When he’d filled his backpack with as much as he could reasonably carry, Flynn shouldered his bag, picked his crossbow up, got to his feet, and left the barn.
Jackson and Ollie had pulled night duty on the gates that evening. As Flynn walked up to them, his heart beat out of control and his legs shook. They could ask to check his bag. Someone might find out what he’d done.
“Everything okay?” Jackson called out as he looked down on Flynn, a hand on his baseball bat.
“Yep,” Flynn replied, the bag on his back seeming to treble in weight with the stolen goods. “I’m going out to do some night hunting. ’Bout time we had some meat in this place.”
“Amen to that,” Ollie said and he waved Flynn through. “Good luck, brother.”
Even as he walked through the open gates, Flynn expected someone to call him back. But they didn’t. How far would he get from the place before they realised what he’d done?
Chapter 15
Flynn walked into the night, checking behind him every few metres. Far enough away that the boys on the gates wouldn’t be able to see his paranoia, he could check back frequently to get a heads-up on a pursuing pack should they decide to give chase.
The heavy backpack pulled on Flynn as he walked, dragging the hard knots into his shoulders and sending a tingling sensation down both arms.
It hurt to hold his crossbow out in front of him, but with fuck-all vision ahead, he had to be ready for anything. When he’d lived with the diseased for so much of his life, he refused to trust things would be okay.
Flynn kept up a quick pace, sweat lifting on his brow and itching beneath his clothes. He forced a rhythm to his breaths to maintain the march and did his best to see through the dark and long grass.
By the time Home had been reduced to no more than a large silhouette on the horizon, Flynn released some of the tension in his body, but he still kept up his pace. He might lose sight of Home shortly, but he still needed to put as much distance between him and it as he possibly could. He’d never go back to that place again. Never.
The swoosh of the grass surrounded Flynn as he continued to plough through it. Hours had passed and he’d still not adjusted to the dark night. The human eye could only do so much.
Flynn looked around, for what good it did. The diseased didn’t exist anymore, but it didn’t matter how many times he told himself that. He only knew he hadn’t seen any diseased in several years. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t see any again. Anyway, they had nomads and rats now. Although the rats kept to the town, so they’d be easy to avoid. Just the nomads, then. And maybe the diseased.
The hoot of an owl called out, and when Flynn turned in the direction of the sound, something moved through the undergrowth behind him. A fox or a badger? Maybe a diseased? No, it had to be an animal.
How had the boys on the gate believed he’d be going out to do some nocturnal hunting? Unless he had night-vision goggles on, he wouldn’t be hunting shit. Any nocturnal creatures would be up and out of his way long before he even knew they were there.
Regardless of the ridiculously low odds, it was another reason for Flynn to keep his crossbow raised. He might get a chance to pinpoint a sound and take a lucky shot in the dark.
The ground grew more uneven as Flynn pushed on, the undulations beneath him twisting and turning his feet when he walked over them. He’d been nuts to leave at night. One hard twist and he could break his ankle. And what would he do then? A shake of his head and he pushed on. It didn’t bear thinking about. Although, whether it bore thinking about or not, the thought of nomads chowing down on him like the diseased would have ran through his mind anyway.
A twig snapped behind Flynn and he spun around, his crossbow raised. The weak moonlight shone over the landscape and picked out a deer’s silhouette for him.
Flynn’s heart beat double time to look at the large creature. Far too much meat for one, but better to have too much than not enough. He’d do his best to make sure none of it went to waste.
The stock of the crossbow fitted neatly into Flynn’s shoulder, so he rested it there and continued to take slow and deliberate steps forward. One eye closed, he looked down the barrel of his bow at his target.
Already pushing his luck, just ten metres separated Flynn and the creature before he stopped. He pulled in a deep breath and held it, his pulse booming through his skull. A gentle squeeze on the trigger and he bit on his bottom lip as he counted down in his head.
Three.
Two.
On one he let the bolt loose, the weapon kicking against his shoulder as the shot exploded away from him.
The bolt sank into the creature’s body with a solid thud!
But the deer didn’t move. It just stood there, motionless, like it had been the entire time. A tree would have flinched harder from being shot.
Just before Flynn could step any closer, what little he could see turned to darkness as a sack covered his head.
“Motherfuckers!” Flynn shouted before an explosion of white light hit his temple. The blow turned his legs weak and he fell to the ground.
Chapter 16
Every time Flynn blinked, tendrils of pain ran from his eyeballs deep into his brain. A rock of nausea in his stomach and still dizzy from the blow he’d taken to the face, he sat up slowly. Very fucking slowly.
The dark room remained dark, showing it to be the reality of the place rather than a dimmed view through his foggy mind. Flaming torches ran down either wall. About a quarter of the size of the canteen in Home, the space looked like an underground cave. A dungeon.
The hard stone floor and walls were damp as if they sweated in the muggy heat of the place. It stank of dirt and body odour. Hard to tell exactly how many people he shared the space with. He could see ten at least, probably a few more.
“What the fuck?!” one of the people called out.
Although Flynn couldn’t see well, he saw enough to make out the tall and stocky silhouette of a man as he stood up and hunched over another, skinnier man. “I said what the fuck?”
The skinny man on the ground didn’t reply. Instead, he scrabbled backwards away from his aggressor, his frantic movements scraping through the place as everyone else watched on in silence.
“You’d best fucking answer me. What were you doing getting so close to me? What were you trying to achieve?”
The man on the ground shook his head and his voice came out as a high-pitched whine. “Nothing, I wasn’t trying to do anything.”
“Why were you getting close to me, then?” The deep boom of the aggressive man’s voice shook through the place.
“I was just trying to see out of the cage. I’m number fifteen. It won’t be long now.”
“You won’t even make it to then, you fuck.” The fat man spat at the one on the ground. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I don’t believe your bullshit. You wanted to take me out before it starts, didn’t you? You see me as a threat.”
“No, it’s not that, honestly.”
“So you don’t think I’m a threat?”
The man on the ground didn’t reply. Probably for the best.
Movement by the cage door and Flynn saw several guards line up to watch events unfold. They looked like they could burst in at any moment and split the men up.
“I can’t have anyone fucking with me. Especially not now, before we even get out there.”
“I promise, I wasn’t planning anything.” By now, the cowering man had made it close to one wall and pushed himself up against it. The two women who’d been waiting there moved away and found somewhere else to sit.
Surely the guards had to come in at some point and put a stop to it.
Flynn flinched to watch the aggressive man kick the one on the ground. The deep slap of foot against flesh snapped through the place and the cowering man curled into a ball.
It should have been enough, but the large man kicked him again. “I know your game. I know what you had planned. I can’t share this space with a sc
heming rat like you.” He kicked him again and a lot of the people in the dungeon looked away. No one wanted any part of it.
A third kick, driven straight to the skinny man’s kidneys, and the skinny man barked and wheezed while he fought for breath.
The large guy remained over the weak form of the other man and kicked him again and again. Each boot sent a deep boom through the dungeon. Each kick turned the weak man progressively weaker.
The guards still did nothing. One of them even leaned against the wall as if casually watching a sport play out in front of him.
When the aggressive man grabbed the other one’s ankle and dragged him back into the middle of the room, Flynn moved to stand up. But a hand gripped his right forearm to stop him. He looked across at a blonde girl, who kept her hand on him and shook her head. She looked to be in her early twenties, and she looked like she understood the way of this place better than him. The bags beneath her eyes suggested she’d been there a while.
As Flynn looked into her wide stare, he felt her grip tighten on his arm. The pleading look on her face suggested she feared for his safety rather than her own.
Flynn let go of his desire to stand up, his face still throbbing from the blow he’d taken to it when they’d kidnapped him outside.
The first stamp cracked through the enclosed space. The aggressive man wound up for a second one, lifted his foot above the weaker man, and stamped down on his face again.
Any fight the weak man had at that moment left him. Not that his aggressor stopped.
Another stamp on him and the weak man fell even more limp. Then another stamp, the heavy blow slipping off what must have been a face slick with blood. Another stamp, and another stamp, and another stamp.
One by one, the people in the prison all turned away until just Flynn watched the aggressive man. It might have been poorly lit, but the flaming torches showed him enough to see the tight grimace on the large man’s face as he stamped the other guy’s head to mush.
Maybe the other guy did have the intention of killing the larger man; maybe he didn’t. Whatever the catalyst for the larger man’s attack, it certainly sent a message: Don’t fuck with him. He’s the fucking daddy now.
When he’d finished, the dead man on the floor having turned limp quite some time ago, the large man panted, his shoulders hunched as he looked around the room. He stopped when he came to Flynn. “What the fuck are you looking at?”
Before Flynn could even think about standing up, the girl next to him grabbed him again. She stared at the ground as she spoke to him, clearly trying to avoid engaging with the aggressive man. “Don’t, it’s not worth it. Save your strength, you’ll need it.”
Although it felt hard to turn away from the open aggression in front of him, Flynn dropped his eyes and said nothing in response to the large man.
“Exactly,” the man said. “And don’t you lot forget what you’ve just witnessed. You fuck with me and I’ll do this to you in a fucking heartbeat.”
The large man seemed to have more to say, but just then, a female guard called into the cage, “He’s awake! Number sixteen’s awake.”
At first, Flynn looked around the space to try to locate number sixteen. The girl next to him put a gentle hand on his back and said, “That’s you, honey.” Her soft touch wished him well.
Flynn tensed to watch five guards open the barred door at the front of the prison. Everyone in the cage—even the alpha male—moved out of the way.
As much as Flynn wanted to move too, he couldn’t escape his fate. The guards were heading straight for him.
Three men and two women, they all carried long and rusty machetes. Hard to tell in the flickering light, but the weapons looked to be stained with blood. A slight glint ran along the edge of each one from where they’d been recently sharpened. Any shit from Flynn and they’d use them in a heartbeat.
As they got closer, Flynn backed away a little. “What the fuck’s going on?” he said, looking first to the guards for answers and then at the blonde girl. “What’s happening?”
But the guards didn’t respond and neither did the girl. Instead, the one at the front kept his stride as he walked up to Flynn and kicked him square in the face.
A deep sting stretched away from Flynn’s nose and he fell backwards. He tasted and smelled his own blood as it flooded his mouth, and for the second time that day, his world faded to black.
Chapter 17
A different room to the dungeon, but equally as dingy, Flynn blinked against the darkness and breathed in the muggy, sweaty heat. The place smelled of mould, the humidity in the air stagnating in every crevice.
When Flynn tried to move, he met resistance almost immediately. Still groggy from being knocked out a second time, he tried to move again. His hands were trapped and level with his face. A look left and right, his movement restricted, and he saw he’d been put in a stock.
Before Flynn could speak, a woman appeared in front of him. Easily over six feet tall, she had wider shoulders than him and wore a long black apron. It looked to be made of leather, but he couldn’t tell in the poor light. Much like the prison he’d only just been in, this one had torches on the walls and the flicker of them made the shadows shimmer.
After he’d looked around the room as much as the stock would allow, Flynn returned his attention to the woman. She smiled and said, “Welcome, number sixteen.”
It might have been the first whack outside in the night that gave him the headache, it might have been the second in the dungeon, whichever one had been responsible for Flynn’s pain, he now had to squint to ease it a little, even in the poor light. “Number sixteen?” he said. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Number fifteen came in before you and number seventeen will come in after.”
“Well, that makes more sense, thanks for clearing it up.”
“We already have number seventeen waiting,” the woman said.
“No, we don’t.” The voice came from behind Flynn.
“Oh no.” She smiled. “Thank you for reminding me. We don’t have a number seventeen anymore. Our guards hit them a bit too hard. Or their skull was a bit too weak. I’m not sure which one.” She looked back at Flynn. “You can call me Mistress, by the way.”
“You can fuck off,” Flynn said.
Mistress threw her head back and shoved her pelvis forward as she laughed. Genuine mirth—driven from her clearly large diaphragm—boomed through the small room. “Looks like we’ve caught a live one here.”
The same voice that had spoken behind Flynn laughed with Mistress. Deeper than hers, it went off like an explosion. It sounded like a man. Like a monster of a man.
“Okay, sweetie,” Mistress said as she put her hands on her knees and leaned close enough for Flynn to see half of her teeth at the back were missing. “Let’s try to make this as painless as possible, yeah?”
“What the fuck are you on about?”
But Mistress didn’t reply. Instead, she stood up, tucked her long black hair behind her right ear, and looked from Flynn to whoever stood behind him and back to Flynn again.
As Flynn directed his senses behind him, he noticed the heat from what must have been a fire. It warmed his back right thigh and smelled of burning coals. In a different situation it might have offered comfort. But in a dark and sweaty dungeon, it sent anxiety buzzing through his stomach.
When a hand grabbed the bottom of Flynn’s shirt, he twisted to try to escape it. The wooden frame of the stock rattled at the hinges. He couldn’t move.
The hand lifted his shirt and the heat from the fire pressed against Flynn’s bare skin over his right kidney. It felt like the hand wore a thick rubber glove.
A look at Mistress and Flynn saw the concentration on her face as she watched the person behind him. Her tongue protruded slightly from her mouth as if it took focus to simply observe the man. As if she lived every step of it with him.
“What the fuck is he doing back there?” Flynn said.
A
glance down at him, but Mistress quickly looked away as if fearful of missing something.
When Mistress flinched, Flynn nearly shouted at her again. But before he could speak, a searing pain lit up his right kidney. “Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Whatever they burned him with, the man behind kept the pressure on. No matter how Flynn moved, he couldn’t escape the scorching press of it. It sent the pain of a thousand hard pinches into him.
The hiss of his burning flesh called through the room. A second later, Flynn smelled the fatty charring of his own skin.
Still watching events behind him, Mistress’ expression shifted from pain to pleasure and back again.
Flynn couldn’t take anymore, but the hot pain kept on. His stomach bucked and he vomited bile all over the floor in front of him. Woozy as he fought to remain conscious, his legs wobbled and they threatened to give out beneath him.
The man behind him finally pulled the hot metal away and Flynn fell limp. Were it not for the stock, he would have collapsed on the ground.
The world in front of Flynn blurred through his tear-glazed eyes, and his wrists and neck hurt from where the stock took his body weight.
After he’d spat the acidic taste of bile away from him, Flynn’s sight cleared a little and he looked at Mistress. “I’m going to cut your fucking throat.”
She shook her head at him and replied in a calm and even tone, “No, you’re not, sweetie. Besides, at the moment, you couldn’t even tie your own shoelaces. You’d do well to remember who’s in control here.”
Even with the metal pulled away, Flynn’s back remained on fire. It turned his entire body electric like every nerve ending had been exposed.
As Flynn started to lose consciousness again, Mistress grabbed his face in a hard pinch and pulled it up so he had to look at her. She gripped so tightly his teeth cut into the insides of his cheeks.
Just a few centimetres separated them when she said, “We’re going to fill the wound with ash now so you don’t bleed everywhere. Then we’ll take you back to the prison.”
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