shirt with garters to hold up the sleeves. His bared forearms are lean and sinewy, his hands bony and dexterous as twin spiders.
Now at last I understand why Dean admitted a portion of guilt—so he’ll be the one interrogated, not me.
“NO!” I scream.
The groundskeeper grabs my arms and yanks me back.
Lola also takes a step backward, her hand flying up to her mouth. She’s pale, but her eyes are brightly interested, fixed upon Dean’s kneeling figure.
Professor Penmark pulls a silver knife from his belt.
“STOP!” I cry.
He ignores me. With four quick slashes he cuts off Dean’s shirt, baring his torso to the cold. Dean’s flesh glows white as chalk in the dim light. The Siberian tiger tattoo on his back seems to snarl with rage at being so rudely uncovered.
“Do you have something to say?” the Chancellor asks me, coldly.
“Don’t say a fucking word!” Dean shouts at me.
I’m frozen in place, not because the groundskeeper is holding me tight with arms pinned behind my back, but because I don’t know what I should do. I can’t bear to see Dean tortured by that fucking sadist Penmark. At the same time, Dean is begging me not to speak. We both know the drastic consequences that will follow if I admit the truth.
Penmark stoops and rummages in a black leather bag that looks very like the kind a doctor might carry. Only Penmark is nothing like Dr. Cross or Dr. Rybakov—he prefers harm over healing. He straightens, holding a cat o’ nine tails loosely in his left hand.
In an awful way, it reminds me of the whip Dean used on me during our very first encounter in the Bell Tower. Dean had carefully crafted his whip with soft leather thongs that wouldn’t actually cut or injure me.
Penmark’s is made for maximum damage—the nine lashes cruelly knotted at the tips, then bound to an ivory handle.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” the Chancellor says.
Penmark stands behind Dean, raising the whip overhead.
His teeth glint as he grins.
He swings his arm down with vicious force. Instantly, nine gashes open up on Dean’s back, splitting his tattoo.
“NOOOO!” I shriek.
Dean lets out a strangled yell, jaw clenched and face sweating. His arms strain against the chains binding them in place as his whole body jerks under the impact. Blood runs down his back in thin, bright lines.
“Dean!” I cry. “I can’t—”
He turns his head to look at me, as best he can in his constrained position.
“Don’t,” he says, through gritted teeth.
Penmark swings the lash again. It bites into Dean’s back, crossing over the former cuts, making Xs out of horizontal lines. I jolt and cry out as if it’s me being hit.
“You can stop this any time,” the Chancellor tells me.
He knows I killed Rocco. But he doesn’t have proof. He’s trying to goad me into confessing by torturing Dean right in front of me.
Lola stands with her back against the far wall, biting on the edge of her thumbnail. She looks sick and yet captivated, like someone binging on too much cake.
The rage I feel in this moment would make me a murderer all over again. If not for the groundskeeper holding me back, I’d cut her fucking throat for this.
Penmark whips Dean again and again and again.
Dean’s tattoo is obliterated, his back a hash of blood and raw flesh. His head lolls, jerking up with each strike.
Tears pour down my face. I struggle futilely against the groundskeeper’s iron grip.
I have to stop this, I have to tell them the truth. I can’t let them hurt Dean anymore.
As if he can read my mind, Dean turns his head once more and hisses at me, “If you say one fucking word, I’ll never forgive you.”
My heart is ripping in half, torn between my need to help him, and the knowledge that if I confess, we’ll never be together. I’ll be dead and he’ll despise me forever for my weakness.
Dean doesn’t want me weak, guilty, and giving in.
He wants me strong. Ruthless. Doing whatever it takes to get what we want.
I look at Dean and he looks back at me, his face whiter than death but fixed and resolute.
“I love you,” I whisper.
Penmark raises the lash again.
He whips Dean with cruel fury, five more times.
“Stop,” the Chancellor says.
Disappointed and resentful, Penmark lowers his arm.
“Dean, you have been punished for your refusal to reveal what you know,” the Chancellor pronounces. “With no further evidence . . . I consider the matter closed.”