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I wish my Firefly would go with me to the basement, but she already declined once. I could force her—I will if she doesn't come to her senses soon enough—but first, I have to get a shower and grab another lighter.
Every time I leave solitary, I feel like I took a deep dive into a sewer. The place isn't exactly clean, and Butcher has a way of making you feel even nastier just by looking at you. I drop my shit inside my room and scrub the last week off of me. Then I dress and before I leave my space, I kick loose the tile behind the toilet. It falls, clanking to the floor, and one of these days, it's probably going to explode into a hundred tiny shards, but today is not that unlucky occasion. I grab a spare lighter from my stash and put the tile back into place, pressing it flat to the wall.
I pay Headmistress's sidepiece, Marshall, very well to ensure I am kept stocked at all times. I don't know if they're actually fucking, but I know he follows her around like she's a bitch in heat, and she makes him do all of her dirty work. I buy it all from him, lighters, matches, cigarettes, flash paper, and more. I keep that lumbering rat's contraband business booming thanks to the guilt money my mother sends me every month.
The one I grab from the hidden hole in the wall is probably the twentieth lighter, maybe even more, that's either broken or been seized by the staff since I came here freshman year. I'm definitely not getting back the one they confiscated this time either. I'm pretty sure they incinerate all the contraband, and I'd like to see it, just once, all the shivs, knives, joints, glass, and other shit doused with gasoline before it goes up in a glorious blaze. As long as Butcher's in charge, I have no chance of that, though. The bastard would ship it all out of state just to make sure I didn't get the satisfaction of watching it burn.
Pocketing the lighter, I leave my room and head to class.
I'm hungry and pissed off that Butcher locked me in the sensory deprivation room for the past week. The fucker has to know it's my least favorite place on campus, well that and anywhere he's currently standing, but he left me in there for eight days anyway.
Eight. Days.
Time passes differently in that room, and I only know how long I was in there because I heard a nurse mention today's date to a guard this morning. I don't know how many times I disassociated or screamed into the silence or nearly broke. It's all one black, silent blur.
Weaker men have lost their shit in twenty minutes in that room, and the only thing that kept me from losing it this time was the breaks when the guards would take me out like an animal to piss and eat. I'd clean my plate slowly, chewing each bite of food until it turned to mush, and then I'd piss all over my clothes just to delay being sent back. Those brief moments out of the chamber grounded me back in reality, sewing me back together again when my mind fractured in two.
Thank the old gods that no one can be allowed to sully the Butcher's precious torture chamber, so no eating and definitely no pissing allowed.
It's disgusting what they let him get away with here. I wouldn't even believe the doc had a medical license if I hadn't looked it up myself once on the state board's website. It took me six hours just to get the damn page to load on the crappy network up here. I was new back then, still two weeks fresh, and I thought it would help me find something to get my father to cart me away from here.
It didn't, though.
It doesn't matter how many complaints and disciplinary actions the guy has before the medical board. There were a handful of them before he came here—the records are sealed—but they don't matter either. My father didn't care about the Butcher's transgressions back then, and he wouldn't care now either. The doc is way behind on the times, preferring hydrotherapy and drug-induced psychosis to more mainstream, civilized treatments. I guess the parents put up with it because Chryseum provides results when nothing else does. Hell, if you don't end up six feet under, you're almost certain to graduate from here. Then you can be sent to the Academy's sister school in Connecticut, Prodigum University, for college or to one of the insane asylums for the poor bastards who can't be trusted to care for themselves.
I don't plan on going to either, though.
I will disappear when I graduate. I know enough about incendiaries and explosives to start my own militia. I've studied it tediously—and I do mean tediously, because there aren't many videos out there that show you how to make a fucking IED. I've painstakingly read aloud word-by-word books on the subject. I've made plans, and I have enough money set aside to disappear, even considering the astronomical prices Marshall charges me.
You see most of the world's silicone comes from quartzite, a mineral mined in Latin America, particularly Brazil. And that's where I'm headed after I get out of here. No more cold winters. No more being berated by my father. Just warm weather and blowing shit up.
I'm hoping once I get there I can use my knowledge to work for one of the mining conglomerates. There's always a need for explosives and the accompanying flames in mining. Those plans can wait, though, because right now I need to see my Firefly.
I'm getting tired of waiting for her to come around and understand. I can save her if she'd let me, and she can save me from the noise if she'll cooperate. Otherwise, she's going to starve herself to death and stop her heart one of these days, and I'm going to split in two, forever disassociated and unable to cope.
Whatever patience I had for her died a slow and painful death in the hole. I swear to God if she is still on a quest to kill herself, then I'm going to lose it. I will tie her up and force-feed her if I have to. I'll do it to keep her alive.
She asked me before why I cared, and it was a good question, one that haunted me in the hole, especially during sensory deprivation when I wanted to think of anything but my own damned heartbeat. Dr. Cross, the dead asshole, would've probably said that my new obsession with her has less to do with her and more to do with me, that if I save her I'll somehow save myself. I don't think that's right though, not fully at least. In fact, I'd say I do okay in controlling my urges. Every morning I don't set fire to campus is a personal win.
No, I think it's more complicated than that.
Sure, there's the initial attraction between us. I wanted to fuck her from the moment I first saw her.
There's the added challenge too, the back-and-forth, the give-and-take, and the spunky fight she gives me.
But more than all of that, there's the one thing I never had, not really, and I crave it from her.
Control.
I think she wants it too, in her own way. She controls what she eats and in doing so, affirms her own self-worth. I need to control her in order to know mine as well. I have a plan that will get us both what we need, but first, she needs to come with me to the basement.
Sure, I already control the self-proclaimed pyromaniacs in this place. I can make them do whatever I want when I want, but it's only real control if you earn it, and I've earned nothing from them.
Kill would tell me to stop analyzing shit and that the drugs Butcher gave me must have gone to my head. Saint would say to shut the hell up and fuck her already. Maybe they're right, but all I know is that Ineedto fix her. I itch for it in the same way that I itch for the flame.
I hope she's gained weight because if she hasn't, she's going to regret what I'm going to do to her. As I walk down the halls, I flick my lighter on and off in my pants pocket. It's been too long, but it brings my already boiling blood down to a simmer. On and off, I roll the wheel and press the button, burning the inside of my finger while I keep it pressed against the nozzle for the flame.
On and off, on and off, and on again.
