Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (25 page)

I felt every throb of pain but what instinctual commands my brain had for my hand to pull the flame away from my skin had been numbed from my own miswired brain. I held it there and watched soberly as the lighter burned my arm, and not just my arm, the trigger on the lighter was also becoming hot.

But I kept it there, I kept it there and ignored the stiffness between my legs. The pain, like I had been taught years ago, was a relief to me. Whereas so many other people avoided pain above everything else, I had come to rely on it as my own personal coping mechanism.

Fire, beautiful, alluring… its kiss was warmth and it attracted everything from humans to insects, but get too close to it and oh my friend… it will destroy you.

I live for that destruction.

When the flame went out I closed my eyes and focused my mind onto the burning pain in my arm. Though I saw nothing but darkness through my eyelids I could feel the pain like it was a small orb of light on my arm. I crawled into that brilliant incandescence and I lay there with it, it comforted me and held my hand like no one had done in years.

After the lighter had cooled down I lit it again and started burning the sides of the mattress. Watching with fascination as it melted before turning black. I liked that the flames made my night vision go away because it seemed like for the past eleven years it rarely left me. Only when Jasper was in with the bluelamp, and when that happened I didn’t want to see normally.

The little boys upstairs thumped and bumped around like little boys do. Sometimes I could hear them playing with one another and that sent a small flicker of emotion to my chest. I no longer felt happy, relieved or even sad… so all I could describe it as is just feeling
something
, something different than the null and void that was me now.

I wish when I was a little boy I’d had a friend. A friend that I didn’t have to kill or one that didn’t want to kill me. Though those dreams were long dead, like my dreams that one day someone would come here and find me. I didn’t even think of that now, it wasn’t in the vocabulary of my head. This was all I knew and not once in the past seven years did I imagine being out in the daylight. The only things I missed out there were my crows and…

I looked over at Crow, grinning at me with his eyes squinted.

… and I had my own crow now anyways.

I heard Jasper leave the next morning to get the newest boy he was going to abuse. I could hear the boys upstairs talking to him and even one of them say goodbye. Though when he left I could hear the distinct sound of chains rattling and I knew they were locked and secure.

Or so I thought… the day after Jasper left I started hearing little voices coming from the stairs behind my white door. I was inside of my own head flying around the world with Crow, visiting the fantasy books I had read and becoming one with the characters. The sounds of them trying the door handle brought me back.

“It’s unlocked… go on. Do it!”

“No… Jasper says he’ll kill us.”

“He’s chained up, he can’t reach us. Wasn’t he chained when Jasper brought you down here?”

“Yeah… but…”

“We dared you, Juni, you don’t have a choice.”

The door handle turned again and a moment later it opened. A little black-haired boy peeked through, one with dirt stained on his face and tangly black hair like mine was.

When he saw me he gasped and quickly retracted his head.

“I saw him!”

I was a sideshow now I guess. Well, I was a monster after all.

One of the blond-haired ones looked through the door to get his own look at me and, like the one named Juni, he withdrew his head and said in a hushed voice, “He looked right at me.”

Well maybe I could use this for my own advantage. “Will one of you bring me some books? Perhaps a candle I can read by?” My voice was so dry I could barely speak, it sounded like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.

The three boys exchanged surprised quips and the blond-haired one looked through the door again. “You can speak?”

I nodded but I wanted new books to read more than I wanted to talk to them. Though it had happened years ago I still relived the moment I had killed Cooper regularly. These little boys… I didn’t know what to make of them because I…

I so dearly wanted to murder them.

My eyes closed and I shook my head. I tried to push those thoughts out of my mind. They knew not to come near me. I just wanted some books.

“Yes, will you bring me some books to read?”

More quiet discussions.

“Jasper says if we go near him he’ll kill us…”

“You can throw them onto my bed, you’ll not be in grabbing range,” I said to them. “Jasper hasn’t given me anything new to read in years.”

Juni got his first wave of bravery and walked through the door. The little boy about Cooper’s age had his hands behind his back.

“Books and candles?” He turned around and looked at me.

I nodded. “It would be appreciated, yes.” Though I didn’t need a candle to read, I wanted something more efficient for when I wanted to burn myself.

Juni disappeared out the door and as he pattered up the steps the two blond ones poked their heads out and stared at me like the carnival attraction I was.

“Why are your eyes red?” one of them asked, perhaps only seven or eight… the age I was at the time I was taken.

I had been so small. How did Jasper not tear these little boys in two? How had he not done it to me?

“Because Jasper made me bleed so much… the blood went into my eyes,” I said to him, then looked past him to the other ones. “Jasper hasn’t chained you?”

The two boys shook their heads. “No, why would he?”

I stared at them. “You’re bought as slaves?”

They nodded.

I wouldn’t argue with that logic, perhaps knowing they were slaves were what was best. I had been free, I had tasted freedom, and look what imprisonment and constant abuse had done to me?

“Are you a slave?” the younger of the boy’s asked.

I shook my head no.

“What are you then?”

“A monster,” I replied blandly. Beside me Crow laughed at this. I looked over at him smiling at me, laughing sometimes for reasons I didn’t know.

“You are so much more than a monster,
mihi
,” Crow said quietly. He crawled onto the bed and kissed my forehead.

“No,” I said with a shake of my head. “I know what I am.”

“Who’s he talking to?”

“Jasper says he’s crazy and talks to make-believe people.”

Crow kissed my forehead again and I closed my eyes. I let my friend slowly draw his fingers down my arm, and relaxed under his touch.

I heard little footsteps on the stairs but I tuned them out and let Crow run his tongue down to the nape of my neck. His soft growls in my ear sounding almost like a content cat purring.

Though as soon as I felt the stiffness again I pulled back and opened my eyes.

Those same eyes widened when I saw Juni right in front of me, in grabbing distance. He was holding in his hand a little white stick candle and a fat novel without the cover.

In grabbing distance…

Crow wanted him; he whispered at me to snatch him and eat him raw.

But I pushed my nefarious urges away and stared back at him.

Juni held the items out to me; his face holding no expression but I saw a flicker of fear inside of his eyes.

Trusting me completely he let me gently take the book and the candle out of his hand before taking a step back.

“Thank you,” I said to him quietly.

“You’re welcome, Mr. Sanguine,” Juni said back and smiled at me, then he walked out the white door.

The boys left me alone after that, I could hear them banging around upstairs. I occupied myself finding things to burn, though with the metal collar around my neck and the anchor secure on the wall there really wasn’t much in grabbing distance. Just the mattress, blankets, the edge of my bathroom bucket, Barry, the candle…

I picked up the candle and started flicking the lighter to light it.

My brow furrowed as nothing but sparks came. I shook the lighter and held it to my ear before tossing it up in the air a few times.

I sighed. I think it was out. I flicked it a few more times before turning it upside down. I ran my thumb raw trying to flick it.

Flick flick

Flick

Nothing… meh.

Though something odd was happening… my fingers were getting warm, and not just from the raw burning that was a result from spinning that flint wheel. They felt like I had held matches to them but I hadn’t.

“Make them burn more.”

I looked over at Crow who was smiling at me. He reached over and grabbed my hands and started pinching my fingers. “Make them burn more, Sanguine.”

Make them burn more? I couldn’t do that
. I let Crow play with my fingers, taking each dirty, twig-like digit into his hand to roll them around his own cold fingers.

Then I heard Jasper’s voice and the sounds of the kids greeting him. I scowled at this and felt a jab in my gut. I’d had a couple days free of being fucked or hearing the kids scream – I’d enjoyed it.

My mood darkened and I turned away from the boarded up window I couldn’t see out of anyways. I looked back at Crow and pursed my lips as I saw him start to lick and suck on my fingers.

“None of that, not even from you,” I said. I tried to withdraw my fingers but I felt them frozen in Crow’s mouth.

No, not frozen – they were getting hotter.

My eyes fixed on him, fanning the flames of awe inside of my chest as I watched his mouth move up and down on each finger, sending heat into the tips of whatever digit was between his lips. When he withdrew his mouth and went to the next finger the heat was still there.

They were burning… like they were on fire.

When he moved to my left hand I raised my right and wiggled my fingers back and forth. Then, as if in a trance, I picked up the half-smoked cigarette I had left from blowing Jasper and pinched it between my fingers.

There was no explanation for what happened next…

With a puff of smoke and the smell of burning tobacco… a small flame burst from the cigarette, followed by a red ember,

Riding on the same awe now mixed in with incomprehensible shock I dropped the cigarette and stared at my fingers.

They weren’t smoking but there was ash on the tips. I lowered my hand down to the blankets and focused my mind to try and make it happen again.

Smoke started to erupt from my fingers and soon I saw the faint flicker of light around the tips. I quickly recoiled my hand and to my own shock… I laughed.

Though the laugh was more like the cross between a dry gasp and a cough, I don’t think I knew how to laugh anymore.

“What’s so funny?”

My hands snapped back and I kicked the covers away from the now distinct burn mark. I glanced over at Jasper in the door way.

“Nothing,” I rasped.

I heard him sniff and I knew I was in for it. “What the fuck were you burning? I told you to be careful with that…”

Then he paused and I heard footsteps come closer. I looked at the wall and only looked towards him when I saw his hand pick something up.

Shit, it was the candle stick.

Jasper smacked me on the head, once… then twice. “How the fuck did you get this?” He hit me again, making my ears ring and my eyes temporarily blur. I squinted them and held my head but again he hit me, this time making me bite my tongue.

“Found it…” I said.

Jasper growled and with one last hit, this one making me sway to the point where I had to hold myself up, I heard him call the boys downstairs.

I spat blood on the bed and glared at Jasper. The chain on my neck rattled as I tried to back as far away from him as I could.

Though my head was swimming so badly I didn’t make it far before I had to stop and try and get my mind to go back into my head. Jasper’s punches were nothing to fuck with, he always hit me right in the head and it shot the consciousness out of me. Add that to my already weak state, I was starting to feel my mind dip into darkness.

The boys walked downstairs. Juni poked his head through first… looking terrified.

“Who fucking gave him a candle stick?” Jasper barked. “Where’s Lyle and Levi?”

“B-behind me… I…” Juni grabbed onto the door frame and stared at the ground. “I gave it to him, Jasper.”

Juni yelped as Jasper flung the candle stick at him; it connected with the boy’s forehead making his head snap back. The little boy stumbled a few paces before he slid down to the ground, sobs coming from his lowered face.

I started to growl. Jasper heard me and whirled around, this time punching me in the face with a well-aimed blow.

And I lost it.

With a snarl of rage I lunged at Jasper, but he was quick and he knew how far my chain went. My captor, my abuser, and my rapist jerked back before turning around and laughing right in my face.