Stunned, Mycale stood frozen for a moment, before pushing his legs to move forward.
The man and the woman stood behind their desk, speechless. They were either surprised or impressed.
Mycale didn't care. He didn’t have time to think about what he'd done because his actions hadn't stopped Ivan's beating. Running over to Ivan’s room, he slammed his fist against the outside of Ivan’s wall.
“Leave him alone, you monsters.”
The men continued to pommel Ivan, raining down punches that intensified Mycale’s anger.
His pounding shattered the second glass wall. He was so upset, he didn’t care about breaking the glass or how he’d done it. As he ran towards the boy, he was jerked back and slammed to the floor. The floor met the side of his face with a hard thump, sending shooting pain to his brain and throughout his body.
Immediately, his aching head was pinned under the man’s boot. As the groove of the boot pressed into his cheek, Mycale struggled to see if Ivan was okay.
Unfortunately, Mycale found that his nightmare was just beginning. After showing the man and woman he could break glass walls with his hands, they still denied his request to go home.
He wondered, what more do they want to see?
After another round in the soundless room, Mycale and Ivan switched places. Mycale didn’t know if it was a day later or hours later.
Back at the cubes, the walls he'd shattered were replaced.
While being punched and kicked, with no remorse, Mycale caught a glimpse of Ivan screaming for them to stop. His own desperate pleas, and Ivan’s muffled screams, were ignored. The strikes were hard and frequent, each lick boomed through his body as he fought to protect his head and face. He’d given up his attempt to fight back when the force of one of the blows toppled him from the chair. Mycale rolled his body into a tight ball, each kick and punch a pain-filled nightmare.
At some point during the relentless beating, Mycale became filled with so much rage and hate he could no longer distinguish pain from anger. He was aware of the man and the woman watching, and of Ivan, who had never stopped yelling on his behalf.
Mycale was beaten until his body physically stopped functioning. Reduced to a series of exhausting gasps, he no longer pleaded for mercy. A strong surge, an invisible force, took his breath despite the crush of the harsh blows. Seemingly losing focus, for only a moment, he came awake to the men holding something under his nose. As soon as he regained consciousness, his pain-packed nightmare resumed.
****
Countless beatings pushed Mycale beyond any limits he recognized.
Why hadn’t he paid more attention to his parent’s lessons on how to pray?
Attempting to pray for himself, and for the rest of the kids, he hoped his desperate words were somehow heard. It seemed like the mission of his captors were to kill them all, but he wasn’t ready to die.
He begged, “Please God. Don’t let these people kill us. We are only kids. We don’t know what they want.”
Starved, thirsty, battered, and beaten, Mycale started to believe this was the last place he would ever see.
A pair of children disappeared, not returning to their beds, with each appearance of the man and the woman. At first, there were four empty beds, then ten stared back at him. Either the children were dead or they had shown the man and the woman something impressive enough to be sent back home.
Back at the cubes, this was his third time teamed with Ivan. This time, the men used electric prods, like the ones farmers used on livestock. Mycale knew he would later experience the same painful sting of the prods. Ivan lost consciousness twice, but it didn’t stop his abuse.
Rage and anger seemed to be his only friends. A toxic cocktail of emotions making Mycale, of all things, extremely hot. Touching the glass, he realized he had literally become hot enough to melt the wall. Pushing against the wall, his hand sank into the glass.
At first, only his hands and face were hot, then his entire body. Since the man and the woman refused to set him free, Mycale embraced the rush of rage and anger as it coursed through his body. His hands emitted a light glow that scared and excited him at the same time. Since he possessed nothing as strong as his anger and rage, he was convinced the intangible emotions had been converted into heat. He wondered if anger was the key to giving the man and the woman what they wanted.
They finally noticed what he was doing to the glass. It seemed like his actions impressed the man and the woman enough to stop Ivan’s beating. His distraction was a short-lived one.
Focusing, Mycale saw Ivan one moment and in the next he was gone. Ivan vanished.
Ivan’s sudden disappearance drew everyone’s attention. The man and the woman, along with the large men, searched, calling out angrily for the boy. While everyone was busy searching for Ivan, Mycale slipped through the jagged hole he’d melted into the glass cube.
Once free, he ran down the only other hallway towards what he hoped was an exit. The only thing on his mind was getting out of that place and finding help for the rest of the children. As he pushed against the large metal door marked ‘exit’, he was jerked backwards by strong hands and tossed over a sturdy shoulder.
He didn’t fight while being carried back to the soundless room, but the sight of the dirty bed affixed with restraints drove him to kick and yell again. Luckily, he gave a good enough kick to make one of the men cover his eye. Pain was evident on the man’s face, but Mycale’s small victory was short-lived.
The force of his body connecting with the hard mattress took his breath. A blow to his midsection sent his stomach contents flying into the air. Weak and winded, he was unable to block—or move away from—another fist traveling towards his head. As soon as his brain registered pain, his world went black.
****
Mycale was at number nine for the repeated cycles of torture he had endured. He had been spat on, urinated on, nearly drowned, electrocuted, splashed with acid, deprived of sleep, and starved of food and water. Trapped in an endless cycle of abuse and pain, he began to reject the notion that this world was real.
Was it possible he had died and landed in hell?
His grandparents always preached about hell; but he never believed their stories, until now.
Countless beatings and muffled screams tore at his heart and provided a grim reminder that he wasn’t dreaming. He was convinced his captors had found a way to turn off sound as an additional form of punishment. He was unable to see outside his soundless prison, so he couldn’t say if he’d been in that place a week or a month. Since there was no way to measure time, it didn’t exist in this place. There were only two sickening constants: the increasing number of empty beds and an endless supply of abuse.
****
Partnered with a girl this time, Mycale caught snatches of her crying helplessly as he was dunked and held, face down, in a tub of water. His lungs burned, ignited by an invisible fire. Swallowing the metallic flavor of his own blood, each breath turned into acid as it rushed down his raw throat.
Coughing uncontrollably as water squirted from his nose and mouth, Mycale fought to get oxygen into his lungs. The men were determined to suffocate him, one way or another. A fist flew into his chest, causing him to lose the breath he’d been struggling so hard to catch.
Having no control, Mycale’s hand was forcibly slapped hard atop a hard wooden desk that had been added to the cube. The slap of his hand sent peppering aches of pain up his already bruised wrist. As one man firmly held his hand down, the other placed a circular cutting device around the joint of his left pointer finger.
Mycale pleaded, “Please don’t. I promise I will show you my ability.”
Listening to the men tell him they were about to peel the skin from each of his fingers, Mycale’s nerves flew into a chaotic frenzy. His hand shook uncontrollably, which sent the instrument slicing against his finger. With a scratchy and sore throat, he could hardly scream when the man squeezed the instrument around his finger and tightened th
e grip.
Since his voice and strength had been beaten from his body, tears were all Mycale had left to beg with; but he refused to let them fall. He lost skin from two of his fingers before the torture stopped.
Fearing something was broken, he could hardly stand upright. The men left his cube, consulted with the man and the woman behind the desk, and walked into the girl’s cube. Mycale didn’t know the girl's name; but he often spotted her in the soundless room, struggling four beds away from him.
Although his abuse was harsh, he was more afraid of watching the girl’s torture. He found watching the other kids suffer was far worse than his own agony, as he had learned how to use rage and anger to cushion his pain. It was a secret he was sure the man and the woman didn't know, or they would have tried other tactics on him. He watched the girl back into a corner and fold her body into a tight ball, as the men made their approach.
The girl was slammed, face down, on a table facing him. At the sight of the men unbuttoning their pants and taking off the girl’s gown, Mycale screamed, like a child gone mad. The men deliberately looked at him as they pulled at the girl's gown. Shaking his head, tears slid down his cheeks for the very first time. He pushed his voice box to the max, but only cracked words and hoarse cries made it from his mouth.
“No. Sack it la’. You can’t do that. Please!”
The men controlled the girl’s body as she lay helpless. With only her eyes, she begged Mycale for help she knew he could not give.
Although Mycale didn’t fully understand sex, his father and mother had given him the-birds-and-the-bees talk. He knew enough to know the men were about to do the worse thing an adult could do to a child. Turning away from the horrific scene in front of him, he slumped to the floor and hid his face behind his trembling hands and knees.
Seeing what the men were about to do to the girl broke him so severely, he couldn’t control his raging thoughts. He slapped at his head, fighting himself to ward off the images he saw.
He spoke softly, to himself, “Az if. They blaggin’ me ‘ead. It’s not real. It can’t be real.”
Hearing the girl’s muffled cries tore a hole in his heart. Exhausted, beaten, and broken, Mycale couldn’t stomach the thought of what was about to happen. If the plan was to drive him mad, it succeeded.
Continuing to slap himself about the head and face, Mycale let the same spark of rage that help him melt the glass spill over his body. He hardly knew what rage was, but he knew he hated these people. He wanted to hurt them, even kill them. The sight of the girl about to be raped became his undoing.
Standing, he pushed at the interior of his wall, angrily. He was sure he was the only one aware of the heat radiating from his body. One more angry push at the glass made it shatter, as if he had caused an explosion. Glass rained down on him, but he didn’t give it a second thought.
The shock of Mycale’s display made the man and the woman dive behind their desk. His action stopped the men's assault on the girl. Mycale walked through what was left of his cube and pushed at the outside of the girl’s cube. This time, a large portion of the glass melted away as if it were plastic.
The men ran towards Mycale; but every time they reached for him, they jumped away as if being burned by fire. Mycale backed the men into a corner.
Holding them there, he yelled back to the girl, “Run! Find a way out and get help.”
The man and the woman were either gone from behind the desk or still hiding. Turning, Mycale exited the cube and noticed various parts of the room had caught fire. It was probably why the man and the woman remained hidden.
Mycale didn’t care about the big men chasing him. The building had started to burn and his only concern was helping the other children. Just inside the doorway, Mycale quickly stared around the soundless room. The men could have caught him, but they stopped at the door’s entrance. After taking a moment to stare at him, both men threw up their hands and ran the other way.
Looking down, Mycale realized that he held what turned the men around. Staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed, his hands emitted blue and orange flames. Amazingly, he wasn’t burned. This was the ability his captors were forcing him to show. The man and the woman had been right all along. He had an ability.
Every eye in the room landed on him, but Mycale didn’t have time to explain. Using his hands, he burned away restraints and pointed the kids towards the exit. The fire grew as each of the freed children ran out the door.
By the time Mycale set the last boy free, the sound returned and the atmosphere was alive with billowing smoke and dancing flames. Although his once flaming hands were now out, he was reluctant to touch the boy’s skin. He instructed the boy to hold firmly to the tail of his gown as he led the way from the room. Before exiting, Mycale’s eyes brushed over Ivan’s empty bed.
As he and the boy neared the final door to freedom, he glanced back—periodically—to see if they were being chased by bad guys—or fire. He pushed and banged against the door, repeatedly. Once opened, the fresh cool air breathed new life into his body. The bright sunshine was a welcomed treasure.
The other boy fell as tears streamed down his face. Mycale didn’t know if he cried because he was in pain or because he was finally free. Helping the boy up, they ran through a dirty, deserted alley. Seeing the other children waiting and waving from afar kept them moving. The street was at least three blocks away; far enough that they would all be safe from the fire.
Only when they reached the other kids did Mycale look back at the building. Smoke and fire wafted from one side, probably the area where they had been bedded down. Nestled among old abandoned warehouses, the building they had exited was at least five levels high with most of the windows missing from the higher levels.
It took a moment for the cold winds of December to register, but the chill was nothing compared to what they had all suffered. Guilt filled Mycale as he grew certain that he’d caused the fire. He wondered where their captors had gone. Scanning their surroundings, he hoped the man and the woman or the big guys didn’t show up and recapture them.
Hearing fire engines in the distance let him know they were probably going to be safe.
A stray memory flashed through Mycale’s brain. He thought of Ivan.
What if he is still in the building, hiding?
Turning, he started towards the building as the others attempted to stop him.
As he ran, he shouted over his shoulder, “Ivan may still be in there. I have to help him.”
Running back to the building was scary, but the idea of Ivan being inside was more frightening. Mycale entered the building as smoke flowed past his face, like lingering harpies with desperate and deadly intent.
He reminded himself, “Be a hard man.”
Coughing into the back of his hand, he walked further into the now dark building on shaky legs. Creaking and groaning sounds kept him on edge as every brush of the wall made him jump or spin fast. He shouted Ivan’s name repeatedly, hoping and praying the boy would answer.
"Ivan! Ivan! Can you hear me? You don't have to hide anymore.”
When he entered the soundless room, it was so filled with fire he immediately stumbled back. A crashing sound sent him running back down the dark hall. Swallowing his fear, a horrific sight seized his body. Something had fallen into the second hall, blocking the only exit. Fiery debris continued to fall from the ceiling.
****End of Sparks Excerpt***
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Sevyn: Adult Paranormal Romance (BWWM Romance) (Supernatural Thriller) (The Smoke & Fire Series Book 4) Page 17
