Neither Lady nor Pirate (Complete)

Chapter Thirty Four

It's good to be back. :)

XOXO

sophie9630

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THIRTY-FOUR

Darkness. Inside, outside. The darkness was everywhere.

The stone-floored, smelly cell Finn currently occupied sat in the farthest corner of the jailhouse, far away from any of the thin windows that lined tops of the other cell walls.

Time had shifted from his enemy into the weight compressing him slowly into nothingness. He did not count days, finding it useless when he knew that there was no freedom at the end of his sentence. It would have been torture, anyhow, for all time did was remind him how long it had been since the altercation.

Since the day his life had fallen completely apart.

If he were lucky enough to have any social interaction, it was limited to chance, when the warden would throw a bread roll through the cell door. Finn supposed he should be grateful for any morsel of food he could get, but his physical hunger was of the least importance to him.

With the infrequency of his visits, so too was it to the warden.

And so Finn would sit and sit, and having already lost track of how long he had been sitting, he continued to do so without any plans for change. The sense of aloneness was most torturous during the night, for then there was absolutely no light and Finn was consumed both by the silence and the darkness.

Sleep had nothing to offer him, so there was hardly time for Finn's mind to rest. It always spun with guilt and fear and anger, but it was in the nighttime hours that those feelings intensified so deeply that Finn was often physically paralyzed until morning.

She was always the one on his mind; her beautiful face coming to him every time he closed his eyes.

He strained to see the vivid, rich color of her ocean-blue eyes and the soft rolling waves of her honey-blonde hair. He saw her lips pulled into a brilliant smile; the corners of her eyes crinkled in delight.

If he focused hard enough, he could hear her laughter, could hear the sarcastic tone of voice she often used with him when he did something wrong. He could feel the gentle caress of her delicate fingers on his cheeks, could remember the beautiful sensation of her lips on his.

But then the silence and the darkness came roaring, snorting, snarling, chilling Finn to the bone with their frigid embrace. He tried so hard to push away thoughts of her—even tried forgetting her name—but the smallest memory brought with it terror and bitter anguish.

The fear of what had been done never ceased to bring with it a sickening guilt. Finn was utterly terrified that she could be dead and terrified that it had been by his fault. No matter how hard he tried to push them away, the dark thoughts fought against him with such force that Finn felt more weakened from their presence than any lack of food.

He'd failed her.

Out of every wrong thing that had ever been done to Abigail Englesworth at his hand, that was by far the worst.

He'd come to terms with kidnapping her the first time. He'd come to terms with all the fighting and the tears she'd shed because of him. He'd been on his way to accepting what he'd done in Cuba, and then... And then he'd lost her.

The blood that had stained his hands had long since faded, but in even in the terrible lighting of his cell Finn could not erase the image from his mind. He saw it fresh, red, pouring freely from her back.