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CHAPTER24
CHRISTY
Before I’ve even opened my eyes, I know that this vision is going to damage me deeply. I can sense it. There’s an age-old darkness that pulls at my ghostlike limbs, its sharp claws trying to find purchase, and when it can’t do that, it simply wraps around me, smothering me in years of vile gloom. Something tells me that this is another vision from the past, the edges feel worn and torn like that of an old letter. I fight the pull, wishing I could fall into the arms of sleep like normal people. I’d even take a nightmare over this, but I know there is nothing I can do but to open my eyes and accept what the universe deems fit to show me…
“You thinkthat just because my blood runs in your veins that you’re immune to my wrath?” Malik snarls, his bloodied fingers swiping a scarlet trail down Jakub’s cheek.
“No, Sir,” he replies, flinching from his touch, his teeth chattering as he folds his skinny arms around himself into a tight ball, trying and failing to stave off the cold that creeps into the wooden cabin, covering the bare wood in a light dusting of frost.
Jakub’s reaction only serves to anger his father further. Malik raises his hand, slapping him so hard across the back of the head that Jakub falls forward onto the floorboards, his forehead cracking against the wood.
“Get up!” Malik roars, gripping his hair and yanking him upright before he’s even had the chance to right himself.
“F—father, please!”
“Please, father. Stop it, father. I’ll do better, father. Ugh, you simpering fool.”
Malik lets him go, but not before pulling out a clump of hair. The strands fall to the floor like the tiny flakes of snow drifting outside the open door, a few finding their way into the cabin and landing on Jakub’s naked skin.
Trying to hold back his tears, Jakub uncurls his body and pushes upwards on shaky legs. Around his ankles are iron manacles and a long chain fixed to the cabin wall. He’s so thin that his ribcage is visible beneath his skin and his stomach is concave. It’s hard to tell given he’s so malnourished, but he looks to be about sixteen years old.
“That’s it, stand like a man!” Malik says, cracking his neck as he trails his fingers along a row of rusty torture implements. They look well-used.
If I could throw up, I would.
“Father, I will accept my punishment like a man. I won’t disappoint you again.”
Malik barks out a laugh, his black eyes wild with insanity as he regards his son. “I have a feeling you’ll still disappoint me long after death comes to claim me,” he replies with a sneer, picking up a chisel and a small wooden mallet.
“I won’t,” Jakub retorts, swallowing hard. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down as his father approaches, but despite the fear written across his face, he manages to maintain eye contact. Something tells me that if he looks away now, his father will drive that chisel into his heart.
“You know I really should’ve drowned you the moment you were born, and I would’ve done that if I didn’t think your whore of a mother would miscarry even more of my children. Ironic that you were strong enough to survive her inhospitable womb, but turned out to be weak as shit. Such a fucking disappointment.”
Jakub’s eyes flash with pain, but he remains tall despite such hateful words, showing strength even when he’s covered head to toe in bruises, lashes and cuts. The sections of his skin unmarred by such cruel hands are mottled with cold. There’s no doubt he’s suffering from hypothermia.
“Do what you need to do,” Jakub says, lifting his chin defiantly.
Malik sneers, a cruel smile pulling up his lips. “I don’t need your permission to do whatever the fuck I want to you. You’re my flesh and blood, I own you. Now bend your arm and give me your elbow,” he demands. “But I warn you, if you scream, cry or even fucking puke I’ll leave you out here in the cold to die.”
Jakub nods, gritting his teeth as he does what his father instructs. With the bony point of his elbow raised, Jakub watches as his father places the rusty, blood-caked chisel against the tip of the bone then slams the mallet against the handle, shearing off skin and a slither of bone.
Jakub screams. It rips out of him in a cry so filled with pain and despair that I feel every inch of what he’s feeling. We both fall to our knees, me grabbing my stomach, him clutching his bloody elbow.
Malik laughs, dropping the torture implements on the floor before twisting on his feet and striding towards the door, Jakub’s desolate cries of pain following him out. When he reaches the porch just beyond, Malik turns on his heel and looks back at Jakub.
“I want the demon that I know lives within you. Only he is worthy of the Brov legacy. If you survive three days and nights out here in the cold then I will give you one last chance to prove yourself to me. Let’s see how you fare against Mother Nature, shall we?”
And with that, Malik strides off into the forest leaving his abused son naked and curled up in a ball in the corner of the cabin.
The sobs that follow are heartbreaking, and even though this is a vision of something that’s already happened, I can’t help but crawl towards Jakub so that I can rest my ghostly hand on his shoulder and will him to feel the empathy that pours from me in a torrent of salty tears.
“Please, help me,” he whispers, staring right into my eyes as though he can see me, as clearly as I see him now. Except this time he isn’t a malnourished sixteen year old boy half dead with hypothermia and covered in bruises, he’s a man. I’m staring into the face of the man I’ve come to know these past weeks and he’s utterly broken...
“Jakub!”I scream, waking up with a start, my whole body shaking as bile burns my throat. The after effects of such a harrowing vision disturbing my equilibrium as the bed seems to undulate beneath me.
“Christy, what is it?” Konrad asks, snapping awake. He reaches for me in the dark, his hand finding my thigh which is covered in a sheen of sweat just like the rest of me is.
Konrad moves away from me briefly, flicking on the bedside lamp, before capturing my face in his hands. “Are you sick?”
