The Spell in the Storm

14

TW: Gay sex. Religious trauma. Abuse mention. 

Peyton's POV

The rage hits me like a truck.

No, not a truck. A mountain. An entire mountain range falling on top of me, crushing me under the weight of all the rage, hatred, and anger I've felt my entire life.

My vision tinges red as I look around. Surrounding me is all the shit that pisses me off.

When I was seven, it was my mom leaving. Her affair was waiting for her in the car outside, the guy laughing as he saw the tears on my face. I see his teeth flashing, the flick of his eyes to my dad and sister behind me. I feel his happiness at taking my mom away from my family.

When I was ten, and was being shouted at by a preacher. His son wasn't being yelled at, even though he was just as much to blame. I feel the shame and anger I felt then, when I just asked if I could touch the boy's penis out of curiosity. The boy had let me, then ran to his father to tell him about my homosexual sins. Even though I was simply a curious kid.

Fifteen years old, crying in the bathroom with my sister. She had just gotten a positive pregnancy test after getting raped by her commanding officer. She didn't know what to do. My father found us, and listened as my sister told him the same thing she told me. That the man had drugged her drink while out with her Army buddies. Had raped her while she was passed out. Then continued to hurt her when she woke up.

She had decided to have an abortion. And filed against the officer. He got away scott free. She was ridiculed the rest of her time in the Army.

She and I went to get tattoos the day she came back home for good. Twin tribal tattoos on her arms, showing a stargazer lily and an eagle feather. For the loss of the child she didn't want and couldn't care for, and the courage it took to stand up to the man who hurt her. Mine are a turtle, symbolizing my family and hope and devotion to them, and a white rose surrounded by lavender blossoms, for finding myself.

Nineteen years old, coming home from training. Finding a man in my house, dressed in a suit, waiting for me. Telling me that I have been chosen to undergo a government operation that is top secret. That I would be taken to a secret facility. That it would be determined if I was special or not.

The rage I felt at that. Oh, damn, it shook the world. To be taken from my father, who had cared so much after my mom left. From Amelia, who had finally found love away from the Army. And to be told that it was to determine if I was special. As if that had ever mattered.

But I never got a choice. A chance to fight. I was knocked unconscious and dragged here, to this damn facility.

I had awoken, raging and biting. The examiner looked at me, boredom on his face. He told me to lie still, then stuck a needle with glowing green fluid inside it into me.

Fire blazed through my body. I felt it in my veins, boiling my blood. I felt it in my muscles, strengthening them even more. I felt it in my brain, learning and echoing my thoughts and emotions.

When I opened my eyes, they were blazing blue. The examiner told the soldier standing near the door that it had been a success. Then the doctor tied me down with the glowing ropes, and I passed out again.

I awoke again with Bakar's voice in my head, telling me to go slowly. But I ignored him. I sprang out of bed, clothed in nothing but a sheet, and raced for the exit.

I didn't make it very far before soldiers tackled me to the ground and tied me up. They brought me back to the hospital, tied me to the bed, and stood near it, hands on their guns in case I ran again.