SPARKS: The Smoke & Fire Series (Prequel Book 1) (4 page)

Unfortunately, Mycale found that
his nightmare was just beginning.  After having shown the man and woman he
could break glass walls with his hands, they still denied his request to go
home. Mycale wondered;
What more do they want to see?

After another round in the
soundless room, Mycale and Ivan switched places. Again, Mycale didn’t know if
it were a day later or hours later. Back at the cubes, the walls he shattered
had been replaced.

While being punched and kicked
with no remorse, Mycale caught a glimpse of Ivan screaming for them to stop.
His own desperate pleas and Ivan’s muffled screams were ignored. The strikes
were hard and frequent, each lick booming through his body as he fought to
protect his head and face. He’d given up his attempt to fight back when the
force of one of the blows toppled him from the chair. Mycale rolled his body
into a tight ball, each kick and punch a pain filled nightmare.

At some point during the
relentless beating, Mycale became filled with so much rage and hate he could no
longer distinguish pain from anger. He was aware of the man and woman watching
and of Ivan, who had never stopped yelling on his behalf.

Mycale was beaten until his body
physically stopped functioning. Reduced to a series of exhausting gasps, he no
longer pleaded for mercy. A strong surge of an invisible force took his breath
despite the crush of the harsh blows. Seemingly losing focus for only a moment,
he came awake to the men holding something under his nose. As soon as he
regained consciousness, his pain packed nightmare resumed.

****

Countless beatings pushed Mycale
beyond any limits he recognized. Why hadn’t he paid more attention to his
parent’s lessons on how to pray? Attempting to pray for himself and the rest of
the kids, he hoped his desperate words were somehow heard. It seemed the
mission of his captors were to kill them all, but he wasn’t ready to die. He
begged, “Please God. Don’t let these people kill us. We are only kids. We don’t
know what they want.”

Starved, thirsty, battered, and
beaten, Mycale started to believe this was the last place he would ever see. A
pair of children began to disappear and not return to the beds with each
emergence of the man and woman. At first, there were four empty beds, then ten
stared back at him. Either the children were dead or they had shown the man and
woman something impressive enough to be sent back home.

Back at the cubes, this was his
third time being teamed with Ivan.  This time, the men used electric prods,
like the ones farmers used to prod livestock. Mycale knew he would later
experience the painful sting of the prods. Ivan lost consciousness twice, but
it didn’t stop his abuse.

Rage and anger seemed his only
friends, a toxic cocktail of emotions that made Mycale, of all things,
extremely hot. Touching the glass, he realized he had literally become hot
enough to melt the wall. Pushing against the wall, his hand sank into the
glass. At first, only his face was hot, then his entire body. Since the man and
woman refused to set him free, Mycale embraced the rush of rage and anger as it
coursed through his body. His hands emitted a light glow that scared and
excited him at the same time. Since he possessed nothing as strong as his anger
and rage, he was convinced the intangible emotions had been converted into
heat.  He wondered if anger was the key to giving the man and woman what they
wanted.

They finally noticed what he was
doing to the glass. It seemed his actions impressed the man and woman enough to
stop Ivan’s beating. His distraction was a short lived one. Focusing, Mycale
saw Ivan one moment and he was gone the next. Ivan had vanished.

Ivan’s sudden disappearance drew
everyone’s attention. The man and woman, along with the large men searched
calling out angrily for the boy. While everyone was busy searching for Ivan,
Mycale slipped through the jagged hole he’d melted into the glass.

Once free, Mycale ran down a
second hallway towards what he hoped was an exit. The only thing on his mind
was getting out of this place and finding help for the rest of the children.
Just as he pushed against the large metal door marked ‘exit,’ he was jerked
backwards by strong hands and tossed over a sturdy shoulder.

He didn’t fight while being
carried back to the soundless room, but the sight of the bed drove him to start
kicking and yelling again. Luckily, he gave a good enough kick to make one of
the men cover his eye. Pain was evident on the man’s face, but Mycale’s small
victory was short lived.

The force of his body connecting
with the hard mattress took his breath. A blow to his mid-section sent his
stomach contents flying into the air. Weak and winded, he was unable to block
or move away from another fist traveling toward his head. Just as his brain
registered pain, his world went black.

****

Mycale was at number nine for the
repeated cycles of torture he had endured.  He had been spat on, urinated on,
nearly drowned, electrocuted, splashed with acid, deprived of sleep, and
starved of food and water.  Trapped in an endless cycle of abuse and pain, he
began to reject the notion that this world was real. Was it possible he had
died and landed in hell? His grandparents always preached about hell, but he
never believed their stories until now.

Countless beatings and muffled
screaming tore at his heart and provided a grim reminder that he wasn’t
dreaming. He was convinced his captors had found a way to turn off sound as
additional punishment. Mycale was unable to see outside his soundless prison,
so he couldn’t say if he’d been in this place a week or a month. Since there
was no way to measure time, it didn’t exist in this place. There were only two
sickening constants: the increasing number of empty beds and an endless supply
of abuse.

****

Partnered with a girl this time,
Mycale saw snatches of her crying helplessly  as he was being dunked and held
face down in a tub of water. His lungs were burning, ignited by an invisible
fire. Swallowing the taste of his own blood, each breath turned into acid as it
rushed down his raw throat.

Coughing uncontrollably as water
squirted from his nose and mouth, Mycale fought to get oxygen into his lungs.
The men were determined to suffocate him one way or another.  A fist flew into
his chest, causing him to lose the breath he’d been struggling so hard to
catch.

Having no control, Mycale’s hand
was forcibly slapped hard atop a hard wooden desk that had been added to the
cube.  The slap of his hand sent peppering aches of pain up his already bruised
wrist. As one man held his hand firmly down, the other placed a circular
cutting device around the joint of his left pointer finger.

Mycale pleaded, “Please don’t. I
promise I will show you my ability.” Listening to the men tell him that they
were about to peel the skin from each of his fingers, Mycale’s nerves flew into
a chaotic frenzy.  His hand shook uncontrollably, which sent the instrument
slicing against his finger. With a scratchy and sore throat, he could hardly scream
when the man tightened the instrument around his finger and started to pull.
Since his voice and strength had been beaten from his body, tears were all
Mycale had left to beg with, but he refused to let them fall. He lost skin from
two of his fingers before they stopped.

Mycale found that watching the
other kids suffer was far worse than his own agony. His abuse had been harsh,
but it was now his turn to watch the girl’s torture. Fearing something was
broken, he could hardly stand upright. The men left his cube, consulted with
the man and woman behind the desk, and walked into the girl’s cube.  Mycale
didn’t know the girls name, but he often saw her struggling four beds away from
his. The girl backed into the corner and folded her body into a tight ball when
the men approached.

The girl was slammed face down on
a table facing him. When Mycale saw the men unbuttoning their pants and taking
off the girl’s gown, he screamed like a child gone mad. The men were
deliberately looking at him as they undress the girl. Shaking his head, tears
slid down his cheeks for the very first time. He pushed his voice box to the
max, but only cracked words and horse cries made it out of his mouth. “No! Sack
it la’. You can’t do that. Please!”

The men controlled the girl’s
body as she laid helpless. With only her eyes, she begged Mycale for help she
knew he could not give.

Although Mycale didn’t fully
understand sex, his father and mother had given him the-birds-and-the-bees
talk.  He knew enough to know the men were about to do the worse thing an adult
could do to a child.  Turning away from the horrific seen in front of him,
Mycale lowered his body to the floor and hid his face behind his trembling
hands and knees.

Seeing what the men were about to
do to the girl had broken him so severely, he couldn’t control his raging
thoughts.  He slapped at his head, fighting himself to ward off the image he’d
just seen. He spoke softly to himself, “Az if. They blaggin’ me ‘ead. It’s not
real. It can’t be real.”

Hearing the girl’s muffled cries
tore a hole in his heart.  Exhausted, beaten, and broken, Mycale couldn’t
stomach the thought of what was about to happen.  If the plan was to drive him
mad, it had succeeded.

Continuing to slap himself about
the head and face, Mycale let the same spark of rage that help him melt the
glass spill over his body.  He hardly knew what rage was, but he knew he hated
these people. He wanted to hurt them, even kill them. The sight of the girl
about to be raped became his undoing.

Standing, he pushed at the
interior of his wall angrily. He was sure he was the only one that felt heat
radiating from his body. One more angry push at the glass made it shatter as if
he had caused an explosion.  Glass rained down on him, but he didn’t give it a
second thought.

The shock of Mycale’s display
made the man and woman dive behind their desk and men stop their assault on the
girl. Mycale walked out of what was left of his cube and pushed at the outside
of the girl’s. This time, a large portion of the glass melted away as if it
were plastic.

The men ran towards Mycale, but
every time they reached to touch him, they jumped away as if being burned by
fire. Mycale backed the men into a corner. Holding them there, he yelled back
to the girl, “Run, find a way out and get help.” The man and woman from the
desk were either gone or still hiding. Turning, Mycale exited the cube and
noticed various parts of the room had caught fire. It was probably why the man
and woman remained hidden.

Mycale didn’t care that the men
were chasing him. The building had started to burn and his only concern was
helping the other children.  Just inside the doorway, Mycale stared quickly
around the soundless room.  The men could have caught him, but they stopped at
the door’s entrance. After taking a moment to stare at him, both men threw up
their hands and ran away.

Looking down, Mycale saw what
turned the men around. Staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed, his hands were
emitting blue and orange flames. Amazingly, he wasn’t being burned. This was the
ability his captors had been forcing him to show.  The man and woman had been
right all along.

 Every eye in the room was on
him, but Mycale didn’t have time to explain. Using his hands, he burned away
restraints and pointed the kids towards the exit. The fire grew as each of the
freed children ran out the door.

By the time Mycale set the last
boy free, the sound had returned and the atmosphere was alive with billowing
smoke and dancing flames. Although his once flaming hands were out, Mycale was
reluctant to touch the boy’s skin. He instructed the boy to hold firmly to his
shirt tail as he led the way out of the room. Before exiting, Mycale’s eyes brushed
over Ivan’s empty bed.

As he and the boy neared the
final door to freedom, Mycale glanced back periodically to see if they were
being chased by fire. He pushed against the door repeatedly to get it open. 
Once opened, the fresh cool air breathe new life into his body. The bright
sunshine was a welcomed treasure.

The other boy fell as tears
streamed down his face.  Mycale didn’t know if he were crying because he was in
pain or finally free.  Helping the boy up, they ran through a dirty deserted
alley. Seeing the other children waiting and waving from afar kept them moving.
The street was at least three blocks away, far enough that they would all be
safe from the fire.

Only when they reached the other
kids did Mycale look back at the building. Smoke and fire wafted from one side,
probably the area where they had been bedded down. Nestled among old abandoned
warehouses, the building was at least five levels high with most of the windows
missing from the higher levels.

It took a moment for the cold
winds of December to register, but the chill was nothing compared to what they
had all suffered. Guilt filled Mycale as he was aware that he’d caused the
fire. He wondered where their captors had gone. Scanning their surroundings, he
hoped the man and woman or the big guys didn’t show up and retake them. Hearing
fire engines in the distance let him know that they were probably going to be
safe.

A stray memory flashed through
Mycale’s brain. He thought of Ivan.
What if he is still in the building
hiding?
Turning, he started back toward the building as the others made
attempts to stop him. As he ran, he shouted over his shoulder, “Ivan may still
be in there. I have to help him.”