Page 5 of The Hunter

He came to fear the lightning. To dread the illumination of the violent depravity they forced upon the person who was his entire universe. Tears streamed onto the filthy stone beneath him. His meager supper crawled its way back up his throat, threatening to choke him. He wanted to look away. To disappear. He wanted to die. To kill.

“Look away, Pigeon,” his mother gasped.

But he forced himself to watch. To watch them as they held her down. To memorize and catalog every sneering, rutting, grunting bastard’s face with each electric slash of light. Four of them in all.

Rage ripped through him, fueled by heat and fear and youth and helplessness. His soul became as enraged as the storm.

When the man restraining him was replaced by another readying to take his turn, Christopher lunged, catching the brute in the throat, and he didn’t stop punching until he felled the man.

He dimly heard his mother’s weak and hoarse scream before pain exploded behind his eyes, and he crashed to the floor, stunned.

The world spun around him, dipped and tossed in such a way that made him want to hold on to something, to reach out and make it stop. Shadows rose and fell, doubled and then transposed. Thunder crashed, or was it the door?

Then the storm hurling itself against the roof was the only sound ripping through his pounding head.

Mother.Where was his mother? Was she—

“Christopher?”

With herculean effort, he turned his neck to see her shadow draped on the opposite side of the quickly dimming coals. She crawled toward him on her elbows, but couldn’t seem to make it around the fire pit.

Fear chased the vertigo away and he summoned the strength to lift himself from the floor.

“Mum,” he croaked, staggering to where she’d collapsed.

“Christopher.” Her voice, barely above a whisper, mirrored his terror. “Are you hurt, my son?”

“No. I’m okay. Mum, don’t move. I’ll call the guards.” He knelt over her, afraid to touch her. Afraid to put his hands anywhere.

“There was a knife, Pigeon, did they—” She panted a bit, as though trying to catch her breath. “Did they cut you?” Her hands, usually so strong, so sure, feathered over his face, his shoulders, and down his torso.

“A knife?” He shook his head, still trying to clear it. “They didn’t cut me…”

A warm, sticky sensation pooled against his knee and he suddenly wondered if he hadn’t been somehow stabbed. But there was no pain. No cut.

A new dawning horror licked at his soul.

“Throw another log on the fire, Pigeon, it’s so cold.”

The warm liquid slid down his leg as he hastily fetched two small logs and steepled them over the coals. Lightning flashed before the logs caught flame, illuminating the most grim sight of the entire horror-filled night.

Blood. Spreading from the prone form of his mother, threatening each wall of their tiny cell. He cried for help, clinging to the bars and pressing his face as far against the opening as he could. He called out for someone,anyone. Female voices answered from the darkness. Some concerned, some angry.

But no one came.

Breath exploding from his thin chest, he turned back to his beloved mother, now wreathed in the golden glow of their pathetic fire.

“Mum.” He knelt next to her on the side the blood had not yet reached; distressed to see how fast it crawled toward him, the edge of the red pool beveled in the light of the flame. “What do I do?” He groaned, hot tears blurring his vision. “Tell me what to do.”

“Oh, Pigeon, there’s nothing… to be done.” Tears streaked from her own eyes, but she could no longer reach for him. She sounded afraid, which intensified his own despair. He gathered her head against his chest, clutching her to him as though if he held on tightly enough, he could keep her with him.

“Don’t leave me,” he begged, not caring how small he sounded. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay still. I’m sorry. I was angry. I didn’t know about the knife. Don’t leave. I’m sorry!”

“Sing me the lullaby, Pigeon,” she whispered. “I can’t see you anymore.”

He forced the words through a throat blocked with terror and pain.

Hush Hush in the evening,