Six Months Later

chapter two

Wit

Shit.

The sun was bearing down on my already burnt skin and producing peels and blisters along the back of my neck. Stepping away from the prin and taking a moment to rest my bleeding fingers, I took refuge under some tree shade. Flopping onto the dead grass, I let out a sigh.

Damn, I should've never come here. Ever since crazy Kane captured me, slave labor is all I'd known: cutting wood with a broken axe; cleaning clothes with a barbaric washboard; and harvesting diabolical crops in the front yard. It never ended.

The crops were called prins, and Kane had me start picking them a few weeks ago. Now, having to pick them meant I'd be outside. That being understood, I had been under the common sense that taking my shirt off would make me more comfortable under the heat, which was true...for a few days.

Then it was really dumb. Like, really, stupid dumb. I used to think it was weird when I saw Aladdin and Jasmine on tv wearing headscarves in the middle of the desert, but my god were they so right. After six months of direct sunlight, my entire body was a second-degree burn; it was dry to a crisp, pocketed with boils and blisters, and I looked like an embarrassed redhead with my burnt skin.

But being the genius I am, after a few weeks of that torture, I decided to put on my button-up shirt and actually buttoned it up because I gotta keep my tummy safe. My legs and feet though, they were toast.

I was a barely walking piece of crusty skin, but none of that pain even came close to what I felt on my hands. The tall, brown plant I was being forced to pick had hundreds of long sharp protrusions around each core. The plant looked like a tan pin cushion held off the ground waist high by a curly vine. I had to wiggle my fingers through the gaps between needles and then pinch and tear the hard skin open to get whatever weird silk was inside.

It was physical torture; a tiny prick from the thorn would leave a deep hole, and sometimes it actually went underneath my fingernail. Crippled with pain each time it happened, I took a break, hunched over in an agonizing stoop. Along with the bloodied cuts and holes, there was yellow swelling almost everywhere. Spit was the only disinfectant on hand so infection was an inevitability. The yellow gunk didn't hurt much more, but it kept the cuts from closing completely and that allowed things to get worse. If I knew anything about infections, then I knew that even if I got away and found someone to treat me my hands were never gonna be the same.

It was psychological torture; I had holes and tears all over my body and craters where boils popped on my skin. Tracing a finger along my other hand, I felt along the new, lighter, rougher, skin. Because that was the worst part...it was all scarred. They didn't even look like my hands anymore. This wasn't my body anymore. They ran all the way up and down my arms, back, legs, and neck.

In a futile attempt to keep the sun off, I rubbed mud and soil on my body, careful to avoid open areas, but the damage was done at this point. The thought of living the rest of my life physically marred and disfigured left me crying through most nights and depressed through most days.

Damn. Clapping my cheeks, I got back up and went back to work. Physical torture has a nice way of keeping me distracted. There were only two more prins left in the row so when I got started I was shortly finished, and upon picking the last prin I felt a sliver of satisfaction.

"Hmph," I huffed. This won’t last forever.

Reveling in the moment of respite, when I looked to the tens of rows of the same demonic crop leading back to the house, my mood crashed and I let out a whimper. Because it may not last forever...but it wouldn’t end soon.

A hand gripped my shoulder from behind and I jerked forward. Fear tore through my body like lightning and I tripped to ground. Maybe it's him or maybe even worse: his twisted and deranged daughter.

But when I heard the person say, “Wit, are you okay?” I knew it was sweet, baby Asher. Placing a fake smile along my lips, I turned around. “Yea, buddy, I’m okay.” I tried to seem reassuring but my voice cracked unconvincingly.

Damn puberty to hell.

He looked at my hands while wringing his own, and after a second of though, he bit his lip and anxiously looked over his shoulder to the house. When he turned back, he quickly took out a wet cloth he’d been hiding under his shirt with one hand and gently grabbed at my wrist with the hand he had free. He looked down and gently scrubbed my hands. The blood. The cuts. The burns. It felt so good. Distracted by the pleasure, I didn't know he was crying until I heard a sniffle and tears began to wet my hand. Honestly...they felt pretty good too.

“I-I’m s-so sorry,” Asher apologized with a quiet murmur. Looking at him sob while he wiped my hands, I held in a deep sigh. He does this every time. This kid deserved so much better than the family he had; he was kind and compassionate and a damn cutie too.

He was the same age as me at thirteen years old, but a tiny stature paired with his innocent nature made him look ten or eleven. His ember orange eyes blazed under the sunlight and his salt and pepper hair was matted to his head with sweat. Definitely weird looking, but after talking to him, it seems like odd body features were common. He’d even heard there were people who were both beast and man; they were called half-breeds, which was a subject he didn’t know much about either - just that, whatever it was he had in him, it came from his mom.

She'd died giving birth to him so he never got to know her. Because she died during childbirth, Kane treated Asher like a bastard - his living condition standing just above my own - and he's made to take his mother's family name: Grae. For whatever reason, he does his best to please his father, but Kane isn't a sane man much less one to look up to.

It's a wonder Asher's as kind as he is, his sister is the polar opposite. They're twins, but Amber seems to have taken all of her father's genes before they had a chance to get to Asher. Like father like daughter, she was insane. Actually insane. But her dad was more abusive than Sammy ever was, hitting and throwing the two kids around like unwanted ragdolls whenever the mood took him, so her personality made more sense to me. She also had a terrifying case of Stockholm syndrome - the way she clung to her abusive father was the only thing that aroused any sympathy from me.

Finished wiping my hands, Asher pulled the bloodied towel back and admired his work. “How does it feel?” he asked, wiping his eyes of leftover tears. I rubbed my hands dry against my shorts and gave him the most sincere smile I’d had in years.

“Thank you, really.” I pat his head like my mom used to. It’d been forever since someone had helped me like he did, and I could honestly say he was my first friend. He beamed back at me with his heartwarming smile and it felt odd. Just this small motion of my hand was probably the most affection he'd ever got. I wanted to thank him, to tell him he deserves better, but when I opened my mouth to do just that, I was cut off by the small voice of a frightening girl.

“Oh hey, Ashy, what’s that in your hand, huh?” She asked with her patent mock tone.

Shit. Sweet, scared Ash tried to hurriedly hide the cloth under his shirt, but his sister grabbed it and shoved him to the side. “Oh, my. Whose blood is this?” She inspected him with knowing eyes. “Not yours, Ash.” Then el diablo turned her fiery orange eyes onto me and a chill went down my spine. “Orrr...is it yours Will?” she sneered.

“It’s Wit” I grumbled. This was bad. Very bad.

“Well, Ashy,” she clicked her tongue. “What did I tell you would happen if you helped Will?” She put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows inquisitively. “Huh?”

Bursting into tears, Asher begged his sister to stop. “Pl-please, Amber,” he spluttered. “Please don’t.” He got on his knees and clutched at her brown pant legs, begging her not to do what we both knew she was going to.

“DAAAAADDY!”

Amber’s screech sent Asher into a terror. Scrambling to his feet, he ran behind me, grabbing at the back of my shirt with trembling fingers. “I’m s-so so-sorry, Wit,” he whispered through chattering teeth behind me.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

The door to the house opened with a bang and I felt Asher flinch harder, ducking even further behind me. Out of the door came the sheer dress wearing madtom. Kane stomped down the porch steps with a fury. “Amber!” he bellowed, reaching the uneven dirt ground and storming his way through the prin rows.

SMACK

He wheeled around to face Amber and smacked her across the face. She reeled back from the blow and, grabbing her grey and black hair, he brought her face to his. “Stop yelling. You disgusting bitch,” he hissed, spitting saliva onto her face and jerking her head back and forth. She screamed and scratched at his hands with her broken nails - this wasn’t the first time. After a few more drags, he threw her limp body to the ground, where he wound his foot back and kicked her right above her navel, emptying her stomach of everything she’d eaten in the last few days: mostly home-grown vegetables, farmer’s porridge and vermin.

“What?” He asked, over her vicious coughs, with renewed calm. God, it creeps me out when he does that; he’d go from a flying rage to a collected cool, in a matter of seconds. Both him and Amber shared that particularly creepy mannerism.

Which made sense; they’re both madly insane.

She couldn’t stop coughing, so she pointed toward us. “They were - cough- trying t-to runaway.” She let out between heaves. There it is. That’s what she would say anytime me or Ash did anything she didn’t like, get her crazy dad to beat our shit in and end up getting her shit beat in half the time too.

Kane's head swiveled around to face me and the shivering boy hiding behind me. He stalked forward and grabbed me by the scruff of my neck. Impatiently, he squeezed and tried to throw me aside, but I gripped the ground with my feet to stay put. I had to get him to cool down before he got to Ash. “Boy. Move your ass. I’ll deal with you in a second,” he growled.

“We weren’t trying to run away,” I stood my ground and wheezed. Hearing me talk back, his expression took an immediate shift. “Move!” He punched the left side of my chest with more power than any human should have a right to. I flew into Asher, and we launched backward almost ten feet before I landed on top of him in a rolling heap. I could hear the wind slam out of his lungs as he erupted into a coughing fit.

Damnit. I rolled off him and punched the ground in frustration. What am I supposed to do? How do you beat that?

Wringing clumps of dirt between my bleeding fingers, I wanted to drown out my thoughts with pain. Ahh! The cuts along my fingers brought hot tears to my eyes, and I cried. I’m as hopeless in this world as I was in the last.

Not even a day into my new life and I was made the slave of a psychopath; a man that worked me until I passed out from blood loss, and fed me whatever scraps were left of the scraps he fed his children. And then his daughter. Dear, god, his daughter. She was a bloodhound.

I’d tried to escape one time a few months ago, but she’d called her dad not even a minute after I’d made my break. When he found me, I had tried to fight back...and it was in that moment that I realized how weak I was in this King of Flies backwoods.

I remember when Asher was carrying me back to the house after that, he told me the reason his dad was so strong was because, 'he could use aura', which Asher explained was manipulation of mana, like magic for fighters. That’s how Kane caught up to me so fast when I was running through the forest; every step he took launched him meters at a time, and every punch he threw sent me to into the dirt with near-broken bones, all of which had gone unattended.

About six months of this shit show had gone by, and I’d be fourteen in just a week. But instead of gaining weight, along with my increasing height, I was losing it. At this point, my body was basically composed of bone and rain-water. I knew, if I didn’t escape, I’d be dead before I could see anything outside of this hell.

Those thoughts led me to several escapes, and a cycle formed: I’d try to escape, Amber would rat me out, the man would find me, he'd pummel me into a beat dog, and then Ash would take care of me until the man sent me to my next task.

Last time it was tilling the soil with a painfully broken hoe, shucking vegetables with my fingernails, and planting prin seeds along the front field. I'm so tired of this, shit.

Looking up and through tears, I witnessed Kane leisurely making his way towards me and Asher, one step at a time, through the thicket of broken bushes and prin remnants.

Crunch. He stepped on a prin shuck.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shaking, I tried to do something I knew was gonna be a bad idea.

Crunch.

Okay. I closed my eyes. What was it? Something like a life energy?

Crunch.

Shit. Focus. I took a deep breath and concentrated on myself. In-out. In-out.

Crunch.

A faint quiver ran over my skin, and I clenched onto the feeling like I was sensing a second layer of skin outside the first. It felt just like tensing a muscle.

Crunch.

A shadow loomed over my eyelids, and I focused whatever it was I was holding into my right leg until the energy was vibrating along the sole of my foot.

Crunch.

He was looming right above me, probably enjoying the sight of a broken child. In the hopes of crippling him in with one blow, I sent my foot sailing towards his knee. Halfway through the kick though whatever energy I felt dissipated and finally vanished. By the time my foot landed against the man’s leg, it was just a regular kick with paltry impact.

I think he felt the energy too because his eyes widened. He took the blow, not prepared for the speed it came in at, but instead of caving his knee in, like I hoped, he backed up and I hit his shin. Grunting, he grabbed the spot I kicked, but after nursing his injury for only a moment he turned his attention back to me and the rage was palpable.

I closed my eyes...well...fuck.

He ran up to me and swung his foot, catching my chin with the toe of his boot and knocking the other side of my face into the ground. A molar came loose and flew out of my mouth.

“How.” Another kick, this time to the leg.

“Dare.” Another kick to my ribcage.

“You!” He stomped on my shin and pressed it into the dirt.

“You little shit.”

He huffed and puffed and hurt me bad. Luckily, I took most of his fury because, by the time he was finished with me, all he had left for Ash was a glare before going back inside, quickly followed by a cackling Amber. Wow. She was laughing, after that?

Total nut bag.

When the demons were gone, Ash ran to my body and tried to help me up. Ahh, that smarts, god damnit. I sucked in my breath and held my hand out, motioning for him to let me go.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologized.

I’m so sick of him taking everything onto himself. “No.” I shook my head. “Thank you for everything, Ash.” I explained, “I just need a second to lie down by myself.” He was reluctant but, sensing my mood, he nodded and stumbled back to the house.

Left to my own mind again, grim thoughts swirled around and filled my head. "Ahhh. I’m so tired of all this," I whispered.

Recalling the fight, I wondered what that feeling from earlier was. It felt like there was a body of energy around my own. Is that what aura is? It would make sense.

This power was a spark, a light shining in a dreary tunnel, and if I could use this...then what?

Well, then I’d be able to kick that guy up and down this here plantation, and then I would escape with Asher, and then we would...

I let my boyhood fantasies run loose and, at some point, I let the fatigue envelop me and drift into a memory I'd dreamt of almost every night.

...My biggest regret.