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Chapter 13
CHRISTY
Ifloat like an apparition, inky darkness making way for muted colours as I watch the scene unfold before me. It doesn’t feel like a dream, it feels like a vision and yet this one, this one is different from all the rest. This one is from the past...
“No,Father, please don’t. I won’t do it again. I promise!” the little boy begs, cowering on the floor. He looks sickly, malnourished. Bruises litter his bare chest and back. Some old, most new.
“What have I taught you, boy?! You don’t beg for mercy, and you never,ever,disobey me,” the man replies, gripping his son by the hair and yanking him to his feet. “This is your punishment. Take it like a man!”
“I promise to be good.”
“Good? I don’t want you to be good, Jakub. I want you to be bad. Very, very bad. You cannot be the man I need if your soft heart makes you weak. I will beat the kindness out of you before I ever allow a son of mine to choose kindness over brutality, or weakness over strength. This is for your own good!”
Jakub whimpers, his slim frame shaking. That angers his father. Enrages him.
Pulling back his fist, the boy’s father slams his knuckles into Jakub’s cheek, sending him flying backwards against the rough ground. He lands awkwardly, his wrist twisting under his weight. The loud snap of a bone breaking pierces the air, and a scream rips out of Jakub’s mouth. He throws up, puke spewing out of his mouth and nose in a violent explosion.
“Father!” another boy shouts, stepping forward. He’s a little older, taller, more muscular, but still a child. Thirteen, maybe fourteen?
“What, Konrad? What?!”
“Jakub’s sorry. He won’t do it again,” Konrad says, gritting his jaw and lifting his chin. He moves to stand in front of the younger boy.
“Move aside, Son.”
Stubbornly Konrad shakes his head. “Don’t you think he’s had enough?”
“You dare to question me?!” their father responds, raising his fist and slamming it into Konrad’s stomach. Konrad doubles over, winded as he sucks in air. Unlike his brother, he doesn’t fall. Instead, he stands back upright, fixing his cold gaze on the man before him.
“He’s only nine.”
“You think I care how old he is? Last year he brought a baby into my home, hid her with your help. It’s been a year since that day and still this boy is as weak as he was then. I should’ve killed her, maybe I still will.”
Konrad flinches. “He’ll learn. Leon and I will make sure of it. None of us have gone anywhere near Nala. She means nothing to us.”
“And what makes you think that you and Leon will do any better, huh? Beating the kindness out of him doesn’t appear to be working. He’s still a fucking pussy! He couldn’t even put that mutt out of its misery. I had to do it!” he spits, a huge glob of phlegm flying out of his mouth and landing on the dead labrador, its brains blown out of the back of its skull.
“We’ll deal with him. We’ll make him strong,” Konrad retorts. His gaze flicks to the animal. There’s a hint of sorrow before he covers it up with a firm nod of his head.
“It makes me sick to my stomach that this pathetic excuse of a boy is my own flesh and blood,” their father spits, glaring at Jakub who’s cowering behind Konrad. “You and Leon aren’t even my blood, but you’re both more my sons than this gnojek! Get him out of my sight. I don’t wish to see him again until he’s learnt to do what I ask of him.”
“Yes, Sir,” Konrad responds.
As soon as their father walks back inside the castle, Konrad drops to the ground beside Jakub’s shivering form. “You should have shot her like he asked, Jakub. What were you thinking? He’s testing you. He will kill Nala without a second thought if you disobey him again. We have to protect her.”
“I know, but I couldn’t do it. Star wasn’t sick!” he protests, clutching his arm against his chest, tears pouring down his face. “She was pregnant. He wanted me to kill her because she pissed on his rug! I couldn’t do it!”
“I know it’s hard… But next time he asks you to do something, you have to do it! No matter what.” Konrad shakes his head, gently pressing his fingers against Jakub’s arm, who winces in pain. More tears fall. “You’ve broken it.”
“It hurts, Kon.”
“I know, but I can’t take you to Renard to fix it. Not now…” he says, pulling off his shirt and tying it around Jakub’s arm in a makeshift sling. “I’ll fix you a splint. You’ll be okay.”
Jakub nods, sniffling. “What should I do? How can I be what he wants? How do you and Leon do it?”
“We do what we have to do to survive. We always have. You must do the same.”
“I don’t think I can.”
