Chapter thirty nine: A Lesson In Brutality

**LITTLE RAYAN'S POV**

After the second fight we all knew what those men were doing to us, they were slowly taking away any shred of empathy and sympathy inside of us. They were slowly turning us into monsters, the dim life we had in our eyes was getting snuffed out in all of us and was now replaced with cold dead eyes.

For some unexplainable reason, the one on one fights was more brutal than the all out one. As we stood in the arena each of the twenty of us had injuries in different places, like me I had a wound at the back of my head that had not properly closed off, most had black swollen eyes and broken noses but there was the unlucky few who had broken arms, legs and two had broken their Jaws.

"before we begin I'd like to commend you for your determination, aggression and most of all your lack of sympathy for your opponents," the leader said.

"if you runts keep this up you might survive after all," Mr Lance said with his usual rum in hand of course.

"now the first two fighter today would be Darla Hayes and Rayan whose last name our colleague forgot to ask," Riven said as he glared at Mr Lance, who didn't bother looking at him but he just showed him his middle finger.

As we moved to the centre of the arena I could feel Bruce's glare burning a hole through my back, Darla took out a hair band from her pocket and tied her hair up in a ponytail. Darla's face had a cut inches below her left eye and she also had a cut on her jaw, the cut on her eyes was slightly healed up but the cut on her jaw was fresh.

We both got to a fighting stance and we waited for either one of the four men to shout begin and as soon as Riven did, I didn't waste any time I dashed at her as fast as I could I wanted to end this fight as soon as I could.

I jumped up when I was close enough to her with my fist in the air, as I fell I aimed a punch straight to her nose, she dodged to the right and planted a punch to my right ribs before she moved back. I close the distance and threw a right hook at her as soon as she saw it she ducked but luckily it was a feint, my real attack was the one I was throwing now and that was a knee right to her face.

My knee connected with her forehead, the force of my knee must have been strong enough to make her stand straight up and move back a step. I then threw a kick at her calf while her head was still disoriented and followed it with another kick to her thigh, causing her to groan in pain.

The kick must have worked because I could see her shift her weight from the front leg to the back one. She backed away and I didn't want to let her catch her breath, I threw two straight punches at her but she dodged all of them and suddenly the expression on her face changed.

She moved closer to me, ducked down and threw an uppercut at my gut before throwing a straight that got me in my chin while still in her ducked position, I stumbled back three steps as my lower jaw hurt and so did my gut, I could taste blood in my mouth and I spat it out.

Darla made a her right shoulder move in a circle, I think she was stretching it or maybe she was in pain but it seemed to be the first one, she close the distance between in and didn't waste any time in her punches I saw a straight punch aimed at me, I dodged it which she followed with a eight hook, I dodged back and before the punch went past me I grabbed it by the wristed twisted her hand until she bent down.

I then started throwing punches at her face as hard as I could that a grunt escaped my mouth. After throwing five punches at the left side of her face, I kicked the back of her right knee making it touch the ground I further twisted her hand behind her back and the arm I was using to punch found it's way around her neck. For added measure I locked my legs around her waist making sure she couldn't break out.

When we were on the ground she tried to remove my arm but I wouldn't let her, the arena was filled with our grunts though mine was louder since my airways weren't being constricted, after realizing my arm would not budge she resorted to elbowing me in my ribs as hard as she could, the thuds was as loud as a drum and it hurt but I didn't let that momentary pain get to me instead I used it fuel my anger and tighten my arm.

"remember.. What I said kid," Darla said with great difficulty.

"you'll fit here just fine," she added.

After her words it was like something was flipped inside of me, why was I letting these men turn me into something am not, if my family was alive would they be proud of what I was becoming, did Sarah sacrifice her life so that I would become this. No. I let go of Darla and pushed her off me.

I stood up and turned around ready to walk away before I felt a swift leg move past my feet knocking me down and then a heel landed on my ear harder than anything I ever felt.

The darkness cleared from my eyes and I found that I was alone in the arena, not something new, except when I tried to get up I noticed that both my hands and feet were tied, I tried to break out but the more I struggled the tighter it got as I struggled I noticed that I was only in my underwear.

"good morning sunshine," Mr Lance said.

I quickly turned my head to the direction his voice was coming from and there he was leaning on the wall of the arena with a strange metallic cylinder, I didn't know what was inside the cylinder since it had a lid.

" you know that you gave away that fight right?" he said although he didn't move close to me I was still wary of him.

"well you know the consequences right," he said his voice getting lower and lower as the conversation continued.

"get it over with am already used to it by now," I said trying to mask the fear inside of me.

"interesting, guess it's been what months since I disciplined you, my fault," he said as he pulled the lid off the cylinder and smoke came out of it.

"also you were right using the same punishment over and over is stupid also my walking stick would break and we wouldn't want that," he paused and reached his hand inside the cylinder, "but now what do you think of trying new things."

He pulled out a long metal rod from the cylinder on one end of the rod was a hilt that prevented his hand from burning and on the other end the metal had burned to a point that it was glowing orange. He started walking towards me and I started dragging my body away from him.

"get away from me!" I yelled but it wasn't like he was going to listen to me.

He reached me and stepped on my ankle stopping me from moving and also making me scream out in pain as I felt my ankle almost break.

"really runt I thought you were tougher than this, I mean I barely did anything and here you are screaming," he said.

"please don't do this, I promise I'll win the next time," I begged as sweat started forming on my forehead.

He removed his leg from my ankle and this time he placed it on my back pushing me hard on the ground to the point it was hard to breath and I felt my ribs getting squeezed.

" let me tell you what you lost," he said as he lowered the rod right close to my face, the heat that was coming from that rod was almost the same as a camp fire.

"the reason you lost was because you let your emotions decide for you but let me teach you something," he swiftly placed the rod on my right thigh.

I could hear a sizzling sound as soon as the rod touched my thigh, the pain felt like.. I didn't even know what it was. I screamed out in pain as he kept pressing it on my thigh.

" remember runt, this is one lesson you'll never forget, emotions show vulnerability, vulnerability shows weakness, and weakness is exploited." he said and now he was twisted the rod.

I just kept screaming and crying out in pain. He pulled it away and before I could even sigh out he switched it to my left thigh.

" repeat after me runt, emotions show vulnerability, vulnerability shows weakness, and weakness is exploited, REPEAT IT," he said as he pressed it in.

"argh... Emo..argh!" I tried to repeat it but the pain made my tongue numb.

"I said repeat it," he pulled off the rod raised it in the air and hit me as hard as he could on my right thigh. As the burning metal hit my already burning skin the pain tripled.

"emotions... Argh... Emotions show.. Vulnerability... Vulnerability shows weakness... Weakness is exploited," I finally managed to squeeze the words out.

"I'll make sure to burn it inside your brain and don't worry I won't let you get used to this runt." he said. "it's been a while since I used my creative imagination."