Torn Apart

Chapter 22

Lily felt numb.

Her mind floated somewhere on the border between reality and the inside of her own mind. She kept herself focussed on memories of days long dead, of bits of poetry from authors that she had an appreciation for. Eventually, she had wandered so far that her physical body couldn't feel a single thing.

He hadn't done anything. Not yet. That much she knew. It was clear that he was simply reveling in the moment.

She thought back to Lake Louise. The rhubarb pie at the whistling kettle. Her budding friendship with Vanessa. Jamie and Chloe. She thought of all these things. Her slices of sunshine in the din.

The table shifted as Henry climbed onto it. She could almost feel his breath on her skin. And then the weight was gone, like a stone thrown from the edge of a cliff, and she could breathe again.

"This is too far, Henry!" A voice screamed. Lily snapped awake from her daydreams.

Henry was on the floor, only half dressed. Emmett was standing over him, his clenched fists trembling violently.

"We do what we need to do for the sake of the project!" Henry exclaimed in defence. "You know this!"

"She is a human girl! Not a piece of meat you can use for your endless "testing"." Emmett roared, his right fist coming down hard on Henry's nose. There was a crack as it made contact. "This is low, even for you. Have you no humanity?" He punched him in the stomach, forcing the wind out of Henry's lungs with an oof! "Have you no shame?" Another blow.

"I just... wanted to know..." Henry wheezed from the floor. "The hymen—"

"Nobody cares!" He delivered another blow, then another. Henry whimpered in pain with every punch that was administered to him. After a while however, Henry stopped making any noises at all, and yet Emmett kept on swinging for a good while longer still.

"Emmett..." Lily whispered. "Emmett stop."

Despite how quiet she said those words, how brittle her voice was, it seemed that he had heard her. The beating slowed to a halt, and Emmett straightened up, panting. It didn't sound like Henry was in any hurry to get up from where he lay. Emmett stood there for several minutes, catching his breath as he looked down at Henry's unmoving form on the floor at his feet.

Then he finally turned to look at Lily, who suddenly felt very conscious of her lack of clothing, and the straps that bound her hands and feet. He looked her over briefly, before his feet carried him over to her side.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Not Emmett. Please Lord, don't let it be Emmett. She brace herself for whatever it was Emmett was about to do, when she was greeted with yet another surprise. One by one, the binds on her wrists and ankles sprang free. She opened her eyes just in time to see Emmett slipping a small, silver key into his pocket.

Even though she knew she was now able to move, she found she couldn't do anything of the sort. Fear and shock paralyzed her limbs as she stared at the man who had just set her free. He held out a hand for her to take. When she made no move to do so, he simply took her arm and pulled her into a sitting position.

Her head spun from the sudden motion. With a sudden bout of self-consciousness, she crossed her arms over her chest, averting her gaze to the floor. Emmett made no move to touch her. His eyes seemed to be focussed on anything other than her; the floor, the trays with the array of devices on them, anything other than her body.