Chapter 15
Naomi watched as more and more bodyguards flooded into the academy. Inside, screams and pleas for mercy echoed intermittently.
This academy, once quiet and hidden, now revealed itself like a monster baring its fangs–a beast finally roaring to expose its crimes to the world.
However, Naomi only felt exhausted.
Why, she wondered, would the heavens not even take her soul? Compared to bearing witness to all the foul deeds like this, she would rather close her eyes forever and escape this place.
This place was a living hell.
James stared at the blood–splattered walls and floors, finally feeling the weight of it all Drained, he let the baton fall from his hand and ordered the surveillance room to be locked.
derbew step toward a
He paid no attention to the wails inside. With all the footage related to Naomil clutched in his hands, he took step after heavy step longed to approach, yet feared to enter.
That was a room that trapped and tormented Naomi for three whole years, the place he himself had delivered her to.
a room he
If not for him, most of the scars on her body never would have existed. That thought repeated endlessly in his mind as his trembling hand reached for
the door.
The dam, suffocating room contained only a bed, a simple wooden desk, and a bathroom. The window facing the door couldn’t even be opened
A faint beam of light crept through, but the room rocked of dampness and rut. The stench in the air was enough to make one gag, but this was where Naomi had lived for three years.
It felt like someone was squeezing his throat and clogging his nose. James could barely breathe. Tears, hot and silent, rolled down his cheeks,
He looked around the small room, studying it inch by inch. On the wall next to the bed, he noticed countless scratch marks that were densely packed into the white plaster. It looked like fingernails gouged them
Among the scratches, he saw his own name and several fragmented, desperat words.
“Help me.
“Won’t love
“Spare me.”
The handwriting was crooked and frantic, but the carvings tan deep.
James realized that Neomi had waited here, day after day, night after night–hoping someone would save her. In the beginning, that someone had to have been him. After all, James had been her only family in the world.
Regret gnawed at him.
He ran his fingers over the scratches in the wall, noticing how they grew shallover toward the end, until they nearly vanished. After enduring the endless torment, all that remained of her was an empty husk
James could almost see her sitting on that bed, numbed by despair.
Suddenly, he remembered the bracelet Naomi had returned to him on her own accord. She had said then, “I wish you all the happiness in the world, Uncle James
He also remembered asking her, “Why won’t you yelp in pain, Naomi? Weren’t you the best at playfully whining and exaggerating your pain just to get attention?”
She had looked up and calmly replied, “That’s because this doesn’t hurt.”
Compared to the whipping, the torture at Jeanine Academy must have been much worse.
James slapped himself twice. His face swelled red with pain, but it did nothing to ease the anguish or guilt clawing at his heart. He blamed himself for all of it
“Sir, the people inside are going wild. What should we do?” a voice cut through his misery.
James turned, his pyes Tilled with hatred.
The scent of smoke wafted from the surveillance Toom
Outside, Naomi watched as people tried to escape through the windows, only to be pulled back and restrained. She saw James emerge from inside. He had bis bodyguards seal the windows, then tossed a burning torch Inside.
The flames roared to life, their brightness engulfing the room and searing intensely. A blazing inferno consumed the surveillance room.
Inside, those people pounded against the windows in desperation, still clinging to hope from something that had long since been nailed shut.
Just like Naomi once had–plusing all her hope on James, who would never change his mind
They were both hopes that would never be answered.
