"Mercedes Lackey - Jihad" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

brought him to the opposite side of the town. There was that much more
distance now between himself and his friends and allies. Distance controlled
and watched by the enemy.

Assuming he wanted to reach them. Assuming he wanted them to find him, see
himтАФsee what had been done to him, guess at the lacerations that were not
visible.

No.
His captors let him down onto the muddy ground at the side of the road.
Gently, which was surprising. One of them leaned over, and muttered
somethingтАФLawrence lost the sense of it in the pain. He closed his eyes and
snuggled down into the mud, panting for breath. Every breath was an agony, as
something, probably a broken bone, made each movement of his ribs stab him
sharply.

He heard footsteps retreating, quickly, as if his erstwhile captors could not
leave his presence quickly enough.

Tears of despair, shameful, shamed tears, trickled down his cheeks. The
unmoved stars burned down on him, and the taste of blood and bile was bitter
in his mouth.

Slowly, as the pain ebbed to something he could think through, he itemized and
cataloged his injuries to regain control of his mind, as he had tried to count
the blows of the whip on his back. The bones in his foot, fractured during the
chaos of the last sabotage-raid, had been shattered again. The broken rib made
breathing a new torture. Somewhere in the background of everything, the dull
pain of his head spoke of a concussion, which had probably happened when they
kicked him to the head of the stairs. The lashes that had bit into his groin
had left their own burning tracks behind.

His back was one shapeless weight of pain. He had thought to feel every
separate, bleeding welt, but he could only feel the accumulated agony of all
of them in a mass. But as he lay in the mud, the cold of the night numbed him,
leaving only that final injury still as sharp and unbearable as ever, the one
that was not visible. The laceration of his soul.

Now he knew how women felt; to be the helpless plaything of others, stronger
or more powerful. To be forced to give of their bodies whether or not they
willed or wanted it. To be handled and usedтАФ Like a piece of meatтАФ And worst
of all, at one level, the certainty that he had somehow deserved it all. That
he had earned his punishment. That he had asked for his own violation. After
all, wasn't that what they said of women, too? It was this final blow that had
cracked the shell of his will and brought down the walls of the citadel of his
integrity.

How could he face them, his followers, now? They would watch him, stare at
him, and murmur to one anotherтАФno matter how silent he kept, they would know,
surely they would know. And knowing, how could they trust him?