43. Show Of Dolls

43. Show Of Dolls

Dessin

I’m going to kill Kane’s brother.

If it weren’t for the massive weight on my shoulders to stay out of trouble so I can keep everyone safe, I’d do that right now. I’d pull his skin off his bones and feed it to the Blood Mammoths. There are no words to describe the rage I’m keeping locked away, no adjectives to represent the fury that bubbles in my veins at the sight of Ruth so ill, so depressed, so weak.

If I didn’t have to be strategic, I’d bring her the severed head of each soldier that cheered for her demise.

I want them all to burn for stringing her up like a doll and ripping limbs off like they were disposable.

The question has often risen from my contemplation in this specific type of captivity: is the asylum worse? Or better?

It isn’t a question anymore.

“I can’t fucking eat,” Warrose grumbles as he pushes his plate away.

The girls asked us to go eat at the commissary so they could give Ruth a sponge bath. We needed to separate anyway. I’ve been getting stir crazy, pent up with so many raw, animalist urges to slaughter these fucked-up human beings. I can see the same crazed glint in Warrose’s eyes as well.

“Neither can I,” Niles agrees.

Although my stomach is in knots, constantly nauseated, I force myself to take a bite of the stale slice of bread on my tray.

“Eat. I know it’s fucking terrible, but we’ll need our strength,” I say quietly.

They nod reluctantly, shoveling in food with a tight grimace. Watching their gloomy expressions, I do something that’s more in Skylenna’s wheelhouse.

“Ruth is royalty,” I say.

I try to start a conversation. Raise morale or whatever.

Niles peers up at me from his slumped position over his food. Warrose keeps eating with an acknowledging grunt.

They don’t respond. Now what?

“That’s, um, crazy,” I add.

Niles raises his head completely. Warrose stops eating.

“What are you doing?” Warrose asks.

“I think he’s trying to chat,” Niles muses slowly. “Or gossip. The intent is unclear.”

“Why?” Warrose asks with an almost scared look on his face.

“Did Skylenna tell you to do it?” Niles’s face isn’t out from the dreary cloud it was under, but it’s certainly taking on an entertained expression.

“No, she didn’t tell me to do anything.” I narrow my eyes with rising annoyance.

“She definitely did.” Warrose pinches his mouth together like he’s just diagnosed me with a terminal illness.

“I’m just talking.” My forehead heats up. “What’s wrong with starting a conversation?”

Niles and Warrose exchange a strange look. It pisses me off.

“Nothing…for most people,” Warrose mutters.

“It’s just weird when you do it.” Niles smiles sympathetically.

They stare at me for several seconds before rumbling with unexpected laughter. I don’t offer a smile in return. They fucked up.

“I’m never talking again.”

They laugh harder.

Although they’re annoying the hell out of me, I know Skylenna would be happy that I got them to laugh. I just won’t tell her they were laughing at me.

“Hello, Beetle Brain,” Helga Bee chirps, materializing out of thin air.

I flinch.

Iactually flinch.

This does nothing to quell my former friends’ amusement.

“What is it?” I grimace.

“New stock in the stadium. Honey of Nectar Valley. Go on and snag it before the other rodents get to it first.”

The boys stop laughing and gawk up at her like she’s a living, breathing angel. We ran out of it for Ruth, and she’s been howling relentlessly in pain. We’ve tried everything.

I jump to my feet, grab Helga Bee’s round, plump face, and plant a rough kiss against her forehead. She fusses and blushes, swatting me on the arm.

“Wait till we get a room, muscles!” She pats me on the back, ushering us out of the commissary.

“For the record,” I holler over my shoulder. “I like that nickname better!”

“Too bad, Beetle Brain!”

I smirk as we race down the hall.

I have a bad feeling.Kane floods my consciousness with anxiety and apprehension.

About what?

We enter the musty stadium, smelling of blood and sweaty bodies. It’s empty, and we’re the first ones here. The iron trunk of supplies sits in the center of the stage. A glass jug that holds about a gallon of the Honey of Nectar Valley sits at the top.

“I hate to be that guy, but we’re grabbing the whole thing,” Niles suggests.

“Agreed.” Stepping up on the stage, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. That alarm that I feel in the bed of my chest, traveling down to my gut, sounds off. Danger. A threat. Something to be cautious of.

Grab it and go, Kalidus orders.

I snatch the big glass bottle only for it to slip from my grasp, banging against the side of the iron chest.

Turning my hand over, I see the unmistakable shine of thick, greasy oil.

Fuck!

“Get out! Go back to the cage!” I command Warrose and Niles.

The veil of sleep falls over me like a ton of bricks. I feel the stage bang against my knees. Looking over my shoulder, past the spell of dizziness, I see Warrose and Niles on the floor with needles in their necks.

The grimy surface of the stage is the last image to fade.

~

Dessin

“He’ll wake up in a minute. Unless he’s already awake. You never know with my brother.”

My head is the weight of a building. Gravity lays against my lids like concrete, preventing them from lifting. Everything in my neuropathways moves like a slug. My muscles, heart rate, motor functions. What have they done to me?

I focus on the sounds around me. Footsteps. Heavy. A man, no, two of them. Metal grazing metal. Breathing soft and heavy, close to a snore. The sharp whistling of fierce winds hitting a window.

Allowing myself to relax, I tune into a special frequency, syncing with minute rhythms and sensations throughout my surroundings. There are five heartbeats in the room including my own. Two are fast as if they’re in motion, and the rest are lethargic. The burning scents of propane, saline, hot coals, and other chemicals I don’t recognize.

“Get them up. I don’t have time to wait.”

That voice.

I know that voice.

A surge of adrenaline dumps into my bloodstream. My jaw tics. The muscles around my eyes fight to wake up.

Why is it so hard to breathe? To shift my body? It’s as if someone is standing on my chest, clamping my arms down at my sides. I press my back into something cold and hard. A wall. Granite.

“Good morning, brother,” Kaspias says too close to my face.

There’s a sizzle followed by a bright explosion of pain against my rib. I grunt through my teeth, not even able to jerk away from the burning of something hot against my flesh. Smoke fills my nostrils, and finally, my eyes pop open, flaring wide and alert as I take in the scenery.

Kaspias twirls a fire poker in his left hand, examining my drugged expression with malice and foreign intrigue. It’s unsettling the way his eyes light up at my pain.

“Guess you all found out about my little white lie with Ruth.”

A snarl rips from my throat as I try to jolt forward, roasting alive with the need to separate his jaw from his face. But my body is stapled to the granite wall. Literally. Metal molds around my waist, hips, legs, ankles, throat, forehead, and arms. I am bolted with no way of breaking free.

I suppose they’ve figured out I can’t be trusted with the shackles.

“Dessin.” Warrose’s husky voice comes from my right side. I can’t even turn my head to look.

“I hope you don’t mind. I thought we’d have a guy’s day. The females make us weak and tender. And by us, I mean you three,” Kaspias taunts.

He brought Warrose and Niles here, too.

Goddamn it.

“What do you want?” I exhale to steady my rising anger.

“I hoped having your friends here might make you a little more compliant about accepting what I have planned for you.”

“Stop toying with him, son. Let’s get on with it.”

My eyes shoot up to the corner of the room. That familiar voice steps out of the blanketing shadows, revealing the tall, spindly man. The one with raven hair and empty eyes. The man who walks with a cane. The man who once grabbed Skylenna by the hair and told her how a woman should behave.

My nails nearly peel off as I grind them into the wall behind me.

“Masten,” I say with a tone cold enough to chill the air. “The Demechnef Traitor.”