by Quil Carter
He was looking out from under a bed, a fear burning inside of him that had his breath quick and his heart pounding. He was staring at the partially ajar door again, the light in the hallway shining through to illuminate a child’s room.
Fear. So much fear. Please not tonight. Please not tonight.
A toilet flushed outside of the bedroom, and Sasha could hear someone approaching. His heart raced and his entire body shook as he stared at that door. Watching. Watching.
A shadow appeared and the sliver of light that shone on the child’s bedroom went dark.
“Get onto the bed,” a man said.
Sasha, now realizing he had no control over the body he was in, gasped and put a hand over his mouth. He backed away until his feet hit the wall, and held his breath.
A belt buckle tinkled, and a zipper could be heard being undone.
“I SAID GET ON THE GOD DAMN BED!”
Sasha’s entire body convulsed. His eyes snapped open and he put a hand on his chest; his heart was racing, throwing itself against his rib cage with such force he wouldn’t be surprised if it left a bruise.
What the fuck? What the fuck had just happened?
Sasha just sat there stunned, unable to process what he’d just experienced. Seeing Kel and Kheva in the living room was bizarre enough, but… what the fuck had he seen? Kel… what had happened to Kel? And the fucking kid? It sounded like…
“Nightcrawler…”
Sasha’s already high-strung body jumped when he heard Kheva’s voice. He scrambled to his feet and turned towards the house, only to see Kheva walking towards him.
He… he didn’t look angry. Sasha was frozen on the spot. He wanted to run, but found that he couldn’t move. Even with his mind screaming that Kheva was going to kill him for seeing what he’d just seen… there was no muscle inside of him that felt like obeying his brain in that moment.
Kheva had kicked him out of the house the last time he’d seen that boy under the bed. He would fucking kill him if he knew he’d done it again.
Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? He knows everything. That fucking lunatic knows everything that goes on in my damn head!
I’m dead.
Kheva’s eyes became glaring when he saw the look of terror on Sasha’s face. “Come here,” he commanded.
And at that command, Sasha’s legs unglued themselves from the ground and he closed the last several feet of distance until he was standing in front of Kheva.
Kheva’s glaring eyes plunged into Sasha’s own like they were two burning beams of sunlight. The look had such an intensity to it, Sasha knew without a doubt that he was peering into his mind.
And with that terrifying knowledge, Sasha knew he was finished.
“He kicked you out before he re-emerged. Interesting,” Kheva murmured. “You’re lucky, nightcrawler.”
Wait… what?
Sasha hid the surprise on his face. “What happened?” he said, and as much as he was saying this to Kheva, he was also saying it to himself.
What the fuck had seriously just happened? And why didn’t Kheva know? The Master had been able to see perfectly inside of him. He’d made it seem like Sasha’s own inner thoughts were transparent to him.
Well, one thing was for sure… Sasha wasn’t going to divulge this information to him. Something told him to keep this information to himself. For all he knew, if Kheva realized Sasha could hide memories from him… Kheva would kill him.
“You’re progressing. That’s what’s happening,” Kheva said rather matter-of-fact. He put a hand on Sasha’s shoulder and led him towards the chicken coop. “We’re powerful people, nightcrawler. We’re a powerful family.”
Family? The words stuck awkwardly in Sasha’s throat like he’d swallowed a fish bone. “This isn’t my family,” he mumbled. His lips pursed together before disappearing into his mouth. He wanted to say more to Kheva, but in all honesty, he was scared of the Master. His body was sore and covered in welts and bruises, even now he was limping towards the chicken coop. Kheva and Kel’s abuse of his flesh was painted on him, and their mental abuse was burned into his mind.
Sasha didn’t know how much more he could take, all he knew was that he had to get out of there…
…even if he couldn’t go back home to his apartment.
I have nowhere to go…
Kheva seemed to find amusement in Sasha’s words. “This isn’t your family?” he said. “Oh, nightcrawler, we’re the only family you have now. We understand you. We love you. We would do anything for you.” The hand on Sasha’s shoulder rubbed him affectionately. “Your old home holds nothing for you but two men who will continue to misunderstand you, continue to try and shape you into what they deem as normal. You know now, my beautiful, that you’re not insane. You know you’re better than them… better than all humans in this world. You cannot go back, and deep down inside… you know it.”
Kheva stopped in front of the chicken’s outside enclosure, chicken wire surrounding a nice-size pen that held the brown birds inside. They were walking around pecking at the last remnants of seed that Kel must’ve thrown down for them.
Sasha watched him. Then, remembering his chores, he got the wicker basket out from a small cupboard that also held the garbage can full of feed, and went inside the rank-smelling coop.
“Yeah, I do know it,” Sasha whispered. He began to collect the eggs from the hen’s nests, each pile of flattened hay sectioned off by boards, creating a row of about fifteen beds. “But you know what? Maybe I don’t want to belong anywhere… I just want to be left alone so I can… so I can try and figure out what makes me happy. I’m not happy and half the time I feel like killing myself.”
The door to outside darkened. Sasha turned around and saw the Master standing in the doorway. “Why do you deserve to be happy, nightcrawler? How have you earned it?”
Sasha froze. “What kind of question is that?” he said slowly. “Everyone wants to be happy… I deserve to be happy because I’m a good person, because my life has been absolute shit and I’m fucking tired of it. I’m tired of wanting to just die and I’m tired of being burdens on my uncle and my best friend. I’m ready to make a change and I thought this place would fucking change me.” Sasha turned back around and picked up the last of the eggs, but when he tried to exit the coop, Kheva didn’t move.
But he did smirk.
“You know nothing of suffering, nightcrawler,” Kheva whispered. He raised a hand and gently stroked Sasha’s cheek. It took everything not to jerk his face away from the man’s cold touch. “Oh, you know… absolutely… nothing.”
I SAID GET ON THE DAMN BED!
Kheva slid his hand around Sasha’s neck, then drew him in for a kiss. Sasha watched Kheva’s eyes close, and his lips soften, and finally his mouth opened and their lips locked.
Like before, Sasha felt that electric static in his chest, a Tesla ball holding inside of it lightning and power, and as Kheva’s lips moved and urged Sasha’s to open, those lightning strikes hit all the sensitive areas in his body until he felt his breath shorten.
Kheva pulled away and ran his hand down Sasha’s cheek. “Suffering breeds power. Suffering… draws out of our souls the most powerful of abilities. It moulds us, it makes us who we are. One can only truly know his own soul when it has been ripped out of his chest and put naked on display for all those around him to see.” Kheva shook his head slowly back and forth, his eyes fixed on Sasha’s and the tips of his fingers tracing Sasha’s face and neck.
Then Kheva smiled, and he cradled Sasha’s chin with his hand. “Oh, my nightcrawler…” he whispered. “I will show you the meaning of true suffering.”
CHAPTER 13
The sun had never held much relevance for Sasha Zakharin, nor did the seasons to be honest. With his blinds drawn and his outside ventures few and far between, the only experience he got with the weather was while walking to Jobe or Lex’s cars. Even when he was out for his night walks the only difference was whether he was going to put on g
loves and his winter hat. Hell, most of the time it was a complete surprise when he opened the door to let Jobe in and it was storming or snowing outside.
But since coming to Ciel Lake, what was going on with the weather was now important. He spent a lot more time outside now helping Kel with the yard work and the chores, and … he really didn’t mind it. The sun was warm, and with summer coming, it was only going to get warmer, and the days brighter. The morning chill had even begun to disappear.
Yes, Sasha was still sleeping outside, but he suspected that it was his own choice. He was too terrified of having a repeat of what happened the last time he’d walked up those stairs, and had willfully taken his blanket and pillow to the patio lounger outside.
There was no denying that Kel and Kheva were actively having sex, and it would be foolish to believe that they’d let him leave the bedroom when they decided to engage in such things. So, Sasha slept outside where he deemed it safe, and hoped for good weather and his Master and Kel to be in good moods the next day.
The only thing getting him through this, was the fact that he was planning on making a break for it soon. He didn’t have a plan yet, he could only think about it when he knew Kel and Kheva weren’t tuned into him, but he knew for sure that he had to escape this place.
Not to go home… but to catch a bus to wherever it was heading, and start a new life away from all of them.
Sasha looked up at the dark clouds that were rolling through the overcast sky, and swallowed down a lump of anxiety that had wedged itself in his throat.
But it looked like his good luck with the weather was staring to run out. He knew it would eventually happen, Vancouver Island was known for being rainy, but he’d still… hoped.
“A bite!” Kel gasped.
Sasha snapped out of his daydream and turned his attention to Kel. The boat they were both in tipped back and forth as Kel, his face bright and excited, began to reel in the fish that was tugging on his line.
“Wow,” Sasha said. He tried to push away the anxiety currently cooking in his brain, and watched as Kel pulled up a silver fish from Ciel Lake. The fish was thrashing back and forth on the line, a shining metal hook sticking out of his mouth. “What kind is it?”
Kel picked up the wiggling fish and held it up proudly, then took the hook out of its mouth, still holding a dead and bloated brown worm on the end. “It’s a trout!” he said, the joy radiating off of his tone. “We have tons in here, and since it’s just me and Master Kheva eating them, they grow really big sometimes. I can make the best pan-roasted trout Kheva says. I hope we can catch two more and we can have fish tonight. I’ll make some for you.” He dropped the fish into a cooler of water he’d brought along and threw the line and the bobber back into the lake.
Sasha peered over the rim of the boat but his own fishing line remained untouched, floating carefree several feet from where they both were. “I’ve never been lake fishing before. It must be great having a lake full of fish.”
“It is!” Kel beamed. “Kheva once kicked me out for an entire week and it was fall. Fishing was the only way I could eat, so I ate them raw. He called me Gollum for a month.”
Sasha snorted and started to laugh, Kel’s smile widened. Sasha spent most of his time here in a state of fear, wondering when Kheva or Kel were going to hurt him next, and these small brief moments of relaxation and casual conversation were welcome respites.
“We’ll probably be going deer hunting soon,” Kel continued. “It’s illegal right now, but we don’t really care. Kheva has silencers for our guns and we’re so far away, no one will know. We’ve been doing it for years. We’re almost low on meat and since we have you now, we need to stock up on a lot of things. And town trip soon!” Kel opened his mouth to say more when there was a second tug on his line.
“Another!” he exclaimed. He reeled up the fishing rod and pulled in another trout, this one a little bigger than the one in the cooler.
Then to Sasha’s surprise, just as Kel was dropping the fish into the cooler, his own red and white bobber bobbed in the water. A jolt of excitement shot through his body and he reeled in the hook. A fish, a little bigger than Kel’s, was thrashing on the line, wiggling back and forth like someone was shaking it.
“That can be yours!” Kel said in the same excited tone. If smiles could power boats he would’ve travelled around the world in minutes, the man was beside himself with glee. “Let’s go in and show Kheva!” While Sasha tried to dig the hook out of the fish’s mouth, Kel grabbed onto the oars and began to row towards the shore. It didn’t take him long, you could walk the diameter of the lake in twenty minutes, and soon they were heading towards the patio.
Kel had been acting normally the past three days. What had happened between him and Kheva, the voice that Sasha now realized wasn’t solely inside his own head, hadn’t been mentioned and Kheva was treating Kel the same. Sasha had no idea what had happened, or what he’d unintentionally eavesdropped on, but it was clear that something was going on… Or at least it had been going on.
From how Sasha’s mind had picked him up and tossed him into Kheva’s flashback after Kel’s strange words to Kheva…
“Like how Daddy destroyed you?”
… it seemed that… the voice knew what Kheva had been through as a child. But was the voice a part of Kel, or just… something else entirely.
Sasha shook his head clear of the thought as he slipped off his shoes. It didn’t matter. He’d be long gone soon and Kheva would never be able to find him. The voice might still haunt him, but at least Sasha knew enough now to ignore him. Now that it was clear the voice wasn’t derived from some mental disorder, quite frankly, the stupid disembodied voice could go fuck himself. Sasha didn’t care, he just had to get out of there.
Just figure out a plan… figure out a way to get to the highway.
But how? Steal some food and run, or what? It wasn’t like he could call Jobe or Lex. Fuck, he hadn’t heard a single phone here. He didn’t even know if there was one. Kheva had a laptop he’d seen, but it was kept in his office.
The office that was closed, and the room that Kheva had warned him to stay out of.
“We got three, Master Kheva!” Kel called excitedly as he carried the blue cooler into the kitchen. “One for each of us. Sashy even caught one himself.”
The door to Kheva’s office could be heard opening, and the man himself walked out. But with one glaring look, it was obvious that he wasn’t in the best of moods.
“I told you not to bother me in my office unless it’s important,” he said crisply, and Kel’s smile faded. “And when you must bother me, I told you to knock on the door, not yell like a god damn idiot. Are you an idiot, Keluva?”
Kel withered at Kheva’s iced words. He shifted his feet and shook his head as he stared at the floor. “No,” he whispered. Sasha tried to fight the empathy he felt for Kel; he’d been so happy just moments before and it seemed so cruel to have that taken from him. “I think Sasha catching a fish is–” Kel’s eyes rose as Kheva stalked up to him. He gasped and braced himself as Kheva approached, and let out a stifled grunt as Kheva slapped him across the face.
“It’s not,” Kheva spat. “Get outside and clean the fish.” Then Kheva’s eyes shot to Sasha. “You, come here.” Sasha’s heart dropped when Kheva grabbed his arm, and when Kheva started leading him to his office, it began to knock around like a Ping-Pong ball.
He followed two steps behind Kheva, and just as he suspected, he was led to Kheva’s office. To further the fear quickly breeding insects in his chest, Kheva closed the door behind him.
Sasha looked around the office. It was about half the size of their bedroom with an oak desk to the left with a laptop on top of it, and a bunch of wood or leather furniture, all of it looking expensive and polished.
Then Sasha swallowed as his eyes fell on a daybed pressed up against the far-right wall, and it was then he heard Kheva lock the office’s door.
Kheva went to his laptop which was ope
n to… what looked like his email. Sasha’s eyes widened. This meant he had internet, most likely satellite since their television was brought in that way. So, at the very least, Sasha could try and arrange a ride as soon as he got to the highway. Which would be difficult since he didn’t have any other friends but Jobe, and no relatives but Lex.
Sasha watched, standing awkwardly in the middle of the office, as Kheva closed the laptop lid. He then reached behind the laptop… and picked up a phone.
Right, you idiot… the internet would come from the satellite phone! Kheva turned the phone off and then turned around.
“Take off your clothes,” Kheva said simply. Then he began to un-belt his pants.
“W-what?!” Sasha stammered. He choked, as if his heart had leapt so high it had reached his mouth, and took a step back. His body flushed with a cold heat and the room began to spin.
Kheva’s already glaring eyes flashed. “You heard my orders. Do it.”
Sasha held up his hands and shook his head back and forth. “I… Kheva, you – you can’t be…” He swallowed as Kheva pulled his pants to his ankles and stepped out of them, a pair of black boxer briefs with a red stripe going up the side, tightly hugging his hips and a noticeable bulge in the center.
The Master stalked up to Sasha and Sasha shrunk back. He cowered down as Kheva grabbed onto his t-shirt, and when Kheva tried to pull it over his head, he ducked and tried to back away from him.
Kheva ripped the shirt off and threw it onto the ground. “You are about to make this something it doesn’t have to be,” he said coldly. “You can either do what is commanded of you willingly, or you will do it choking on your own blood. Make your choice, nightcrawler.”
Sasha, his arms now wrapped around his bare chest, stared at the floor. His mind was going a mile a minute, and with every sharp turn it made, Sasha was reminded of the previous consequences of his disobedience.
I’ll be running away soon. I… I see a phone. I know there has to be money in here too. I’m going to steal some money and escape – soon I’m going to escape.
