What Once Was Broken is Now Gold | Reed900 [Rewriting]

10. Burden

The barrel of the gun dug into Gavin's back. With each breath he drew in, the gun's hard edges pressed deeper against his spine, a reminder, a warning.

They stepped into camp and Gavin twitched, a single line of binary running across his vision:

01010011 01101111 01110010 01110010 01111001

[S] 01101111 [rr] 01111001

Zeus' caretaker rammed the butt of the gun against the open wound in Gavin's left shoulder and ripped a cry from his throat. "Pay attention," Zeus murmured from his caretaker's arm. "You're quite stupid, zoning out in this situation."

Gavin grit his teeth, but said nothing as his shoulder throbbed with pain. At least now he could start to understand and decode the binary, the numbers more familiar and less...shocking when Nines didn't touch him directly.

Gavin held back a sigh, staring straight ahead to ignore the looks from the others in the camp. Zeus' caretaker pushed Gavin into Zeus' shack, then stepped inside the modest room himself and laid Zeus down on his cot in the corner. He then went to Gavin's side and crossed his hands over his abdomen, the gun in his hand glinting with the sunlight from the doorway.

A low sigh fell from Zeus' lips before he reached for a thin rope that fell through a hole in the ceiling. With a sharp tug, the low knell of a bell rang throughout the camp, each toll resounding through Gavin's chest, each thrum stalling the beat of his heart.

Soon, voices gathered around the outside of Zeus' shack, bodies blocking the light from outside. Zeus crawled on the floor, arms straining with the effort, and propped himself up against his doorframe.

"My brothers," he called, and Gavin's throat swelled up. "We must prepare for a dark night. In a little less than eleven hours, the police will be upon us."

At the resulting cries of protest, Zeus held up his hand, and the voices quelled. "I understand your confusion, your betrayal."

Within the shack, Gavin bit back a hiss as Zeus' caretaker grabbed his hair and shoved him toward the doorway, his grip like a vice. Though Gavin struggled, Zeus' caretaker didn't budge.

"But, my brothers," Zeus continued, sweeping his arm toward Gavin, "we have our spy and our promise of safety. The police may be upon us, but we have one of their own."

The crowd hurled insults—fear laced in their tone—and even trash from the ground at Gavin. He covered his face and yelped as a broad, thin sheet of metal crashed against his head, then clattered and embedded into the snow below.

"Your anger is justifiable," Zeus called, voice loud over the masses. "But do not harm him." He faced Gavin, his expression filled with a poisonous satisfaction. "Let the ones who wish to see us wiped from existence decide his fate."

Zeus waved to the mass of people, urging them away. "Don't waste any time, go! We must be prepared!"

As the crowd scattered, noise filled Gavin's ringing ears and throbbed against his skull. A jolt shot through his stump and he wobbled, fingernails digging into the skin of Zeus' caretaker's wrist, the wound on his shoulder searing with agony. "F-fuck, I get it, let go of me—" His breath hitched when Zeus' caretaker pulled harder on his hair, Gavin struggling to stand on tiptoe to ease the pain.

"Release him," Zeus said with a sigh. His caretaker let Gavin go seconds after the command.

Gavin rubbed his scalp and shied away from Zeus' caretaker, though still made sure he saw the dark glare Gavin shot him when Gavin was out of arm's reach. Goosebumps prickled down Gavin's neck now that the strain on his hair was gone. He shivered, remembering Nines' own fingers in his hair just last night.