Alone

White's POV:

When everyone left, P' Hugo called me to his room. My heart raced like an engine. I knew I had messed up. I knew that, even though what I did was right, going against P' Hugo would cost me. I was prepared for the outcome. I'm not afraid of torture I've been enduring it since childhood. But what scares me are the people around me. I don't want them to get hurt because of me.

As I entered his room, I wasn't ready for what awaited me. A sharp slap across my face greeted me, and the force of it sent me crashing to the ground.

"How dare you..." P' Hugo's shout made me flinch. "How dare you go against me, White?" He grabbed my face, his fingers digging into my skin. "Did you forget what you are? What your place is? How dare you disobey me?"

I didn't say anything. I knew anything I said would only make him angrier.

"Oh, so now you're going to ignore me, huh?" He yanked my hair, forcing me to look at him. "This is happening because of your friends, right? Don't forget, White, they are your friends because you're my fiancée. If you were just some ordinary person, no one would even spare you a glance."

He shoved my head, making me almost lose balance, but I forced myself to stay standing.

.

.

.

P' Hugo sent me home after that. I slowly entered my room, but before I could even change, there was a knock at the door.

"Playroom. Now." Master Amin's voice was cold, and he turned without waiting for a response.

I didn't have time to change out of my dress. I just followed him, each step heavier than the last.

"Strip," he ordered the moment I entered the room. I did as he said, my body numb. His cold eyes watched me, and as I stood there exposed, he locked my hands with chains. The cold bite of the metal dug into my skin as he blindfolded me, plunging me into a suffocating darkness.

I could no longer see, but it wasn't the darkness that terrified me it was the silence. The unbearable silence that filled the room. My chest felt tight, my breath shallow. I couldn't see. I couldn't prepare myself. I couldn't fight back.

I hated how the fear poured from my body, how it soaked into the air around me, mixing with the thick scent of my own terror. The rhythm of Amin's footsteps drew nearer, each one a countdown.

"Stay still," he commanded, his voice colder than before. It was an order. And I obeyed. There was nothing else I could do.

His fingers brushed lightly across my stomach, and I tensed, instinctively pulling away. But I couldn't escape. I could feel the heat rising in the air—like the room had become a furnace, and then I knew what was coming.

"I told you to make Hugo happy. Follow his rules." His voice was low, dangerous. "And yet you defy him. You disrespect him."

I clenched my teeth. So, P' Hugo had complained to him. What irony—my fiancée and my so-called father, both the people who should protect me, were the ones causing me the most pain.

And then it came.

The heat.

It started as a sharp sting just below my ribs so sudden, so intense, I couldn't even scream before it engulfed me. The blindfold made everything smaller, more suffocating. I couldn't see the metal, but I could feel it the searing heat sinking into my flesh, carving a path of fire through me. My body froze as the burn spread, and my chest tightened in a desperate attempt to breathe.

I wanted to scream. But no sound came.

The pain radiated through my body, consuming every inch of me. My skin was burning, raw, blistering, and all I could do was stand there and take it. I tried to hold it in, to bite back the tears and the cries, but they came anyway, silent and desperate.