Awakening (Book 2 in the Original BOC Series) ✔

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Mara was struggling to push her upper torso up with her shaky arms and grit her teeth with the pain she was feeling. She closed her eyes, whimpering, and fell back down. She breathed slowly, her nails scraping against the cold pavement under them and her cheek.

She didn't have to look in a mirror to know that Travosky had done damage to her face.

When Travosky took on Mara's challenge of "doing better than that", he didn't hold back.

He had first punched Mara, knocking her onto her side then reached down to yank her up by her brown hair and punched her again. Mara fell onto her back holding her hands to her face. It was throbbing so badly and she could feel the blood from her the side of where her lip was split.

Travosky walked around and surprised Mara by kicking her from the side. She rolled over screaming and used her hands to cover her stomach. She was going to endure all the pain, but she was not going to let Travosky harm her baby. She felt his foot make contact with her back, forcing her onto her stomach. Mara coughed, spitting out the bit of blood still in her mouth. Travosky flipped her over and sneered at the way the heiress held her arms over her stomach.

"What's wrong, heiress? Do you have a tummy-ache?"

Mara's body arched—or at least attempted to—when Travosky stepped on her arms braced protectively over her stomach and grinded his foot down. She screamed, trying to pull herself away but Travosky dug the sole of his boot deeper into her arms. After being unsuccessful in having the heiress move her arms, Travosky smiled and knelt down pulling her arms from where they rested and held her wrists in one hand while pushing down hard on her abdomen.

Her high pitched scream filled the room again and she bent her knees up, throwing her head back and pleaded, "Stop! Please, stop!" Travosky pushed his hand down further, chuckling at the pain contorting into Mara's face. Travosky lifted his hand and threw her arms away from him. Mara turned onto her side, pulling herself into the fetal position with her hands over her stomach and cried.

Travosky rose and pointed down at Mara, snarling at Nathan who was still in an uproar and trying to break free. "This is what happens, Nathan! This is what happens when you take away my glory! My domain! My chance at vengeance!" Travosky bellowed from where he stood.

He pointed down at Mara again, now lying on her back and gasping with little effort as she curled her fingers into her palms. The man pointed his finger up to the group, "I don't tolerate humiliation very kindly as you can now see! Because of you," he pointed at Nathan, "— I have to cost the world such a pretty little thing... And your child to go with her!"

Mara squeezed her eyes shut, biting her lip hard and slowly—painfully—turned onto her side. She opened her mouth, eyes wide at the pain shooting up her body. Struggling to push it at bay, Mara whimpered looking downward towards the skirt of her dress. She needed to get what was in her pocket. She needed it to fight back. Mara closed her eyes, taking a moment to tighten her muscles and let the pain searing through her veins pass.

Her fingers could barely move. They twitched trying to get to move down and slip her fingers into her pocket. She had to pause again to let her body pass the agony away. Her teeth clenched as she forced her aching fingers to wrap around the cold metal still in place. Mara had one chance to do this. And one chance only. If silently meeting Jennings' eyes meant anything, then Mara had to wait for the right moment to do what she needed.

Otherwise, Travosky was going to make sure to take her life and her baby's... if he already hadn't.

Just the thought of that fueled Mara to no end. Her anger helped her carefully, after long moments of trying to pull her arm back up with the object in her hand, breath out a huff of air and flop to her stomach gently. Mara raised her head weakly, watching the others being held down while fighting back.