I’m frozen in place, not because the groundskeeper is holding me tight with arms pinned behind my back, but because I don’t know what I should do. I can’t bear to see Dean tortured by that fucking sadist Penmark. At the same time, Dean is begging me not to speak. We both know the drastic consequences that will follow if I admit the truth.
Penmark stoops and rummages in a black leather bag that looks very like the kind a doctor might carry. Only Penmark is nothing like Dr. Cross or Dr. Rybakov—he prefers harm over healing. He straightens, holding a cat o’ nine tails loosely in his left hand.
In an awful way, it reminds me of the whip Dean used on me during our very first encounter in the Bell Tower. Dean had carefully crafted his whip with soft leather thongs that wouldn’t actually cut or injure me.
Penmark’s is made for maximum damage—the nine lashes cruelly knotted at the tips, then bound to an ivory handle.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” the Chancellor says.
Penmark stands behind Dean, raising the whip overhead.
His teeth glint as he grins.
He swings his arm down with vicious force. Instantly, nine gashes open up on Dean’s back, splitting his tattoo.
“NOOOO!” I shriek.
Dean lets out a strangled yell, jaw clenched and face sweating. His arms strain against the chains binding them in place as his whole body jerks under the impact. Blood runs down his back in thin, bright lines.
“Dean!” I cry. “I can’t—”
He turns his head to look at me, as best he can in his constrained position.
“Don’t,” he says, through gritted teeth.
Penmark swings the lash again. It bites into Dean’s back, crossing over the former cuts, making Xs out of horizontal lines. I jolt and cry out as if it’s me being hit.
“You can stop this any time,” the Chancellor tells me.
He knows I killed Rocco. But he doesn’t have proof. He’s trying to goad me into confessing by torturing Dean right in front of me.
Lola stands with her back against the far wall, biting on the edge of her thumbnail. She looks sick and yet captivated, like someone binging on too much cake.
The rage I feel in this moment would make me a murderer all over again. If not for the groundskeeper holding me back, I’d cut her fucking throat for this.
Penmark whips Dean again and again and again.
Dean’s tattoo is obliterated, his back a hash of blood and raw flesh. His head lolls, jerking up with each strike.
Tears pour down my face. I struggle futilely against the groundskeeper’s iron grip.
I have to stop this, I have to tell them the truth. I can’t let them hurt Dean anymore.
As if he can read my mind, Dean turns his head once more and hisses at me, “If you say one fucking word, I’ll never forgive you.”
My heart is ripping in half, torn between my need to help him, and the knowledge that if I confess, we’ll never be together. I’ll be dead and he’ll despise me forever for my weakness.
Dean doesn’t want me weak, guilty, and giving in.
He wants me strong. Ruthless. Doing whatever it takes to get what we want.
I look at Dean and he looks back at me, his face whiter than death but fixed and resolute.
“I love you,” I whisper.
Penmark raises the lash again.
He whips Dean with cruel fury, five more times.
“Stop,” the Chancellor says.
Disappointed and resentful, Penmark lowers his arm.
“Dean, you have been punished for your refusal to reveal what you know,” the Chancellor pronounces. “With no further evidence . . . I consider the matter closed.”
He sweeps out of the room, disgusted with all of us.
Lola hurries after him, probably knowing that the second I’m released I plan to claw her fucking face off.
Penmark follows at a more leisurely pace, throwing one last wistful glance at the ruin of Dean’s back, as if admiring his handiwork.
I want to kill him, too. I’d already be making plans to do it if I could think of anyone but Dean.
The moment the groundskeeper releases me, I run to Dean. I kneel in front of him, taking his face in my hands, bawling and kissing him and begging for him to tell me he’s alright.
The groundskeeper unlocks the manacles. Dean slumps forward, falling into my arms.
I can’t stop crying and I can’t stop holding him.
I can’t believe he did that for me.
I don’t know how I didn’t see this sooner. Dean loves me. He loves me past anything I could have imagined.
If his anger is a furnace, then his love for me is the sun, burning bright enough to light the universe.
“Baby, are you okay?” I sob.
Dean nuzzles his face against my neck, still leaning heavily against me, his arms dead weight around my shoulders.
“How come you always smell so good?” he groans.
I let out a strangled laugh. “That’s what I think about you.”
I feel his fingers gripping loosely on my back, trying to pull me tighter against him.
“I’m so sorry,” I cry. “I can’t believe you did that . . .”
He struggles to sit up a little, slipping his hand under my hair to hold me at the place where my head meets my neck. He presses his forehead against mine.
“Are we even now?” he says.
“Oh my god.” I shake my head. “You’re insane.”
“I am insane,” he growls. “I’m crazy for you, Cat. I always will be.”
“It terrifies me how much I love you,” I tell him, holding him as tight as I can without hurting him more.
The groundskeeper clears his throat.
I completely forgot he was still in the room with us.
“Are you going to help me take him to the infirmary?” I bark, furious at him and every other barbarous employee at this school.
“Yes,” the groundskeeper says in an almost-apologetic tone.
He was no rougher than he needed to be, holding me back while Penmark had his fun. Actually, now that I’m really looking at him, his brown hair and close-cropped beard are vaguely familiar to me—he might have been friends with Miles once upon a time.
He stoops to take Dean’s arm over his shoulder so he can help support his weight. I try to do the same on the other side, though I’m too short to be of much use.
“Thanks, Brenner,” Dean groans. “Why’d they have to bring Penmark in for that? He’s such an asshole.”
“Agreed,” Brenner grunts. “It’s one thing to do a job, another to enjoy it.”
We hobble off in the direction of the infirmary, moving slowly so we don’t jolt Dean too much.
He’s weak and reeling, but not in terrible spirits.
“I don’t know what they’re making such a fuss about,” he says. “Nobody liked Rocco anyway.”
“I sure didn’t,” Brenner mutters. “After all, I’m the one that had to clean him up.”
30
Dean
That fucking dickhole Penmark really fucked up my back, and now I have to lay in the infirmary bored as hell.
I’m missing all my boxing training AND the last event in the Quartum Bellum. I have to hear about it second-hand when Cat comes to visit me.