scrap the floor as he drew back his arm, her heart and throat gripped with terror, her fists clenched, her nails digging cresent moon red lines into her palm, her naked chest pressed painfully against the wooden and splintered support beam of their basement, her bare knees scraped and bleeding from having to kneel on the cold, dirty concert floor, and she tried to prepare herself, tried to find that empty far away place, for the coming snap of agony that would tear her pale flesh and rip through her body.

===

She woke with a start, throwing her arms out to protect herself, screaming as she sat up, drenching in sweat.

"Emmy," Mark said gently from her feet, true pain covering his features, his sapphire blue eyes showing the deep love he felt for his friend, "You are okay. I just got home."

Emmy panted, her heart still racing, her whole body shaking, "Mark?" she wrasped through a tight throat that ached, her eyes wide and full of terror.

Her bottom lip trimbled and her vision swam as tears filled her eyes just before she broke into sobs, burying her face in her hands and pulling her knees to her chest, rocking subconsciously. She thought the nightmares were done. It had been almost ten years since that had ended, and the nightmares had stopped when she moved in with Mark three years ago. Why now?