Shadow yelped and dropped the curtain to the floor, but then ran down the corridor, screaming as if he were being flayed.
The door behind Gray’s back opened, but he just waved at whoever was there and followed Shadow. “Stand still, or next time I’ll aim at your body!”
Shadow froze, though his gasps were so loud Gray could hear him despite still being far away. Like a rabbit hoping it wouldn’t get caught if it remained still, Shadow’s flesh was shaking under the weight of the threat posed by Gray. In someone at least Gray could instill terror regardless of his disability.
That thought was the tiniest bit of pleasurable, and he wasn’t sure what that made him, but thinking back to the way Shadow had forcefully undressed him last night wiped away any guilt. There was nothing wrong about taunting a beast so vicious.
“You can’t be around people. Let’s go downstairs,” he said, stopping right behind the powerful back covered with a faded gray shirt.
“I don’t want to. I like to be with people. I’m human too,” Shadow said, but moved at the faintest shove from the muzzle of the gun. “And I tried not to touch anyone!”
“Is everything fine?” Beast yelled from the other end of the corridor.
“Yes. I’ll be right back,” Gray shouted, annoyed that even his prez felt compelled to check on him.
They walked in silence, and Gray led Shadow through the maze of corridors all the way to a door hidden behind an old medicine cabinet from the times when this place had still been an asylum. The stairs behind it were narrow and made of concrete, leading to an underground area originally used for storage. Or so Gray hoped, because the Kings of Hell found a different purpose for the half dozen of lockable rooms without windows. On their way downstairs, Shadow finally shut up, so all they heard when Gray switched on the light were squeaks of rats fleeing human presence.
Down here, the ceiling was so low Shadow needed to move hunched down, which made his back look bigger, like a Minotaur about to turn on Gray the first chance he got. Gray opened the second door in a row, twisting his nose at the scent of mold.
“Get in.”
Shadow turned around and took steps back, eyeing the dark cell with his mouth set, but Gray was wary of potential danger, ready to fire if the shadowy arms appeared. He wasn’t allowed to kill the thing, but he could cause it a world of pain if needed.
After a moment of prolonged silence, Shadow glanced at Gray. “Will you stay with me?”
Gray’s hand twitched on the gun. “No. But don’t worry, you won’t see any sun here.”
When Shadow wouldn’t back off, Gray poked him with the gun until he finally moved.
“I am safe. I promise. I won’t speak. Don’t go.” The red glow in Shadow’s eyes got blurry when they glossed over with grayish tears, but Gray wouldn’t trust them.
“That’s not for you to decide. You can use the bucket as a toilet,” he said and shut the heavy metal door with his shoulder. Once it closed, he put the gun between his jaw and shoulder and pulled the rusty sliding bolt, locking it in place.
Only then did he breathe freely again.
Until the door shook under the pressure of Shadow’s weight charging at it from the other side.
"No! Don't go! Don't leave me!" Shadow yelled, slamming his hands against the metal.
‘I need to fill every hole in your body’
Gray shuddered.
There was only one hole inside of Gray that needed filling, and no one could help him with that, because it appeared the day he lost his brother.
Gray would never be whole again.
Chapter 7
“Come on, you know you want it,” Shadow whispered to the rat that remained just beyond his reach. Shadow could have attempted to grab him with the shadow arm, but the opening under the door was so small he couldn’t possibly grab and look through it at the same time, so he played the long game and attempted to entice the rodent with a piece of burger patty.
The old meat was an adequate meal, but he much preferred the juiciness of warm flesh and the crunch of bones between his teeth. Cut off from the world beyond the cold walls of the cell, Shadow wasn’t sure when days began and ended, but he had plenty of time to hunt his favorite prey.
Shadow hadn’t understood what was happening to him when he’d gotten hungry for the first time. It felt like something consuming him from the inside, causing increasing fatigue and aches all over his body. After hours of insufferable pain, rolling from one side of his mouldy cell to the other, a latch at the bottom of the door opened, and Gray had pushed in a tray with his boot. He hadn’t been willing to talk, but he did say ‘eat’ before walking off.