A Dangerous Game (A Hunger Games Fan Fiction)

16. Accepting the Unavoidable

16. Accepting the Unavoidable

       CRACK.

I bit my lip so I wouldn’t scream. It hadn’t even touched my skin yet, that was just merely Brutus warming up his whipping arm. Yes, Brutus felt he should do the honors. Marcus was with him of course, but he would rather hold me still than do the deed.

 The sound of the whip frightened me. It sounded so lightning quick I knew the sting would be unbearable the moment it’d touch my bare skin. I faced away from the door, facing the metal bed I’d slept on for possibly more than a day now. For all I knew, it could still be one day.

            Marcus and another Peacekeeper had shackled my wrists and pulled me until I was hurting. I swore they stretched me out to where they yanked my arms out of their sockets. My arms were straight out, my legs had to adjust. Since the Peacekeepers thought the layer of clothing I had would be too thick for the whip to dig through, they stripped me of my shirt and put me in a gown that one would get when visiting a doctor, where the back was entirely exposed.

            I peered at Katniss, who was pressed up against the glass, eyes panicking. I felt ashamed. I brought this on myself. I was the one who gave the Peacekeepers the brilliant idea to whip me into submission, that way they would get my permission for them to cut out my tongue and transform me into an Avox.

            Thinking about it, why would the Peacekeepers even want my permission to cut out my tongue? Wouldn’t they just do it anyway, whether I liked it or not?

            “Let’s see how long it takes for you to break,” Brutus snarled. I hissed through my teeth as I heard him go back behind me.

I could hear the quick whistle of the whip as it was thrust back. I gave a low noise of pain as the first lash struck me horribly. I almost buckled instantly, but I locked my knees. I hissed as the second lash struck me.

 Brutus didn’t let me catch a second’s break. The third whip made me bite my lip. The fourth and fifth lashes made me bite down so hard that my lip actually split and started to trickle blood. So far that’s the damage. I’m doing a lot better than expected.

It wasn’t an ideal encouragement speech, but it at least kept me thinking I can get through a lot more lashes.

I tasted my irony blood as I licked it off my lip. I quivered slightly as lashes six and seven were released on me. I heard thumping on my right—Katniss wanted to burst through the glass and stop them, I knew. She had taken a lash for Gale when he had been whipped for being caught hunting illegally. I had no doubt she wanted to take a strike or two for me if she got the chance to.

I panted once lashes eight through ten were delivered to me. My back stung to the point where it seemed almost unbearable. Ten lashes, I never thought I’d make it that far. But I knew the torture would only continue the more I withstood each lash of the whip.

By lash fifteen, I could scarcely feel blood trickling down my back. A light sheen of sweat broke out on my forehead. My knees wobbled, threatening to give out on me.

“She’s stronger than I expected,” murmured Brutus. “. We’ll just have to keep going; she’s got to break at some point.”

By lash twenty, that’s when I couldn’t hold back my screams any longer. I didn’t know how Brutus managed to find skin to strike when I was positive half my back was already struck.

Sometimes he hit an already-struck spot. Lashes twenty-one through twenty-three involved that, and they hurt the worst. I gulped little breaths of air while I could before I let out another scream.