by Lola StVil
I turn again. We’re close to the holding cells now. This corridor holds one of my worst memories. I once managed to escape from my cell, and I bolted. I reached this corridor before I was caught. When they caught me, they beat me senseless. They burned me with cigarettes and punched me in the stomach. When I was down, one of them peed on me. And that wasn’t even the worst of it.
The worst of it was when I looked up and met the eye of one of them. He was pleasuring himself as he watched me lying in a pool of pee, coughing and retching.
My knees buckle at the thought of it, and I reach out blindly. My hand touches the wall and the solidity feels good. I lurch to the wall and press my back against it. I slide down it to the ground and put my head in my hands.
I can’t do this. I can’t go any further. I will just sit here and not move, and eventually, I will die here. Just like I always thought I would.
“Kane?” Saudia’s voice gets through the memories that flood my mind.
I sigh and drag myself to my feet.
“I’m sorry. I can’t do this,” I say.
I turn and start to head back the way we came. The smells, the sights, everything about this place is flooding my brain, and I am suddenly eight years old again, locked in a nightmare of fear. But I’m out of my cell. I’m out and free, and I just have to find a door, and I can breathe in the fresh air again, even if it’s only for a moment before my freedom is snatched cruelly away from me again.
“Keep going. Try and find Atlas and get her out,” a voice says.
Who is Atlas? I wonder. And why does she get rescued and I don’t?
I hear footsteps running behind me and I start to run. I can’t let them catch me. A hand touches my arm, and I scream and pull it away.
“Just leave me alone. Just stop touching me. I just want some air. Please,” I scream.
“Kane. Kane. It’s me, Saudia.”
I don’t know who Saudia is but her voice is nice and reassuring and she knows my name. She can’t be one of them. Maybe she’s my real mom. Maybe my mom finally came to find me.
I turn to look at her, and I’m back in the present, looking into Saudia’s worried face.
“Kane?” she says.
“God, this place. It gets in my head. It was like I was a little kid again.”
“Well, you’re not a little kid anymore, Kane. And it is time to get Atlas and get out of here. They can’t hurt you now,” she says.
Oh my God. Atlas is still in this place. I take a step back towards the corridor I just left, but then I freeze. I just can’t do it.
I’m so sorry, Atlas. Please forgive me.
I slide down the wall again and sit on the ground, my elbows resting on my knees. Saudia sits down beside me.
“Talk to me,” she says.
I shake my head. How can I put this on her?
“It’s not something you need to hear, Saudia. Let’s just say that particular corridor brings up more than I’d ever want to relive.”
I pause and then go on. She deserves an explanation for my cowardice, and there’s something I can tell that isn’t as hard to hear like the rest of it.
“Do you know what the Break is?”
She nods.
“Mine is this place. That corridor. Most demons relish their Break. I don’t. And when it comes on, I end up trapped in it. In that corridor. The last time it happened, I would have been stuck in it forever if it wasn’t for Atlas,” I say.
“How did Atlas help?” Saudia asks.
“Pest has a machine that can link two people’s consciousnesses together. She came into my head. She saw all of the darkness in there, and you know what? She loved me anyway. She came into it knowing that if time ran out, she’d be trapped here too. And she did it anyway. She saved me,” I say.
“And now it’s your turn to save her. Fight for her, Kane, and don’t give up on her, just like she never gave up on you,” Saudia says.
“I’ll never give up on her. But I can’t go down there, Saudia. It’s…it’s too much. I can feel my mind breaking. I…”
I stop mid-sentence when I hear something coming from down the corridor. Someone is screaming my name. It’s Atlas.
“Kane! Help me, Kane! They’re coming for me. They’re going to hurt me. Oh God, Kane. Please, help me. Kaneeeeeeeeee!”
I’m on my feet and running before I have time to even think. Saudia runs beside me. I don’t care if this place breaks me, but I won’t let it break her. I follow the sound of her cries. I can hear loud banging now too.
What the fuck are they doing to her? When I find them, I swear I’ll kill them all, and I don’t care if it brings me back to the darkness. I won’t let them get away with hurting her.
“Atlas? Atlas? Hold on. I’m coming,” I shout back.
I run blindly towards the sounds. I don’t look at the corridor, and I don’t think about where I am, I just run. Atlas has stopped shouting for me now, and I wonder if I imagined the whole thing, but I know I didn’t because I can still hear the banging.
I turn the final corner that will bring me to the holding cells. I am already poised and ready for a fight, but the sight before me penetrates the fog of anger at the thought of Atlas being hurt, and I stop myself.
The banging I can hear is Regal, Perry, and Langston taking it in turns to kick Atlas’s cell door.
“It won’t budge,” Regal says.
They have made a dent in the door, but it’s still holding solid.
“Let me try,” I say.
As a demon, I am wickedly strong, but that won’t be enough. What tells me, without a doubt, that I can do this is the anger in my stomach. The anger at what was done to me and the terrifyingly strong hold it still has on me. But what really gets my anger to the point where I could kill someone and not even care is what they’ve done to her. It pains me to know she’s behind that door, so close and yet untouchable.
Well, fuck that. I was a powerless child the last time I was here, but this time, I am more powerful than this whole organization put together. They’ve messed with the wrong fucking demon.
I stand before the door and raise my foot. I let all of the anger I have tried so desperately to contain consume me. I make a growling sound that is barely human, and I kick the door. The hinges tear loose, and it smashes to the ground.
Atlas sits in front of me, strapped to a chair. There is a large glass window on the other side of the room; they were charging dirty old men to come in and pleasure themselves. The angrier she got, the more riled the men became. And when Sadie’s hour was up, so Atlas’s would have been in more ways than one. That’s when the highest bidder was going to be sent in to have his way with her. I step towards her. She raises her hand and blasts out a shot. I see it coming and duck to the side. It stops my head from being taken off, but her shot hits me square in the shoulder, and the pain is instant and agonizing.
I don’t let it stop me. I just go to her. I break the restraints. I pick her up and cradle her, wrapping her in my arms. I’ve been where she is now, and I know words alone won’t penetrate the fog of fear. She won’t hear them, and even if she does, she won’t know how to process them. I just have to hope that she recognizes my touch.
She fights me at first, trying to break free, so I set her down and she backs up a step. I reach her, and I ignore the pain this gives me. Seeing her flinch back from me hurts way more than my shoulder. I wrap her in my arms. Her body is stiff against me, and she whimpers.
“Everything’s okay, Atlas. I’m here. I’m here, and I love you. It’s me, Kane. I heard you screaming for me, and I came. I’m getting you out of here.”
She suddenly slumps against me, the stiffness leaving her. I hold her tighter to stop her from falling. She is crying now, giant sobs that make her whole body shake. She wraps her arms around me and clings to me.
“Kane. It’s really you. You came for me,” she sobs.
I pry her away from me so I can look at her face.
“Atlas, whatever happen
s, wherever you are, I will always come for you.”
She throws herself back against me, and I just hold her while she gets herself under control.
“I hate to have to break this up, but we’re running out of time,” Langston says, stepping into the cell.
Atlas gives one final sniff and steps away from me. I feel cold where her body leaves mine. She wipes her eyes almost angrily and hugs Langston.
“You’re here too?”
I take my hoodie off and wrap it around her. It’s lucky she’s so small compared to me because it could almost be a dress on her.
“We’re all here. We don’t have time to explain everything, but we have about twenty minutes left to get out of here and get back to the loft, or we’ll lose Sadie. Are you strong enough to get through this place?”
Atlas nods.
“Yes,” she says simply.
Her voice is steady, and I shake my head in wonder at just how much she can endure without losing her mind. She slips her hand into mine, and we follow Langston out of the cell.
We run back the way we came. We get through the corridor of my nightmares. Atlas gasps as we run along it and her grip on my hand tightens.
“This is where…” she starts.
“Yes,” I say, cutting her off.
“I can’t believe you came here after everything they did to you here. That you did it for me,” she says.
“I can’t believe that surprises you after everything you know about me,” I say.
“You’re right. I guess it doesn’t. Not really. I just…”
I don’t hear the rest of her sentence because I’m grabbed roughly from behind and jerked backward. I spin, trying not to fall. I pull back my fist and mash it into the ugly face that looks back at me. The face of a guard.
More guards pour in from either end of the corridor, and with an electronic click, the doors at each end lock firmly.
The sound of gunfire fills the air, and I jump in front of Atlas, shielding her body with my own. I feel a sensation in my stomach. It’s not so much painful as a feeling of pressure. It feels like being punched but without the moment where the air rushes from your body, and I know I’ve been hit by a bullet. Better me than her.
She doesn’t stay behind me long. She’s back at my side, firing into the guards, and I follow her lead. Regal stands on my other side. He uses his powers to turn the guns on the guards, and as they fire at us, their shots go wild, hitting each other and ricocheting off the walls.
Behind us, Perry, Langston, and Saudia are dealing with an equally big crowd of guards. There must be forty guards at each end of the corridor, but we’re cutting through them. Langston has thrown a shield up, and their bullets bounce harmlessly to the ground instead of cutting into us.
I am firing and firing and watching the guards go down around me. They deserve it for what they protect. They make it possible for people like Atlas to be sold as sex slaves, and they make it possible for the unimaginable things that happen inside these walls to be done to children.
Fucking children. How the fuck do they justify that? What sort of man puts a price on that and earns a salary this way? Even at my darkest, I would never have stooped so low. This isn’t me going back to the darkness. This is me stepping firmly into the light.
The noise of the gunshots and our battle is deafening at such close quarters, and I suddenly realize just how terrifying this must be for the children in the cells that line this corridor. What must they be imagining?
“Stop,” I yell. “Everyone. Just stop it.”
The team warily drops their hands, although Langston leaves her shield up. I step forward and meet the eyes of a guard who is dressed in blue while the rest wear white.
“Are you in charge here?” I demand.
The man nods wordlessly, his face a mask of terror, and I feel a moment’s triumph.
“Tell your men to drop their weapons and no one else will be hurt,” I say.
“Kane?” Atlas says from behind me.
“It’s okay. I’m okay,” I tell her.
She probably thinks I’m going to tear his head off his shoulders. And I want to, but I have a different idea. A better idea.
The guard shouts to his men.
“Drop your weapons,” he commands.
The guards slowly lower their guns to the ground.
“I should kill you really,” I say. “All of you. The things you protect here, the sick things you turn a blind eye to for a paycheck. You disgust me.”
“Look, just leave okay?” the guard says. He nods towards Atlas. “You got what you came here for. You’re outnumbered, and while you can do some damage, of that I have no doubt, don’t think none of you will be hurt in the process.”
“We are leaving,” I say. “And you and your team aren’t going to stop us. You’re not even going to try and stop us.”
The guard nods.
“Guards. Return to your original posts and let these people pass in peace.”
There is a rush of noise as the guards scurry away. I don’t think they care what is about to happen; they care only about self-preservation.
“Now go,” the head guard says.
I smile at him. A cold, dangerous smile that makes him flinch.
“I don’t know what makes you think you’re still calling the shots here, but let’s get something straight. You are going to do exactly as I say or you will sorely regret it. I will tear your heart out with my bare hands. And then I will find your family and do the same to them. I will do the same to their families. I won’t stop until anyone you’ve ever cared about is dead. I will burn the whole world if that’s what it takes.”
“What do you want?” the guard asks in a voice so quiet I have to strain to hear it.
“You’re going to take that little clicker there, and you’re going to use it to open every door in this place. And then you’re going to walk away. You’re going to let every single child and every single prisoner in this place walk away. Do you understand me?”
“I…I can’t do that,” the guard stutters. “My boss…”
I smile again.
“You can and you will. Your boss might kill you, but do you really think he’ll go to the lengths I will? Because I’m not messing around here. I will torture your family. I will kill all of them but one. That one, I will let live so that they can have a family of their own one day. And then I will do the same to them.”
That seems to finally convince the guard I’m serious. He lifts up the electronic device and begins to type in a code.
“If so much as a single hair on any child’s head is touched by anyone as they leave this place, I will know about it,” I say.
I turn to Saudia.
“Call 911. Tell them you’re a concerned citizen or whatever and that you have just discovered a load of scared children in the street all claiming to have been snatched.”
The guard finishes typing in the code. He drops the device and runs. I have no interest in following him. This will be the end of this place, and that’s good enough for me. Talon has failed. What he thought would break me and send me back to the darkness has actually pushed me further into the light.
The cell doors all open as one and children ranging in age from three to fifteen pour out of the cells. Some of them whoop with joy when they see freedom so close. Others hang back, afraid it’s a trap. Some cry. Some have the dazed look of zombies as they shuffle towards the open door.
Langston steps into one of the cells.
“It’s okay. You’re safe now. The police are coming, and the bad men can’t hurt you anymore,” she says gently.
A tiny child steps out, his hand placed trustingly in hers, and somehow, that is what breaks me. The sight of a child so let down, so beaten, so broken, who still has the capacity to trust.
“I have to get out of here,” I say to no one in particular.
Atlas sees the panic on my face, and she slips her hand into mine. Somehow, after everything she’s been throug
h, she’s the one taking care of me.
As I head for the door, I feel my vision swimming in and out, and I can’t focus on anything. The pain in my shoulder is back with a vengeance, and I can feel the warmth of the blood as it pours from my stomach and congeals on my thighs.
The adrenaline has left me, and everything hurts, and I know I’m in big trouble here. I can feel my consciousness slipping away.
“Kane? What’s happening? Are you okay?” Atlas says from my side.
She puts herself beneath my shoulder, keeping me on my feet and moving.
“Yeah,” I say through gritted teeth.
Her face crumples as she sees the pain on my face.
“I’m so sorry, Kane. I never meant to hurt you. I would never hurt you. You know that, right? I just…I just couldn’t believe you were really here. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me and they were coming for me. That’s why I fired at you.”
“It’s not that. It hurts, but I can cope with that,” I reassure her, forcing my voice not to shake. “I was shot.”
She looks down then and sees the blood for the first time. Being in this place has made her slower to react, less likely to see what’s right there in front of her, and she hadn’t noticed the tacky, wet look of my jeans was from the blood soaking into them.
“Oh my god, Kane,” she says.
“I’ll be fine,” I say, although I’m not so sure that’s true.
I collapse onto the pavement as we step out of the building and into the fresh air.
“Regal, do something,” Atlas says.
Regal kneels down beside me and places his hand over my gunshot wound.
“I can save his life, but it’ll take time for his full strength to come back. I don’t think he’s going to be strong enough to teleport anytime soon,” Regal says.
Saudia says, “But we have less than five minutes to get back, or Sadie dies.”
Saudia’s words echo through my head, mixing with the vile memories the Meat Market has brought back. I ended up in that place because Sadie abandoned me as a child. Everything I endured there could have been prevented if Sadie had stepped up and been a mother to me. For a split second, I hate her. Like really hate her.
