Chapter 9

When Spencer woke up, he was lying with his face pressed up against a cold stone floor in a dark room. He felt extremely dizzy, and his entire body hurt. It took him a moment to remember what had happened. The Patrol coming for him and Eva, the dogs attacking him, being on the train. How long ago had that been? And where was Eva? Spencer wanted to assume that she was awake, locked up somewhere just like him. He knew that there was a chance that this wasn’t necessarily the case.

Suddenly, the door flung open. Spencer was able to make out the silhouette of three men standing in the doorway.

“Bring him into the other room,” One of the men demanded.

Instantly, two men came into the small room and grabbed Spencer. They hoisted him to his feet. The sudden movement made Spencer feel dizzy all over again. The two men dragged Spencer down a long hall, following the other man closely. At the end of the hall, was a large wooden door. The man leading opened it, and the two other men shoved Spencer inside.

The room that they had just entered was pitch black. Spencer could barely see in front of him. He could hear the one man walking around the room, while the other two stood silently as they held Spencer in a tight grip.

The leading man walked up in front of Spencer. Spencer’s eyes had adjusted slightly, and he could see a vague silhouette of the man.

“Light the torch,” The man said.

“Wh-what?” Spencer stuttered.

The man slapped him in the face. “I know what you can do,” He said, “You really did a number on one of our men. You’re lucky that he’s still alive, otherwise we’d be making this a lot harder on you. Now light the torch.”

Spencer hesitated. He was in the Patrol’s territory now. Given their background, they would probably hurt him if they did what he asked. Then again, they would probably hurt him if he didn’t. They already knew about his powers. There was no way he could try to lie to them.

“Did you not hear him,” One of the other men said, impatiently “He said light the torch.”

It became clear that Spencer had no other choice. He concentrated on what the man was asking, and a few seconds later a flame shot from his hand, lighting the torch that the man held.

Spencer could see the three men more clearly now that the torch was lit. The man holding it was tall, and middle aged. His neatly combed hair was blonde, flecked with some grey. The second man was almost as tall as the first man, and seemed to be close to his age as well. The main difference between the two was that the second man had unkempt black hair that framed his face. The third man was much younger than the other two, but he bore a passing semblance to the first man. They were probably related, Spencer figured, father and son maybe.

The first man, walked away from them, carrying the torch with him. He walked to one side of the room and lit a torch that was protruding from the wall. He did this with four more times, and when Spencer could finally see his surroundings he wanted pass out.

He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised, really. This was the Patrol’s territory after all. On the wall to Spencer’s right There was a rack filled with all kinds of weapons. Knives, swords, spears, whips. Any weapon that Spencer could think of was on the rack. On the opposite wall there was a large fireplace, similar to the one that the blacksmith in Farrowin worked with. It seemed a bit out of place, but Spencer didn’t think much of it.

Most horrifying of all was by the wall across from Spencer. A large wooden platform, with a rope dangling from a crossbeam. It was a hanging platform. Spencer wanted to run. He wanted to find Eva and get as far away from this place as he could. The two men suddenly tightened their grips on Spencer.

The man with the torch walked over to the fireplace. He tossed the torch into the fireplace, then took the bellows and got the fire going. Within a few seconds, Spencer could hear the fire roaring inside the fireplace. The man walked back to Spencer and the other two men.

“Get on your knees,” He said, looking Spencer directly in the eye.

Spencer slowly lowered himself to his knees. He hated that he was actually listening the the Patrol guards, but he had no other choice. His ankle was still hurting from when he had fell, so he couldn’t run. Even if he could, he was certain that they had those dogs locked up somewhere.

“You know, most people don’t listen when I ask them to do that,” The man said, “Most of them put up a fight. Now, you’re going to stay there. If you try to run, you can bet that we’ll catch you. You know what will happen then?”

Spencer shook his head.

“We’ll make things much harder on you,” The man said, “Much harder indeed.” He turned to the dark haired man. “I’ll hand him over to you, Jack.” The man looked back at Spencer. “Just remember, if you cooperate, he won’t hurt you.”

“Much,” Jack added, with a malicious grin on his face. He circled Spencer a few times and then said, “You know why you’re here, right?”

“Because I have powers?” Spencer said quietly.

“I meant here in this room specifically,” Jack said, “We don’t bring everyone here, you know. Now, do you know why?”

Spencer shook his head. He figured they wanted to hurt him, but he had a feeling that wasn’t the answer that the Patrol guard was looking for.

“We brought you here to teach you a lesson,” Jack snarled. He smacked Spencer in the side of his face. “Did you think you could harm one of our men and get away with it?”

“No,” Spencer whimpered. It wasn’t true though. He could have gotten away with it if he hadn’t slipped and hurt his foot. They had been so close to getting rid of them…

“Then why did you do it?” Jack said in a demanding tone.

Spencer didn’t know how to answer. “I…I…” He stammered.

“You’d better have a good answer for us,” Jack said.

“I don’t know,” Spencer said finally, “I’m sorry. I don’t know.” He hoped the men wouldn’t notice the tears in his eyes.  

Jack punched him in the face. Spencer could feel blood dripping from his nose. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, but the blood kept coming. Running down over his mouth like water from a tap.

“You want to know why we haven’t killed you yet?” Jack asked. He didn’t wait for Spencer to reply. “Because when someone hurts one of our men, we like to the same thing to them.” He looked over his shoulder and said, “Is it ready yet, Damien?”

“It sure is,” The younger man said, grinning maliciously.

Jack pushed Spencer to the ground. He rolled up Spencer’s left sleeve. Damian stepped forward, his left foot landing on Spencer’s fingers.

“It’s just so you can’t pull your arm away,” Damian said in an unsettlingly calm voice, “If you do try, I’ll just step on them a little harder.” He passed the metal poker over to Jack. Spencer could feel himself shaking.

With one hand on the branding iron, and the other placed on Spencer’s chest so that he couldn’t move, Jack gave a sadistic grin. “Poor baby is shaking,” He said in a mocking tone, “Don’t worry though. We’ll be done with you soon.” He held the branding iron high above Spencer, as if it were a spear. He held it there for a few seconds. Please, Spencer begged silently, please just get it over with. He wondered if Eva had heard his plea.  He almost hoped not, since there wasn’t anything she would be able to do.

Jack brought the iron down so quickly that Spencer didn’t even see him do it. He let out a loud anguished scream the second it made contact with his skin. If Eva hadn’t heard his thoughts earlier, she must have heard him screaming. He didn’t even know he could scream that loud. The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt before. Excruciating didn’t even begin to describe it.

“Stop it!” Spencer screamed. He was no longer trying to hold back the tears. “Please! Stop it!”

Jack and Damian ignored his screaming. The expression on Jack’s face was similar to a child watching a street performer; visibly entertained, clearly enjoying the whole ordeal. Damian on the other hand looked bored, as if this wasn’t anything worth getting excited about.

Suddenly Spencer heard clapping. Jack and Damian both stepped back. Spencer lay on the ground, motionless. His entire arm stung, and he knew it would for a long time. The whole room was filled with the acrid smell of burning flesh.

“That was amazing,” The older man said, still clapping, “I haven’t heard anyone scream since…” He paused for a bit, as if he were trying to find the right words, “five years ago,” he finished finally. If Spencer wasn’t in so much pain, he probably would have found it an odd way to end the sentence.

“Five years ago,” The man said, walking towards Spencer, “We had another boy in here who could scream almost as loud as you did. He begged and pleaded for us to stop. He told us we couldn’t do this to him. But we did. And it was great.” He turned to Jack and Damian. “You can bring him back now,” He ordered, “And tell him about what happened to the other boy.”

Jack dragged Spencer to his feet. He looked him right in the eye and said, “I bet you think we killed him. We didn’t. He did that himself while trying to escape. So if you’re planning on finding a way out, you might want to keep that in mind.”

Jack and Damian dragged Spencer back to his cell. They shoved him to the floor and slammed the door shut, locking it behind them. Spencer bit down on his lip, hoping that it would help him take his mind of the pain in his arm. He curled up into a fetal position and started to cry. He wasn’t sure if or when any Patrol guards would hurt him again. He wasn’t sure if they had tried to hurt Eva yet, or if they would. He was only sure of one thing, and that was that he would die here.

Author's Note

I don't think many people are really following this story, but I had the worst writer's block ever after I wrote about half of this chapter. I never forgot about the story, or even where I wanted to go with this. I just felt like this wasn't as intense as it wanted it to be. Anyways, if you were following the story, hopefully I won't ever get writer's block that bad, and hopefully the next chapter will be here soon :)