Make Them Regret It Chapter 38
“Isabella, I gave you a home.”
“And I helped you destroy it.”
Isabella collapsed on the floor, laughing one moment and sobbing the next.
She turned and cursed my brothers, cursed Colton, and finally, cursed me.
No one tried to soothe her.
The flogging was carried out on the stone steps in front of the main house.
Colton knelt where I had once knelt, shrugged off his coat, and bared his back.
At the first strike, his body jerked, but he made no sound.
Across the crowded steps, he looked at me.
“Blythe, when the thirty lashes are over, will I owe you any less?”
I remembered the day he had taken the belt from the adviser.
That day, he had said the matter would be closed when the beating was done.
“No.”
The second blow fell, and a line of blood welled on his skin.
“This is your punishment to bear.”
“It is not currency to buy my forgiveness.”
The last light in his eyes went out.
I turned and walked down the steps.
Behind me, the whip cracked again and again.
I didn’t count.
They were no longer my thirty lashes.
The transport plane took off at dusk.
My father stood at the front. Without his abilities, the wind whipped through his white hair.
My older brother and second brother wore inhibitor cuffs. Neither of them looked at me or asked for mercy.
Colton was the last to board.
He reached the top of the stairs, then turned to look back one last time.
I stood beside my grandmother. I did not move.
As the plane rose into the sky, the four figures grew smaller and smaller.
This time, what they had lost was more than just a few words of forgiveness.
Some punishments, once served, can never be undone.