Chapter 22
KANE
Blood coats my hands like gloves as I slowly lay the woman on her side. There’s no life in her eyes, but her lips are still set in a small smile as she blankly stares at me. I gently use my thumb and middle finger to close her eyelids, leaving crimson smudges on them.
“It seems we have a winner,” Rowan announces.
I turn to see him lift the boy’s hand then push him forward.
Fucking sick prick. Children aren’t prizes or anything to be gifted to someone.
At least I can make sure no one will touch him, so I apologize to the man I thought I would be because if there’s another competition, I’ll beat everyone in the room to make sure he doesn’t collect any more scars.
He’s reluctant to leave Rowan’s side until Lennox places his hand on the boy’s small shoulder, guiding him towards me. I hate the fucker. My disgust is visible in his mirrored mask, but he doesn’t react to it as he walks me to a bedroom with the same polished concrete walls.
There’s only a bed in the corner, a thin foam mattress on the metal frame, and a fleece blanket tucked in military-style.
He doesn’t say anything as he leaves while I look at my new cell, noting the differences which will stop me recalling the old memories as the thick steel door behind me hisses, the locks engaging.
Thick lead pipes cross over each other on the ceiling, breaking up all the concrete in the room.
There’s no window as I slowly turn in a circle, looking between the door we came through and another on the other side of the small room.
Two differences are all I have to focus on—pipes and a second door.
“Have you picked a name, kid?” I ask.
He shakes his head as I check the other door.
As expected, there’s a bathroom. The room was clearly chosen ahead of time because there’s a bag of my clothes on the porcelain sink.
There’s no lock on the door when I close it.
I can’t hear the kid trying to escape, so I turn, swiping the bag off the sink and staring into the aged mirror above it.
I can barely see my features with all the mirror’s desilvering.
There’s blood on half of my face, already dried in the creases under my eyes.
Every day, I get further away from the innocent eighteen-year-old boy.
I’m in my thirties now, but I still expect a kid to be staring back at me whenever I look in a mirror.
The pipes groan as I turn the faucet, icy water coming through. Scooping it in my hands, I wash my face before staring back in the mirror. The blood is still there. So are the creases. Little pink drops race down my face, disappearing into my stubble.
I keep scrubbing, checking my reflection until I’m free of any blood, then turn to change so I don’t have to see my body. It’s stupid as fuck and I thought the tattoos would help make it feel like mine. I hate the skin I’m in. Not because of anything aesthetic; it just doesn’t belong to me.
The same reoccurring thought comes back: is Delilah lucky for not remembering?
She was in pain until she remembered everything she’d been through.
We’re the same, yet different. She knows what it feels like for her control to be taken away, but her reaction is different than mine.
She uses it for fuel; I’m restrained by it.
Did the drugs make her feel different?
Or is it because I’m a man, so I should have been strong enough to fight them off?
She was a kid: vulnerable.
She was drugged: vulnerable.
I’m a man: no excuse.
And no excuse means there will always be a question about why I was weak.
Delilah will see me as less. If I ever actually admit it to myself, I’ll know I’m less too, so I keep burying it—refusing to look at my body, refusing to acknowledge why I need the pain to pause the memories because nothing fucking happened to me.
Once I’m dressed in clean clothes, I walk out of the bathroom. Then immediately turn around to face the wall. “Hey, kid, do you want to put your shorts back on?”
“Do you want me to do something else?” he whispers, full of fear.
What the fuck have they done to him?
“No.” My voice comes out rough as I talk to the wall. “No one’s going to touch you.”
I walk back into the bathroom, grabbing a t-shirt and some socks from the bag. Walking backwards I ask, “Are you dressed now?”
Something rustles then he quietly says, “Yes.”
I look up in case he isn’t as I turn, but he has his shorts on. I try to be gentle as I slowly walk towards him. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, okay?” He stares at me like he doesn’t understand the words or the t-shirt and socks I hold out to him. “So you don’t get cold.”
“You want me to wear clothes?”
“Always. No one should want to see you undressed.”
The crease between his brows deepens until they’re touching as he slowly takes the clothes from me and pulls the t-shirt over his head.
“Would you like to go to sleep?” I ask, unsure of what the fuck to do. He slowly lowers to the floor then lays on his side, tucking his hands under his cheek. Given his assumption of what I’m going to do to him, I don’t touch him as I softly say, “Don’t lay on the floor. It’s cold. Get in the bed.”
“You said you don’t want me. The bed is only for if you want me, or for Master to sleep in.”
I take a deep breath to brush my anger aside. “Look at me, kid. No one should touch children. Ever. I will never touch you, in any way, and I won’t let you sleep on the floor.”
“You wanted to pick me up,” he argues, still scowling.
“I asked you first. If you said yes, I would have carried you into this place, nothing else. You didn’t, so I didn’t touch you.
If your legs hurt, you want a hug, or your feet are cold and you want me to pick you up, all you have to do is tell me.
I promise I will never touch you any more than I have to. ”
“What’s that?”
“What?”
“Promise?”
Fuck, what the fuck has this kid seen he doesn’t know his name or what a promise is?
“A promise is…” I lower, opposite him, with my knees bent. “A way of you knowing I’m telling the truth. It’s one of those words where I know what it means, but I’m not really sure how to explain. Do you understand that?”
“Xanthe has those words too.”
“Who’s Xanthe? Your mom?”
He shakes his head.
“Your sister?”
“She lives with the others. I was chosen to stay with Master.”
People trafficking is Rowan’s business, and this is a kid who doesn’t know the world other than what a trafficker has shown him because he was born in it.
Holy fucking shit, this place is hell.
“Does Xanthe call you a name?” I ask.
“She brushes my hair sometimes.”
“That’s nice, my mom used to do that too.”
“What’s your name?”
“My name is Kane.” I hold my hand out. “What would you like me to call you, kid?”
“Kid is okay,” he says softly, ignoring my hand.
He’s breaking my fucking heart.
“Will you get in the bed now?” I gesture to it.
He stops scowling as he slowly gets up and backs away, refusing to give me his back as he gets on it.
I can’t offer words of reassurance when he wouldn’t understand them, so I sit in front of the door, allowing him to see no one will come inside as I offer, “You can sleep if you want or we can play a game.”
“What game?”
Thank fuck he knows what that is.
“Have you ever played charades?” I ask hesitantly while he stares at me with no discernible expression. “It’s where you have to act out the word for me to guess it.”
His eyes light up as he says, “Yes, Jasper taught me.”
“Is Jasper with Xanthe?”
“Yes. He’s moving soon so I don’t think I’ll see him again. Can we play now?”
“Yeah, do you want to go first?”
He stands on the bed, holding up two fingers.
“Two words,” I say.
He nods excitedly as he gets into his pose.