Category: fiction

Hovsep hesitated. He wouldn’t get the answers, not in a way that would allow him to sleep after the fact.

But he had to keep going, or at least keep up a show.

He leaned in close to the prisoner’s ear.

“I can do much worse, and I will. I’ll give you one last chance.” He straightened and his eyes were hard. “Who do you work for?” The prisoner looked back, defiance set in his blue-hazel eyes. Hovsep met the gaze and tightened the spell. The boy flinched but his lips
stayed locked.

Hovsep evened out the prisoner’s gaze.

“There will be repercussions.” He turned to the one-way window. “Bring in the other one.

And now Jaumet felt the pain. It didn’t strike his back like it had Randell’s. It snaked around his arms and legs and squeezed. Threatened to squeeze the life out of him, but it wouldn’t loosen the answers. He didn’t betray. Jaumet never betrayed.

But he still felt the pain. His teeth clenched, but they couldn’t hold back the grunts, high and low. The small screams still escaped his lips.

He fell into the dark place of his mind that thought of evil contradictions. He
considered opening his teeth and spilling out the answers. The wizard growled at him.

“Who is your master?” Jaumet squeezed his eyes shut. He pulled the last of his
strength into a binding spell and bound his lips together.

The spell faltered.

Hovsep slammed into the morning. He was awake. Goddammit. He was awake.

There was no reason to pour cold water on his head, but that’s what had happened, and now he was dripping wet and fucking cold. His overseer growled at him.

“Get up, you’re not paid to sleep.” Hovsep glared back and almost reminded his
overseer that he was not, in the strictest terms, paid, but there was still water in the bucket seemingly just for this purpose.

“What do you want?” he snapped.

“His highness has some captives, and he wants answers.” Hovsep rolled out of bed.

He knew the drill.

“The subject, Romulus Lacheses has committed severe atrocity against this institution and the people in it. He has received the thrice-bled pain spell and will be exiled from civil society for life. Leave now if you agree with this punishment.” Randell’s head snapped up. They could save them, if they stayed.

They would stay. He told himself, it was the last shred of hope he had left. All else had been wrecked by his bleeding back.

They could save him and they would.

They started to trickle out. First the ones who never knew him, them the ones who
hated him, then the ones who barely knew him, then his friends. He felt like crying out to the people he had loved. He felt like screaming out the things he had done for them. He wanted them to stay so bad, he wanted them to save him. He wanted to believe again.

But they proved him foolish.

Now only three people remained. One: Calista, his girlfriend. She gave him a hesitant glance, averted her eyes.

And left.

Randell would have screamed.

If he had had any human left. This last blow was cemented as cold hard calculating anger. He was wrong. There was no hope.

Not for him and not for humanity.

Two: A girl he had never met. She pulled herself from the corner of the room and
passed Jaumet giving him an expectant look. He nodded.

Three: Jaumet.

“I’m staying.” And Randell almost believed.

Randell could barely raise his head. His back was hot sticky and red. But it wasn’t over yet. He was still alive. They would deal the final blow, and it would be over. Randell would be gone, dead to everyone who had known him. He pulled his arms into his chest and painfully struggled to a kneeling position.

He would face his exile with dignity. The punisher opened his arms to the audience,
giving in to the stony, cavernous silence. Everyone stared at the punisher. Nobody looked at Randell. Nobody would ever look at him again.

He would never be useful, because they couldn’t use him, and if he wasn’t useful, he might as well be dead. There was no pain in the thought processes. It was all cold hard logic.

But Randell felt the pain. He felt it pressing its gritty fingers into his open back. He felt its pernicious anger creep into his heart. The punisher opened his mouth for the creed.

Jaumet met Randell’s eyes.

Jaumet clenched his fingernails into his palm and tried not to track the pain spell as it fell again and again on his best friend’s back. Every time it struck, Randell clenched his teeth and tried not to scream.

And every time, Jaumet had to mirror his reaction.

He wanted it to be over, but the girl’s words had gotten to him. What kind of friend was he if he didn’t stay? How could he live with himself?

The stony eyes around him echoed with an undoubtable sense of he deserves it of I
never really liked him anyway of he doesn’t deserve to be here. His fists were clenched and his fingertips numb.

Did Randell really deserve this? He didn’t mean to hurt anyone, did he? In the air was the unmistakable scent of blood.

Jaumet snapped his head to where Randell was being tortured. The spells had broken skin. He bit his lip as if somehow that would make things better.

Stop, he screamed with his teeth, with his nails and with every fiber of his being.
But they wouldn’t stop until Randell was bleeding from three separate locations.

They wouldn’t stop until they had ridded him of dignity and acceptance and of most of his friends.

Well Jaumet wouldn’t be like that. Jaumet would stay.

Jaumet had walked into the room like everybody else, like to an execution. And that’s what it was, in the general sense of the word. Being outcast and death were basically the same thing.

As he found a spot near the wall, he caught sight of a small, brown-haired girl glaring at everybody as they came in.

Her glare shifted to Jaumet. As he noticed, he glared back.

“Are you judging me?” he demanded. Her gaze did not shift.

“I’m judging everyone who comes in here.” Jaumet paused as he thought this over

“Why?”

“You all come into these sessions like you’re the victim’s friend, like you need to support them, but when the punishment ends, nobody stays.”

“They’ll stay,” Jaumet asserted. The girl shook her head.

“Look around, how many people here will risk staying. His girlfriend?” She motioned to Calista.

“She loves him.”

“Not enough. What about his teacher?

“She said he was promising.”

“Not promising enough. And you, will you really stay?”

“I’m not like that,” Jaumet demanded, “I’m his friend.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“This isn’t just talk, I’m going to stay. That’s what friends do.”

“Are you willing to give up everything else? What about your other friendships? What about your life?”

“It’ll be one sorry-ass excuse for a life if I let down my best friend.” The girl cocked her head.

“You really mean it, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Well, good luck Jaumet.”

“To you as well…”

“Elia, it’s Elia.”