Chapter 24
KANE
“One word?” Kid says.
Bringing my hands together, I hook my thumbs over each then flap my hands. He sits up on his knees on the bed, excitedly giving his guesses.
“A bird?”
I shake my head.
“An eagle?”
“That’s a bird,” I say softly.
“Yes, a type of bird.”
“You’re a very clever kid, you know that?”
His smile is small but his eyes light up as he says, “Jasper tells me about all the things he sees when he leaves.”
“Maybe you can see them yourself?”
“No, I don’t want to be kept. One night is okay.”
Something buzzes in the bathroom, pausing our game of charades as I reach the doorway.
It’s coming from the bag. It stops, then restarts as I lift the bag.
My phone sits at the bottom with one needy name on the screen and multiple messages.
The battery is fully charged, which is weird when I had to give it to Lennox before the first trip to Austria.
The ringing starts again and I quickly answer as I close the door, turning on the faucet.
“Jesus, kid!” Niko exclaims. “You’ve been scaring the shit out of me. Where’ve you been?”
“I’m fine, I’ve got some family shit to deal with,” I whisper back, leaning against the wall.
“Ruby mentioned you’d be busy, but you didn’t have to disappear. You’re good though?”
“Yeah, all good,” I lie. “Actually, you might be getting a call from my wife soon. Take her to Scar.”
“So you pulled your head out of your ass and spoke to her instead of being pissed?”
“Yeah, something like that. I got it wrong.” So wrong. I can barely remember who I was when I told him Delilah was a cheating bitch, like I’ve lived ten whole lives since.
“I told you she wasn’t cheating on you, dumb fuck. Not after Scarlet told me how obsessed her sister was with you. Remember to use protection or your honeymoon will be over sooner than you want it to.”
Fuck, if only he knew.
I end the call with the promise to send him proof of life so he doesn’t have to send a search party for me. Turning off the water, I go back out and Kid is still on the bed, his focus on my phone. “Do you have games?”
Maybe he is still a child.
“Which games have you played?” I sit beside the bed without entering his space.
He assesses me instead of answering. If he says someone has done something sick to him, I’m going to lose my fucking mind. So far we’ve kept to easy topics, which have helped me compartmentalize the obvious abuse he’s suffered.
“Will you promise not to tell anyone?” he asks.
“Promise.”
“I’m not supposed to know the guards’ names, but there’s one called Lennox and when he wins, I get to play games on his phone.”
“I don’t know if I have any games,” I say as I unlock the screen and Delilah’s beautiful face is in front of me. She’s asleep in our bed, the one she thought she was sharing with Asher.
Kid peers over my shoulder, whispering, “She looks nice.”
“She is. She’s my wife. Now, let’s find some games we can play.” I swipe through all the different applications, folders full of details I used to toy with Delilah’s head. There’s no games for a child, only the twisted one I created.
He grabs my shoulder, pointing at a small white LED light on the wall. “It’s time to eat.” Then climbs down from the bed, waiting for me to stand.
I have no idea what food we’ll be given but I stand beside him as the doors are unlocked.
Rather than someone coming inside like the prison I’m used to, Kid slips his small hand in mine as he guides me out of the room.
I look down at his little hand in mine, at the scars on his body, and how he’s trusting me.
I need to find an excuse to leave so I can get him some clothes that fit him instead of him shuffling his feet so the socks don’t fall off as we pass multiple steel doors.
When we reach the front door, he pushes against the wall.
The hidden pocket door blends in seamlessly, hiding a set of stairs that go further down.
“You can pick me up now.” He pushes his foot forward, showing the sock has bunched around his ankle.
I lift him up, keeping my forearm under his thighs, my other arm at my side as I carry him down the stairs.
There’s still some distrust as he holds himself stiff like he’s testing me to see if I’ll keep my word.
When I put him back on his feet at the bottom of the stairs, he gives me one of his small smiles then holds my hand again.
I want to grab him, keep hold of him so no one can hurt him, but he’ll trust me less. I don’t give a fuck about what happens. When Delilah and I get away from these cunts, he’s coming with us. We’ll be a family—me, Delilah, and our two babies.
We walk deeper through the hallway in silence. He tenses when we reach a room set up as a canteen with long rectangular steel tables and chairs and a buzzing fluorescent tube light in the center of the ceiling.
The tables are empty, apart from one set in the shadows where three guards sit with their backs to us, their masks resting on the table beside them.
I lightly squeeze his hand to get his attention, but he ignores me as he guides us to a table in the middle.
Once we’re seated, a masked guard steps out of a door in front of us with two trays, placing them in front of us without a word spoken.
It’s definitely a prison. The metal tray has grooves separating each portion of mystery food. I tilt the metal cup to see the color of the liquid.
Clear.
Clear is good.
There’s a ripped loaf on one side of the tray, some kind of brown stew on the side. It doesn’t look appetizing, but Kid drags a corner of the bread through the stew. As he brings it to his mouth, he whispers, “It’s rabbit day.”
An animal, not a person.
I always hated the sound of chewing when I was younger, then prison made me crave the silence so I could hear if anyone was behind me while I was eating. Now, I’m torn as I watch the trio in the corner, sitting taller, my eyes flickering to the side to watch for anyone who may approach.
We’ve nearly finished eating when Kid leans closer to me and picks up the steel cup with one hand, the other dropping below the table to grab the side of my leg.
His eyes are wide, staring over the rim of the cup as one of the unmasked guards stands.
Only the side of his profile is in view as he lifts his mask.
Then he turns, showing Kid’s huge fearful eyes and my anger as he walks over to us.
There’s no skin on display when he reaches his gloved hand out for the chair opposite us.
“Keep fucking walking.” I kick it away. The guard slowly tilts his head side to side as I look directly into my own eyes in his mirrored mask.
“I won. He’s staying with me, so walk. The.
Fuck. Away.” Taking one step to the side, he tries to pull the other chair out.
I abruptly stand, grabbing the back of his fucking mask, and bring it down into the sharp metal edge of table.
Kid tightens his hold on my pants as he’s pulled up with me, but I repeat the motion.
The two remaining guards rush out of the room at the sound of boots thudding against the floor behind me, then Rowan’s voice pierces the metallic crash of the mask hitting the table as he asks, “Dear nephew, are you entertaining without me?”
Five more steps, and he’s behind me. My skin crawls as he slowly places one hand on my shoulder. The other goes to Kid’s head as he says, “Release the guard.”
He stumbles back, quickly straightening his spine to stand at attention for the sick cunt when I let go. The front of the mask is cracked, reflecting back a distorted view of an older man with his hand on each of us as though it’s a family photo.
“Unmask,” Rowan says, despite the fact he has his own face covered.
The guard slowly pulls the mask off and holds it against his middle, his eyes filled with rage solely directed at me. His voice is raspy as he spits, “He does not know his place as an untrained.”
“Fuck you.” I lean forward to grab him.
Rowan tightens his hold on my shoulder, keeping me in place as he digs his gloved fingers into my collarbone. “Do you think you are a bigger authority than I?”
“No, Master.”
This whole master bullshit is creepy as fuck, even if he is coming to my defense right now.
The guard glares at me, his eyes dark and brows set in hard lines as he continues arguing, “This boy has no place here.”
“This boy,” Rowan snarls, “is part of me. You are a mask, a hand I control.”
He opens his mouth to argue again but he’s cut off as Rowan snaps, “Enough!” Using his grip on both Kid and me, he pulls us back as he turns rigid. He walks us out of the canteen, the guard following us with his head bowed.
Kid’s eyes flicker around the space as we’re guided into a large wet room.
The bottom part of the walls are covered in steel sheeting, the top in cream, rectangular, beveled tiles with murky grout lines.
The floor is covered in smaller, flat versions of the same tile with a large square drain in the middle and a flat showerhead fixed to the ceiling, off-center from the drain.
We’re finally unhanded as Rowan steps back to stand at the side of the room, and the guard mechanically kneels beside the drain.
Kid lets go of my hand, choosing Rowan over the safety of me as he tucks his small body beside Rowan’s leg.
Rowan reaches around the frame of the open door to something on the outside, sending a hiss echoing through the room.
The sound is immediately followed by steam as scalding water falls from the showerhead directly over the guard.
Hot.
Cold.
Hot.
Cold.
A way to fuck with your nerves so everything becomes sensitive and you never know what the true temperature is because your blood vessels are being manipulated.
Dilating to cool. Constricting to preserve heat.
But the changes are too drastic so your body can’t regulate correctly and the guard can only scream out in pain, “Please! Have some mercy!”
The water slows, little drips clinging to the metal spout falling on the guard’s head as Rowan coos, “Dear nephew, do you have mercy?”
Kid was terrified when he was accepting of having to spend a night with me after witnessing me kill multiple people. So I straighten my spine as I answer, “No.”
No mercy for a child molester.
No mercy for a rapist.
“Very well.” Rowan claps. “I show my mercy by gifting you to my kin.” Then he walks out while Kid remains frozen in place. It’s then I realize he didn’t feel safer with Rowan, he was grateful for the punishment being given.
As the guard shivers in the middle of the room, I go to Kid and softly ask, “Tell me what he did to you. I’ll make him feel worse.”
He snatches my hand to pull me out the room then leans up on his toes to grab the circular handle in the middle of the door, creaking as he pulls it closed. He stares down the hallway as he whispers, “When he wins, he paints my face.”
“What do you mean he paints your face?” I lower to my haunches so we’re eye to eye.
The short sleeves of my t-shirt he’s wearing drop below his elbows, but he doesn’t let go of my hand as he drags it up with his thumb. “Sometimes he takes the paint from here.”
What in the fucking fuck is wrong with these people?
But it gets worse when he drops his chin to his chest, closing his eyes as he stretches his free arm behind him while twisting his hips. “Sometimes he takes it from here.”
“What would you like to happen to him?” I ask.
“I don’t want him to be able to look at me again,” he says, his hand quaking in mine. “Or laugh at me.”
“I promise he never will.”
It’s the most important promise I’ve ever given.
I raise to my full height, but he tugs on my hand, then he throws his arms around my neck before I can prepare. This boy who has only ever been hurt hugs me. I’m too fearful of being lumped in with his abusers, so I leave my arms at my sides until he’s ready to move.