To Be More (Slate/Gray Book #2)

Raven huddles in his bed at night, trying to keep his tears silent. He knows his family could probably hear him or even smell the salt of his tears, but maybe if he keeps still enough, they won’t notice. His dad has just put him to bed with a chapter of their book and a song, but it wasn’t the same.

Nothing is the same without Slate

He usually sees Slate at least once a day, even if it’s just when he drops by the house to say hi for five minutes or if he picks him up from school before going about his day. It’s been a few years since everyone lived at the house together, but Raven still remembers that time. Most of his actual memories of events are blurry, but the memory of the feelings he had are crystal clear. When he thinks of that time, his whole body feels warm and cozy and light. His heart feels full and happy and full of laughter.

The house since Slate and Sara moved out is still warm and happy, but it’s a different kind of happy. It’s not worse, exactly, but Raven can’t help but get a little sad when he thinks that he’ll never get that time back. Dad and Asher and Forrest and Sage are more than enough, but it’s just...different in a way that he’s maybe too young to put into words right now.

And yeah, it’s different because Sara and Jason left, but in his heart, Raven misses Slate the most. Well, maybe not the most, but the hardest. Slate was just...his person. Slate is Raven’s person and that will never change, he knows it. From the very day he was born, Raven was unconditionally and unequivocally loved and kept safe by Slate. He might not exactly remember the years before he was three or so, but he knows the bond he has with Slate isn’t one that just happens in a year or even two.

Babies might not remember stuff, but they feel stuff. And anyway, Raven has heard stories and seen plenty of pictures of him and Slate together. It’s like a basic fact of the world. The sky is blue and Raven is six-years-old and Slate loves him.

Raven might be only six, but he knows what kidnapped means. He knows that strangers sometimes do bad things to people. Slate might be getting hurt. Slate tells him it’s okay if he gets hurt because he’ll always heal and he could never leave Raven alone without him, and Slate never breaks his promises, so...so Raven knows Slate will be fine as long as he comes back.

As Raven cries in his bed, he prays that Slate comes back soon.

::::

It has now been over a week, maybe a week and a half that Slate has been away from his family. The past several days have been full of blood and pain and broken bones. Some days they pound him with question after question, demand after demand, command after command that all go unanswered and disobeyed. Other days they hardly even treat him like a person and just use their time to beat the crap out of him, seemingly as pure punishment with not even an attempt to get him to answer any questions or do what they want. Just yesterday Blake had raged in his face and sworn he would make Slate scream before another week was up. Fat chance, Slate thought but didn’t say.

There are many, many things Slate has thought but hasn’t said. Some nights he stays up dreaming about all the things he would say if he were a little more reckless, less focused. As it is, he tests his captors patience enough by giving them little smirks like he knows something they don’t--which is all the more hilarious because they really think he does--and wide, innocent eyes as they rattle off the same questions every day, once or twice even an eye roll.

Slate had eaten breakfast that morning, so he’s laying weary bones on his mattress and trying--fruitlessly--to rest his mind. That is perhaps the worst part about the silver. The disparate feelings of physical weakness and mental sharpness.

Slate lifts a heavy arm and pinches the skin on the back of his opposite hand. It remains peaked where he pinched it. He sighs and rubs his face tiredly. Slate doesn’t think he can afford to keep going without water as much as he has been. Dehydration will kill him before Dreiden does at this rate. Slate rolls this inexorable truth around in his mind a bit just to acquaint himself with the fact that he is likely to be in constant pain from now until he either dies or escapes.

It’s already not far from his current reality, so it doesn’t rock his world as much as it probably should. He’s noticed his body’s healing slow even when he has absolutely no silver in his system just from the sheer systematic attrition he undergoes with torture and starvation in turns.

Slate lifts his head at the sound of footsteps outside the door. By all means he should be too exhausted to pay attention to things like that, but his brain is learning to be hyper vigilant to certain sounds it has recognized to predate injury. It’s really not helpful, but he can’t turn it off.

Alpha Dreiden enters the room, bearing a basket of food and water, more than he has ever gotten at once. Maybe even more than he gets in three days combined. “Jared,” he begins without ceremony, “I surely hope you are not getting your hopes up because of your ability to stay composed under...duress,” he decides. “Because I assure you, you will break long before we get bored of you.”

Dreiden gives him a Cheshire cat grin then, though it looks a bit forced. He’s not quite as unconcerned as he wants to appear. Slate sits up slowly, putting his feet on the ground but not moving to stand. “Alpha Dreiden,” Slate stares deeply at the man, “I assure you, you will get bored of me long before I get bored of you.”

Dreiden narrows his eyes. “You are more than we expected Jared, I will admit that. I admire you in many ways for your strength of character. But Jared,” Dreiden takes measured steps forward until he can tip Slate’s jaw upward with a clawed finger. “Anyone will break under the right circumstances.”

Dreiden opens his mouth to say something else he deems threatening, but Slate pushes his hand away brazenly, showing more animation than he has in many days. He stands up, which puts Slate and Dreiden eye to eye, chests only inches apart because of how closely Dreiden was looming. To his credit, the man doesn’t flinch. Slate clenches his jaw in the way that he knows flexes his scars and gives Dreiden his best steely stare. “If you think any man will break,” he says, “then you have never met a man who will do anything for the ones he loves.”

Dreiden’s eyes flick between Slate’s, face going carefully blank. “And I’m to assume you think that man is you?”

Slate smirks and inclines his head. “Try me.”

It’s a trite line more than anything, but Slate knows he needs to keep Dreiden interested in him for as long as possible to give his family time to track him down before they decide to go looking for a healer elsewhere or just kill him to end it all. If Slate has clocked the situation as well as he thinks he has, Dreiden--and Blake, certainly--will never back down from a challenge.

Dreiden clenches his jaw, but steps back and bows his head slightly in acknowledgement. “Your audacity is either brave or incredibly idiotic, but I respect it. You will earn all the more respect if you can endure our next test.”

Slate, done entertaining the posturing and theatrics, just raises an eyebrow and hopes Dreiden won’t notice how tightly he’s having to hold himself to avoid letting his weakened muscles shake with just the strain of standing. Dreiden huffs and drops the basket he’d still been hanging onto. “The next trial that awaits you,” a smile twitches onto his face, as though he’s especially proud to have come up with the idea, “is solitary confinement. For an undisclosed amount of days. And this,” he gestures to the food, “is what you have to get you through. I hope you enjoy.”

And with that, Dreiden sweeps out of the room and Slate collapses back down onto his mattress, breaths coming out in pants as his muscles unclench.

Solitary confinement, he swirls around in his mind as he throws an arm over his eyes and slowly lets his breathing regulate. Bring it on.

:::::

Slate honestly doesn’t know how long it’s been. Based on what little light comes through the window each day, it seems like there aren’t that many hours of daylight in the first place, so his circadian rhythm is even getting confused. He sleeps when it’s relatively dark and wakes up often when it’s still dark, tries to stay awake when he thinks it’s daytime, but he can’t always manage it with his body so weak. With no idea how long he has to ration the provisions they’d allowed, he’s had to err on the side of consuming too little.

He ate through most of the fruit in the first two days--before time started to blur together--with some granola bars to offer a little more substance. On those days, he drank less of the water, hoping the melon and other juicy fruits would hydrate him enough to pick up the slack. For as much willpower as Slate has, it has become harder day by day to not just stuff his face with everything left. Some days the hunger turns into a certain numb hollowness, but other times it’s a gnawing monster in his stomach and he can’t think about anything besides food.

He can tell he’s lost weight in the increased definition in his abdomen, where the fat has been burned off the muscle and the way his legs have visibly thinned. It’s slight, but the consistent, daily calorie deficit over a period of more than two weeks has taken enough of a toll that he can tell just by looking at himself, if not for all the other internal symptoms. He’s not in danger of starving to death, but it’s still damaging and painful, undoubtedly. It’s hard to tell in his current circumstances if he’ll be retaining any organ damage soon or if his rapid healing is active enough to combat it as it comes.

In his time with the Dreidens, he’s taken to pacing. He was never one to act so frenetically, to demonstrate his mental state with such overt expressions of emotion, but when no one’s around, he allows himself the freedom. He’s used to running several, sometimes dozens, of miles daily. He’s used to being outside and being active, having wide open space and fresh air. Here, he has recycled air, darkness, and a one hundred square foot concrete box to move around in.

So, he paces. He does circles, round and around until his body can’t handle it anymore and he has to collapse on his too-soft mattress to rest. It’s pitiful, really. If Slate allows himself to feel sorry for himself for anything, it’s the lack of space to move in. He’s learned that pain and hunger are probably going to be old friends by the time he gets out, but before he got to the Dreidens’ he hadn’t envisioned the cell-like room he’d be kept in. Maybe he knew abstractly that they would keep him in a less-than-desirable location, but he didn’t know how it would actually feel to be…caged.

Slate exhales deeply, centering himself and settling more firmly on the cold ground, cross legged. Usually he tries to only let his feet touch the concrete floor because it’s so cold, but in this case, it’s keeping him awake and focused.

He closes his eyes and builds up all the energy he has and sends it out, searching. He and Asher had barely been able to contact each other at all since he’s been in solitary confinement. It should be the perfect time to be able to talk with his brother and pass information back and forth, but their connection is so hard to grasp and Slate is just so tired that it’s hard to hang on to.

He feels a warmth that will never reach the outer layer of his skin but that burns bright in his heart. Asher, he pants with exertion. Asher?

Slate? is the murky response. Slate! Are you okay? Where have you been?

Slate collapses back against the wall, eyes shut tightly. He remorselessly pulses love and peace down the bond as he assures, I’m okay. How are you? How is everyone?

Slate...Asher murmurs, somewhat admonishing. I know you’re not okay. What...what have they done to you?

Slate hushes Asher kindly. I’m okay, Asher. I can heal, I’ll survive. More firmly this time, Slate asks, How are you?

I’m, I just, I–Slate I miss you, Asher chokes out. I need you back. Just--just tell me where you are, he pleads. Tell me anything about where you are, about the people who have you.

Slate feels a rush of Asher’s anxiety and despair and digs his knuckles into the concrete floor to ground himself. I’m with the Dreiden pack, somewhere cold. I think it’s snowing outside, but it’s hard to tell. I think it’s dark a lot of the time, but I can’t see outside well.

Okay, okay, Asher mutters, and Slate gets flashes of Asher’s handwriting on a notebook. Slate smiles to himself at the sight. They haven’t exchanged images in weeks.

Asher? Slate almost hums.

Asher pauses shortly. Yes?

Show me where you are.

It takes a minute, but slowly, images start fading into consciousness. Asher is at Sara’s house, in her spare room and he thinks he can even hear voices from the rest of the house. The feeling of nostalgia is almost painful, but it’s a good kind of pain. The ache of missing home is better than the ache of forgetting it, or ignoring it.

Abruptly the visuals go dark again and Asher’s voice comes back with urgency. Slate, I need you to show me everything you can, okay? Everything about where you are, about how you got there--everything.

Slate can feel his strength waning. There’s a reason they haven’t exchanged visuals so in depth so far and it’s because it takes a lot of energy. He’d previously told Asher about everything he could remember, but maybe it will be different seeing it. He takes a deep breath and focuses hard.

He shows them his room, but manipulates the visual to look a bit brighter, the mattress fresher, nicer, the walls not so cold. He gives them the important details, like the doorway, and the window, and the other walls, but just makes it...easier to digest. There’s no reason for them to know exactly how he’s been living. Next he shows them the halls he’d walked down to get to this room, the stairs that had taken him down, noting especially all the exits he could see.

Slate tilts his head back against the wall and breathes shallowly. Wait, wait, Slate, are you still there? comes from Asher.

I’m here, he assures as strongly as he can manage, though he can feel their connection fading as well.

Did you see the front of the house? Anything about the car you were transported in? What about the people you’ve seen?

Slate sends little flashes of faces he’s seen, focusing on Dreiden and Blake longer than the others, but that’s the best he can do. A thought pops into his weary mind and he pauses to ask it, not sure he wants to even know the answer. Asher, how many days have I been gone?

Before he’d entered his stint in solitary confinement, he’d been gone for nearly two weeks. Slate hears Asher’s breathing hitch at the question. Today is the twentieth day.

Slate exhales carefully, keeping his emotions wrapped up so Asher won’t feel them. Knowing he doesn’t have much time left, he musters up the energy to finish his message as he always does. Asher, I love you, he says faintly. Tell the family I love them--all of them. He trusts that Asher will know exactly who “all of them” is.

Wait, Slate, Asher says, panicked. Don’t go, please don’t go, talk to me, Slate, stay with me!

I love you, Slate gets out faintly, I’ll come back to you as soon as I can, I promise. I’ll see you soon.

And with that, Slate drops off into unconsciousness right there on the concrete floor.