Page 4 of The Hunter

She’d separated them then, laughing almost wistfully as she tried to explain growing into a man to him through a crimson blush.

Christopher didn’t want to be a man, he thought glumly. Not if they turned into rutting brutes like Treadwell, or old leathery fools like Master Ping.

He just wanted to be held.

What had begun as a gentle rainstorm turned into a tempest. Thunder shook the old stones of Newgate, and lightning slashed arcane shadows through their tiny window.

“Should we sing tonight?” his mother asked, and Christopher smiled in the darkness. He’d been secretly hoping she’d ask. The storm had unsettled him, and the noises of Newgate were particularly grotesque.

“What should we sing?” he asked.

“How about my favorite Irish tune.”

They sang.

Hush Hush in the evening,

Good dreams will come stealing.

Of freedom and laughter

and peace ever after.

Ye’ll smile while you’re sleeping.

And watch I’ll be keeping.

Hush hush now my darling

No tears til the mornin…

A terrible scraping sound reverberated through the stones against Christopher’s ear, ripping him out of a warm dream and dumping him onto the cold floor. He sat up, blinking against the darkness. The storm still raged outside, and a flare of lightning illuminated his sleeping mother. Thunder immediately boomed overhead. For a moment, he’d thought it could have been the thunder that woke him, but the sound in the stone was so singular, he only knew of one source.

The heavy iron door that separated the male prisoners from the female cells.

Deep voices filtered down the hall. Male voices. Not guards, either. He knew the sound of the guards. Their footsteps were more clipped against the stone made by cobbled boots with sturdy soles.

Christopher put his ear to the floor. These steps were shuffled. The feet were bare.

Terror ripped through him as lightning once again threw menacing shadows against the wall. But these shadows were no illusion.

They belonged to the men invading his cell.

These were no guards, that much he could tell from the brief second he’d seen them. They were filthy, even by prisoner’s standards. Frightening. Leering. Growling.

Seized by painful hands, Christopher fought like a savage. Panic hid all the teachings of Master Ping from his memory. He couldn’t find his center line from the floor. Couldn’t form a fist. He couldn’t get the weight of the man three times his size off him, no matter how violently he tried.

“Christopher!” His mother cried his name in the darkness. “Christopher, run!” Pure, paralyzing horror held him just as captive as the giant with the knee in his back, grinding his cheek into the ground.

Treadwell had made good on his earlier threat.

“Please don’t hurt my son,” his mother pleaded.

“We’re not here for the boy,” one of them snickered. “But make a noise and we’ll gut him. Now which one of us will have you first?”

Christopher fought until his captor held his cheek down by the coal beds. The orange glow turned everything past it into writhing shadows. The raging storm didn’t drown out the grunts, the moans…

His mother’s whimpers.