Page 52 of Ashes to Ash’s

“That boy out there, he’s just a fucking child. Cal was just a fucking child. All these poor bastards on your wall were JUST. Fucking. Children!”

Ethan suddenly barked out a harsh laugh, and Blaze and I lifted our heads to look at him.

“What?”

“Maybe he needs to learn how it feels to be gay.”

Cal

Ren wasn’t letting go of me, so I struggled up from the floor and carried him across the room, following the sounds of yelling, hoping that meant they’d found uncle. What I found, in the room their voices came from, was more horrific than I could have ever imagined.

There was a wall behind a toppled over podium, and on it were pictures, so many framed fucking pictures, like a hall of fame, only it was a wall of shame. But I was finally realising that we weren’t the ones to be ashamed. It was him. That fucker who’d called himself a man of god, and my uncle, and had forced so many of us into this hell.

“Jesus fuck!”

“Blasphemer!”

He grunted a second later as someone kicked him, but I didn’t look to see who.

“So why can’t we? I’m just saying, he needs to feel as abused and fucked up as they did,” Ethan demanded, and I had no idea what he was talking about, but I turned to see what the hell was going on.

“I’m not fucking him!” Ash hissed back, shaking his head at Ethan, while Blaze seemed to be silently assessing the situation.

“What if I light something on fire and we stick that up his ass? Make him feel the burn, ya know?”

My god, they were sick fuckers, but it still paled in comparison to what uncle Gordon had been doing.

“Just kill him. I wanna get Ren out of here, and somewhere safe.”

Ash turned to me, noting the kid still wrapped around me, which was fucking awkward, because he was probably only a foot or so shorter than me, and I had no idea how I hadn’t fallen over trying to carry him.

“How’s he doing?”

I glared at my monstrous kin on the floor. “How do you think? He was almost raped by this cunt and his bitch out there.”

“Language!” Gordon snapped, like he thought he had any power here.

“Seriously, gut him, bleed him, I don’t really care. I don’t need to be involved now, because Ren’s my priority. He needs to get away from this place.”

Blaze grinned, stepping over Gordon, and accidentally on purpose kicking him in the face.

“I’ll get my kit.”

Ethan groaned as he watched him leave. “You’re gonna let him firefuck his ass? Man. Nobody lets me do what I want to do.”

“What were you going to rape him with, you twat? You don’t have that in you.”

Ethan opened his mouth, and hesitated. “Yeah, never mind. Uh, I get to stab him though. Or… I’ve got it, I’ll cut off his junk, assuming he’s not built like a Ken doll down there.”

Ugh. I turned and walked away, because I didn’t want to see or hear, or ugh, smell, any of this.

“Just make sure he dies, and nobody else sees that fucking wall.”

“Shouldn’t we document it? These kids were all raped because of him.”

I turned to offer Ash a sad smile. “I’m sure the last thing they want is another reminder of that hell. I know I could have lived without seeing it.”

I carried Ren the hell out of there, because he didn’t appear to have paid attention, and I didn’t want him to start doing it now. He’d almost ended up on that sick wall of victims himself.