I lay down, and in seconds the man pushed the buzzing needle into my skin. My mouth clenched at the pain and my body tensed. But I didn’t cry out like the other boys. I refused to let these Georgians see me break.
It was excruciating. Almost unbearable. But I never moved. I didn’t move until the man with the needle stepped back and wiped at my chest with a wet rag. The wet rag felt like a hundred bees stinging my flesh.
Yet I still didn’t flinch.
The Wraith guard pulled me from the bed and walked me down a hall. Dull thuds, screams, and shouts came from the room at the end of the hallway. I took a deep breath, bracing for what I would see next, but, honestly, nothing could have prepared me.
A room, bigger than I’d ever seen in my life, was filled with boys of all ages. And they were fighting. Some with weapons, some without. My eyes roved over the huge room, watching the boys hitting and drawing blood. I swallowed. I knew I was looking at my future.
The Wraith guards ahead pushed some of the boys into a pit and stood around them with folded arms. A guard lifted up his hand and ordered, “Fight!”
The boys stood, all fearfully staring at the Wraith guards. A guard lunged out and hit one across the face. The boys backed away as the guard repeated, “Fight!”
Fists and arms suddenly went flying, and the boys fought. They fought until blood was spilled.
The guard beside me pushed me into a pit to my left. I stumbled onto the sandy surface; then other boys were pushed in with me, too. A guard moved toward us when from the corner of my eye I saw the woman watching me. A man was beside her and she pointed into the pit.
The Wraith guard lifted his hand. As he did, rage swept through me, my blood boiling from the anger swirling inside. “Fight!” the guard shouted, and my legs moved toward the nearest boy. My fists flew; my legs kicked at anyone in my path. I bit, I clawed, and I kept going until the guard pulled me back.
“Stop,” he hissed into my ear. When I looked around, the boys I’d beaten were lying on the ground. But the anger still built as I stared at the female.
The boys who could still walk were led out of the room. The ones on the ground were dragged out by the guards. The guard holding me put me on the ground, when the woman called out something in Georgian.
Suddenly the guard began leading me down another hallway. This one was quieter than before. When I came out at the end, it was a smaller room with cages along the back wall, a pit in the center, and on the opposite side a door that obviously led somewhere else.
The door at the back of the room opened. The woman and the man she had been standing with walked through. A guard followed behind, pushing two boys into the room. I stared at the boys. They were twins. They were darker in skin, with long black hair that ran down their backs. They were identical, but one had green eyes and the other had brown. The one with green eyes stared straight ahead, as if he was looking at nothing, but the one with brown eyes looked straight across at me.
The twins were pushed across the room, and as they passed me I read the numbers on their chests: 362 and 221. They were locked up in separate cages, but they were next to each other.
The one with brown eyes, 362, sat close to the bars and tried to talk to the one with green eyes, 221. But 221 stared straight ahead, like he couldn’t even hear his brother talk.
I swallowed, and this time real fear ran through my veins. The guard pushed me into a cage beside 362. The woman and the man with her left the room, left the three of us alone.
Hours and hours passed in silence, until 362 moved closer and asked me something in Georgian. I didn’t know what he said. Then his eyes traveled down my body and he said in perfect Russian, “You’re new?”
I nodded my head.
362 sighed and asked, “Do you remember your name?”
I frowned and said, “My name? Of course I do.”
362’s head hit the back wall and he closed his eyes. “Good; remind yourself of it every single day. Burn it into your fucking brain. Never let it fade.”
I was even more confused. I had opened my mouth to speak when he said, “I’m 362. I have no name, or at least I don’t now. I have no memory of it.” His eyes opened and he rolled his head toward his brother—he was still facing forward, focused on nothing. “Nor does he.”
“Why?” I asked, seeing the pain in 362’s eyes as he looked at his twin. “How have you forgotten?”
362 faced me again, his forehead lined with confusion. “Drugs. If you’re in this room, you’re going to be given drugs. That’s why we’re kept separate.” He sighed and, clenching his fists, said, “And they’ll make you forget. The drugs will make you forget your name. Your family. Where you are from. Everything. If you’re lucky you’ll be able to resist the drugs for some of the time; if not…” He trailed off and he looked back to his brother. I got the message. If not, you’d be like 221.
The room was abruptly plunged into darkness. I lay on the floor and closed my eyes. My sister’s last wave filled my mind. My stomach tightened at the thought of her words to me in the cage. “Big Brother Promise?” Our thing. When our junkie mother died and we were sent into that hell of a group home, she made me promise to never let anything bad happen to Inessa.
And I had. Because if this was what was happening to me, what the hell was happening to her?
Tears dripped on the floor, and as I curled my body in I heard 362, say, “That.” I tensed, and he continued, “Whatever has you upset, focus on them or that. Hold on to that person in your head. Maybe the drugs won’t break through if you have something to live for.”
Wiping my eyes, I replied, “It didn’t work with you. It hasn’t worked with him.”
“True,” 362 admitted in a rough voice. “But we were the first. We didn’t know what these drugs would do.” I nodded into the darkness when he said, “He may not remember me, but he’s my brother, my blood, and I’ll keep him in my head for as long as I can. Then one day, when I get out of this place, and off these fucking drugs, I’ll find him again. I’ll find him again and kill all the people in this blood pit. I’ll kill anyone that tried to rip my best friend from my heart.”
Nothing else was said. When I awoke, I was in a room with the woman. The man from the pits was by her side. He had a syringe in his hand. I tried to move, but my hands and feet were strapped down to the bed.
I pulled and pulled as the man approached. Then the woman stood beside me with something in her hand. “Stop!” she ordered, and held out a small screen. My heartbeat that seemed to have been absent from my chest since I’d arrived began to beat again.
“Inessa,” I whispered. My newly beating heart now tore into shreds. My baby sister was huddled in the corner of a cell, just like mine. Her blue eyes were huge as she watched the other girls in the room. But my chest warmed with pride when I saw she wasn’t crying.
The woman pulled the screen away. “No!” I called out. She shook her head, her ugly face blazing with happiness. “Let me see her again!” I barked.
Her eyes narrowed, and her finger stroked across my forehead. “If you want to see her again, 194, you’ll have to earn it.”
My muscles tensed. “My name is Valentin,” I bit back.
The woman then said, “No, here in the Blood Pit it’s 194. You have no name, boy.” She leaned in closer, her strong perfume stinging my nose.
“Here you will call me Mistress. Do you understand, 194?”
The man beside me pushed the needle in my arm. A searing heat immediately chased through my veins, my back bowing with pain as my mind filled with a thick fog.
I didn’t remember much after that, but I fought to keep my memories. I fought to remember that I was Valentin Belrov from Russia. My sister was called Inessa, and the first chance I got I would slit the throat of the Georgian bitch I’d been forced to call Mistress.…
13
VALENTIN
A wet rag dragged across my chest. My mind filled with the man who had given me the number tattoo. Reaching out, I grabbed his wrist, using brute strength to throw him on his back. I wrapped my free hand around his throat, squeezing the thin neck.
I frowned as the sweet smell of sugar drifted up my nose, and when a high-pitched whimper hit my ears I blinked my eyes open, the picture slowly coming into view.