Somewhere Weaknesses Are Strength

Fire lit, Hayley grabbed a small branding iron and placed it on the small pit she created. She turned to Sebastian again, leaving the iron in its spot to heat. From the waistband of her pants, Hayley extracted a small blade. If she was going brand Sebastian, she was going to do it as painfully as possible.

It was all part of the torture.

Sebastian stared at the knife through her rapid falling tears. She hoped Hayley gained some form of a heart and decided to kill her quickly, to shove the blade into Sebastian's heart and end her life right there. The pain searing through her midsection was enough. She made a mistake in trying to escape. She understood that. Hayley had to have enough humanity somewhere inside her to kill Sebastian without more torture.

Instead of placing the blade to Sebastian's chest as the princess had hoped, Hayley placed the tip of the knife against Sebastian's left hip.

"This is going to hurt," Hayley mocked.

She pushed a section of the blade into Sebastian's skin. Immediately, the slowly bruising area lit with pain. Sebastian's sobs mixed with screams, her tears increasing in frequency. She fought against her restraints. The blade forced itself farther into her body with each jerky movement, pulling more screams from the confines of her throat.

"Keep that up and the whole blade will be in your stomach," Hayley stated, dragging the blade against Sebastian's skin.

Sebastian stopped moving at the comment, much to Hayley's pleasure. It was hard to carve on someone who kept moving. The lines needed to be perfect or she would be mistaken for a lousy pirate when Sebastian's body would be found.

She had a reputation to keep.

Hayley pulled the blade away and stepped back to admire her handiwork, tilting her head to the side. A simple "H" marked Sebastian's flesh, the wound open farther than it was meant to due to Sebastian's movements. Blood dripped from the cut, slowly making a trail over Sebastian's hip bone and down her left leg. The princess would lose more blood than necessary over a branding.

But the lines were perfect and that was what mattered.

Hayley slipped the red-stained blade back into the waist band of her pants and grabbed the heated branding iron. Sebastian's eyes widened. Hayley was going to brand her like cattle.

"No, no, no," Sebastian said.

"Yes, yes, yes," Hayley responded.

That stupid girl would regret what she had done.

Hayley lined the branding iron up with the "H" already carved into Sebastian's skin and pressed it against the wound. A scream caught in Sebastian's throat, unable to reach the surface. Her throat constricted, breathing becoming difficult. Sebastian couldn't force herself to breath. Pain was the predominant thought in her mind. Nothing else would process.

When she was sure the branding iron had done its job, Hayley pulled the object away to make sure her work was perfect. If need be, she could take the chunk of skin off and start over on the next hip.

From the looks of the marking, it wouldn't be necessary to start over. The carved "H" fit perfectly inside the lines of the burned cursive "H" that made Sebastian's skin and irritated red. The cursive "H" would blister by the time the sun rose, adding more pain to the carved "H." Later, the blister would pop and scar, assuming Hayley decided to let the blister go unharmed throughout the rest of Sebastian's torture.

Hayley placed the iron back in its spot on the rack and extinguished the small pit. She glanced around the torture chamber for a moment, debating on where to start. With the number of options she had, there was only one way to decide.

"Take a good look around, sweetheart. You're picking the next step," Hayley stated, turning back to Sebastian with a smirk.

It was common for Hayley to punish a servant who misbehaved in that way. Though they didn't know what any of the instruments in the room did, which left their fate up to chance. Sebastian would know the consequences of most, if not all, the instruments. Rulers were expected to know various types of torture devices.

Unless Sebastian opted out of that training as well.

Without allowing the princess' tear-streaked face affect her emotions, Hayley undid the restraints. Sebastian crumpled to the ground, her feet and hands numb from the constricting bands that held them. She wrapped her arms around her midsection, hunched over on her knees.

"Start picking or I'll pick for you," Hayley said.

"I'm sorry," Sebastian choked, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Sorry won't save you."

"Please don't hurt me," Sebastian begged, tilting her head up to stare at Hayley, "Please."

The image of Sebastian on her knees, sobbing and begging for a release from pain, cracked Hayley's emotionless façade. Confused by the flood of guilt, Hayley's calculating thoughts stopped. Her heart pounded in her ears, a throbbing sensation taking over her mind.

Her princess was hurting and Hayley was to blame.

Hayley's breaths became shallow, anxiety morphing from the guilt. She screwed her eyes shut and turned her head away from Sebastian. The pitiful image refused to drift from her mind.

"Get up," Hayley forced out.

She wouldn't let a moment of insanity keep her from killing Sebastian. Exhaustion had to be the culprit behind her opened emotional flood gates. Sorting through cargo was tiring and she had yet to go to sleep. Her emotional state was reflecting on that. All she needed was rest before continuing her torture of the princess. She would be back to normal with some sleep.

Not hearing Sebastian move from her hunched position, Hayley yelled, "Get up."

The command rang through the room, bouncing against walls. Scared, Sebastian attempted to stand on her still numb feet. The sensation of invisible needles pressing into the soles of her feet caused her to fall to the ground in shock before she could complete the task. Not wanting to anger Hayley further and prolong her punishment, Sebastian tried standing again, this time completing the task despite the pain.

Hayley grabbed Sebastian's arm the moment she was up without looking at her and dragged her to a spot on the opposite side of the chamber. Sebastian stumbled on her feet, feeling returning to them with each sloppy step. The movements caused Sebastian's battered stomach to throb, demanding her to stop. Sebastian wanted to compel to her body's demand. She would have collapsed in the middle of the sharp stone floor and curled in a ball if she could. But Hayley wouldn't allow that.

Hayley positioned the princess near a set of cuffs dangling on a sting of chains from the ceiling. Sebastian followed the path of the chains with her sore eyes. They led to the ceiling, draped over a pulley system, and led back to the floor level, where they were wrapped around a large wheel. A lever connected to the wheel, most likely to control the movements of the wheel in order to wrap or unwrap the chain.

Sebastian had seen a structure similar to this in the chambers at home. When dealing with criminals, a preliminary torture included strappado torture. She could remember clearly how much pain they seemed to go through, could remember how their arms dislocated so awkwardly.

She didn't think she could handle that.

Hayley grabbed Sebastian's wrists, pulling them behind her body. Using the cuffs, she connected the princess' wrists together, making sure they latched properly behind her back.

There was no use in having the princess fall to the floor in the middle of the torture. The impact against the floor would either kill her or send her into shock. Hayley wouldn't be there to do anything to prevent an early death if that happened. No, she would be getting rest before continuing with Sebastian's torture. Sebastian would hang up there over night.

It was either that or the stocks and those weren't as painful.

"I bet you know what's about to happen," Hayley stated from behind Sebastian.

"Don't do this," Sebastian pleaded.

"That's not an option."

"Just kill me."

Hayley's heart throbbed, stomach clenching. The pirate took a shallow breath, hoping to cause the reaction to disappear. Plenty of captives had asked for death over torture before. This wasn't new for Hayley. In fact, the punishment wasn't the worst she could come up with. Other captives went though far worse if they breathed the wrong way around Hayley.

But this was Sebastian, the princess who had wiggled her way into Hayley's heart with her ridiculous antics. She was weak and she needed protection.

"I can't do that yet," Hayley said, walking to the wheel the chains connected too.

"I'm sorry," Sebastian whimpered.

"No, you're not. But you will be."

Hayley pushed the lever down, the wheel creaking into motion. It slowly turned, causing the chain attached to it to tighten before it started reeling in more chain around its surface. As the chain wrapped around the wheel, the distance of the chain from the ceiling decreased and the cuffs forced Sebastian's arms to rise behind her. Sebastian bent over, the position of her arms behind her back uncomfortable. The chain hesitated before lifting her body from the floor, its movements slower with the additional weight. Arms straining behind her, body leaning forward to avoid any additional injury, Sebastian was pulled higher and higher into the air. A pop resonated through the chamber. Sebastian cried out, pain rushing through her shoulder blades.

Hayley watched Sebastian, trying to ignore the need to pull the princess down from the device and nurse her now dislocated shoulder to proper health. Shaking her head, Hayley stopped the machine. Sebastian's body remained suspended over head. Hayley walked past the princess, gaze directed at the floor, and left the torture chamber.