27. The Boy

Alex's POV

My eyes widened in shock.

"You see, he can see through your dirty tricks. He knows that you want to break his son's heart, so we decided to just kill you, how does that sound?"

Ash's father is out to kill me again? I mean, I know he thinks I'm evil, but is it really necessary to murder me from his hatred?

"Although I want to kill you right now, I have strict orders from Master Jackson that we are to wait until Ashton finds our little hideaway to kill you. Just to gage his reaction. I guess we'll just have to lock you downstairs until he shows his shining face!"

He sounded happy about it... psychotic bitch. The corners of my eyes stung for only a few seconds before the tears that were brewing spilled in extreme abundance. The man in black lifted my limp body and basically threw me down the stairs into the basement. I felt every stair when it dug deeply into my sensitive skin. My head hit into the cement at the bottom hard enough that I saw stars in my spotty vision.

When I finally got my bearings, and the upper door was closed, I took in my surroundings. There were two people huddled very close together in the corner. One was a boy, about my age, and a little girl, whose tiny expression held terror. The boy locked eyes with mine, his deep blue ones meeting my emerald green ones. They were weary, untrusting while they scanned my battered form. His mud brown hair fell over his forehead in a limp way, just like a mop. Even though he looked like the exact opposite, his facial features reflected mine. He looked like we could have come from the same parents, but he just got all of the opposite features that I did from each parent. Scratches lined his face up, and there was blood caked into his hair. When the upper door was closed, only one source of light in the room existed, a small window on the wall which hit his eyes at just the right angle to cause them to glow. He sat just below it in the darkness, still observing me as intently as I was him.

His shirt, which obviously used to be light blue, had blood stains that had been attempted to wash out many times. He wore high, long socks that started at a dark blue, similar to his eyes, and migrated to a darker teal.

Finally, he spoke. His voice sounded strained, and it was clear to me that he didn't use it very much based on the amount of rasp in it. Instead of saying hello or anything kind, all he said was, "you look rough."

His mouth twisted into a scornful scowl as soon as he stopped speaking.

The only phrase I could force out was a half-hearted duh, and even that hurt. I had to wonder what the heck they could have possibly done to my throat to make it this bad.

I tried to get up and crawl to the corner opposite of him, but my limbs gave out before I could get very far. I closed my eyes briefly, preparing to get up and scoot myself once again when a firm pair of arms wrapped themselves around my back and legs. They were long, strong, and mostly pale.

He lifted me and moved me over towards the corner he had once situated in and set me, lying down, a few feet to the left.

"A few days," he breathed, his scratchy voice making me uncertain that's actually what he said.

I just barely managed to make a quiet noise of confusion in the core of my throat.

He understood and began to elaborate. "The paralysis-inducing food they force fed you to get you asleep and here contains the right toxins to give you temporary Foodborne Botulism. That's why your throat feels extra strange when you first come."

My brain hurt from all of those science words. I had never been taught them in my schooling until recently, so I had no clue what half of them meant.

He reached an average sized hand and ran it over the little girl's brunette, long hair. Her shining hazel eyes popped open in response, and she began to smile softly at him which created dimples on her flawless cheeks. She seemed like the kind of person you would find in a magazine, not a creepy ass basement.

I averted my exhausted eyes to the dirty wall directly across from me bored. The upper parts of the walls were covered in mold which created a pungent scent when mixed with the rust on the exposed pipes above our heads. The beams that held the ceiling up were rotting from the wet, muggy feeling down here. The slow, but consistent, dripping from one of the pipes created a loud echo across the completely bare room. Every few seconds a rather large rat crossed the single light beam in the dank area, most likely searching for unfound food.

I felt my eyes slowly close, and my muscles relax into a soft, quiet slumber.

Ash's POV

I began to pace back and forth quickly, seeing red. The person who stole him away from me was so going to get it. My fist clenched and unclenched quickly, and I felt myself begin to get angrier and angrier.

It suddenly crossed my mind that I wasn't just seeing red, there was a thick orb of red particles floating around my body slowly. They curved around my fingertips, my legs, and circulated my head. I felt the urge to destroy something wash over me, and stormed angrily out if the tent. I made it to my old tree, the one I had lived in for five years, and I walked in with an air if sass. I plopped down in the corner and began to tear up. This couldn't be real, can it? I mean, whatever did I do to the world to deserve this?

I pulled my knees all of the way to my chest and wept my heart out. Everything was falling apart around me, so it felt like the world was ending.

My eyes forced themselves close, and I woke up in a completely unfamiliar place. It smelt... Like spoilt milk. I looked down at my fingers to find them shining brightly. This was a dream, I guess.

I looked across the room to see Alex lying on the ground staring aimlessly at the wall. There was another boy off to the side that looked ragged, but seemed alright aside from the... Oh shit, that's blood!

The only thing that showed me that Alex was alive was the steady rise and fall if his chest and the movement of his shining eyes. I could hear a storm running outside of the window; that must be what's keeping him awake. I knew he felt the energy coursing in his veins, and I could see his fingers and arms twitching. He wanted to help the rising storm, but for some reason he couldn't move his arms. Nor anything, for that matter. He seemed to stare directly at me before someone shook me in real life and I was forced awake.