No Love For The Villain - Chapter 8
Following her husband as if they were one, Mrs. Miles also stood up. The police officers left the table one by one. Before long, the only one remaining seated was Daniel.
Daniel’s face was pale, twisted with fear.
“Sierra.”
Daniel called her name.
It was a call that commanded: Escape from that dangerous man. Come to me, return to my side.
The moment Sierra’s gaze moved across the table toward Daniel, her hand was seized.
“Miss Knightley, aren’t you going to eat?”
Eli’s low voice intercepted Daniel’s call. Holding Sierra’s hand, Eli pressed the back of it, making the fork pierce the meat.
In Eli’s grasp, Sierra ate as he guided her. The piece of meat entered her mouth, releasing a sweet, bloody juice.
As she chewed the piece of meat clumsily, like a child unskilled at eating, and dripped red blood at the corner of her mouth, Eli unhesitatingly wiped it away with his hand.
As the warmth from the fireplace reached her, her body slowly thawed. Sierra, whose frozen body was awakening to unfamiliar pain, felt a sting in her thigh. The moment she hid a pained groan by biting the inside of her cheek, her eyes met Eli’s.
Eli grabbed Sierra’s chair and pulled it toward him. The roughly scraping edge of the chair dug into her thigh.
…mercilessly scraping it.
“Ah…!”
Sierra couldn’t hold back a moan, letting it escape. In response, Eli gathered the hem of her mourning dress in his hand and lifted it.
A hand clad in a leather glove grabbed her thigh and forced it apart. Her bare leg was exposed under the bright light, with nowhere to hide.
“What a mess,” Eli said, looking down at the wound. Red lines were streaked across her thigh. The torn flesh had torn again before it could heal, becoming raw and inflamed, with bluish bruises layered on top.
They were the marks of punishment.
On nights after she had tried to run away from home, Pastor Miles would say she was possessed by an evil spirit. There were several ways to drive out the spirit. He made her read Bible verses until her voice was hoarse, pray all night, or whip her.
It hurt, so she forgot her sorrow. Her mind was so filled with Bible verses that she couldn’t think of anything else. Her frozen body felt no pain, and her mind, having forgotten how to think, knew no sorrow.
“Who did this?” he asked.
Hearing the question, Sierra instinctively looked at Daniel, as was her habit. In front of Daniel, who watched over her like the pastor’s appointed monitor, Sierra always gave the same answer.
“…I did.”
She covered the reason for her injuries with a lie.
If any of the villagers noticed her limping, Pastor Miles made Sierra answer, “I did it myself.”
That way, he maintained his role as the generous pastor helping a troubled girl.
‘Oh my, the shock of losing her father must have been great. It’s such a blessing that the pastor is by her side, taking care of her.’
People showed brief pity towards the child who self-harmed out of grief for her lost father, then turned away.
But Eli’s gaze remained persistently fixed.
Sierra felt as if the eyes looking at her thigh were dissecting her wounds. Every place his gaze touched felt unbearably sharp.
She tried to pull her legs together, but Eli grabbed her knee.
“Stay still,” he commanded firmly. Eli picked up the whiskey from the table. He then untied his tie and soaked it with the whiskey.
The drenched tie pressed against Sierra’s wound. There was no delicacy in the hands of a man likely accustomed to urgent gunshot wounds. Sierra’s expression contorted.
“It hurts.”
“You said you did it yourself. I thought you liked the pain.”
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