- SEVEN #3
Then, with a morbid kind of curiosity because my powers were never strong enough as a kid, I reached out to my father.
On the surface, there was anger pointed at me for leaving, for making him deal with that shame, for being an ungrateful little brat.
Beneath that, though, was a different kind of anger.
It was the kind that came from years of trying to repress it, of refusing to deal with it because there was something underneath it that was infinitely worse.
I pushed, the pain still intense, the need to completely lose myself almost overwhelming.
I forced myself in beyond the surface emotions I was used to experiencing.
I felt shock fill my system as I found myself in his memories, seeing through my father's eyes, hearing through his ears, feeling through his body.
"You evil, conniving bitch," he said, his voice furious.
Who was he talking to? I pressed harder, my vision focusing more, and finding my mother.
And while she was always beautiful, she was even more so, younger, more plump of cheeks and lips.
She was lounging back on a fainting couch, her flimsy white dress slit up to her thigh, watching my father, looking bored.
"Whatever do you mean?" she asked, sounding falsely innocent.
"You ruined both our lives," he said, his voice weighted as he turned to look out the window, sad. Then he was walking away from her, a hatred like battery acid burning through his system.
He walked slowly up the stairs and down the hall into a room with cheery yellow walls and two cribs.
He walked over and gently lifted a sleeping baby, a newborn, plump little Jade, and propped her up against his shoulder.
Then he went to the other crib and picked up me, doing the same with his other shoulder.
I had never thought much about my father as a young father, what he was like before Jade and I became old enough to be taught and molded into the people he wanted us to be.
I had always figured we were raised those early days by servants as my mother didn't have a maternal bone in her entire body.
I certainly never thought to consider the idea that the man who was carving into my skin, who had beat me violently my entire childhood, could have ever picked us out of our cribs and held us lovingly.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered to the sleeping babies, his voice breaking.
I felt the sadness then. It was a sensation of being pulled underwater, of being helpless to do anything but sink further into the despair until it completely surrounded you.
Until every breath you took was just swallowing more pain.
Until you were in so deep that there wasn't any hope of ever breaking the surface again.
Then, I realized with a rolling feeling in my stomach, my father was holding onto both of us, bent slightly forward, sobbing uncontrollably.
My mind pulled back suddenly, tossing me back into my own body, my own sensations.
Everything hit me all at once, amplified by the short reprieve.
My wrists felt on fire; the welts on my back screamed; the cut from the knife burned.
There were new feelings too, pain that had been inflicted when I had been gloriously numb.
There was a throbbing in my back, down low by my hips, like I had been punched.
Then there was the excruciating burn on my chest where my father was still carving something into my flesh.
My eyes shot open, landing on the sad guard who shook his head at me then looked down at his own feet before saying, "Declan..."
"What?" my father snapped, breathing heavily, the tip of the knife still in my skin.
"Do you want him to make it to a second session? 'Cause at this rate, he won't."
I expected my father to lash out at the guard for questioning him. But he didn't. He pulled the knife from my skin and looked me over for a moment, inspecting the damage he had inflicted. When his gaze found mine, I held it, hoping to betray nothing but hatred.
"Well, you're the expert," he said to the guard.
"But just one more small alteration," he said, raising the knife and sliding it into the skin just to the side of my left ear, digging in, and dragging it down my cheek, stopping just beside my lips.
"There," he said with a nod, dropping the knife to the floor and moving across the room to the door.
"Let him paint the floor red for a while before you bring him back to his cell. "
All the feet shuffled away, the door closed, and I was gloriously alone.
I held my breath, waiting to make sure the feet moved fully away and the door was closed and everyone was out of earshot before I let out a scream, a loud, long, animalistic sound that bounced off the walls and sounded raw even to my own ears.
It lasted until my throat and chest burned, until everything I had held in was out.
"Gotta let it out," someone yelled from back in the cells. "Ain't no shame in crying if you need to cry neither. We all been there. Won't hold it against you."
Then another, older, raspier voice joined in. "Doesn't help to be a hero. They stop a lot sooner if you yell through it."
I took a deep breath, spitting blood from biting my cheek onto the floor. "He's my father," I called back, knowing that explained it all.
There was some whisper for a second before the old voice called to me again. "The little blond boy?" he asked. "How long has it been then?"
I could sense their need to know, as strong as their need to escape, they needed to know how long it had been, how much of their life had been wasted. "We were ten when we ran. It's been eighteen years."
"Oh, God," the old man groaned.
"Guards," another voice snapped, effectively silencing them all.
The door behind me pushed open and I heard footsteps and then the guard who I had known as a kid was there.
"He didn't exactly specify how long 'a while' was," he explained, going over to the wheel and lowering me down, the feeling of relief so strong it was overwhelming.
My feet touched down and I struggled to stand on my numb legs.
A second later the guard was there, easing some of the burden of my weight.
"Here drink some of this. It'll help the sting," he said, producing a flask and holding it up to my lips.
I opened my mouth and felt the liquid burn down my throat.
Done, he took it, tipped it, and poured it over my wrists, chest, and back.
I heard myself curse, a long string of the foulest words I knew and somewhere off in a cell, someone chuckled.
"It will keep it from getting infected," the guard explained.
"That's how most die around here." He put the flask away and took more of my weight.
"Come on, let's get you back to your cell. "
As we walked, the guard paused to drop something into one of the cells. Curious, I pushed inward again and found nothing but compassion. "That's why you're here," I said. "Not because you are a sadistic bastard, but because you help them. Us," I corrected. "You make sure we are taken care of."
"Everyone needs someone to give a damn about them.
"What's your name?"
"Elic," he said, helping me into my cell and handing me a small bag of peanuts. "Rest up. You know he's coming back."
"Yeah, I know."
Alone, I ate a few peanuts and stashed the rest under a pile of straw in the corner.
I took a deep breath and looked down, already knowing what I would find.
Usually it was branded, but my father wanted to personalize it, drag out the misery.
There across my chest from shoulder to shoulder, the word 'traitor' was carved into my flesh.
I knelt down on the hard floor, taking deep breaths to try to ease the pain, trying to find anything else to focus on except it.
But then I heard my father's footsteps again and the door was ripped open. "You stay the hell out of my head, boy," he said through a clenched jaw, his eyes raging.
I felt my lips twist up in a humorless smile.
He must have felt me. Or maybe I left a trace of myself behind like the cold on the heels of a ghost. I felt a sick sort of satisfaction at that, at getting under his skin.
The urge that overtook me then was almost overpowering.
Despite knowing it was pointless, stupid, asking to be tortured further.
But I pushed up and charged forward, slamming into my father full-force and unexpected and, therefore, sending him and myself falling toward the floor.
"Idiot," I heard hissed from one of the cells.
He was right. I knew I couldn't win. I knew I would pay dearly. But nothing had ever felt more gratifying in my life as feeling my fist collide with his ribs. There was a cracking sound as his breath whooshed out of him and I knew I had broken at least one.
The victory was short-lived, however, as he shoved up and sent me flying onto my raw back, drawing a stifled scream out of me.
Then it was all fists and my father's evil eyes.
But not for long.
Several strikes later, I slipped blissfully into unconsciousness.