Unspoken

Chapter 18- Life Past

He could still remember the day like it had just happened. He'd been eleven, and had come home from school. He'd been excited to play some nintendo, and his friend Kint had just invited him for a birthday party that weekend.
He'd opened the door and his mother had been frantically throwing clothing into a bags, her hair an unbrushed mass of hair flying around her head in tangled knots.
"Mom? What's wrong?" He asked, putting his school bag down, rubbing sweaty palms on his shorts. It had been a humid and hot day, on the cusp of monsoon season.
"Honey, you're home." She turned, wringing her hands together, biting her lip like she'd always done when she was anxious. "Quick, we have to be quick."
"Why? What's going on?" Gun asked, feeling his own anxiety building. His mother and he had a strange sort of circular anxiety- when one of them was anxious the other one got more anxious and they fed off of each other. His father was the calming influence, always smiling and rubbing both of their backs and speaking in soothing tones until they relaxed.
"Your father..." She suddenly stopped, putting her face in her hands, her shoulders heaving. He ran over, circling her waist with his arms, looking up.
"Where's daddy?" He asked. "Daddy always makes everything better when you're sad."
"Your father he's... he's gone."
"Where? When is he coming back?" Gun asked. She pulled away from him, wiping her face with the back of her arm.
"He's not coming back. He's dead honey." She took a deep breath, looking down at Gun's confused face and grasping him by the shoulder, her hand digging into his collarbone like a claw.
"What?"
"And we have to go. Pack up what you need, we're leaving."

She hadn't explained to him why they had to go until a few years later. Everything he asked about why they'd never had a funeral, why they kept changing houses, moving from town to town she'd abruptly changed the subject, telling him she'd tell him when he was ready.
That turned out to be when he was thirteen. His mother had taken up drinking, often to the point of forgetting to eat, her body becoming emaciated and sickly. She hadn't worked, living off of a small stipend her brother would transfer into her account every month.
"Come here." She'd slurred from the couch, grabbing the hem of Gun's shirt and dragging him over, grasping his face in her hands. "I wish you looked like your father." She'd cried. "But I also wish I'd never met your father. He did this to us."
"What did he do?"
"He left us, and now... Kirave is after us."
Gun remembered Kirave, the angry looking man whom had worked for his father. He'd had scarred knuckles, and a large tattoo that crept up his neck, and he was always standing at alert whenever he'd come to the house, like he'd been constantly waiting for an attack at every moment.
"Why is uncle Kirave after us?"
"He's not your uncle, he's a monster." She hissed, lapsing back into silence. She'd never mentioned Kirave again, just becoming drunker and more bitter with every move, her anxiety taking her over until she died on his sixteenth birthday, falling asleep in the bathtub and drowning. The night before she'd fallen into a drunken rage, screaming about how she wished he'd never been born, wished he'd died, wished his father had never met her.
He'd run out of the house, returning to find her dead, her hair floating around her in a halo in the tub.
He'd taken all of her bank books, packed a bag, and moved. He signed himself up for highschool on the other side of town, never telling her brother she'd died, continuing to live on the money he sent- continuing to hide without truly realizing why, changing schools every semester, living in hostels and cheap basement apartments, always feeling scared but never knowing why.
But he realized it soon enough.

The day that he'd disappeared from school, right when he was having a joyful panic that Off seemed to be about to kiss him, his phone had buzzed with a text message. This was immediately shocking as the only people who had his number were the school, because he'd bought a cheap burner phone specifically because they wouldn't let him register without a phone number.

You're a hard kid to find. I'm waiting outside your school. This is Uncle Kirave

His hands shook when he saw that, jumping to his feet and making excuses while running outside.
Maybe I can run? He thought, shaking his head at the thought. I'm way to slow for that. Maybe mom had it wrong and I don't need to be scared of him. He tried to reassure himself in his mind but his legs sped up, as though his body were trying to get him out of there before his brain could catch up.
A limousine pulled up in front of him and he came to a halt like a deer in headlights. The back door was pushed open from inside, and the smiling face of his father's old partner appeared, half in shadow.

Smile was a bit of a misnomer. It was very much a sneer.

"You don't look much like your father kid." Kirave said, his voice deep and intimidating. "You look like your mother. How is she these days?"
"Dead." Gun replied, his shoulders slumping in on him.
"That's a shame. Did you do it?"
"No. She died when she got drunk in the bathtub." He replied, his voice toneless.
"Well, you don't have your father's killer instinct I guess. Get in kid, we have to talk." Kirave patted the seat next to him, and with resignation Gun slid inside, gripping his threadbare bookbag to his chest.
"So here's the deal kid. You have two options here. You can give me what I want, or we can make this harder."
"What is it that you want?" Gun asked.
"Something your father left you. I need it."
"I don't have anything from my father. Not even his looks as you've just said." Gun replied, his heart beating in his chest.
"No, I don't suppose you have it yet. But you will, and I need it."
"Then just take it why don't you? I don't even know what it is, and you have it, so just take it and leave me alone."
"I really wish it were that simple kid, but unfortunately your father made that a bit impossible." Kirave leaned really close to Gun, his rough hand circling his wrist in a vice-grip, his breath hot on Gun's ear. "I suppose killing him was a mistake on my part." Kirave said, a little chuckle in his voice.
"Are you... are you going to kill me too?" Gun asked, his heart beating so hard he was sure the man crowding his space could hear it.
"Ah if only it were that simple. I need you alive- until you're twenty five anyway."
"That's... a long time away." Gun commented. "Why not just leave me alone and just take it then?"
"Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. I can't really take it, I need you to give it to me. So you're going to have to stay with me." Kirave said, patting Gun's cheek without any real affection.
That was the beginning of the campaign to break him.

Gun had quickly realized that men like Kirave, they didn't realize when you had nothing to lose, not much was a threat. Pain would work for a while, and getting his goons to tie him up, be casually cruel, put out cigarettes on his skin, scrape his chest with their switchblades, fire their guns near him to try to deafen him and then placing the hot metal on his skin- these things would make him scared at first, but eventually the mind adjusted.
Kirave had never understood that the only way he'd broken him was to make him not particularly care if he lived or not, so pain was but a momentary distraction from the emptiness that was his existence. He'd just count, sitting stock still, contained in his mind, ignoring the world that did nothing but cause him pain and fear. He could break his body, but Gun still didn't know what he wanted, Gun had nothing to give him.
Kirave could only hurt his body, he had no power over Gun's mind. He had nothing Gun wanted, so there was nothing he could take away, no hopes to crush. Gun had nothing, had no concept of time. He didn't even know how old he was anymore, and the casual cruelty ceased to have any meaning for him, it was just something that happened, an empty gesture on the point of a man who lived by nothing but cruelty. Gun had nothing to live for.
Until he'd been left in a bathroom with an unlocked window.