Page 51 of Stand: Part One

She shrugged. “Because the last time one of your brothers died, you completely destroyed the dining room,” she explained, eyeing me carefully. “And this room currently remains unscathed.”

I felt the corners of my mouth tug. “Maybe I already destroyed a room downstairs before I came up.”

She snickered, shaking her head. “I’m pretty sure I would have heard it. Or even felt it.”

“Maybe,” I murmured and directed my attention back to my damn gunshot wound. “The only thing I need you to do is line the edges of the skin and hold them in place while I sew. Think you can handle that?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m not very familiar with rocket science.”

Ignoring her sarcasm, I watched her tentatively reach out and gently press her fingers along the wound to lightly pinch it together. While her touch was something to be coveted, the slight pressure caused the wound to burn internally.

I had endured pain far worse than this before and on multiple occasions, but I’d bear it all again if it meant my wife’s hands would never leave my body.

But even while I didn’t flinch or react to her ministrations, Jaden’s eyes still caught mine, looking for any signs that I was in pain. She wouldn’t find any.

“You’re not going to hurt me,” I assured her. “Just keep everything still.”

“You can’t tell me that doesn’t hurt like hell,” she quipped.

Ignoring her nonsense, I carefully inserted the needle through my skin and began working on the first stitch.

“When I was younger, maybe around thirteen years old, once a year, my father would have me and my brothers tortured for three days straight.”

I could feel her eyes widen with alarm as she watched me pull the thread through.

“We never knew when it was coming. Most of the time, we’d wake up from a blackout and find ourselves strapped to a chair or hanging from the ceiling. Sometimes chained to the wall. We were never in the same room, but we could easily hear each other through the walls.”

I listened to her heavy swallow as I tied the first knot and started the next stitch.

“Do I even want to know what was done to you?” she asked, her voice low with apprehension.

I smirked, the memories of those days coming back with a vengeance.

“Probably anything you can imagine. Beatings, drownings, whippings, stabbings, a gunshot wound or two, and definitely broken bones. The psychological torture was even worse. We were starved, blinded, electrocuted, sleep-deprived, and severely dehydrated. Some days, we weren’t even sure if we would survive.”

She shuddered; her obvious discomfort at my upbringing was an amusing reaction to witness.

“Waterboarding was probably the most desired affliction if there was one. It was the only opportunity you’d have to drink any water, even if you were choking on it.”

“Jesus.” Jaden frowned, her eyes moving back to my wound, watching me tie off another knot. “Why?” she finally asked, her eyes searching my face while I remained focused on carefully pulling the needle back through my skin.

“To build stamina,” I told her. “To remove the concept of fear if we were ever taken as prisoners. And also, to teach us the most effective methods of torture. What better way to know than firsthand experience?”

Because of my father, I knew exactly how it felt to have every single one of your fingernails removed. What it was like to have flesh cut from your body. How agonizing it was to have something severed and then reattached.

Glancing back at her, I could see her brow furrowing as her eyes began to gloss over. Was that concern?

“You sound like you’re grateful for the experience,” she mumbled.

I shook my head as I pulled the needle through and tied off another stitch.

“I never enjoyed them, obviously. But I knew what my father was trying to do, and I understood his reasoning. He wanted us to be able to withstand anything. To become unbreakable. And it worked. Eventually, I started to look forward to each year's latest challenge.”

Her brow arched, her fingers beginning to lose the pressure I needed to keep the edges of the shredded skin lined up properly.

“Keep your hands in place, Jaden. I’m almost done.”

Correcting herself, she turned her head back to my side, but I could tell her eyes were glazing over as she imagined what I had endured every year until I turned twenty.