Chapter 3
RYNETH
Ryneth woke to voices discussing him the way men discussed cargo they intended to keep.
“…told you, look at his hair. You want that out where everyone can see it?”
A gruff laugh. “I want that hair in my fist and those lips on my dick.”
“You put his mouth there, boss will have your dick cut off.”
“Fuck off, dog. As if you’d disagree if we could take turns.”
Ryneth pressed his cheek to the concrete, pain flaring as he fought the nausea. His entire body hurt. They’d bound his wrists so tight his hands tingled.
At least they’d taken the damn hood off him.
When he flexed his hands, static twitched under the skin.
His mind was rattling, but he didn’t move. Didn’t open his eyes.
“Shut up now. The show’s starting.”
A hand brushed through his hair, and Ryneth winced. “Too bad, really. Such a pretty boy.”
Heavy footsteps approached. “Don’t touch the goods,” someone barked.
“Yes, boss.”
Now that the voices were no longer distorted, Ryneth recognized the Düren accent. Good Light, these men really were local.
The hand yanked away.
Ryneth opened his eyes a slit—and immediately wished he hadn’t.
Metal beams crossed the ceiling. Crates stacked along the walls. Light spilled in through a loading door.
The cargo hold was bigger than the passenger cabin had looked from the other side of the shuttle walls.
Three men stood nearby. Two of them wore black armor, and the third looked closer to his age, dressed in black with a half-mask covering his eyes. Blond curls showed above it.
He saw it now. The same mark they all wore on their sleeves.
Ryneth’s gaze snagged on it. The white spiral with three lines crossing through the center made his stomach drop.
He’d seen that mark burned into the door of his neighbor’s apartment in Sector 7 the night the sirens never stopped. Rumors said it was Concordant who had harvested his entire floor.
Well. This confirmed it.
Ryneth shivered. Shutting his eyes, he forced his breathing to slow. They were still on the ship.
Footsteps closed in, followed by a boot nudging his shoulder. “Wake up.” It was the same voice as the one who’d told the others off.
Ryneth opened his eyes.
The man stood over him, studying him. “Name?”
Ryneth said nothing.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is performance.”
Static flared in Ryneth’s chest. He flexed his fingers, and pain shot up his arms. The urge to lash out pressed hard under his skin.
The masked blond stepped closer, his gaze catching on the faint light twitching at Ryneth’s hands. For a second, he said nothing. Then his mouth curved, though there was no warmth in it. “Well,” he said softly. “That explains more than the hair.”
“What do you mean?” Ryneth asked before he could stop himself.
The blond’s eyes glared behind the mask. “Helion breeds monsters and dresses them up like miracles.”
“Spare me the politics,” the leader said. “I don’t care what he is. I care what buyers pay.”
Hands grabbed Ryneth and hauled him upright. His knees buckled. Someone jerked him forward by the collar. Pain burst through his ribs as they hauled him toward the center of the warehouse.
That was when he saw the cages.
Metal-barred cubes stacked three high. Faces pressed between the bars. Some were crying. Some were silent. Some weren’t even moving.
And Lysa. She was in one of the lower cages, curled against the bars, braid undone. Her eyes widened when she saw him. “Ryneth,” she whispered, reaching through the gap.
Ryneth reached back, but a fist slammed between his shoulder blades. His face scraped the concrete, ribs flaring white with pain.
“No reunions,” a guard sneered. “Move him.”
They dragged him toward a metal frame bolted to the floor. Shackles hung at wrist height, dark with old blood. He was hauled upright so fast his vision blurred.
“Walk,” someone snapped.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Everything hurt, and the blond’s words still echoed through his head.
Helion breeds monsters and dresses them up like miracles.
Light knew what that meant.
“I said move!” A hand grabbed his hair and slammed his head against the frame. Metal rattled when his bound hands brushed the cold bar.
Ryneth winced as static snapped, light jumping along the frame with a sharp crack that made the lamps overhead flicker. For a moment, the current crawled toward his fingertips in a frantic pattern as he fought to hold it back.
The masked blond stepped close and reached out, taking his chin between his fingers. “You’re not even subtle about it.” Turning Ryneth’s face toward the light, he dragged his gaze over him. His thumb brushed beneath Ryneth’s eye. “Pretty. And bright enough to give yourself away.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ryneth tried to pull away, but the grip tightened and held him there. “I’m not from Helion.”
The leader snorted. “You done staring at him?”
Ryneth hissed. The blond didn’t reply, but the leader smiled.
“Defiant. Buyers like that.” He shouldered the blond aside and fisted the front of Ryneth’s collar, yanking him close. His face dipped to Ryneth’s throat as he breathed him in. “Mm. You smell good, little one.”
The sound brushed Ryneth’s ear, and he ground his jaw and turned his face away with a snarl.
The leader chuckled. “Still got pride. Yeah, you’ll sell well.”
They shoved Ryneth’s bound hands hard against the metal frame, laughing when the impact knocked the air from his lungs.
“Put him in a cage. Tag him later.”
They shoved him into a low metal cube and slammed the bars shut. The lock clicked. Laughter faded as the men walked away, boots echoing across the floor. Ryneth pressed his forehead to the bars. Exhaustion took him there.
Time slipped. His ribs throbbed. His mouth tasted of blood. When he blinked awake again, he was still in the cage, the bars cold against his cheek.
Lysa was in the next cage. Her lip was split. “You okay?” she whispered.
He shook his head. “You?”
“They took Karo somewhere else.”
He lowered his forehead to the bars. “I’m sorry.”
Her fingers reached through the gap. He touched them lightly. Lights snapped on overhead. A low hum filled the air. Screens descended from the ceiling, each one lighting with rows of painted eyes behind stylized masks.
“Look alive, stock.” A guard grinned. “The voters logged in early.”
Another guard tapped the cage bars with his baton. “They want a show.”
“Lot six,” a voice crackled overhead. “Prepare demonstration.”
Two guards dragged a young man from a nearby cage. One guard yanked him upright and gestured at the screens. “See that? Each eye up there’s a client. And right now, they’re deciding what you’re worth.”
Ryneth looked up at the holo screens. At the anonymous gazes that stared right back at them.
Maybe this was what they had feared. What they’d stood at the wall for, while telling themselves they were protecting Helion from raiders and rebels, never imagining the real horror would look like this.
The baton cracking across the man’s thigh made the screens brighten.
+180
+240
+310
“Legs first.” A guard laughed. “See that spike? That’s them paying to watch you fall.”
The final hit caught the young man’s shoulder and sent him crashing to his knees. He let out a long, pitiful wail.
The guard leaned closer. “You see that? They pay, you perform.”
He shoved the man flat on the concrete.
A tone chimed overhead. “SOLD,” the voice announced.
Two guards dragged the man away. He didn’t resist when a collar snapped closed around his throat as they hauled him out of sight.
The lights snapped off across the warehouse.
A second later, they came back on, pinning Ryneth alone in their glare.
Ryneth recoiled, scrambling back. Only, there was nowhere to go. The cages around him fell into shadow. The screens stayed dark. There were no eyes, no numbers. There was just him.
They dragged his cage forward and into the center of the room, the light following them in silence.
One of the guards stepped into the edge of the light and kicked the bars of his cage. “Stand.”
Ryneth didn’t move.
The guard drove his boot through the bars and into Ryneth’s ribs. Pain burst through him.
“I said move, little one. Give them a show.”
More blows followed, boots slamming through the bars wherever they could reach him.
“Stop,” he begged, but they didn’t listen.
They were noise, taunting him, hurting him, until Ryneth’s mind was a fog and his hands were lead.
Static surged in Ryneth’s chest. It climbed his spine, burned through his arms, gathered at his hands until his fingers shook.
“There it is,” the blond man said. “Keep going.”
The next kick hit his shoulder.
The static broke.
He had held it back all his life by staying ahead of fear, by moving, by fighting, by keeping control. But there was nowhere left to put it now.
Light tore out of him in a violent snap. The bars screamed as current raced along them. Lamps overhead shattered, glass raining down. The guards staggered back, swearing, as the air crackled between them and the cage.
No one touched him now.
The light died as fast as it came. The static ripped through him and left nothing behind. His knees gave out. He hit the floor, breath tearing out of him, hands spasming uselessly against the metal.
“You really are one of Helion’s little miracles.”
He hadn’t noticed the blond man, but he sat watching him now, face obscured except for those cold eyes. He didn’t move, only watched, too still, as if the result was exactly what he’d been waiting for.
What the hell did Helion have to do with him?
Then a soft tone chimed overhead.
“Evaluation complete,” the overhead voice said, smooth and almost pleased. “This subject has been secured for private acquisition.”
Then the lights cut out. And Ryneth lost consciousness knowing someone had watched what he could do, decided he was worth keeping, and marked him for something worse.
Time blurred.
If this was Helion, he never saw the glass or the green.
He was so thirsty.
Hands lifted the cages, metal scraping, someone screaming. Ryneth’s body rolled with the motion, ribs burning, his mouth dry enough to stick to his teeth.
He tried to swallow, but nothing came.
At times, Ryneth was awake, but mostly he slept. Or drifted under whatever they gave him.
Later, shouting jolted him awake.
“Soldiers!” someone screamed. “Helion soldiers are coming!”
Panic erupted around them. Their captors sprinted between cages, unlocking some and dragging people out.
Lysa’s cage opened. She twisted, reaching back as a guard yanked her out. “Ryneth!”
He lunged against the bars. A rifle butt smashed near his face. Pain tore across his cheek. Another guard hauled him out. Ryneth fought, kicking blindly, until a boot pressed into his spine, knocking the air out of him.
“Sedate him!”
A syringe punched into Ryneth’s shoulder. Cold spread too fast, making his muscles clench.
“No,” he gasped. “Lysa—”
She screamed his name as they hauled her toward the door.
“No—” Ryneth tried to lunge after her, but his limbs went heavy.
The sedative burned through his veins and he sagged against the bars, breath tearing out of him.
Static hissed from his hands in sharp, broken bursts. The cage bars lit in brief white veins. A crack snapped across the concrete beneath him, bright enough to make one of the guards curse and jump back.
“Shit—”
The lights overhead flickered again. Another guard flinched back with a hiss.
“The sedatives aren’t holding,” one of them barked. “He’ll fry us in the transport.”
Another impact shook the walls. Dust rained from the beams overhead. Somewhere beyond the loading bay, men were shouting.
“Everyone get out now,” the leader snapped. Then he looked at Ryneth. “Not him. He’ll fry us all to fucking death.”
“We can’t leave him here.” The masked blond was already moving. Shoving one of the guards aside, he dropped to a crouch and glared at Ryneth. “Get him up. Now.”
Ryneth tried to push himself back, but his limbs barely obeyed. The static inside him surged harder, wild and wrong, racing up his arms in a violent rush. Light snapped from his bound wrists to the bars of his cage.
“We have no time. We go now.”
“Come on!” the leader shouted. “Leave him or we’ll lose everyone!”
The blond man looked at Ryneth one last time, fury burning through the slits of his mask. “This is not over,” he muttered, and stepped back as the others ran. “You fucking freak.”
A boot struck Ryneth’s ribs as they pulled back. Another stamped on his hand, forcing it still.
Lysa’s voice vanished down the corridor.
Ryneth thought of Mara’s voice telling him to be careful. He thought of the boys curled against him that morning. He hoped someone would tell them he tried.
The warehouse doors slammed as boots thundered away.
Ryneth lay on the concrete, cheek against stone. The static inside him thinned to nothing as he listened to the fading noises.
Lights blurred. Helion’s bright world dimmed.
Then finally, he let go.