Chapter seventeen

Roy threw up twice as he was forced to watch Ed go through all that agony. Gregor had thankfully held out a bucket for just such an eventuality, most likely just so that he wouldn't throw up all over that bitch.

Ed was hoarse from screaming for hours on end and he was breathing heavily when Melanie finally let go of his right leg and the remainder of his left thigh which was bleeding quite a bit, although they had been controlling the bleeding by using that damned alkahestry. Melanie licked the last screw clean of blood with a grin.

The surgeon removed the bandage at his side and made Ed whimper as the stitches were removed without much care, before the bastard left Ed lying there, bleeding, his face revealing the high level of pain that he was still in.

Gregor once again activated the pentagram under Ed, closing up his stump and his side completely, deleting the evidence of the unspeakable torture the child had been subjected to. Ed was lying there limply, panting, his cheeks stained with tears.

He was shivering a lot, though.

"Well, that was fun. Gregor, let's get Daddy Roy down and patch him up too, that nail's got his leg all messy," Melanie said cheerfully.

And so Gregor approached Roy with a knife, cutting through the ropes as Melanie simply rolled Ed off the tarpaulin before lifting him up, making Ed yelp with pain. They had healed up the skin, but they had been messing with the nerves for much too long and every single squeeze or added pressure on the stumps seemed to cause Ed severe amounts of pain.

"Just leave him alone!" Roy growled. He was hoarse himself from shouting at these bastards and he felt spent and his leg was throbbing because of that damned nail.

Gregor pushed Roy down on top of the tarp, making his thigh scream out in agony and Roy yelled out. Gregor didn't care and just pushed Roy over on his back before he yanked the nail out roughly, making him shout out again.

And that damned mechanic decided to "accidentally" step on his wound for good measure before Gregor activated the pentagram again and healed up his injury before pressing a knee against Roy's chest, pinning him down. Roy tried to keep his eyes on Ed to make sure that they left the kid alone. Melanie had simply carried him over to the other side of the cage and dropped him there. His back was facing Roy and he was lying on his left side, while Melanie crouched down and stroked his hair. "There's a good puppy," she said.

Then she squeezed the small remains of his right shoulder tightly and made him scream again and curl up further in his agony.

Roy was boiling with anger, but he knew that she'd only do it again if he shouted for her to stop.

She looked at Roy and grinned before letting go of Ed's shoulder. "The doggies are learning… Good." She turned to Gregor and nodded. "Well, boys, thank you for your help … I guess we'll leave our pets to rest for now, you can only play for so long before it becomes too much for them."

And so she stood up, leaning on Ed's stump, making him scream again. Gregor removed his knee from Roy's chest and dragged Roy off the tarp, only for Melanie to place herself on his lap and hug him tightly while playing with his hair, making him nauseous once again. She grinned at him. "I'm just making sure that you don't do anything stupid until we're done packing things up here. Besides, it's so much fun to see you squirm. To see the desperate need you have to get back to him and comfort him. And to watch your pain when you're not allowed to do so. Really, Roy, you're a laugh!" She began stroking his left cheek. "Your eyes have such amusing desperation in them! But you two are getting mightily cold, so I'll let you enjoy Ed's pain for yourselves until tomorrow morning!"

And so she kissed Roy's forehead and then left together with the three others.

Roy immediately went over to Ed's side and turned him gently over on his back to relieve the pressure from his left stump. Ed whimpered and the second he saw that Melanie and the others were gone, tears began streaming down his cheeks and his eyes were filled with pain and misery.

Roy dried the tears away gently with his thumbs and bent down and kissed the boy's forehead. "Ed, I'm so, so sorry." Roy could hear the boy's teeth chatter loudly. "I'm going to fetch the blankets and then we'll get ourselves warmed up again. I'll be right back."

Ed nodded slightly, his lips quivering and tears still streaming down his cheeks. He didn't move to get up.

Roy got up and started collecting blankets, including the ones from the playhouse, and laid them out on the ground, knowing that when night came, it would be better if they got back inside in order for the ground to not leech all the warmth from under them.

He didn't want to, though… That damn plastic thing had become a box of misery and dark thoughts.

Ed was still breathing heavily where he lay and Roy couldn't even imagine how much pain he was still in. That damned mechanic and the surgeon had spent a lot of time just messing with Ed's nerves just for the hell of it.

And Ed didn't scream easily, but that had left him shrieking, making him throw up from pain six different times during the procedure. They had prodded and poked and pulled and twisted the nerves, making Ed scream in a way that made Roy's eyes burn just thinking about it.

And Roy had kept praying to gods he didn't believe in for the kid to just pass out, get a break … just something that would release Ed from the agony that was far worse than hell.

But Ed hadn't.

He had been conscious for the whole thing.

And Roy had never felt so useless in his life when he was forced to just stand there and watch as they tortured Ed like that, the boy only half a metre away from his feet.

…And with the threat of them hurting Ed even more if he dared to avert his gaze from Ed hanging over his head.

Once he had got the blankets the way he wanted, he pulled most of them over his shoulders as he sat down on the rest. Then he grabbed Ed around the middle and pulled him onto his lap so that Ed's back was against Roy's chest. He hoped that this solution would mean that Ed's stumps would be submitted to a smaller amount of contact-induced pain.

"N-no," Ed whispered weakly through exhausted tears and began sluggishly trying to turn himself ninety degrees left by using his right leg. Roy gently turned him around. He would indulge just about anything the boy asked for after what he'd been through.

Ed leaned his head sideways against Roy's chest and Roy helped him lift his right leg so that it too could lean against him. He then pulled the blankets around them and hugged his left arm around Ed's waist and his right was placed protectively on the back of his head.

And then came the wheezing sobs of someone crying silently.

Roy kissed the top of his head, feeling tears pressing against his own eyes. "It's okay, Ed. It's over."

"S'not."

Roy sighed, knowing that they were still facing more torture than he'd like to admit. "Just give them some more time, Ed, they'll find us."

"But now Al's gonna have to wait even longer!" Ed sobbed desperately, his voice weak and sounding a lot younger than usual. "I'm gonna have to go through the surgery all over again!"

Roy closed his eyes, inwardly cursing himself for not having thought about that. It was the only reason that Ed had joined up in the first place and now it had to be postponed because Ed was going to have to go through that damned surgery all over again.

…And that was if they even made it out of this at all.