Healing Gabriel: Chapter Thirty-Two
(WaRnInG][GRAPHIC CONTENT HINTED TOWARDS][WaRnInG)
※(*)※Gabriel's POV※(*)※
"In you go, tramp," the man keeping a death grip on my frail arm snarled. I listened as the heavy door in front of me creaked open, unleashing the most gut-wrenching stench I'd ever known. I'd been gone for so long, I almost forgot about the reeking smell of this room.
Everything from feces to vomit to unknown fluids rotted in there. It smelled so awful that I turned my head to retch, falling limply to my knees. My body began to dry-retch; everything in my stomach was starting to come up.
Which was not food, but instead bile, blood and . . . other bodily fluids.
I knew I'd get in mass amounts of trouble if I threw up in the hallway, but the smell escaping the room was so strong I couldn't help it. In the dim lighting of the hallway I thought I could see stench lines. I pressed my lips together, weakly covering my mouth with trembling fingers to stop myself from throwing up.
It didn't work.
"Fuckin' nasty ass! Go do that shit in there, not out here! Fuck, that's disgusting, no wonder Boss keeps you and all your whore friends in there," the man spat as everything came spurting from my mouth through the spaces of my fingers and palms.
I closed my eyes in hopeless distress, knowing there would be consequences for this.
"Ooh, you just wait until the boss gets ahold of this shit, Blondie. You're gonna wish you'd never even been given a mouth to puke from!"
I almost laughed at his stupidity. I was forced to pleasure a man well above my age every single day. You would think he'd know that I had wished to be born without a mouth numerous times before.
I felt a boot slam against my back, shoving me forward through the mess and into the room. I wanted to scream in disgust. I turned around just in time to see the dim lights go out as the man slammed the door shut with a much stronger force than necessary.
Now that I was locked inside the fetor room, I shivered. Only several flickering lights were strewn overhead across the ceiling, not nearly enough lighting coming from the dying lightbulbs to even make the room seem dim. The room was almost that to complete darkness.
I was terrified.
As soon as the door was shut, the first moan cued, making me gasp. Then the rest of the groans of pain joined in, a couple whimpers and screams cutting through as well.
And to think that I'd almost forgotten the sound of never-ending suffering.
This room was the main holding area for the boys. It was a place where we all could let out the pain inside of us, since it was against the rules to show any sign of distress whatsoever during . . . it.
I pushed myself up off the disgusting, sticky floor with my feeble arms. I didn't bother to cover myself; the darkness would cloak me instead.
I started walking towards my corner of this hell, the one all the way at the end of the room. I kept my eyes on my feet the entire time, knowing that looking at the others chained to the soot-covered walls would get me:
A) Beat up
B) Sick
C) Both
"Hey Blondie, have'n' seen you 'round here lately. Where you been?" a darker voice rasped. Most of us here either went by numbers or nicknames. I had the misfortune of earning a nickname. Since I was the only boy here with the blondest hair, the name just stuck. I'd been disgusted of my hair color since.
I was only a few feet away from my corner now. The attention made me stop, though. I glanced up from my feet to see a young teenaged guy, his shockingly blue eyes a sharp contrast to the rest of his filthy, grimy skin.
I recognized him straightaway as Eightie. The crazed look in his insane eyes helped me remember. Eightie was psycho; he belonged in a freaking psych ward. He was one of the handful of guys who were so screwed up in the head, their hatred for this place turned into an obsession, almost like Stockholm Syndrome. He loved it here; anytime one of us trashed him or cursed this prison, Eightie and his crew would start up a fight. They'd go crazy; they'd call us ungrateful pricks, they'd curse at us, they'd beat us.
And Eightie and his gang were kids, just like the rest of us.
Yet they were still defending that monster.
A lot of the guys in here belonged in a mental hospital, I realized.
Then again, Eightie had been here much longer than I have. The torture probably consumed his mind completely. He was so brainwashed by it all, it made my chest hurt. Sure, I hated him as much as I hated him, but I couldn't help but hurt for him. He was so lost in this horrendous ordeal.
I prayed to every deity I knew of that I would never end up like Eightie.
"Aye, look at me!"
I hesitated, but I decided not to push him. I looked up, locking my feverish gaze on his.
"Where you been?"
Finding my voice hurt. My throat was so raw and sore it hurt to speak, but I knew Eightie would explode if I didn't answer him.
"Assisting him," I replied meekly. Immediately I wanted to puke again as I almost tasted the fetid scent of the air on my tongue. Could it even be called air? Surely oxygen could never taste nor smell as awful as it did in here. It was probably artificial poison or something to gas us all.
"How was it?" Eightie tilted his head up at me, terrifying blue eyes curious. I swallowed nervously before shrugging.
"Okay."
"Okay?" he repeated in disbelief. "How could something so pleasureful be 'okay?' You're a fucking idiot if you didn't enjoy it!"
"I mean, I liked it a lot," I quickly said. It hurt to say those words, not just because of my sore throat but because I didn't like it. At all. I only said it because Eightie's dirty chest started rising and falling rapidly in anger. My words seemed to calm him down a bit.
"Good. What'd he do?"
That question zapped painfully through my head. My brain mercilessly unleashed the memories of all those agonizing hours, days stuck in the solitary room with him. I wanted to cry out, but all I could do was persuade my eyes to stay dry. If I started crying in front of Eightie, who knew what he would do?
"Things," I whispered, my voice hoarse.
"Like?"
"The same things he does to you."
I regretted those words as soon as they left my lips. For some reason, they infuriated him. He quickly got off his bottom and stood up, coming at me in such a rage that I literally yelped. The chains on his wrists and ankles were much longer than the others, including my own. And even though mine weren't attached to the wall like his, they were still too tight and the rusted metal dug deep into my bloodied wrists. I was basically helpless. Like always.
I fell backwards onto another body, making the poor boy cry out. I felt himself accidentally touch my bare bottom, making us both scream in fright. I mistakingly took in a lungful of the noisome air, immediately falling into a violent coughing fit and dry-heaving. I hurriedly threw myself off the boy and to the side, trying to get away from Eightie. The room was starting to become even more chaotic than it usually was.
Eightie started yanking at his chains in desperation, unable to reach me. I thanked God that he was still attached to the wall like everyone else.
"Fuck you!" he screamed uselessly at me, his usual dark, raspy voice cracking. "He wouldn't ever do the special things he does to me to someone like you! He loves me, he makes me feel good! He only does those things to me! He told me so! And he would never lie to me, you jealous piece of shit!"
I couldn't bring myself to look at Eightie's raging face. I simply stared at the blood leaking down his sickly thin thighs.
How could he ever confuse love with what that monster did?
"Blue Eyes, come on!" a new voice called to me. I didn't hesitate to push myself off the floor and awkwardly run, more like hobble, back to Sixx and me's corner.
"That's right, go back to your stupid fucking corner! I hope he rapes you and your faggot boyfriend, you fag!" Eightie screeched.
If only he knew the torture he described was already true for Sixx.
"Hey, shut the fuck up, Eightie! You're just as much of a fag as the rest of us and you fucking know it, you gaywad!" a new voice yelled. It came from across Eightie. I had a feeling the voice belonged to the guy I'd accidentally tripped on.
If Eightie was enraged before, he was a demon now.
Unfortunately, Eightie could reach the boy. A fight between the two broke out. Everyone started yelling and freaking out; fights always broke out in here, but anyone up against Eightie had the entire room's attention. Only Eightie's crew had the nerve to chant. Sixx and I were all too used to this type of behavior, though. So we drowned the others out, instead falling into a breathy conversation between ourselves.
"Are you okay?" he asked me, his dark brown eyes wavering in the flickering lighting.
"I'm sure you know the answer to that," I whispered, closing my eyes.
"Oh, Blue Eyes. I missed you so much. You were gone for over a week. I'd been counting. One day, two days, three days, four. Five days, six days, seven days no more."
His childish rhyme lulled my frantic thoughts.
Though my throat still hurt a tremendous amount, I knew how much Sixx hated silence, even if there was screaming going on in the background.
"Anything happen while I was gone?" I asked.
"No."
The crack in his voice told me differently. "Don't lie."
He sighed. "Yesterday, day six of this week, while I was with you-know-whose friends, I heard them talking about you. They mentioned something about selling your . . . "
My chest felt tight at what he was about to say. Why did he trail off? I opened my eyes, too alarmed to pass out now. I hadn't been allowed to sleep at all while with him, so I was aware of the fact that I was in desperate need of rest. But that could wait. I needed to know what they were going to sell of mine.
"My what?"
"I don't think you wanna know, Blue Eyes. I cried when I heard."
Sixx crying in those pedophiles' presences would mean he got in heaps of trouble. It must have been bad, then, if he openly cried in front of them.
"Tell me," I stressed. He dark brown, almost black eyes seemed to darken even more, the glint of the faint lighting disappearing from them.
"My mommy used to tell me, 'innocence is bliss, Sixx.' Except she didn't use that name, she used another one. But I forgot that one, so that's why I use Sixx. But I already told you that, right? Sometimes I forget, sorry"
The mention of his mother made my stomach churn. God, I missed my own mom so much, it literally hurt how much I did. I knew she'd be disappointed in me if she learned what trouble I'd gotten myself into.
I didn't want to disappoint my mom, though.
I loved her.
She and my father. I loved them both very much, and I knew that they would be devastated if they learned what activities I'd been involuntarily included in for the past . . . who knows how long.
"Oops, sorry, got off topic for a second. But, yeah, Blue Eyes, innocence is bliss. I don't think you want to know," Sixx continued, pulling me out of my miserable thoughts.
"Sixx, please," I begged. "What did you hear? I need to know. It's my body." I knew that they must've wanted something from my body, since I lost all of my possessions on the very first day. My clothes, my dignity, my everything.
He sighed, looking down at his lap, in which he had covered by his hands. I quickly dragged my legs up close to my chest, shielding myself from him. I didn't care if the others saw me; my self-respect flew right out the window as soon as my dignity up and left first. But Sixx meant much more to me than the others, and I'd rather die than make him uncomfortable.
"They want to sell your virginity to the highest bidder," he whispered, so softly I could hardly hear him. The fighting in the background didn't help.
Tears immediately spurted from my eyes, leaving a lighter trail of grime down my filthy brown cheeks. I didn't bother to use my tears to clean myself up, though. My hands were just as squalor as the rest of my body.
"Oh, Blue Eyes," Sixx whimpered, looking up at me. "I never meant for you to cry. Oh, no, please don't. It'll be okay."
"Did they sell your virginity for money?" I whispered, my voice cracking as a sob racked my body.
He hesitated before simply looking away. "Blue Eyes . . . "
"Did they?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"They didn't. I know they didn't. They didn't sell anyone's. They just want to sell mine because I'm so much fucking prettier than everyone else!" I spat the curse word, screaming the latter of the sentence. Sixx stared at me in shock. I looked down, fisting my hands in my hair and tugging on the damned strands. So that was why he hadn't raped me yet. He wanted to sell my virginity to someone else.
I don't know if I should be relieved, or even more terrified than before.
"Shut your fucking whore mouth, Blondie! You're the ugliest little bitch that God ever had the mistake of creating! Everyone knows Eightie is the best looking one here!" a member from Eightie's crew shouted over at me.
I closed my eyes, tightening the grip of my fists in my hair. I clenched my teeth together so tightly I thought they might break.
God, I wanted to die. I really, really, really wanted to die. I was so tired of everything. It was bad enough I was forced to stay for an entire week and pleasure that sick monster and his friends nonstop. Now I might lose the single that thing I held most precious to me, besides Sixx.
"Blue Eyes, please don't cry," Sixx whispered. "There's no need to cry."
"At least you didn't lose your virginity for money!"
Sixx's eyes widened. So did mine. I hadn't meant to say that. Sixx was my only friend here. Reminding him of his rape was not what friends did. Sixx sighed, training his eyes on the ground. "It's not as bad as you think, Blue Eyes."
How could he ever say something like that? "What the hell, Sixx? Losing my virginity to a perverted old man 'isn't as bad as I think'? It's freaking disgusting. It's awful. How could you ever say it's not bad? What, was he gentle? Did he say that he loved you, just like Eightie always claims?"
Sixx was silent. I glanced over at him to see his bottom lip trembling. Guilt immediately washed over me.
"I didn't mean it, Sixx," I whimpered, scooting closer to him so our knees nearly touched. "I'm so sorry. I'm just really stressed and tired. And scared. I'm really, really scared."
Sixx looked at me, his eyes glassy and watery, pitying. He shouldn't be pitying me; I should be pitying him. Which I did, but still. I didn't deserve his care. I didn't deserve anyone's. "Oh, Blue Eyes," he whimpered. "What did they do to you?"
I felt my bottom lip tremble at the thought.
What did they do to me?
What did he do?
To me?
I remembered the feeling of his sticky, disgusting fingers inside of me. The way he yanked me and shoved me, how sore he made my mouth feel by repeatedly thrusting into it. I thought about how sore he made my throat by forcing me to swallow every time. I felt my member give a nervous jerk as I recalled how painfully hard he would grope me, how agonizing the friction was when he ground himself against me.
But he didn't just leave me with the physical pain, though. Oh, no, of course not.
The humiliation I felt during it all was enough to make me cry. And when I did let a few tears slip, he had beaten me until my dirt-covered skin was visibly black and blue. I was so ashamed of the moans that my body refused to keep in. I didn't want to moan for him. Not just because I didn't want him to think that I liked it like Eightie and his gang, but because each time I moaned, he'd scorn me.
He relished in my misery.
He kept his sickening gaze on me the entire time.
He made my whole body, from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair follicles, ache and bleed.
I took a shaky breath of the malodorous air, becoming all-too used to it all over again. "I'd rather have been raped," I whispered, staring emotionlessly at the gunk beneath my chipped fingernails. I suddenly could care less about losing my virginity for a price. It didn't matter anymore; even if I made it out of here alive, which I highly doubted, no one would ever want me like that.
No one would want to love me.
No one would want to hold and protect me.
All I could remember after that was Sixx's pained eyes leaking tears as he watched me, never taking his gaze off me as we both realized that I had just given up, had finally arrived at my very wits end.
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Note
N/A
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