Chapter 44
KANE
Sasha is moody as fuck for the entire flight back to Austria. If she kicks me one more fucking time, I’m going to smack her in the fucking face. Thankfully, she’s stopped eating with her mouth open, but her thick boots slam into my ankle as she kicks the passenger seat.
The hood over my head doesn’t allow me to see her and my hands are tied so I can’t grab her leg. When she kicks the seat again, I swing my knee into her thigh to get her to stop.
The little nutcase whines, “Owwwww, don’t hit me.” Then full fucking force punches me in the thigh.
I slam my knee into her again as I blindly lift my hands to hook my bound wrists around her neck. They get caught on her forehead and her mask is a weird texture as she continues hitting me while screaming, “Don’t touch me!”
We slide forward as the car comes to an abrupt stop, then Lennox’s authoritative voice fills the car. “Stop fighting.”
The little weirdo digs her elbow into my stomach, muttering, “He started it.”
I still don’t know how old she is, but I thought she was an adult.
The more I’m around her, the more I’m starting to think she’s a child instead of immature.
A child who hasn’t learnt to travel without snacks or fidgeting.
We start moving again as she’s still muttering to herself, “My face better not be broken or he’s making me a new one. ”
She continues grumbling to herself like a child would when they’re mid-tantrum.
I can’t get attached to another child only to lose them.
I shift along the seat until I feel the door against my arm.
My grief currently has a pause button over it.
As long as I focus on anything other than the reason for it, I can continue existing.
Even a name brings it back but as soon as it enters my mind, Asher whispers, “You should kill everyone.”
I will.
“No, do it now. Lennox doesn’t really care about you. He pities you.”
He’s helping, I correct.
Asher falls silent as we stop again. The whispering is becoming more frequent.
It’s starting to make sense when he urges me to go further into evil than I’m instructed.
This is the same as any other business, so my performance is constantly being reviewed.
If I do more than what’s expected of me, Rowan will see I can be trusted. He’ll mistake me for someone like him.
I don’t want to be someone who violates the dead.
The guards regularly take it in turns to entertain him with the same bodies on rotation.
Some violate them the same way I did to be initiated, others go above and beyond.
There has to be a line, even if there’s no saving me. There has to be a fucking line.
Slicing pieces of their flesh off to feed Sasha clearly wasn’t.
Shitting and pissing on the dead has to be that line.
Lennox removes the hood as he instructs Sasha to free my hands. She huffs as she twists the plastic tie, pinching my skin in the process. I resist the urge to rub the sting away as I get out, with her pushing me to get out of the way when I don’t move quick enough. “I’m hungry.”
I catch her ankle as I stand off to the side. She stumbles, nearly falling headfirst into the snow, but Lennox grabs her arm, dragging her with him.
As I stand back, watching them walk ahead, I notice how small Sasha is.
The mask is creepy as fuck, which distracted me, but she’s tiny.
Her shoulders slump as she drags her feet, so she’s definitely a teenager, probably freshly eighteen.
The most normal experience I have is fucking with her.
I catch up to them and push my foot against her ankle as we walk into the brick cabin.
Her head snaps to the side as she glares at me. “I hate you.”
“I hate you too,” I childishly fire back.
“I hate you, Kane,” Asher joins in.
Her glare intensifies as I attempt to trip her.
Lennox pulls her out of reach, forcing her to walk ahead of us.
She goes straight to the canteen, but I’m not given the same option as he guides me to the security room where Rowan is watching the captives as he eats a steak.
I’ve never seen him eat before. I don’t know why it’s so weird.
He has to eat to survive, so I shouldn’t be freaked out by the sight of it.
The smell of human meat is distinctive, which is why I know the meat on Rowan’s china plate is from a cow. It’s the first time I’ve seen vegetables since being here. That’s weird as fuck too.
Why the fuck is it so weird?
Lennox eating while we were in London didn’t invoke this reaction, but the longer I watch him the more it dries my mouth. I’m not hungry. My appetite has disappeared for months, so it can’t be that.
Rowan pauses, holding the fork out to me. “Would you like some?”
“No.”
It becomes even more alien when he drags the cut meat through the juices on the plate then loads up the back of the fork with the vegetables.
“Sit. The entertainment is about to begin.” He elegantly pushes the forks in his mouth without spilling anything, exactly how I was taught to eat by my real mom.
The captives are in their usual positions since the bed has been delivered—the woman on her side with the man in front of her, both of them wrapped in each other.
His lips are on her shoulder while he gently strokes her hair as he croaks, “Go to sleep, darling. Dream for us both, then you won’t remember anything. ”
His mantra never changes, but this is different.
She’s already asleep as her hand remains limp on his back.
“I’m sorry,” he tearfully whispers, slowly slipping out from her side with his eyes pinched shut.
She falls onto her stomach without his support as he positions her legs so she’s bent over the bed.
Rowan clicks something to bring up multiple angles of them.
Beside each camera is a running bid. Lennox turns on another screen to show ten boxes slowly lighting up, each with a view of some sick fuck bidding on this shit.
I recognize some of them from Harkin’s company parties.
Box number four has the motherfucker who raped my wife.
There’s a girl kneeling at his side with light blonde hair, big blue eyes, and a cream lace dress on.
He has a copy of my wife when she was thirteen years old kneeling beside him.
I lean back in the chair to feign being unaffected as I calmly ask, “Who are they?” Rowan looks over my head at Lennox, but I call his attention back to me. “I’m assuming I’ll be meeting your business partners to know who’s important.”
Pride shines in his eyes as he gently sets his utensils down like someone isn’t being raped on the screen in front us while ten fucking cunts get off on it.
My skin crawls as he places his hand on my shoulder, rubbing up to meet my nape before he squeezes.
“You’re learning faster every day, nephew. ”
Lennox removes his mask as he takes the seat next to me. I’m surrounded by them. Both of them are exactly the same and I can’t escape as we watch someone be violated. The bids increase as the door to the captives’ room opens. Five guards in mirrored masks enter.
Rowan is a vile prick as he gleefully says, “Now the true entertainment begins.”
I look out of the corner of my eye at Lennox staring at something on his phone.
There’s a lump in his throat, which is the equivalent to him screaming at whatever he’s seen.
I tap his foot to get his attention, but he quickly pockets the device as he sheepishly looks up.
Clearing his throat, he turns to Rowan. “Your new item will be ready in three days. Would you like it to be delivered to the same location?”
He waves his fork in the air as he chews. “Delay it until our dear nephew has completed his training. It would be a shame to miss witnessing him reach his full potential.”
Potential is for positive things. Not raping people.
Just when I think I can manage my reaction, the masked guards unzip. They’re all wearing condoms, which Rowan decides to give me insight behind as he says, “If you allow them to become accustomed to human touch, they’ll crave it.”
“So why let them have it at all?” I ask. I’m as cowardly as Lennox for not stopping them as they approach the man who still has his eyes closed, which does fuck all to hide his tears slipping down his cheeks.
Rowan assesses me as he takes another bite of his meal. “All animals require motivation. Those who are the most loyal will shackle themselves without any requirement for aggression. Do you understand what separates a man from a beast?”
“Morality.” Which you don’t fucking have.
“No,” Lennox interrupts. “A beast doesn’t have free will. They’re ruled by their nature; they will act within the bounds of that nature. Man has the illusion of choice.”
“A man will only lose their free will for two things,” Rowan picks up as though they’re one. “By devotion or force. One is more powerful than the other.”
He needs to have a reality check, because he’s not some mighty entity.
He’s a scared little bitch who doesn’t take any risk.
Lennox is the only person who exists. Rowan Kobalt is a phantasm no one outside of his own carefully crafted domain is aware of.
Even in these walls, he doesn’t show his face to anyone other than Lennox, Sasha, and me.
I excuse myself when the guards take turns on the man, forcing him to shut down in that all too familiar way. I can hear my heart thud faster with each step. My hands shake, sweat trickling down my back, but I don’t run to escape the image.
Not until I’m locked away in the empty room, except for a pillow on the floor.
Then I fucking run into the bathroom. Kicking the door closed behind me for the fantasy of privacy as I slide down the door, I fumble with my pants.
There’s a patch of my thigh visible and my hand only stops shaking when I take out my knife, press the tip of the blade deep into my skin, then slowly pull it across in a line, savoring every fucking second where my nerves are overstimulated.
The cold is first.
Then my senses are alerted to the pain.
I can exhale. Inhaling is harder, so I feed the addiction knowing each time it wants more.
More.
More.
Until it’s gorged on my blood.
But the bitter fucking irony is I can’t die.
Not yet.
Not here when I’ll become Sasha’s next meal.
Or another body to violate.
Definitely fucking not while Delilah is trapped on an island I haven’t managed to find.
So I keep cutting.
Cutting.
Cutting.
Cutting.
Cutting.
Like maybe, just fucking maybe, if I cut deep enough or for long enough, the bad parts will bleed out.
Cutting.
Cutting.
Cutting.
Cutting.
Like I’ll find that wrong thing inside of me to stop it all, because applying more pain to the pain is rational as fuck.
Cutting.
Cutting.
“But you can’t stop.”
Cutting.
Cutting.
Cutting.
Cutting.
I can’t stop when my blood drips onto the tile.
Cutting.
Cutting.
“Or when that patch of skin is ruined.”
Cutting.
Cutting.
Cutting.
Cutting.
So I kick my pants off, eager to make more lines. Line after line. Shame after shame. Running away from memories I’ll never be able to escape when what’s broken is me. Not my body or something physical. The very thing that makes me has been destroyed so deeply I’ll never be able to alter it.
But.
I.
Keep.
Cutting.
Needing to bleed it all away.
Searching for every bit of pain being pressed deep into my bones so I can remove it.
Yet it’s not there. It doesn’t exist, like a phantom I can feel attaching itself to me while everyone stares at the crazy man screaming.
More cuts—deeper, longer, wider—don’t reveal it.
Not when my blood drips over the side of my thighs to collect in small pools on the tile.
Or when the warmth slowly flowing over my inflamed skin burns.
No, I need more pain.
Specifically, my own pain to replace everything else.
This is in my control.
This is my choice.
Every mark, every drop of blood is caused by my own hand. But I don’t want to reclaim my body that will never feel like my own when it’s been invaded, trampled, their sickening flags planted into my marrow.
I continue as I control the length, the depth, the site of each cut.
As my vision blurs, I’m struck by the horrifying realization I don’t have control. I’ve officially become indebted to the act.
Because.
I.
Keep.
Fucking.
Cutting.
Fearful of stopping.
Hopeful of what will be on the other side if I never do.
Terrified if I do stop, I’ll be forced to meet my own reflection, forced to witness everything I’ve done.
So I chase the numbness blood loss and pain provide.
My very own cocktail of chemicals, like the pills I’d tricked Delilah into taking, because that medicated numbness made it easier to manipulate her.
Then I’ll be able to manipulate myself into living for another day, contrary to the evidence of my wrongs screaming at me from a pillow with one small dent in the middle and the reminder of Delilah’s fake smile when I told her I was leaving.