Page 15 of Ramshackle
I stumble over to the rest of it, falling onto my knees and practically leaning against the concrete to keep myself upright as I try again.
I thought I woke up with more energy today. Or more…something, after learning about my mother last night. But Gordon’s session still wears me into the ground. I don’t have anything left in me to raise a finger, let alone talk back if I wanted to.
“Useless! What if you’re being attacked while using your gift? Do you think anyone is going to stop and wait for you to get your head on straight? How could you let some simple words mess you up so easily?”
I grit my teeth and concentrate on controlling my gift while unsuccessfully trying to block him out.
“Holt!”
Wait. No, he wouldn’t.
Who am I kidding? Of course, he would.
Holt’s lightning hits me without further warning, grabbing me with a burning fist that rakes across my skin and pounds into my muscles, seizing them in a vise.
“Even if you can’t move, your gift can. Finish the job!” Gordon snaps. He sounds closer now, like he’s moved from his seat to get a closer view of my punishment.
I try to home in on my gift, but the pain is overwhelming my thoughts until it’s all I can think about. Pain. Pain.
It stops abruptly. My body is still frozen in place, my muscles locked exactly as they were as my body twitches from the residual energy zapping through me.
Gordon grabs my hair while I’m still paralyzed and yanks it backward until I can see him sneering over me. I can’t move or even scream at the rough move that feels even worse while my body is over-sensitized. “Are you even listening to me, or is your head so full of thoughts of your mother that I need to clear it for you?Sheat least had better control over her gift and would have been a true asset had it not been so wasted. You pale in comparison.”
He shoves me forward into the concrete, and because my reflexes aren’t back yet, I can’t stop my nose from smashing into it. Hot blood pours down my face and throat, choking me. My fingers twitch around the concrete as feeling and control slowly returns. I cling to it to keep myself upright as my head swims from exhaustion and pain.
“Now, I’ll give you a head start before Holt strikes you again. Don’t let my kindness go to waste.”
I reach for my gift and send it into the piece I’m holding on to and keep pushing it farther and farther out. It feels like I’m shooting fresh lava through my veins, and I scream, forcing myself through it to try to get it done quickly enough, but then the lightning finds me again.
My mouth stays open in a silent scream as I’m burning from both the inside and out, but I shove through the pain and keep feeding my gift more and more until I unleash everything I have left.
The cement pile bursts and then falls into rubble and ash, and my body collapses with it, no longer there to hold me up.
I feel empty.
Numb.
Like the end of an ice cream bucket scraped clean.
I don’t even feel when Holt’s attack ends. Only that one minute, I’m lying on the ground, lost in a haze of fiery pain, and the next, I’m being carried.
I expect to arrive in my room, like usual, but when my eyes crack open after he sets me down, I have no idea where he took me. It’s dark, wherever this is, with no lights in the ceiling and no windows. The only source of light in the room is the blue glow emanating from a white pod that I’m leaning against to keep me upright. It’s taller than me at my sitting height, so I can’t see what’s inside, and then there’s a curved lid sprung open above it.
Something gets shoved into my ears, and then Holt lifts me again.
I try to speak, but only air escapes past my lips. I suck them into my mouth to moisten them and taste dried blood.
I’m lowered down in water within the pod. I couldn’t even feel it when my body touched it. It’s just warm enough that it feels like sinking into a cloud.
I have a moment where I wonder if Holt plans to drown me. If this is why I’ve been brought here, but it passes as soon as I think it. Holt is Gordon’s dog. He wouldn’t spend all this time on me just to kill me like this.
Holt keeps moving around me, strapping me in, I think, because I’m suddenly floating on my back, half submerged in the water, as something helps keep me perfectly afloat. I go to touch my nose, to feel if it broke or just burst a blood vessel, but my hand doesn’t budge.
Neither does the other one.
My eyes snap to Holt, and his lips move, but I can’t hear anything.
Then, he closes the lid, and I’m trapped in darkness.
