23. The People Of Vexamen

23. The People Of Vexamen

Skylenna

Dessin blinks back to thefront at the sudden shriek that stabs through the air. The dissociation takes longer this time. Zoning in and out. Through the drugs and scenery, he’s colossally disoriented.

With a grunt, he pulls his cock out of me, inhaling that black dust because we have no choice. No time to run. No time to think.

It acts as a whirlpool, suctioning out the drugs that glazed over my brain, slowed my logical thoughts. An anti-ecstasy fog. A cure to the mindless sexual frenzy.

The scream pierces the stage again, causing another outbreak of panic. Prisoners grab their uniforms, running in every direction.

Dessin looks over my naked body before his thunderous eyes land on mine. He grips my waist, tugging me to him.

“I’m not getting separated from you again,” he growls, heaving my body up and over his shoulder.

I don’t protest as he covers my naked rear with his large hand. Sprinting us off the stage with the rest of the bewildered inmates. Although hanging upside down, I still search for our friends. I can’t imagine how horrified they must be by recent events.

“There you are!” Ruth pokes her head around Dessin’s back to come face-to-face with me. Her face lights up with amusement. “Skylenna, you’re naked!”

“Gag! Cover her up!” Niles pops up behind Ruth.

“I like when she’s naked.” Dessin’s back rumbles as he speaks, and my cheeks flush.

“Put me down.” I tap his lower back impatiently.

“Mmm. Nope.”

“Fine, keep me on display for Kane’s brother.”

He sets me down immediately. Warrose laughs. And I scramble to pull my uniform back onto my body.

The Ringmaster appears on his special raised platform, surrounded by fire scorching the moist air. His speech is brief as a teenage boy dressed in a soldier’s matte black armor, chains, and piercings steps onto the stage with a stoic look of confidence. His left arm is extended behind him, pulling a leather rope irritably.

I step forward with raised eyebrows. What the hell?

It’s not just a leather rope. It’s a leash. And it’s pulling a woman in her late thirties across the stage. She crawls behind him with bruised, brittle knees, stained rags for clothing, and matted hair that hasn’t seen a comb in months.

“Is this another weird sex thing?” Niles whispers.

God, I hope not. The look on her face says it wouldn’t be consensual. She’s gawking up at the crowd, tears collecting at the corners of her eyes, and stumbling to keep up as her leash is jerked forward. She chokes and gasps while falling to the ground, scrambling to crawl again behind the teenage soldier.

The teenage boy ties her leash to a wooden post in the center of the stage, ripping off her rags to expose her scarred, gnarled back.

The crowd cheers for the boy, and he grins up at the masses with a victorious fist in the air.

The Ringmaster starts shouting again, throwing his hands up, pointing at the leashed woman with menace glinting in his beady eyes.

“Ruth?” I look back at her watching the Ringmaster intently.

“The boy has been in training his whole life, keeping his mother as a pet to…abuse.”

We whip our heads back to the mother. She’s been abused by her own son? A pet on a leash? What the fuck is wrong with this country?

“That’s fucked,” Warrose grunts.

“This is his test before he can make it to the finals. He must degrade, humiliate, and whip his mother in front of the legions. If he shows any sign of sympathy, any hesitation, he’ll be thrown into this prison as a faulty product, shamed for being incapable of joining the Vexamen Breed.” Ruth circles her hand around my wrist, looking up at me with pleading eyes. “That poor woman.”

There are female inmates sobbing around us, holding their dirty hands over their mouths to stifle the noise. It’s the first time I stop to think. What were they convicted for? Are these prisoners here for failing to conform? Is this place like the Emerald Lake Asylum? Victims of a deranged patriarchy?

I bite down on my lip, looking up at Dessin, seeing the same dreadful contemplation hardening his jaw.

The woman begs in another language, trying to get her son’s attention as he unravels a whip. The edges are laced with small blades. The handle is shaped in the head of a wolf, brass and aged.

“She’s trying to remind him of the moments she held him in her belly, how she loved him before meeting him, how she’ll forgive him no matter what,” Ruth translates with a trembling voice.

Dessin clenches his fists so hard, they turn stark white. It’s been a while since the veil of the void nudged at my mind, coaxing me to see what it has to offer. Looking at the hard lines on Dessin’s face, I know the void is luring me to a moment only Dessin can see.

I mentally step close to the void, pressing my ear against the soft plasma of its border.

“It’s okay, sweet boy,” Sophia says softly. “You and Arthur are going to make it without me. I’ll always be with you.”

I remember the night by the lagoon. The night Dessin told me the start of their trauma. How Sophia told him everything would be okay. A mother’s love in the face of certain death.

Dessin’s eyes are red and murderous, glaring at the scene spinning out of control.

“I’ll always love you, my son.” Ruth chokes as her eyes fill with tears.

“No.” I shake my head. “Stop…”

My feet move without conscious demand. And it’s as if we are one soul, the way Dessin moves with me. Falling in step as I stride toward the wooden post, setting my focus on the quivering mother.

“No!” I shout, shoving past other inmates, leaping onto the stage as the teenage boy winds his arm back.

The mother’s body bears down as the whip slices through the air, and—

Dessin’s hand snatches the teenage boy’s wrist mid-swing. The crowd gasps and stands at the sudden intrusion. The boy soldier appears genuinely shocked that anyone would disrupt this sacred ritual. His golden eyes stare into Dessin’s with a thousand questions, yet no sound passes his lips.

“Zasquátz nës Demechnef!” the Ringmaster roars with a gaping smile.

I stand in front of the woman bowed to her knees, naked and terrified. With my chin held high, my eyes trace over the unusually quiet audience, meeting a few narrowing stares. Some taken aback in surprise. Others taunting, daring me to get myself into trouble. I find Kaspias in the top row with the other higher ranked soldiers. He slides his mask off, watching me with a blank stare.

“Pathetic,” I shout loud enough to reach each corner of the stadium.

The Ringmaster raises his pointy chin.

“Maybe some of you can understand me. Maybe not. But for those who do, translate to your friends the carefully selected word: pathetic.”

The Ringmaster seems to translate, as well as many soldiers conversing in the stands.

“Pathetic because you think it makes you all-powerful to prey on those who are weaker. A mother. A child.” I don’t move an inch as I watch their faces, listening to those who can translate. “But maybe you can prove me wrong! You know who I am. You know the great and terrible Patient Thirteen. And yet we’ve taken down leagues of your own men. Not so all-powerful if you ask me.”

“If you’re so powerful, why are you nothing but a dirty prisoner in our country?” the Ringmaster asks me from his platform, accent twisted and thick, loud enough for others to hear.

I stare back at him, tempted by the void that grazes my skin.

“What makes you think we aren’t exactly where we want to be?” Dessin’s voice booms across the stage, deep enough to make the Ringmaster flinch.

The Ringmaster pauses before he releases a cruel, throaty laugh.

“You think you are so special, don’t you? Then why don’t you both take the mother’s place at the whipping post!”

The crowd roars in agreement.

Dessin and I don’t hesitate. We walk confidently to the post, unlatching the woman’s bound wrists. She looks at us through heavy tears and confusion. I only nod, helping her back into her rags, shielding her naked body from her son.

The sentinels strap us to the post with rough movements. My hand is so close to Dessin’s, I caress the back of his knuckles with the pad of my index finger. He looks at me from under his thick lashes, speculating about my expression to try and understand what I’m thinking. I smile up at him, nodding my head once.

There’s a tangible connection that radiates between us. Like it’s this right here. This is what we were sent here for. An empowering shiver races over every inch of me, filling my veins with explosions of adrenaline.

Dessin grabs my hand, entrapping it within his warmth, within the safety of his embrace. And neither of us fear the pain, fear the humiliation. Because this is our choice. And we make a decision in this moment to not to flee to the Ambrose Oasis. Not to let another alter take over. We’ll feel it all.

“How strong are you now?!” The Ringmaster roars right as we hear something whistling through the air. Dessin’s upper body barely flinches. Only a subtle jerk at first contact.

It whistles again, carving into my skin, feeling as though someone has dragged a dagger down my spine. I could scream. I want to. It’s a way to relieve the pent-up agony forming in my lungs. But my eyes remain locked with Dessin’s. It kills him to watch me suffer, but we both know I am no longer that shy girl he met in the asylum. I have released my dragon.

I can breathe fire.

“Watch the Demechnef heroes bleed!”

The stadium of belligerent soldiers drum their feet against the floor, creating the vicious beat of a war drum. They howl with murderous rage, desperate to see me cry, hear him beg.

I grip Dessin’s hand harder as the lashes come fast, burning a hole through my back, into my ribs. I’m flexing every muscle, clenching down as the white-hot pain shoots through every cluster of nerves. Tears gather over my eyes, and I swallow them down. The stubbornness to show my strength overpowers the need to weep on this post.

“Stay with me,” Dessin grunts under his breath.

“I’m with you.” The words scrape from my throat, carrying the weight of my need to scream out.

The teenage soldier huffs and curses as he throws all of his youthful strength into each lashing. It’s clear his only goal now is to show the world how weak we are. He won’t stop until he hears us fall apart.

But that won’t happen.

We’ve made our decision.

We are prepared to lose every scrap of skin on our backs. We are prepared to prove a point.

And the whipping goes on for what feels like another sixty minutes. My back is numb and lifeless. I’m hanging like a broken doll from my chains on this post. But I have not made a sound. Have not shed a tear.

The teenage boy is panting like a rabid animal, wheezing as he coughs from the excessive exertion. Something clatters and splats on the stage floor, and his footsteps storm our way.

My hand is sweaty and shaking in Dessin’s grasp, but he never lets go. Never tears his eyes from mine.

The boy snatches me by my long hair, yanking my head back until I’m looking up at his glistening face, sweat dripping down his nose. With labored breathing, he screams something in my face, spitting as he over accentuates certain letters.

“Wait,” Dessin breathes.

But the fist knocks straight into my bottom lip, then again into my cheekbone. I taste the bitter iron flavor.

Dessin thrashes against his restraints, firing off a string of profanities at the boy.

But my ears are ringing. My vision blurs. My head is slammed against the post, banging my brain around in my skull. I dangle from my chains in a delirious, throbbing heap.

The boy rears his arm back again, balling his fist, from which I’m guessing his goal is to knock me unconscious. He jerks forward, throwing his weight into his punch.

Dessin catches his fist, and the stadium falls quiet.

His knuckles turn white, gripping the boy’s hand with a volcanic rage rising to the surface. Unsurprisingly, Dessin has managed to break free of his shackles. The notorious Patient Thirteen. The dangerous escape artist. And he is as agile as a mountain cat as he twists the boy’s wrist backward, making a loud snap. The boy screams, falling to his knees.

“I’d like to watch her break your bones herself. But I’m not that selfless,” Dessin growls in the boy’s exhausted face.

But his sense of balance is tampered with too quickly. Dessin sways before hitting the floor, eyes glazing over as he stares up at the ceiling. Panic floods my lungs, stabbing me in the heart.

The boy uses his other hand to beat Dessin. Pounding his face with one clenched fist. Attacking a defenseless man into a bloody pulp. My bloodshot stare darts to our friends waiting on the sidelines. Warrose is about to lunge, hands gripping the edge of the stage. I shake my head at him.

The teenage soldier moves back to me, smearing blood across my face, then spitting in my eyes, degrading me in front of his superiors.

And I know this won’t end until I lean into the void. This won’t stop until I discover that one weakness. I’m hit once more, knocking me into that pit of nothingness until I see it. I witness the source of what cripples the boy. Of what forces him to freeze, to solidify into a paralyzing state of panic.

There. I see it.

Through my throbbing face, swollen bottom lip, and blood coated mouth, I laugh.

It bubbles out of me, like seeing him in attack mode is the funniest damn thing in the world. And I sell it like my life depends on it. My laugh becomes a wild cackle, and the boy is stunned upright. His balled-up hand pauses over my face.

I grin through bloody teeth.

“Suck. My. Dick.”

The crowd erupts in laughter and disapproving booing. They throw their drinks and food at the boy, yelling words that sound like there isn’t anything more offensive in their language.

Humiliation. When his victim laughs through pain.

That’s the weakness.

And he can’t move past it. Unable to process why his methods of violence are having the opposite effect.

Sentinels drag the stunned boy away as he has failed this test. And as they undo my shackles, I race to Dessin’s side on the floor. He grabs my hand, letting me help him to his feet. And we’re both struggling to remain conscious. Our backs are dripping long trails of blood. Our nerves morph into poisoned daggers, piercing every inch of muscle. And though our shoulders droop forward, our chins remain high.

And something strange happens.

A prisoner, an old woman with weather-worn skin and cloudy eyes, drops down to one knee, placing a fist over her heart.

Slowly, another drops down, then another, and another. Our friends are the only ones still standing aside from the audience of soldiers. I hold on to Dessin, who looks just as confused as I feel. We search the staggered sea of kneeling men and women, old and young, all wearing the same expression. Respect. Hope. Allegiance.

The Ringmaster bursts through the silence in outrage, ending the Fun House Night with a red face and waving arms.

We don’t see it right away. Not until she screams. Two sentinels drag the mother back to the stage and knock her to her knees. She looks up at us with a grimy face and missing teeth. Confused. Scared.

And they attack without warning. Long, rusty machetes gliding through the humid air, driving straight through the woman’s chest. Cracking into bone. Plunging past muscle. I fumble back into Dessin’s arms as the blood sprays across my face.

“No!” I scream, but Dessin holds me to his chest.

The mother falls in a wet, bloody heap. And they keep stabbing, as if the more marks they leave, the more cheers they’ll receive.

Bile surges up my throat, at my pain, at Dessin’s pain, and at this violent, awful murder playing out before my eyes.

“She’s already gone,” Dessin whispers in my ear.

Tears blur my vision, smearing the color of her skin with the rich red streaks spilling out across our bare feet. Her body jerks, jerks, jerks, and she stops breathing rather quickly.

But through the combustion of disapproval, sentinels whip us back in line, kicking elderly prisoners to the ground to keep moving…

Dessin and I look at each other. An ancient knowledge revealing itself to us. A clarity as pure and old as time.

DaiSzek and Knightingale.

Dessin and Skylenna.

One and the same.

Born to fight.

When there is battle of great evil…

God sends two warrior angels.