the cells.
“I can’t stand the smell in there!” He slammed the door shut, making her jump.
“There are two dead girls in there,” she said.
“That’ll explain the smell.” He started to walk away.
“You’re just going to leave them there?”
He stopped walking and turned to look at her with a dumbfounded look on his face. “Lady, somebody will move them later.”
“It looks like one of them has been there for days.”
“Why do you care? You don’t have to put up with the smell.”
“Yes, but the others in there do.”
“They’ll survive.” He continued walking.
Rowena’s bottom lip trembled. She bit it hard to stop it. They’ll survive. Rowena thought then that if she had anything to do with it, they would indeed survive.
The guard’s heavy footfalls came to a stop when turned to make sure Rowena was following him.
“Ya comin’ or what?” he yelled.
“Yes, sorry.” She hurried to his side. “Where are we going now?”
The guard smirked at her and kept going. They headed down a corridor that seemed to go on forever. After a while, it became clear they were going down. They finally stopped at a solid-looking door.
“We’re here.” A cruel smile formed on his reptilian lips. Rowena didn’t think the day could get any worse, but she might have been wrong. The guard started to open the door, then stopped, turning to Rowena.
“You’re too much of a lady for a job like this,” he said, cackling. Foul breath seeped out of his mouth and mixed with the stale stench in the air, making her gag. Not knowing what to expect as the guard finally opened the huge rusty hinged wooden door. Rowena tried to mentally prepare herself for the worst. She closed her eyes and heard a woman moaning softly. She opened her eyes. Before Rowena could see what was happening inside the room, a woman stepped in front of her blocking her entry. Rowena tried to hide the desperate feeling mounting within her. Having to act so calm when you were falling to pieces inside was taking its toll. She couldn’t get Isobel’s face out of her mind.
“Why, my dear, do you look so pale?” the woman asked.
“Oh, I’m not yet used to the smell.”
“You will, my dear. My name is Agatha. Take a seat if you like. Jonathon will be down soon.” Agatha patted Rowena on the shoulder and guided her to a small wooden stool sitting by the door.
The realization of where Rowena was hit her like an arrow splitting her chest. Thick black chains hung from the walls. There were tables covered with rusty cutting implements sitting in old bloodstains. Claw shaped metal clasps were scattered about on the dirt floor; two steel chairs covered in sharp spikes sat in the opposite corners of the room. A young woman was seated in a chair in the middle of the room. Rowena blinked. She wasn’t merely seated. She was tied to the chair with blood-stained rope.
A torture chamber.
The woman tied to the chair had her head down. Limp red hair matted around her damp face. Beads of sweat and blood glistened as they rolled off of her skin and dripped onto the ground. A thumbscrew had been clamped to the woman’s right hand leaving her thumb a swollen mass of flesh and blood. Two men stood next to her. One wore a black mask, and the other was the one-eyed man from earlier. The masked man attached a clamp to her other thumb. The girl raised her head and winced as he snapped on the device.
Rowena stared, not believing what she was seeing. The poor girl was about to have her other thumb mutilated. Agatha stood with her back to the wall, watching the two men.
The one-eyed man leaned in close to the woman and bared his teeth. “Do not resist us, witch. The greater you resist the more pain we will apply. Got it?” He sneered at the woman, waiting for her to reply. All she did was look him in the eye. “Are you looking at my eye?” he snapped.
The woman took a deep breath. “Where else am I supposed to look?” Her voice was hoarse like Selene’s. Her lips were just as dry. The one-eyed man raised his eyebrows. Agatha shook her head slowly and raised a hand to her white hair to smooth it down. The one-eyed man brought his arm back and slammed his hand hard into the woman’s face sending blood flying from her mouth.
“Do you know how I lost this eye?”