Chapter 35

Chapter 35
Poppy roared with everything that she had; it would have been heard for miles around without the need for enhanced hearing. With her mouth wide open, I could see that her teeth had elongated, telling me that Nova was reacting with her. I was relieved that she would not be going through this alone, that she had her wolf by her side through everything that was to come. She began snapping her jaws at Corbin and pulling against the guard to try and reach him, trying to take a piece of him to return the favour. Another guard ran to the struggling two with a syringe in his hand and jabbed it hard into Poppy’s neck before she had a chance to even notice that he was there. 

Pops fell to the concrete floor with a hiss and was twitching as the small dose of wolfsbane soared through her veins, making them stand out under her smooth skin.  

Corbin decided that he was going to use this as an opportunity to continue with the inhumane and barbarous punishments. He leapt over her, speedily placed the forceps on her right breast and as soon as he was satisfied with where it was placed, he tightened his hold on the tongs and closed the torture device so that the spikes met together, buried deep in Pop’s flesh. He did not waste a second before he twisted the iron utensil aggressively and yanked it with all his strength, damaging her right breast even more than he did the left.  

Poppy’s scream that followed was so high-pitched that it pierced everyone’s armor with her undeniable and unbearable agony and suffering. I felt it so deeply in my heart and soul, I pined to be with her. She rolled around on the ground, clutching at her mutilated chest with the most distressing whimpers a person could ever hear; a wounded animal tugged less at the very centre of your entire being than Poppy did with the sounds that came from her.  

“Next, I suppose we will keep in fashion with the breast ripper and do a little bit of combing.” 

Excited murmurs were carried through the winds to us at the prospect of what they were going to be seeing next.  

I had no idea myself what ‘combing’ was, but in just a few days I felt like I knew Corbin and I figured that whatever it was, it was going to be awful. It hurt me enough watching her have her breasts maimed, and not being able to do a damn thing to help her made me feel heavy, like I was rooted to the spot and could not move. I turned and tried to leave the platform with my feet dragging reluctantly; as much as I wanted to be here for her, I could not stay and watch everything that my best friend was being subjected to. 

Dane stepped in front of me in my preoccupied state; he was nothing more than a brick wall, to be an obstacle that I had barely even noticed through my tears and emotional distress until I rammed into it. I looked up, and through the fog in my eyes, I saw that his face was contorted in anger. 

He detained me by clasping his hands around my biceps in a bear-like grip and shook me with frustration, leaving deep bruises in the shapes of his fingers. I was terrified that I would be next up for some torturous punishments for trying to walk away instead of observing their regular disgusting management methods of disobedient packmembers. He twisted me around and held me anchored to the spot, Reid quietly and swiftly approached, a face of thunder cementing my whole-body rigid. Once he was close enough, he punched me in the stomach. I doubled over, vomiting from the strike, the gore I was being forced to watch, and the fact that my mate took extreme pleasure in hurting me. 

“You fucking stay right there, you little whore. You will watch everything that happens here today, lest you get any ideas in that brain of yours.” Reid growled at me whilst poking his finger roughly into my head, his fury promising me more violence if I did not obey him and Dane.  

I stood as straight as my throbbing stomach would allow me and bowed my head to him, acknowledging his threat and a silent promise to take heed. I stared at his feet; the shiny surface of his shoes reflecting distorted images of who-knows what until he shifted away from me. 

Screams had my head lift on instinct. I was regretfully curious, but it was essential that I saw what was unfolding, regardless of the continuing nausea, the torture of seeing so much barbaric medieval behaviour, and that it also felt like my head and stomach was a world away on a ship being thrown about by rough seas.  

I instantly regretted my decision to look; Corbin was standing over a kneeling Poppy and holding something that looked like a paddle with nails that went through it, resembling an odd-looking brush. He was bringing it down with force and running it down her back frantically, over and over again in some kind of frenzy. He showed his keenness for the truly grim and macabre, viciously bringing the filthy wooden thing down repeatedly so that he was tearing away strips of her skin, as if he was flaying her in a more brutal way. 

Strips of skin and blood was flying all over the place with Corbin’s manic outburst, staining his pale grey shirt and ugly tie and leaving the ground littered in multiple shades of red and pink lumps. His frantic and savage attack on Poppy only lasted a minute or two, but it was enough to cruelly destroy her back, with no chance of it ever looking normal and smooth again. Before he had even finished, Pops was unable to hold herself up at all anymore and had fallen face-first to the concrete, grazing her cheek that was already splattered red and smudged with tears and dirt.  

Corbin was panting hard from the intense depravity of what he had done; his eyes were as wide as saucers in trying to absorb every little lurid detail; his mouth drooped open slightly as he gawped in amazement, and once again, excited from the masochism. 

Without saying another word, someone approached the bloodthirsty man, and with a shaking hand they passed him a piece of wire before scarpering away, back to wherever they had been hiding before.  

“Up!” Corbin roared at Poppy, as she lay unmoving. The only way that you could tell that she was still alive was the faint, slow thump of her heart beating inside of her broken body, and her small, soft sobs. 

At this point the crowed was silent; completely stunned and engrossed with the display and desperate to find out the ending. 

Poppy did not move in the slightest from where she was, even with the shithead’s command – unsurprisingly she was not able to after what had been done to her. So, instead, Corbin leaned forwards and grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and forced her up onto her knees. She fell into a sitting position with her legs bowed weakly either side of her and immediately wobbled. Just as she was about to fall, Corbin hurriedly wrapped the garrote around Poppy’s neck and pulled it taut, locking her throat in the middle of it and stopping her from being able to breathe. 

“No!” I screamed. Panicked and scared for Pops, I had dived towards the two struggling on the floor, but someone caught me around the waist, stopping me from getting to them. I fought with whomever it was that restrained me, but they refused to let me go. I lifted my feet from the ground, kicking and screaming to let me help her, but it did nothing. 

I stopped fighting and watched as my best friend since childhood, my support, my angel, tried to claw at Corbin’s powerful hands so that she could live another day. But it was no good, she did not stand a chance against him. 

With Corbin cutting off her oxygen and what little blood she had left that was trying to get to her head, I saw Poppy’s face turn as red as a rose, and how her mouth opened and closed noiselessly like a fish out of water.  

Very quickly, Poppy’s eyes started to droop closed. Each time she opened them, they opened less than the time before, until they flickered slightly and stopped moving altogether. Her hands dropped lifelessly down at her sides, no direction to them at all, just laying there limply; her fingers were slightly curled, and her hands faced up to the cloudy sky as if waiting to catch something falling to them. I strained to listen for that steady thump-thump, but all I managed to hear was one minute tap before it stopped altogether.