"You can come out when you've learned not to be a fucking whore." Rodolphus growled as he threw the half conscious witch into the tiny cupboard and locked the door, giving it a hard kick for good measure before stalking away.
It wasn't the first time he'd done this, used her fear of small paces and the dark to mentally torture her. Normally she'd scream, beg, pound the doors till her hands where bloody but not this time. This time she sat quietly too exhausted to make a sound, pressed into the corner as small as she could make herself, arms hugging her legs tight to her chest, her eyes squeezed shut, tears on her inky black lashes like tiny diamonds, shivering from cold or shock, maybe both.
Each movement made her wince with pain so she tried to keep still, the flayed skin on her back throbbing and dripping blood, the crimson liquid decorating her body like war paint. He'd used the belt before, but never like that, never to the point where he lost control over himself so frighteningly. He'd gone straight for it this time after binding her hands to the bedpost so she couldn't escape. She'd screamed herself hoarse, begged through sobbing tears but after double figures had been hit, she could only whimper and weakly struggle.
How he'd found out about the stupid affair with Antonin Dolohov she didn't know, but he knew, he knew and he was livid. She tried to tell him it was just a mistake, that it had been over for months and it meant nothing, that it had only been once.. twice.. three times.. but he hadn't listened and in reality if the table was turned, would she listen to his excuses. No. He'd probably be dead and when he'd wrapped his hand around her neck she'd thought he was going to kill her. Maybe he was going too but changed his mind at the last moment and threw her into the cupboard instead where she was still sitting, hours later, stiff, sore, drained. But alive, which was more than could be said for Antonin who it seemed had met a sticky end in Knockturn Ally. It would make the papers as a drunken disagreement between dark wizards gone wrong. Maybe? Who would care anyway? Death Eaters had no feelings.
When Rodolphus finally freed Bellatrix from the confines of her tiny prison he had blood on his hands that wasn't his own, and she knew at the next meeting there would be an empty chair at the table.