313 It's Very Very Painful

"I am not joking though, you look like you already lost half of you right now," Aldger shrugged his glare off.

"I should have-"

"Stop that thought, it was now in the past. No matter how much you regret nothing would change it. Why not start when you meet her again? Rather than regret and regret?"

Harvey chuckled, "Never thought you could give such words."

Aldger laughed, "I am surrounded by people falling in love one after another after all."

"Devon and Blake are still there," Harvey answered not correcting Aldger of him falling in love.

It was pretty obvious, from the get go. When he saved her the first time. It was already obvious that she was someone special.

"I think no for Blake though," Aldger said meaningfully to which Harvey squinted his eyes in return.

"As for Devon, with what happened back then, I wonder if he'll ever fall in love again," then sadness came in his voice and his eyes.

These words made Harvey silent as well. That's right, Devon had that past as well. A past much more cruel than any of them when it comes to someone they love.

"He really stayed strong, didn't he?" after a while Harvey opened his mouth.

"I guess but a lot of times I'd see his eyes looking dead, the impact was truly great," Aldger answered.

"Maybe, one day. He'll be able to really stand up again but for now, let's just stay beside him," Harvey then said.

The two of them remained silent after that conversation.

*****

When Russel came to, she had no idea how long it had passed. She woke up being tied up in a ceiling, her feet barely touching the floor and her head aching like it was being split in two with some people looking at her with evilness in their eyes.

One were holding a whip and it doesn't seem like they are here to interrogate her, instead it seems that they are here to watch her being tortured.

A smile appeared on her face, she can tell clearly even with only their eyes showing that these people are those people who ended up with nothing after she sold all the shares to Amber.

'No, maybe they will interrogate me where the sales are?'

She wanted to laugh, it was a good thing that she had already handed everything over to her mother.

When the first slap of the whip came, she didn't cry out no matter how painful it was, instead she remained unmoving and remained staring back at their eyes.

She will never show them any weakness and will never satisfy their desire to see her beg them to let her go, she'd rather die than to do that.

The next whip and the next and the next, the smiles on their faces slowly disappeared as she just stared back at them as if she was not in pain at all.

But of course, it was painful. It was very very painful, she just wanted to shout for them to stop but she won't do it.

"This is not working," her step mother then said.

She wanted to laugh, they didn't even bother hiding their voices.

"No, let them keep going until we are able to think of a way to make her beg and cry for mercy."

'Oh, and of course my beloved half sister would be the cruelest,' Russel thought.

And just like that they continued whipping her up while the three of them huddled together to discuss what was the best way to make her cry.

On the other hand, Russel was thinking whether she should regret leaving Harvey's car or not.

'Maybe I too am stubborn, I was getting hurt by the obvious distance between us that he was putting and couldn't put up with it. I was the one who should have placed that wall there but because he was the first outsider who came and helped me.'

'Even promising to protect me, I always had a soft spot for him. Truly how fragile my heart is,' she mocked herself as a bitter smile appeared on her face.

~"There are no what ifs in this world."~

She can somehow hear Amber's words from who knows where and she chuckled.

Even those trying to whip her had their brows furrowed, she was being tortured but she was laughing?

'If I could be saved today then I wish to really hit that wall hard. I had runaway in the past and runaway a while ago, I wanted to save my heart from being hurt even more. But look at the mess I am currently at.'

'Then if I live past this, I would surely confront him even more. I'll stop getting scared at things and would really face it head on.'

Then she looked up, still not minding the whipping, 'If I could pray, then please let me pray. Please let me survive this and allow me to meet them again, meet him again. I promise to follow Amber's words of being careful.'

'I promise to stop having regrets as much as I can. So if you can hear me then please, can you help this one in my predicament?'

Right after she had prayed, the three people faced her with vicious smiles on their faces.

"Tie her on a chair," her grandfather commanded.

And once it was over, he smiled at her while holding a knife.

"My precious grand daughter was right, if you don't care about this life of yours. How about your other life? We will incapacitate you and leave you out there to live being unable to do what you loved the most."

Russel gritted her teeth, leave it to her half sister to be the most vicious.

She watched her grandfather placed the knife on her hand, she watched him use the sharp side to touch her fingers.

'Maybe I really am an unlucky person being born in this world,' she thought, even though it pained her more that they are planning to take away her cooking from her, she somehow just resigned to it.

She had lived almost all her life in hardship and pain, adding more no longer meant anything for her.

She watched as blood started flowing from the wound as her grandfather started pressing the sharp side on her fingers. She felt that tremendous pain but somehow she felt numb.

They were supposed to be her family but in the end they were nothing but devils hungry for nothing but her demise.

Though she did feel sad for her mother that she will have to say goodbye to her daughter so soon right after meeting her.

Russel was so lost that she didn't notice the gunshots all around, she didn't notice that her grandfather, her step mother and her half sister were taken down.

She had resigned so much to her fate that she could no longer hear anything, closing her inner self from the outside world.

It was half an hour later when Amber and the others arrived, police officers were already there and those that saved Russel was no where to be seen.

They searched for her and found her in the ambulance, she was just about to be transported to the hospital when they stopped it.

Amber could see her dead eyes and she couldn't help but to bit her lip. Ashton pulled her and hugged her tight while Harvey slowly walked towards Russel.

His heart was being stabbed as he looked at all the whip wounds in her body and he was sure that more was underneath the clothes and blanket on top of her.

It pains him greatly seeing the blood soaked gauze in her right hand

And it pained him even more to see her dead eyes as if all the wounds could no longer be felt by her.

He saw her like this once, back when he first helped her. Her eyes slowly turned dead before the kick that he stopped even came.

He can tell that she must have closed her world from everything already. That she had given up, she had fought too much but felt like it was for a naught.

He gritted his teeth as he raised his hand and caressed her hair, "I'm sorry I was once again late. I'm sorry even now I still couldn't protect you."

He held her cheeks and and made her face him, her eyes on his but he can tell that they were unfocused.

"Russel, you don't have to hold it in. No one is stopping you from crying, I will kill them if they do. Please, please, please, come back. I will no longer promise but just let me, allow me to stay by your side protecting you."

"I will no longer promise for I may not be able to uphold it but instead I will just do it. I will no longer leave you alone, I will never allow you to be alone ever again. I'm sorry I forgot about you, I'm sorry all I could say is sorry."