Feel My Pain (Curse Bound 1)

His head went under again, and as he fought, helpless like a child, the bubbles forming around his face hid away his tormentor until the merciless hand dragged him out and tossed him at the floor.

He rolled back, ready to fight, but when he saw the massive, hairy chest, the square face with a badly broken nose, fear paralyzed him from head to toe.

Hulk. What the fuck was he doing here? How was he alive?

Zane screamed out, but his voice was a high-pitched squeal when Hulk grabbed his ankle and dragged him out of the bathroom. First over tiles, then over carpet.

Why was it hot like in summer?

“What? Don’t like drowning?” Hulk snapped, the veins on his neck bulging. “Told you not to go to the river on your own! How are you so fucking dumb? Too lucky for your own good, that’s what you are. I’ll be calling you Roach from now on, ‘cause you just won’t die, you pest!”

Roach.

Zane glanced at his hands. There were cuts on the insides of his palm, as if he had been holding a knife by the blade and someone had pulled it out too fast.

Those weren’t his hands, but they weren’t Roach’s either. They were small, unmarked by tattoos. The hands of a child—a grown one but not yet a man.

What the fuck was this?

Was he dying, and this was Purgatory?

Ha managed to look back into Hulk’s eyes, and trembled in terror.

No, this was hell.

He was trapped in Roach’s barely-teenage body, and when he wanted to yell at the bastard, all that came out of his mouth was a cry.

“No, no, no! Please, I won’t go again!”

“Do you have any idea how much I had to pay for your little drowning accident, Roach? More than you’re fucking worth! You should have died. Funerals are less fucking expensive,” Hulk growled, eyeing him from high above, his massive chest rising and falling as he took in Roach. “You should have taken after your mother and known when your time was up,” he said and dashed toward Roach, once again taking his hair into a painful hold.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Roach whined, but it was no use. Hulk was too strong and couldn’t be stopped when he was intent on dragging his victim closer, so close Roach ended up facing his fly.

The oversized hand opened the zipper, but even when the button was popped open next, Zane couldn’t comprehend what this was and only thrashed in the grip when Hulk— Roach’s father—freed his erection.

“Try this if you like choking so much.”

“Fuck off!” He (Roach?) yelled and pushed at Hulk’s dick. This was sick, and he wished to cut off his palm where it touched that disgusting, dirty thing.

“What did you say to me, you little motherfucker?” Hulk slapped him across the face, then again, smacked the back of his head, throwing him to the floor. “What are you looking at?” he yelled, and as Zane scrambled to his hands and knees, he spotted someone’s shadow in the doorway.

“Ajax? Ajax, tell him I didn’t mean to go alone! We were gonna go swimming together!” Roach cried.

The teenager, who froze at the door, said nothing, his gaze swiping over Roach, then down their father’s body. Hulk’s roar made him flinch.

“What the fuck are you looking at? Unless you wanna show him how it’s done, get lost!”

Zane’s throat was tight as he tried to crawl, even though the face he saw on the teen was another he hated with all his heart.

But Ajax left, loudly shutting the door. He left Roach. Alone.

“On your knees. Now,” Hulk said in a voice that sent shivers up Zane’s spine. Nausea was thick in his throat, but when he tried to scramble to his feet and run, a blow to the shoulder sent him to the floor so fast his teeth closed on the tip of his tongue, and his mouth filled with blood.

Zane remembered this man’s hands all over him, choking him while someone else raped him from behind, and now he had to relive it all over again.

“That’s how it’s gonna be?” Hulk said in a cool voice and grabbed Zane by the hair, pulling him up, and shoving him toward a wobbly table. “Let’s have it your way then. I can tell you now that next time I ask, you’ll be opening your mouth without question.”

The pull on his pants had Zane screaming, but even though this wasn’t his world, he knew no one was coming to save him. The house was by the river, on the outskirts of town, and nobody would hear his cries.

Roach’s past meshed with Zane’s, an invisible force pulling him between two bodies, but none offered relief. It was all continuous pain and humiliation. His body was torn apart, both inside and out. The odor of burning flesh.