by Quil Carter
Sasha looked at him with utter horror, his mind wiped clean, but upon seeing the look on his face, both Kheva and Kel laughed.
Kheva laughed. It was never good when Kheva actually laughed, it was horrifying.
“That was mean, Master,” Kel giggled. He looked at Sasha with a smile. “Kheva’s just joking, Sasha. We don’t eat people. We’re feeding him to Jye! Jye loves this meat.”
The cat? The fucking cat?
The meat… the meat he’d been hiding around the property for the serval. Large chunks of red meat with marbled fat throughout. He’d never questioned what the meat was.
Was it…
How many of them has Kheva killed?
Sasha’s hands clasped his head and he dug his fingernails in until he could feel scalp against the tips. His teeth pressed together as he tried to suppress the oncoming scream, but all he managed to do was release a desperate whine.
His mind reeled, it twirled in circles like a carnival ride out of control. The world around him was tilting, blurring. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe.
“I can’t breathe!” Sasha cried desperately, gasping and sucking in the air around him but all he got was a lungful of the hot blood that was saturating the room. “I can’t breathe!”
Kheva put the things he was holding in his hands down, and walked over to Sasha. “Drain the blood and leave him for the evening, Keluva,” Kheva said as he approached. “I brought pizza and wings back, and Pop-Tarts and some other junk for you to eat. I’m bringing Sasha inside, follow me after you’ve put the blood in the fridge.” Sasha felt a hand on his shoulder then. “Get up. I cannot carry you.”
Sasha looked up at him desperately. He was terrified of the man, wanting to do nothing more than run from him, but the state he was in would allow him no other recourse than to whimper and go to the monster for comfort.
There was no one else he could go to. Jobe was gone. Lex was gone.
I want Jobe. I want him to hold me tight to him. For us to lay in bed together in the dark, Jobe telling me about his day and the gossip he’d picked up from his last shift of work. I just want…I just want to be with someone who I know is normal. Who isn’t going to fucking kill people, or command his fucking slave to rape me. I’m surrounded by psychopaths and they’re telling me I’m one too.
I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go home. I want to…
“I want to go home,” Sasha suddenly screamed. He was walking across the rain-drenched field, Kheva steadying him by his arm. There was rain falling all around him, the downpour filling his ears with a low roar. “Take me home! I want to go home!”
Kheva’s grip on his arm tightened. He kept walking, and Sasha’s legs buckled as he tried to keep up with his quick steps. Two different impulses were splitting him down the middle. One wanted to push Kheva away, find the long silver knife and plunge it into his stomach. Sasha wanted to kill him, guarantee he could escape and not have to look behind him for the rest of his life waiting for Kheva’s shadow to darken his doorstep.
But the other… wanted to collapse into Kheva’s arms and beg the Master to hold him. To ask him to make all of these negative emotions go away, to make Sasha feel powerful again, not this scared cluster of terrified energy.
Sasha didn’t know what he wanted.
Kheva opened the sliding glass door and Sasha was inside. When the door closed behind him, the silence seemed almost unnatural.
“Upstairs,” Kheva said and he pulled on Sasha’s arm.
For reasons not entirely known, perhaps it was shreds of PTSD with what happened the first time Kel had raped him, or maybe an exhausted mind that had had enough, but the moment Kheva said ‘Upstairs’ panic hit Sasha like a bolt of lightning.
“No!” Sasha sobbed. He yanked his arm away from Kheva and took a step back, tears were mixing in with the rain that soaked his face and his body was a steady tremble. “I want to go home. I want to go home.”
“It’s been a long day, Sasha,” Kheva said coldly. “Don’t make it longer. Get up and come upstairs with––”
“I WANT TO GO HOME!” Sasha screamed. His hands clenched his hair and he let out a desperate howl. “HOME!”
Sasha didn’t see Kheva’s hand raise, but he did feel the hard smack across the face. Sasha cowered down, his hands lowering to shield his head from further assault. It wasn’t good-enough however, Kheva dealt Sasha three more blows, and by the time he was done blood was dripping down the back of his throat.
Sasha sobbed quietly, and when Kheva grabbed his arm again and pulled him towards the stairs, he didn’t voice disagreement, and he didn’t scream again.
Sasha followed Kheva up the stairs, red droplets now falling from his mouth as it filled with blood. He tried to swallow it but ended up choking, which in turn sprinkled Kheva’s arm in a light spray of crimson.
He was taken to the master bedroom. Kheva let go of his arm and closed the door, then turned the dial up on the electric baseboard heating. After that, he removed his muddy boots and jacket, then began to undress Sasha where he stood.
Still unable to breathe, or even comprehend what was happening to him in that moment, Sasha allowed Kheva to undress him. Once he was entirely naked, a skinny shivering wraith beside the bedroom door, Kheva pulled him towards the made bed, sporting now a blue and black comforter with dark blue flannel sheets.
“Get into bed,” Kheva said, and he began to undress himself.
The bed seemed like a solace now, something that promised an end to a terrible night. Sasha crawled into the bed and got under the covers, swallowing again to rid his mouth of blood.
Kheva changed into a white undershirt and boxers, then turned off all of the lights but the one beside his side of the bed. Then, with the room heating up, he got under the covers with Sasha and put his arms around him.
“Come closer,” Kheva whispered. Sasha was confused to find his tone now kind. “I’ll make you feel better. Come here.”
There was mistrust, but the urge for comfort overpowered his suspicions. Sasha shifted over to Kheva, whimpery and scared, and when Kheva drew Sasha in with his arms, the security and relief was almost overpowering.
“There we go,” Kheva said gently. “Poor boy, that was quite the night for you, wasn’t it?”
Sasha nodded, his mouth still open and his lungs hyperventilating.
“What are you most scared of now?” Kheva asked. He was saying it so kindly. What was going on? What was happening?
He said I could always come to him for comfort. Even if he was the one that caused me the pain. That’s what he was doing.
“I don’t know,” Sasha whispered. “I don’t know.”
“Shh,” Kheva murmured. He began to caringly stroke Sasha’s chest with his hand. “You don’t need to know. I can feel it well-enough. You’re just stunned and scared, but you don’t need to worry. I have abilities that make me above the law. There’s no need for you to be scared that we’ll get caught.”
There was relief from Kheva saying this. He didn’t realize how scared he was of getting caught before Kheva had mentioned it. “You promise?”
Sasha couldn’t see him, since he was on his back staring up at the ceiling and Kheva on his side, but Sasha could sense him nodding. “I’ve already killed two others, nightcrawler,” Kheva whispered. Sasha’s eyes widened. “Their bones are charred nothing, getting burned again and again every time I use our outdoor fire pit. The monsters who hurt Kel are dropping from this planet one by one.”
“How many… were there?”
“Six in total,” Kheva answered. “Now only three more remain. They’re in hiding but I’ll find them.”
Sasha’s breathing gradually began to calm, the darkness and the embrace of the Master slowing his rapidly beating heart. The chill of the rainy night was leaving him as well, and the body heat and thick comforter were both filling him with warmth.
“Won’t the cops try and find them?” Sasha asked. “They have families, don’t
they?”
Sasha looked over at Kheva, and strangely, Kheva shook his head no. “The older generation never had families, only each other,” he answered. “And the younger generation, some did, but every one of them was taken from their dysfunctional homes and brought in. Some may have family looking for them, like you, but they’re looking for a runaway far from where we are, not a murder.”
“But… what about their boyfriends? Or the other nightcrawlers?”
Kheva’s eyes darkened. “Let them come,” he said, his tone plunging. “Let them try and discipline me. I will fuck their minds so hard they’ll be eating their own fingers by the time I’m through with them.”
Sasha remembered something mentioned by Gavin earlier. He’d said that Kheva was hiding from the other nightcrawlers; Gavin said Kheva was afraid they’d take Rob away from him.
That makes sense, Sasha said, mentally making sure he was inside of the Dead Zone, where Rob lived. Kheva couldn’t read his thoughts, though he wasn’t even sure Kheva was intuned with him anymore.
Rob had told me that Kheva was holding him here against his will. That he wanted to go back to his family, his own boyfriend. Kheva had said that Rob had turned into Kel due to the trauma of the gang rape, but was that true? Rob had made it sound like it was Kheva who’d forced Kel out of Rob.
There were two stories here, two men’s explanations and validations for doing what they did and what they wanted to do. But which one was the truth?
One thing was for sure, Kheva wanted those other men dead.
Sasha was confused, tired, and stunned. Both Rob and Kheva wanted Sasha’s help, but Sasha didn’t know where his own loyalties lay. Kheva was a murderer, he was a psychopath and a rapist, he was all things bad.
But Sasha also felt a loyalty towards him, and a secure comfort when he was in his arms. There was something about Kheva that drew Sasha like a magnet, he liked the feeling of being guarded, protected, understood, and not only that, being trained to be a nightcrawler.
And also… the fact that he was happier with his life here. Sasha was no longer confused, judged, and misunderstood. He no longer felt crazy.
I belonged here, with men like me.
But Rob… Rob didn’t belong here. He had his own life he had to go back to, and what about Jobe and Lex? Sasha couldn’t just forget about them. He had to tell them he was safe, he had to get back home.
Sasha’s eyes shut tight, the devastation and confusion mixing in to form fresh tears. Kheva, oblivious to the thoughts in Sasha’s head, clucked his tongue and squeezed him closer.
“You’re strong, Sasha, you’ll be fine,” Kheva said. He began to stroke back Sasha’s hair. “You must realize you’re above all laws now. The only law you must follow is my law. Do what I tell you to do, and obey me, and you will become second to no one but myself.” He drew Sasha away and looked at him. “Obey me, and you’ll be happy. Disobey me, and you’ll be miserable. Do you understand?”
Sasha swallowed down the last drops of blood that had been dripping down his throat. “I know,” he said quietly. “I know Gavin… Gavin deserved it.”
Kheva nodded. “He did,” he said. “He was a monster, as the other ones are, and you’ll help me kill them, won’t you?”
Sasha nodded back. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” he said.
Did he mean it? Sasha didn’t know, all he wanted was for this evening to be over with. He was exhausted and at his mental limit. There was nothing more he could deal with.
“Good boy,” Kheva said. He then reached behind him and turned off the table lamp. “Go to sleep, and if you need me, wake me up. You may sleep in as much as you want tomorrow as well.”
“T-thank you,” Sasha whispered. He shut his eyes, and found comfort in Kheva’s embrace as they both settled in to sleep. “Good night, Kheva.”
“Good night, Sasha.”
END OF SILENT GROUND PART 1
