Slain

Pull me back together

Or separate the skin from bone

Leave me all the pieces, and then you can leave me alone

Tell me the reality is better than a dream

But I found out the hard way

Nothing is as it seems

-Slipknot, Duality

I’m jolted awake sputtering and gasping for air as ice water burns my lungs and stings my skin.

“What the hell?!” I choke out, blinking through the water as my body begins to shiver violently. My eyes focus on the one and only Demon standing directly in front of me with his hands tucked in his pockets. I glare up at him, my hair and clothes plastered to my aching body.

“Good, you’re awake.” Demon glances behind me at what I assume to be another wolf and nods. Suddenly, I’m doused in freezing water again. I cough out the water I had inhaled, wincing as my shivering becomes more violent. “Free her,” Demon says, confusing me.

The ropes around my wrists keeping me bound to the chair are cut and I slide to my knees. My hands go to my face, shoving the dripping hair from my eyes so I can see clearly before wrapping my arms around my body in an attempt to retain some warmth.

A foot kicks me face first onto the ground. My left shoulder slams into the stone floor and evokes a scream of pain from me as my head throbs from the impact. “What did you think you would gain, hm?” Demon says, standing over me. A whimper of pain escapes me as the foot in my back shoves me harder against the ground. I’m in too much pain to think of anything else, so Demons next words escape me.

The foot in my back is suddenly gone, replaced by a rough hand in my hair, jerking me up so I can look at Demon. “You’re going to wish I had killed you,” he spits, his face inches from mine.

He suddenly releases my hair, stepping back from me. I fall forward, catching myself with my good arm as Demon moves around me to stand by the door. The door opens and a wolf walks in with a bowl of water and some rags. He sets them on the ground in front of me before turning and walking back out of the room.

“Clean yourself up,” Demon demands. I watch him with a glare; I’ve never felt so much hatred for a person in my life. “I need you ready to work in two days.” He walks out of the room followed by the wolf who had been dousing me with water, leaving me alone.

I carefully push myself into a more comfortable position, gritting my teeth at the pain. Those damn wolves only succeeded in making my injuries worse; how do they expect me to heal if they keep worsening my condition?

With shaking hands, I grab the bowl of water and dip a rag in it, first wiping my hands off before lifting my shirt to look at the damage. The make-shift bandage I made is stained a dark reddish brown and stiff from all of the blood. Peeling the stiff bandage from my wound is painful, but it has to be done. With the bandage gone, I can see that the stitches have been completely torn apart, leaving the injury ragged and inflamed.

Dipping the rag back in the water, I begin cleaning out the wound. My teeth are clenched so tight that my jaw aches, but I hardly notice around the pain of scrapping the infected flesh off of the top of the wounds. Removing the top layer of mending skin causes the wound to ooze more blood.

I can’t help but imagine how Fluffy would react if he could see me now. He would go absolutely ballistic. Hell, he nearly flipped his lid when I was getting fitted for clothes and that dude wasn’t even touching me.

“Ah,” I breath in sharply, startled from my thoughts. I had snagged a bit of tender flesh with my nails. With a shake of my head, I shift my focus to my shoulder.

Now, I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure a shattered shoulder is supposed to receive special care no matter how fast you heal.

I begin gently prodding my swollen, purple flesh, starting out around the edges of the injury and working my way toward the worst of it. It seems that after my fight in the arena, a doctor had looked me over and done something for the injury, but the number of times it’s been hit, jostled and crushed since can’t be good for it. I’m not sure what I can really do other than leave it alone, but the prodding lets me know that it’s far from being healed.

My right thigh becomes my next area of focus, seeing as it’s next in line for the worst of my injuries. Well, the ones I can do something about. I carefully pick out the shreds of fabric glued to the split flesh. This wound actually doesn’t look bad once I’ve cleaned it up; it feels better than the previous two.

My ankle and forearm are nearly healed on the surface; the only issue is the fractured ankle underneath. I go ahead and clean them anyway, hoping they’ll be healed by morning. I then try to clean any remaining grime from my body while trying to ignore the creeping feeling of guilt.

Guilt from wondering if I ruined any chance of escape for Hayes. I don’t even know what happened to him after he was caught. I hope they threw him back into his cell and that was the end of it, but something deep in the pit of my stomach tells me that’s not at all what happened.

“Get up,” a voice demands. I squint up at the wolf, barely able to make him out around the blurriness of my tired eyes.

The wolf grunts in irritation before leaning down and grabbing my arm. I’m jerked to my feet and dragged from the room before I can fully process what’s happening. It takes me a few seconds to catch my balance enough to walk alongside the wolf. He refuses to release my arm though.

After walking through several bland hallways, we come to a foyer. It’s rather small and poorly lit. The wolf barrels on through the foyer and shoves through the front doors. I’m suddenly blinded by daylight having been trapped in near darkness for so long.

Once my eyes adjust, the first thing my eyes focus on is Demon. The wolf pulls me to a stop a few feet in front of him. My blood boils as he looks me over. Finally, his eyes lock back on my face.

“Are you ready to work?”

“I’m not fully healed. My shoulder is still damaged,” I snap, moving my limbs a bit to test them.

Demon doesn’t say anything, instead, he gestures at someone standing out of my eye line. I try to turn to see who he gestured to, but the wolf beside me wraps an arm around my neck, gripping my chin with his hand and forcing me to stare straight at Demon. No matter how much I struggle, the wolf keeps his tight grip on my face.

Someone walks up on my left and Demon nods. “And don’t be gentle.”

Whoever he's speaking to grabs my injured arm and forces it out. I’m powerless to stop him. I see a flash of metal out of the corner of my eye before sudden pain explodes in my shoulder. My vision blacks out for a few seconds and I feel as if I can’t breathe. Involuntary cries of pain escape as I struggle against the men restraining me, but they ignore me. Another, less intense explosion of pain spikes in my shoulder followed by nearly unbearable heat.

It feels as if hours go by before the pain subsides and I’m left panting. The wolf releases his grip on me and I stumble away from him, immediately grabbing my left shoulder. I can now see the man who just attacked me. He’s tall, well over six feet, very slim, dressed in all black. The most peculiar thing about him are his violet eyes. They seem to bore into me as if he can see into my very soul. My eyes travel down to his right hand where I see a sledgehammer hanging loosely at his side.

“You psychos hit me with a sledgehammer?” I ask, suddenly feeling light-headed.

“It was for your own good,” Damon says nonchalantly. It’s as if he hits people with sledgehammers on a regular basis."Now, you can start working."

I take a step back in bewilderment, trying to wrap my head around the mob of crazy standing before me. "Work? What do mean work?"

"I've already told you what I want you to do," Demon says. Something about his tone, maybe the lack of emotion, sends a chill down my spine. "But first we have to know what exactly you're capable of."

My heart sinks at his words. He's going to want me to kill more people. "I'm not killing anyone else," I blurt, remembering my first night here.

Demon is in my face in a second, snarling at me. One hand grips my chin while the other grips my arm with crushing strength. "You will do what I tell you or else things are gonna be much worse for you here." His voice shakes with rage.

"I'm not k-" Demon cuts me off by dropping his hand from my chin to my throat. He hardly even looks human anymore. His teeth have lengthened and a snout has begun to form on his human face. I try to hide my fear with a scowl but my pounding heart surely gives me away.

"I'm going to break you of this mouth you have," he spits. He shoves me back, sending me stumbling away from him as I gulp air back into my lungs. "Follow."

The wolf who retrieved me earlier grabs my arm again and forces me to follow behind Demon. The violet-eyed man turns and goes the opposite direction, bringing me a sliver of relief. Something about him really unsettles me.

Demon leads me past several rundown cottages before coming to a small open field. Most of the grass is worn away from traffic. A wolf waits in the center of the field with someone kneeling in front of them. The person has their head down so I can't make out whether it's a girl or boy from this distance.

As we get closer, a sickening feeling settles in my chest. This person looks familiar.

"You remember your old cellmate, yes?" Demon asks as we come to stop in front of the wolf and kneeling person.

"I won't do it," I croak, attempting to put as much force as I can muster behind it, but fail miserably.

Demon surprises me with a chuckle. "You are stubborn, aren't you?" He crouches beside Hayes, grabbing a handful of his hair and jerks his head back. Hayes immediately locks eyes with me, pleading for me to save him. "If you don't kill him, then I will. And it'll be a long and painful process."

"Please," Hayes whimpers.

Demon laughs. "Stupid boy." Demon takes it as a cry for mercy directed at him; begging to be granted another chance, but I know better. He's asking me to kill him. He's asking me for mercy.

"Give me a knife," I whisper, my eyes still locked with Hayes'. A tear rolls down his cheek as relief fills his eyes.

Demon smiles in triumph, nodding to the wolf standing behind Hayes. The wolf pulls out a dagger and hands it to me. Demon releases Hayes and stands up, stepping to the side to watch me smugly.

With shaking hands, I move to stand behind Hayes. I kneel behind him and wrap an arm around his shoulders. "I'm sorry," I whisper. I tighten my grip on the dagger as tears leak from my eyes. Hayes' body shakes as I raise the dagger, preparing to plunge it into his heart. "I'm so sorry."