Chapter 3 #2
“Are you…you okay?” I asked him.
He startled, wincing when his jolt caused him to prick himself with the needle he was using to stitch.
He didn’t seem embarrassed to be caught with his pants down or even all that irritated though.
He just seemed…gone. His eyes were so vacant, and his darkish blond hair was matted.
It was strange how dirty the kid was because Viktor made me bathe with him every night.
I thought that all the kids at the estate were doing so.
“Fine,” he muttered blankly and continued his stitch work.
Still, I didn’t leave, and still, it didn’t seem that he cared. I stepped a little closer. Morbid curiosity, I guess. He was older than me by a few years at least. His face didn’t have the same roundness of youth that mine or the others’ had.
“I’m not a show,” he grumbled. “Fuck off.”
I tensed, gripping the broom. “Who…” Frustration flared through me. I hated how miserable I was at talking. I wanted to speak so badly. I gestured toward him, hoping to convey that I wanted to know who had hurt him like that.
He finished his stitch and set the needle into a tiny case of bandages and threads.
Then he slipped it into what I thought was a mouse hole, hiding it in the wall.
He struggled to his feet, and I moved forward, offering my arm.
He groaned in pain as he stood, his hand clamping down on my shoulder before he bent to pull his pants back into place with an exhausted look.
“You’re Rafe, right?” he asked. “I’ve seen you around.”
I nodded, studying where his bloody hand left a stain on my sleeve. I straightened when he limped forward, the conversation seemingly done. But then he stopped abruptly and turned back, leaning a shoulder into the wall as he frowned.
“Have you seen a girl around here?” he asked. “Blond. Kind of looks like me but a little younger?”
I matched his frown. “No.”
His shoulders slumped. “Alright. Thanks, anyway.” He moved to leave again, but something yanked from the center of myself.
“You…speak.” I cleared my throat. “Good.”
He looked me over. “And you don’t.” His eyes brightened a little. “You want me to help you? It’s not too hard.”
I blew out a relieved breath. “Please.”
“Cool.” He threw a thumb over his shoulder. “My room’s this way. Viktor won’t be back for another few hours. He’s grabbing kids from pretty far north.”
“You know where…what…?” I asked.
“You know where he goes? What he does?” he repeated for clarification. When I nodded, he limped toward his room and pushed open the door. It was just like mine minus the rope. There was rope on his bed. I didn’t understand why at the time, but I would within the next month.
“You know how people buy things?” he said.
“Viktor will let people come here and buy us. That’s why he needs more kids.
More to sell, more money to make.” He shrugged and settled on the floor, far away from the bed.
He patted the floor next to him. “It’s okay, Rafe.
You can put the broom down. I’m not like Viktor. ”
I hadn’t realized I was clutching the broom still. I gently propped it against the wall and settled next to him, my shoulders a good foot below where his sat on the wall. He was much taller than me, at least back then with our age gap he was. I hadn’t gone through much of a growth spurt yet.
“I know,” he said simply, “because Viktor likes to talk about his plans when he…hangs out.” He rubbed the back of his neck with a wince. “Does he, uh, hang out with you?”
I rested my chin on my knees. “Not really. Just baths.”
I felt him stiffen next to me. “Yeah,” he said and his voice cracked. “That’s how it started.” He forced a slim smile though and looked at me. “How old are you?”
“Seven.” But I frowned. “Eight?”
“You don’t know your birthday?”
“No.”
“Me either, but I’ve counted the years since I’ve been here. I’m pretty sure I’m thirteen.”
Years. “Long time?”
His smile faded. “Long time.” He blew out a breath. “I’m Alex, by the way.” He lifted a hand, and I shook it carefully. He grinned a little. “It would be kind of nice to have a friend.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Maybe I could make it better for you.” It seemed like he was saying it more to himself than to me. He exhaled again, longer and heavier. “Rafe, you can’t trust Viktor.”
I hugged my shins.
“Lesson number one is not to scream.” He swallowed thickly, his eyes glassy as he looked across the room at his tattered bed and the hanging ropes. “Viktor likes it too much. You need to try and remain calm.”
“Shouldn’t I…” I scratched my face. “Do? What he likes?”
“Not always. Sometimes following his instruction will save you, and other times it will hurt you even more. It just depends on how much pain you want. It’s better to just go somewhere else in your head. Remember something happy. Go into that memory and stay there until it’s over.”
I frowned. “None.” But I’d also thought of the ravens. I liked how they flew freely and had a nest to call home. I thought that maybe I could pretend I was them.
Alex sniffed, and I realized he was crying.
He hid it quickly, swiping the tear away from his eyes and blinking away the others.
“You need to find something,” he breathed.
“It’s going to hurt, Rafe, but if you’re calm, it will be over quick.
He’ll get bored the more you endure him, and he’ll move on.
That’s the only way to escape. I guess that’s why he brought in you and the few others. He’s finally getting bored of me.”
“You’re sad?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
He wet his lips and shrugged. “I get to be someone else’s toy now. That or I finally go through with the plan I made. I told myself if I ever did escape, I’d destroy this place. Just make it all ash and smoke.”
“But toys are…fun?” I twined my fingers over my knees, unsure how to be around him.
His chin trembled. “No, kid. Toys aren’t fun. Not anymore.”
That didn’t make much sense to me, but I took his word for it. “How long?” I gestured to the bed.
Alex lifted a trembling hand with four fingers held up, not trusting his voice as he tried to fight back tears.
Four years. We were quiet for a really long time after that.
I just remember closing my eyes and lying my cheek on my knuckles against my knees.
Alex rocked himself and massaged various places on his legs and neck.
He began to mutter something under his breath—“Calm. Remember. Endure. Escape. Destroy. Calm. Remember. Endure. Escape. Destroy. Calm—” and again and again.
I nodded off to sleep as he repeated his mantra, the words chasing me down into the dark of nightmares.
I had no idea just how much those five words would damn me.
C.R.E.E.D.
Creed.
“Do you like…ravens?” I managed groggily when I awoke what felt like hours later, finding him still rocking himself and the sun setting beyond his window.
Alex’s mantra cut off, some of the light returning to his eyes. His voice had been a rasp, his throat so dry from saying those words for as long as he had. “Sure,” he said finally. “I think I like anything that can fly away.” His mouth crooked with a small smile.
We fell into a simple routine after that, and I guess he became my friend.
Nights were dedicated to Viktor but days became ours.
Alex taught me how to speak clearly and efficiently, and he taught me his mantra for the nights when Viktor hurt me the most. Creed became a sort of dream, this thing we tethered ourselves to as if we didn’t already have enough chains in our lives.
More kids were brought to the estate, but I never cared for any of them the way I cared for Alex.
I saw him like a big brother, this guiding light that I desperately needed.
I stayed quiet when Viktor took what he wanted from me, and I often noticed the next morning that Alex wouldn’t have much of a voice.
It wasn’t until years later that I realized he’d started screaming again, for me.
He regained Viktor’s interest, not only to keep Viktor from coming to my room but also to stay at the estate longer than Viktor had planned.
When I was on the edge of nine and Alex of fifteen, he took me to the garden excitedly, dragging me by the wrist across the courtyard and into the trees.
“I saw them yesterday and it has to be a sign,” he told me.
For over a year, we’d talked about escaping the estate, pretending we could fly like ravens.
He even bargained with Viktor for books on the birds, reading them to me when I couldn’t sleep.
Just like Creed, ravens had become…I don’t know.
A symbol, I guess. They felt powerful compared to most birds.
People feared them from a spiritual standpoint, and in most literature they were bad omens.
A flock was an unkindness, and Alex fucking loved the idea of that—having a big enough flock of ravens to rain hell down on all who’d wronged him—and that day in the garden, he’d found a nest. Sure enough, it was ravens, and I had to agree with him that it did feel like a sign, an extraordinary happening, something that neither of us could deny.
“Escape,” he whispered. “Calm. Remember. Endure. Escape.”
Then he showed me that just behind the tree, there was a hole in the electric fence that surrounded the property. It wasn’t very wide, but we could probably squirm through it with a few cuts…If the fence was turned off.
“The breakers are in the basement,” he told me. “When everyone goes to sleep tonight, we leave, Rafe. We leave and we find my sister and we build our flock.”
We didn’t make it. We were caught, separated—Alex sold off—and when I refused to make a sound in the presence of Viktor, he made that refusal permanent. “Fine. You don’t want to scream for me, Rafe? Then I’d rather not hear you at all,” he’d said.