I Will Make The Wedding A Torture For You All

After the altercation she’d had with them, she had gone back to her room to sleep, or at least to pretend to.

Her head had been throbbing and her heart had been pounding. She hadn’t wanted to see any of their faces again.

A maid had brought her food because she hadn’t gone downstairs to have dinner, not that they would have allowed her to sit at the dining table with them anyway, not that they saw her as part of the family beyond how useful she was for their schemes.

She was just so exhausted.

And with the memory of her past life still taunting her and haunting her, whispering warnings, showing her flashes of mistakes and tragedies she refused to repeat, she never wanted to have anything to do with the Vaughn people again.

Not with their lies. Not with their cruelty. Not with their cold eyes that saw her as an object, a transaction, a tool.

So when the maid brought the food, neatly arranged and smelling warm, she had been surprised, suspicious even.

“The master said you should eat,” the maid had said quietly, not quite meeting Elara’s eyes. “Mr. Vaughn said you needed to gain your strength for the wedding.”

Her adoptive father. Ethan Vaughn.

The man who didn’t raise his voice when he was angry because he didn’t need to, his silence was sharp enough.

The man who signed documents with a hand that controlled people’s entire lives as if rearranging pieces on a chessboard.

Though skeptical, Elara had still taken the food. Hunger gnawed at her, but distrust gnawed harder.

She didn’t eat the food. She only drank the juice.

Just the juice, cool and sweet sliding down her throat, feeling harmless, normal, like something safe in a world where safety had been a lie for so long.

A few minutes after that, she had felt dizzy.

At first, it was mild, the way someone might feel after standing up too fast.

Then stronger as the room tilted. The floor seemed to sway beneath her feet.

Her whole body was swirling, and the world was spinning around her as if she had stepped into a storm she couldn’t see.

Then she fell to the ground. It wasn’t sleep. It wasn’t fainting exactly either.

She was awake, painfully aware, but her limbs were heavy, her muscles were weak, every part of her body refusing to obey the desperate commands from her mind.

She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even lift her finger. She could barely form words.

Panic clawed at her chest, but it was trapped in her throat.

Then Marjorie came in.

Then Ethan.

Then Aaron.

Then Evelyn.

And the rest blurred into one long nightmare where their voices overlapped.

They insulted her. They taunted her. They tortured her. They beat her badly simply because she talked back at them.

Simply because she dared defend herself. Simply because she had slapped Aaron, because for once she didn’t stand there silently and take it.

So this was her punishment.

The most painful part wasn’t only the physical blows, it was the helplessness and the betrayal.

The realization that the people she had once tried so desperately to please had never seen her as anything more than something to control.

And the most painful thing was that she could feel the assault.

Every strike. Every burn. Every pain flows through her body.

Elara could feel everything, but she was too weak to even scream.

Her body wouldn’t act as a normal functioning human being should. Her throat refused to form words louder than faint sounds. Her muscles trembled but wouldn’t lift her.

She wanted to fight, to scratch, to fight, but the drug coursing through her veins chained her to the floor more effectively than ropes ever could.

As if all the torture wasn’t bad enough, the back of her body was burned, by Aaron and Marjorie, their faces twisted not with regret but with sick satisfaction, with the belief that she deserved it for daring to step out of the mold they had designed for her.

Elara had tried to scream but it came out as a whimper.

Then they left her there after they were satisfied, broken, humiliated, aching in every possible way, but not a single tear fell from her eyes.

She refused to cry.

After lying on the ground for a very long time, Elara clenched her fists weakly as slowly, painfully, the effects of the drug began to wear off.

Sensation returned fully. Pain bloomed sharper. Her nerves lit up like wires sparking.

She started feeling everything again, every bruise, every burn, every inch of aching skin. Her whole body hurt and ached.

Elara dragged herself, literally dragged, to the bathroom, her palms scraping the cold floor, her breath coming out in uneven gasps. She gripped the sink and pulled herself up, catching sight of her reflection in the mirror.

Her face was untouched. Untouched on purpose. Almost perfect. Almost serene, as if nothing had happened.

She cleaned her wounds as best as she could, hissing quietly whenever the water stung, wrapping the burns, moving slowly because even the smallest motion felt enormous.

Then she took some painkillers afterwards. She tried to sleep.

Her body begged for it. Her mind begged for escape. But the pain, sharp and throbbing, wouldn’t let her rest, and the moment she closed her eyes images flashed behind them, her past life torture, the accident, and her death.

And just as she was finally drifting toward unconsciousness, her body too tired to fight anymore, that was when Marjorie and Evelyn came into her room at dawn, pounding like they wanted to break the door down.

Elara clenched her fist now, lying back on the bed after they’d gone, staring at the ceiling once more.

Today would be the last day she would ever live in this fucking house.

She repeated it in her mind like a vow, like a promise written in fire and determination.

She was going to suck it up for a few hours. Endure the makeup, the dress, the fake smiles, the whispers, the lies.

This wedding they were hanging on to, this twisted celebration they were forcing onto her like shackles wrapped in white silk and lace...

Elara was going to make it the ugliest nightmare for them.

Not with tears. Not with begging. But with something far stronger.

With her choice.