Chapter Eighteen
Sawyer
Milo stomped down the stairs while Tank and Clay followed behind.
Sawyer wasn’t quite sure why he was so angry but it really could have been anything.
His anxiety steadily rose when he thought about the possibility of him finding out about his snooping.
There’s no way he did. Sawyer told himself.
He made sure that everything was exactly where and how he found it. There was no way it was that.
Milo’s gaze shifted from Sawyer down to Benji on the bed and the rage in his eyes was unmistakable.
“Milo, wait–” He began but his uncle didn’t waste a second.
A hard slap came down upon his cheek, causing his head to whip to the side.
Sawyer didn’t even know someone could slap that hard.
“Fuck,” he hissed, placing his own hand against his now throbbing cheek.
“What the fuck is this?!” Milo spat, pointing down at the man lying on the mattress. “I was hoping that what Clay told me was false and that my nephew wasn’t this fucking stupid.”
Sawyer’s gaze narrowed towards Clay and he saw his snigger beside Tank. Of course it was fucking Clay. He should have known. “Did you ask why he was down here?”
“I don’t give a shit why he was.”
He sighed softly and turned his gaze downwards.
He wanted to tell his uncle about Clay and everything he had done over the years but would he even care?
From the current reaction, he doubted it.
Which was just even more upsetting when he thought about it.
“He’s a predator, Milo. He’s the scum of the earth. ”
“We all are. Who gives a fuck?”
I’m nothing like you. Sawyer thought to himself. He never wanted to be anything like anyone left in the bunker. The normalcy of it died with his mother, that much was for sure.
Milo reached out for Sawyer once again and curled his hand tight in his shirt, pulling him close. “Now answer the question. What the fuck is this?”
He swallowed. “H-He’s not well. He’s really sick. I’ve been trying to nurse him back to some type of health for a while now. You gave him hypothermia. And then this wound on his side got infected. He’s got a bad fever. He doesn’t know what he’s going on. He would be no use to you right now.”
His uncle whipped Sawyer backwards towards the other two.
Tank immediately placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it tight.
He knelt down before the captive and tilted his head as he gazed at him.
Benji looked catatonic. His eyes were glazed over.
Wherever he was, it was probably better than being down in that basement.
Milo snapped his fingers in front of Benji’s face and slapped his cheek three times.
Benji groaned softly and blinked a few times. His blue eyes shifted back and forth between Sawyer and Milo with a furrowed brow. “Dad?” He asked, his eyes finally settling on Milo. “Why are you waking me up? It’s Saturday.”
Milo growled softly and stood back up.
“I told you, he’s delusional. He’s gone through a lot.”
“I fucking know that, Sawyer!” Milo screamed. “Get his ass back in that fucking chair. Tank will escort you upstairs once you’re done.”
“Milo, come on. Look at him.”
His uncle didn’t say another word. He just stormed back upstairs while a grinning Clay followed behind him.
Tank finally released his shoulder and pushed him towards Benji.
Sawyer had no idea what was in store for him back upstairs but whatever it was, it was for naught because no matter what, he had to tie Benji back up.
He felt awful about it. His plan, while barely a plan at all, didn’t work.
Kneeling down before Benji, he gingerly lifted him up from the mattress and worked on dragging him over towards the chair.
The poor guy was basically all dead weight and he couldn’t blame him one bit.
Sawyer placed him down in the chair as gently as he could, which earned a loud groan from Benji, and got to work on securing him to the chair.
He tied his feet to the legs and handcuffed his hands to the back.
A few times, he shot Benji a look of regret.
He hoped the man knew that he didn’t want to do what he was doing.
He just didn’t have a choice at that juncture.
Once Sawyer stood back up, Tank took a moment to investigate what he did and once he was content, he shoved him forward towards the stairs. “Get.”
He walked up the stairs and the moment he did, it felt like he was heading to the gallows.
A few of the guys were eating their breakfast and cackling at him.
Some shook their heads. The others just watched as he walked by.
Sawyer did not like it. However, he was glad to hear that Tank locked the door.
At least Clay wouldn’t be going down there.
That was just about the only good thing he could take from the current scenario.
He was beginning to walk towards Milo’s office but Tank just grabbed his shoulder and pushed him towards the exit.
When he walked outside, the cold air was the first thing he noticed.
After that, he saw a bonfire about sixty feet ahead of him.
The bonfire was something that the other guys at the bunker had started doing.
They would all get drunk, roast hotdogs and get into ‘playful’ fist fights with one another.
It never interested Sawyer. He glanced back at Tank, as if he was actually going to tell him something, but he should have known better.
The guy wasn’t much for words. He spoke more with his fists.
Sawyer just looked back forward and walked over towards the fire, spotting his uncle.
He was sitting on a rock, poking at the fire with some sort of stick and moving the logs around.
His uncle didn’t turn his head as he approached.
He just kept staring at the fire. “Sonny used to speak so highly of you,” he said simply.
Sawyer couldn’t help but frown at the mention of his father, Milo’s brother.
“He said you were so smart and you were going to be something special. He would tell me about all things you would do at school and how you were so talented with art and this and that and the other,” he huffed, “I have no idea what the fuck he was talking about.”
Ouch.
Sawyer flinched just a bit from that comment but kept his mouth closed. What was he even going to say about that? He didn’t even know his dad thought that about him.
“Was I too soft on you after they died?” Milo asked rhetorically, poking at the logs again. “I suppose I was… That’s my fault. I made you this. I made you this pathetic, whiny, disobedient, stupid fucking prick.”
Milo stood up from his seat and the moment he did, Tank kicked out Sawyer’s knees.
He dropped to the ground on the gravel and caught himself on his hands before he fell face first. He didn’t need that embarrassment on top of everything else that Milo was saying.
Tank’s hand curled into his hair and he pulled him back upright.
His uncle approached him once again and backhanded him on the same cheek he had slapped earlier. The sting had barely faded from before.
“I need to fix this. I need to fix you. You’re a bad look for me, Sawyer. You’re embarrassing. I hate that you’re related to me because when they,” he pointed at the bunker, “Look at you, they think of me. I’m their fucking God in there and you’re ruining it.”
Milo turned back towards the fire. Tank grabbed his shirt and ripped it down the middle of the back without a hint of a struggle.
“What–” Sawyer began but he shoved forward suddenly.
Tank stepped on the back of his head, pressing his face hard into the gravel and keeping him still.
Sawyer managed to turn his head with some difficulty so he could watch what the fuck was going to happen to him.
His heart was pounding in his throat. He was so fucking scared.
He could see Milo reach for that stick in the fire and pulled it out.
The end of it was blazing orange. It wasn’t just any normal stick.
It was a metal one. Sawyer immediately began to fight against the hold.
He punched at Tank’s knee, which was enough to get him to move it and Sawyer scrambled backwards.
He could pull his gaze away from the fire poker that his uncle was wielding.
He needed to get up. He needed to get out of there.
Sawyer shoved himself back up to his feet and began to run back towards the bunker.
That was probably the worst place to go but maybe someone in there had some fucking sense.
Tank was quickly behind him though. The bulky man reached out and grabbed his hair again, yanking him to a stop.
He brought his fist down on his back, punching him directly in the kidneys.
Sawyer yowled. He had just stopped being sore from the scuffle the other night.
There was no doubt in his mind he was in a far worse world of hurt.
Tank wrapped a strong arm around Sawyer’s neck and began to drag him back towards the bonfire.
Sawyer kicked and flailed, even though his airway was constricted, trying to break the brute’s hold.
But Tank was named Tank for a reason. It was a miracle he had gotten away the first time and he was pretty sure he only had because he wasn’t expecting it.
Sawyer didn’t stop his flailing however.
If he passed out, fine. Maybe he wouldn’t feel a thing afterwards.
When he was back at the bonfire, Tank dropped him hard to the ground and shoved his chest down against the rocks that contained the fire.
The flames occasionally licked at Sawyer’s skin.
The unfortunate scent of hair burning was entering his nostrils.
Tank stood on his ankles while his hand held his head down.
“Where has that fight been all this time, Sawyer?!” Milo asked, “Do I just have to threaten you?! I don’t have time for that.
I need you to be on my side no matter what.
” Milo must have replaced the poker in the fire when Sawyer had run off because he pulled it out once again, pointing it directly at his nephew.
“P-Please, don’t. I’m sorry. I-I’ll do what you want, I swear.” He pleaded.
“Too little, too late,” Milo shrugged, “Plus I don’t fucking believe you.
You need to be taught a lesson.” He approached Sawyer and Tank shifted out of the way.
Sawyer didn’t have a moment to think before the blunt side of the poker slammed down across the middle of his back and dragged it across it.
The breath immediately left Sawyer’s lungs. It hurt so fucking bad he couldn’t even scream even though it was caught in his throat. He collapsed forward onto the heated rocks and he didn’t even care. There wasn’t anything he could describe that was nearly as painful as what he just experienced.
And it happened again, this time across his shoulders.
His flesh burned and sizzled beneath the strike. The scent was nauseating. His shoulder dislocated from the strike but he barely noticed it. Sawyer had finally found his voice again and he screamed out.
Apparently satisfied with the sound of his nephew yowling in pain, he lifted the poker and slammed it down across his flank. Sawyer couldn’t take it.
Crying wasn’t something he allowed himself to do since he was a kid, no matter how miserable he was.
He remembered when Milo found him crying a few months after his mother died, simply from grief, he told him that he wasn’t allowed to cry anymore or he’d give him something to really cry about.
But for the first time in many, many years, tears flowed from eyes without a fucking care.
Sawyer couldn’t even comprehend what was happening when Tank grabbed his hair and threw him backwards onto the ground.
He whined, feeling the gravel digging into his new wounds.
Milo turned and stepped on his nephew’s wrist. “I thought I told you no fucking crying. Men don’t fucking cry, Sawyer.
” He seethed and dropped the tip of the poker on his hand.
It seethed through the soft flesh of his hand like it was butter.
He felt nothing but fucking pain until his body finally gave up and he fell unconscious. And Sawyer had never been so thankful for something like that.