Chapter 190: PUNISHMENT 2
At the thirty-fifth stroke, Alanis’s strength finally gave out. His knee buckled, and he fell to one knee on the dusty ground. At that moment, Elisa, Garth, and Claudia couldn’t help but smile.
"What happened to our almighty prince?" George mocked, his tone laced with cruel amusement. Alanis had done nothing when Charlotte decided to humiliate him by sending him out of the family, now it is his turn to be humiliated.
"Don’t fall now. I’m just getting started," George sneered as he cracked his fingers and straightened his rigid shoulders. He had whipped Alanis with all his might before and was already beginning to tire, yet his determination to humiliate his brother burned on.
Claudia turned toward her step-sister with a venomous glint in her eyes. "This all your fault, Harlow? Are you happy now?" she asked.
"Why wouldn’t she be happy?" Garth interjected bitterly. "This is exactly what she wanted, to tear this family apart."
"If anything happens to Alanis, you’re to blame for it," Claudia added weakly like she was slowly losing her life. When she in fact enjoyed Alanis getting flogged. To her, it was just her little punishment to him for abandoning her when she needed him the most.
Harlow, silent and composed, stared at both women as they spoke. Inside, she found it almost amusing to think that one day, the truth might finally be out. And it would not be funny if Claudia didn’t lose any child and made Alanis suffer for nothing.
George raised the sjambok again, and with each lash, the sound of the sjambok snapping against Alanis’s back echoed across the yard. The tiny metal just at the edge of the sjambok, dug into Alanis’s skin over and over again.
Alanis gritted his teeth and endured, each jab was more intensifying than the last. He knew that these small strokes could never compare to the real torments life had dealt him. Yet, as the whipping continued, his other knee gave out, and he sank slowly to the ground once more.