Please don't feed the children

please don't feed the children chp.8

SHAY’S POV

Jason passes out on the couch a grimace on his face. His hands are tucked inside his pockets, legs splayed out on the coffee table that was littered with beers. Some of the bottles knock over and fall to the floor, so I go over and pick them up, placing them back on the table again. I did all of this trying not to think about what he did to the boy to make him that happy. I remind myself that at least I got to watch over her.

 Still, I don’t know what came over me back at the cell to make me tell her my name.

She probably had never heard my voice, let alone known what I was called before Jason broke. Now I have made her think I was human, that I wasn’t the monster who had locked her up this whole time in order to obey my brother.

How stupid was I to believe she would think better of me if she knew my name? This little, insignificant fact can’t change the things I’ve done to her. And the look on her face, the one of realization, brought me to tears.

Maybe I can just go back to the way things were before, to lessen the blow when she finally gets that I’m still the same monster she came to fear.

It was in the middle of my thoughts when I heard a loud, piercing scream come from the cells downstairs. It was almost like a cry for help.

I look over at Jason, who was undisturbed from the yelling. But after a few more shrieks coming from downstairs, I decided not to risk the chance of him waking up. Because if he did awake, he would be fuming that one of his rules had been broken.

I check one more time on the dead asleep mass on the couch and then walk down the stairs to investigate the screams. My head is down, avoiding eye contact with the attention starved walls, as the inhuman shrieks get quicker and louder. It was coming of course from the cell we had just left, the cell holding the girl for all these years.

But it was the boy’s distinct voice screaming something too loud for me to comprehend. It punched my ear drums, leaving a vibrating ring in its wake. But obviously he was desperate, clearly shown by the shaking in his voice that trembled after every holler.

But after awhile of playing around with the voices I heard, trying to decipher their true meaning, I was at the cell door.

My heart jolts to a stop.

The boy was clutching Caroline in his hands, wrapping around her in a protective hold. Her sleeve was pulled up, revealing the nasty infection I had caused. I knew the rusty knife Jason had given me to use as punishment would cause something more than scars one day. It made me sick thinking that I was the one who made this all happen. She was limp against him, neck floppy and eyes glassy, distant almost. Like she was in some sort of dream.

He doesn’t even notice me there; he was focused on waking her up. But she didn’t even shake; move the lids on her eyes. It wasn’t until I opened the cell and touched his shoulder that he decided to notice me. I expect him to look at me with hate in his eyes like he always does, but this time the feeling have been wiped away.