surrender

**Savannah

It's pathetic; how badly she needs this. When I heard the gunfire I knew.

Today is the anniversary of my father's death. It's been almost twenty years.

Yeah, I knew.

I surrendered willingly. The snake didn't even show her face. I wonder if the man she's duped knows that when she gets me, she'll kill him.

Probably not.

Oh, well.

Unfortunately, it's too easy to revert back to her puppet

Unfortunately, it's too easy to revert back to her puppet. They knocked me out, tied me up, threw me in a dark, cold cell. Easy stuff.

Lord knows she's got something cooking. Something worse than ever.

I don't know how long sit there on that dirty floor. My head hangs, my breathing slows. I have to conserve energy.

If I don't escape her, she still won't get away. Luciano won't let her. But while I'm here, I'm at her mercy.

And she has none.

I regulate my internal clock the way I use to. Every hour, there's feet at the door. Shift changes.

If I'm right, I've been here three days.

This dank prison seems like that Hilton compared to what I used to get.

And whenever Fiona does something good, she drowns it, bathed it in something diabolical.

I hear her coming. I can tell by her footsteps. I remind myself.

"Hello, Child."

"Hello, Mother."

A lull in the air catches in my chest. But I cannot show fear. She feasts on fear. She is a monster powered by the knowledge that she has struck fear into someone's heart.

"Did think you would get away?"

"I didn't get away." I bite back the sarcastic comment on the tip of my tongue.

Not yet.

She struck me, but I barely felt it. She pulls something from the wall and the way the material sounds on the ground I'd say it's a whip. Leather.

"You had me imprisoned!"

My back bows under the whip, but I don't make a sound. I just let my head fall. She does it once more, and I feel the first drop of blood slide down my back.

First of many.

She wants an answer. But I was supposed to know that, and answer appropriately. I catch it too late and that whip slices through the air and tears at my back.

"I didn't. I wasn't even conscious."

Another lash, this time it breaks the skin. But I will not cry. I will not quiver. I will not scream.

I will not feed her.

"It doesn't matter!" She looses her temper and one lash fades into the other, striping my back, until it numbs.

I bit my lip, suck the tears back in.

The whip drops with a resounding thud, as she pants from exertion.

My head hangs low, my mouth makes no sound. I am a tiger. Striped but fierce.

I show not pain.

Not yet.

She will break me.

We both know that. That's why she leaves in huff, to come back for another torture.

I still don't cry. Not silently, not quietly. She's watching. I am her experiment, and she must document her findings.

It took her three years to break me. Just three.

I am not even whole. I still bear the scars, the sounds, the holes from the first time.

I'm already falling apart.

It won't take her long to break what's broken.