Daemons and Demons Book One.

Chapter Four.

Life was a rare opportunity. Rare to enjoy. Rare to feel like you had actually done something with it. Lewis had taken his for granted when he had it. His dad had walked, his mother killed and the man who had taken over his life had lost them. 

He and his younger sister had been sleeping when masked men came in, drugged them and stole them away. And the demon who had looked after him had never found them again. 

Lewis was nine at the time, his sister seven. She had been killed a year later in front of him. He had been chained to a wall and forced to watch. His wings bloody and battered behind him, ripped on the wall. The only time he had ever allowed the humans to see his wings was when his sister had died. And he would never forgive himself for it.

Demon children, like most species of children, were heavily protected. Many would never kill or harm other species' children, even during war. Marona was dead and Lewis hadn’t been able to do anything about it. He had just sat there and watched. 

Ten years. He had been stuck in this place for ten goddamn years. They had poked him, prodded him, stabbed him, cut him and poisoned him. He had survived it all. The longest living member of the lab. But he didn’t want a medal.

He sometimes still dreamed of freedom, of the sun on his face, the wind in his hair and wings. The nightmares were constant, fear spiking to an almost painful level, but he had learnt to not react. Humans loved the thrill of a literal demon being scared. 

The chains kept his arms above his head, kept him tight to the wall, kept him close. They believed they controlled him, just like all the other demons they held at this facility, when really, each and everyone of them was biding their time. Ensuring they were strong enough when one day they decided to leave. 

He kept his head bowed, eyes closed, using the chains to keep himself steady. For the ten years he had been in this facility they had never learnt, yet they continued to try. Lewis once remembered a demon, he had long forgotten his name, but the demon fed him blood. The demon told him about powers, powers that the blood would help grow. Lewis drank the blood the humans gave him, drank every glass, no matter how much, no matter when, and each time he did, the pit he felt through him, the whispers he caught in the air, they grew, they became more powerful.

Though, when they starved him, when they held back food, the pit shrank and the whispers in the air quieted. Although the humans didn’t know, couldn’t know how it affected him, they starved him for weeks to try and gain one thing. Knowledge about his demon form.

“Number six?”

Another thing he had managed to hide from them. His name. They knew nothing about him, didn’t know his species, they had a rough estimate of his age, but he hid what he could.  It went against the law to tell a human unless under very specific circumstances. He didn’t feel like breaking the law when he had a suspicion it was in fact the Supernatural Authorities who ran them. 

Lewis flashed open his eyes, staring straight at the three humans who stood in front of them. 

“Planning on telling us anything about you today?”

He bared his teeth.

“You haven’t had any blood in two weeks. You must be getting hungry?”

Lewis didn’t move.

“Come on number six.” One of the men grabbed his arm, inserting a needle and taking two tubes of dark red, eerily black blood. “Surely you’re hungry?”

Lewis still didn’t speak, didn’t move, but watched as the men continued to take samples. Scraping his skin, cutting out muscle and tissues, blood as they waited for him to react, he didn’t. He never would. Not even as they dragged blades and steel down him. Like shifters who were allergic to silver, demons were sensitive to steel. It was worse for certain demons, especially those always in their demonoid form, however, for Lewis who could switch between forms at will. Steel didn’t react as badly to his skin. It was like a tingling, and often left a rash, like he was allergic.