Page 34 of Burn Like An Angel

Shut up, brat.

I warned you what happens to boys who cry.

Over time, swallowing the sobs became a form of self-preservation. Clamping down on my wails. Extinguishing any protests. By the time my eighth birthday rolled around, I’d perfected the art of detachment.

Lost to the dark miasma clouding my thoughts, I trip over a length of bloodstained carpet that’s been ripped up. I brace myself for a hard impact, dropping the flashlight and sending it spinning.

“Fuck!” I smack a hand against the floor. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

The whole world is tilting. Morphing. Crimson-dipped and filtered through a furious lens. I don’t know how to hold this burden inside—the weight of thinking, feeling and caring about another human being. It hasn’t happened since I switched all those vulnerabilities off.

Wait… Fucking caring?

Is that what this is?

Sprawled out, the most ridiculous details enter my awareness. The hunger pains in my stomach. How stray pieces of shattered glass have embedded in my palms. The coppery scent of a nearby blood spill.

My carefully constructed world is splintering apart. I’ve built it to the highest degree of perfection. Organised. Controlled. Emotionless. A shackled reality, the impenetrable bars of my indifference keeping me safely imprisoned from the entire world.

“We have their attention now. I want all the mattresses thrown outside next.”

“From the windows?”

“Perfect. Wait for daylight so the cameras capture it.”

Voices snap me back to the present moment as effectively as being dunked in ice water. I force a blank expression over the torment twisting my features.

Their footsteps crunch through the corridor’s debris until they reach me. I peer up at the small group of patients holding flashlights. How fortunate. Perhaps I’ll have an outlet for all this distracting emotion after all.

“You,” I spit out.

Rick contemplates me through facial bruises and filth, his smile full of stupid confidence. “Xander, right?”

The son of a bitch beat the shit out of Raine not so long ago. If he hadn’t been shipped off to the Z wing, I would’ve arranged a convenient little accident for him instead. He got off lightly.

“Correct. I was under the impression you were dead.”

He shrugs casually. “Not quite.”

“How unfortunate.”

Sneering, he shares looks with his two friends. “Unfortunate?”

“For you, yes.”

I don’t recognise the patients with him, though the visible signs of torture and the dead look in their eyes are familiar. More of Incendia’s little experiments. Ripley and Lennox clearly didn’t escape the Z wing alone.

I know what this asshole did to her. So why didn’t she leave him there to die? Yet another detail she’s failed to share. Rage crystallises into an ice-cold shard that slices through my chest.

“Where is she?”

“Who?” Rick laughs.

Jump. Slice. Stab.

The temptation is strong.

“Ripley.” I force a calm tone.

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