Page 42 of Broken

My throat’s full, stomach’s churning, muscles tense, and my whole body vibrates with so muchfeelingthat I don’t even know how I’ll expel it all.

Then I open the box.

And inside, the bloodstained, steel-spiked leather reveals itself to me. The one thing I keep purposely dirty.

My turbulent heart rate slows at the sight, in acceptance of what I must do, from the poison I know I must milk from my system. Shrugging out of my black suit jacket, I remove the trappings of my clerical uniform, and when I’m bare, pick up the lash.

My fingers tighten around the knotted handle, and a sweet serenity slithers inside me as, with a flick of a practiced wrist, I let it fly.

The pain is excruciating.

The pain is delightful as the barbs take hold and tear at my flesh.

How I pray infection will take hold.

How I pray this will be the end.

But there’s no physical release justfreedom. A freedom I never felt when the French government liberated me from Farid and his rebels.

More importantly, I find peace.

Even if it’s only momentarily.

My brain vacates itself.

I’m nothing.

Not sensation.

Not feeling.

Not fear or hope oranything.

I’m meat.

Bones.

Blood.

Free.

CHAPTER 16

Andrea

Thinking About You - Edwin Raphael

The taxi pulled up outside the church just as he was closing the doors and locking them.

Fortuitous.

Or maybe serendipitous.

As I sit there, watching him leave the church entrance and walk over to a narrow building at the side of the street, which he subsequently unlocks, I learn where he lives.

Fortuitous, indeed.

Paying the taxi driver, I climb out of the car, wincing a little when my head aches as I stand too fast.

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