It was the dark. He was alone. His hands were chained above his head, pulled tight against the brick cell walls. The metal bit into his wrists. He hissed as the faint stinging ached in the wounds, hitting him as he slowly woke up.
He couldn't see anything but faint shadows dancing across the walls. His eyes were swollen to the point he could only open them slightly. His neck, his jaw, and the rest of his body was in a battle against each other over what was in the most pain.
One minute the burning shots of pain were on his face and then the next they were in his lower legs.
Iza had sent him spiraling down to a place he couldn't escape. When Iza had his hands wrapped around Cassius's neck, he thought he was going to die. His last moments were a blur before he passed out, but he did remember the man's lustful gaze boring into him.
The sick fuck had derived so much pleasure from almost killing him. He couldn't think of anything else except those eyes.
He didn't need to think long before a plan was forming inside his head.
Everything Iza had done to him, he would do to Iza. He would show him what it was like to dangle over the edge of death and then be pulled back over. The pain he'd felt, Cassius would do so much worse. The things he would do would drive Iza into madness and back.
But he would have to wait on his revenge for now. As much as he wanted to focus on draining Iza of all self-confidence, he had to think about another larger problem. General Rexton was planning to transfer him to Keshtin.
Cassius would lose his influence here. He wouldn't have another chance to escape, not like he had here.
That wasn't his biggest problem.
The President--and Rexton--would find out eventually what had happened on that mission if he was taken to the Capital.
They would find out about the demon attack and if they found that out, they would find out he could connect to the Third Eye. There was no telling what they would do to him if they found that out. All he knew that it wasn't going to be anything good.
For his own sake, he had to find a way out. His attempt was a failure, but now he knew what not to do. He couldn't rely on chance any more. As time passed, the harder it was going to get to break out.
He needed to think about his next move, whether he would bolt like he had or if he would take his time to figure out Rexton's weaknesses. Both scenarios had their advantages.
If he caught Rexton off guard, he would have surprise on his side. However, he'd already pulled that card. Rexton would be expecting it this time around and he probably had already put up measures in case Cassius tried anything again.
His other option would take time he wasn't sure he had. It would mean starting over from scratch. He would have to gain Rexton's trust and play into the man's hands. He'd had years to do that with Iza. He'd been building up this plan since he was a boy.
And now he'd wasted it.
What frustrated him the most was that Iza turned out to be a different person than he'd known him to be.
For years, Cassius believed Iza wore his emotions with no regard. It was mostly true.
But there was a darker side to Iza that he'd never shown before until tonight. He would have killed Cassius if Rexton hanging around. There was no doubt in Cassius's mind that Iza would seize the chance to kill him.
He had to escape, stay out of Iza's hands, and do it all without getting himself killed in the process.
All those choices and chances that could end up in failure were daunting. Cassius knew he shouldn't think about that right now, not when he would have to make a move in the coming hours, but his mind was doing its own thing while he was trying to keep himself from falling apart.
This whole situation stressed him out more than anything that had happened to him before. Life had never been simple for him. Never.
Mekiah were seen as fully grown adults based on their mating maturity. If they could have offspring, they were old enough for everything else.
That included sex, labor, and discipline.
He'd grown up fast because he had to, but being just ten-years-old hadn't done him any favors.
When he came to the base, he was a small child and couldn't do much of anything with his magic. He knew nothing about battle or fighting, but no one was willing to help him along. They told him what to do and he did it if he didn't want to be beat.
The first time he'd been hit was with a man's fist.
He'd fallen to the ground and sobbed until he was hit again. They'd taught him what would happen if he disobeyed, drilled it into his head until he expected to be hit. From then on, he changed into the person he was today.
A man that fought against his suppressors because it was all he knew. It wasn't their plan to turn him into a man that couldn't trust or wouldn't obey orders. They wanted his obedience and had tried to beat it into him.
Nothing they did had truly worked. Yes, he was hard as stone and knew how to use his magic to track, but they hadn't turned him into a mindless slave. He wasn't their slave or their soldier to command.
They could believe that all they wanted, but it would never be true.
He didn't remember much about the HIVE. It was a dark cold place that drifted to the front of his mind sometimes. But anything he tried to remember from that place was coated with a thick film.
It kept him from seeing things clearly, kept him distant from the things he could see. He knew what the HIVE was and what went on there.
It was where he was born and raised for the first decade of his life. His mother, like all young Mekiah girls her age, was kept there as a breeding mule. She'd probably had dozens of children before she became infertile.
They would have sold her to be a bed slave or a house servant. It was just another unfortunate thing he didn't want to think about.
Days could go by with him down in the slump thinking about all the horrible things happening to others in the world. Mekiah or not, people suffered and no matter how much he would think about it, it wouldn't change a damn thing.
As hard as he tried, he dreamed about what his life could have been life. If Mekiah slavery didn't exist.
His mother would have raised him with a loving hand, one that would have made a difference.
Or she could have been another version of Iza. He didn't know.
In his dreams, he could pretend she was an angel who loved him as much as his sisters and brothers. He would have a large loving family he would argue with but ultimately loved.
His whole life consisted of tracking down "criminals". Through the years, he sometimes got the chance to experience the world, but it was always on the end of a leash.
Those moments he had were ones he sometimes wished he would never forget. They showed him what the real world was like for the Remu and Exteru. They had freedom and right that none of the Mekiah ever got. No matter what the Mekiah may have done in the past, those were different people than the ones living today.
The war may have ended hundreds of years ago, but the after affects still lingered. The Exteru saved a race and sacrificed another for what they thought was good.
History repeated itself.
He wondered who would save the world this time.
***
Mica met General Iza in the man's office. The room was as stuffy as he remembered, but before he didn't have the memory of his and Cassius's fight replaying in his head. That alone made the room feel cold and dark. The room was bare to begin with, paired with the dark mood and Iza's unpleasantness, it made his anger come to the surface.
It was a side that lost control easily and showed a weakness he would never show willingly.
Iza sat at his desk, his focus on a paper in front of him. As he wrote on the paper, Mica caught the dark bruises on his knuckles and the scratches around his wrists. They were new. It had been less than half an hour since Mica had seen him last. That was after Cassius's attempted escape.
The clues clicked. It wasn't hard to guess what had happened. It didn't make him less angry.
Mica walked in uninvited. The door slammed behind him.
"Your soldiers are as ill-mannered as you are."
Iza finished writing and placed his pen down on his desk. He looked up at Mica. "They were following orders."
"Orders that undermined mine." Mica gripped the edge of Iza's desk and leaned forward. "I do not appreciate being disrespected. I'm not here to help you. I'm here to close this case and present the Capital with a reason to keep your team alive. If you want to keep your job, it would be in your best interest to do as I say."
Iza scanned Mica's face. A smile pulled at his lips. "Right. We both know you're pulling cards you don't have."
It was the smirk that made Mica want to punch the man in the face. He held himself back, soothing his wild thoughts with other plans to get Iza back in the future. There was no reason to rush into anything. It would be shooting himself in the foot if he pushed to early. He had to be patient.
Mica reached into his breast pocket. His fingers grabbed onto a folded sheet and presented it to Iza.
"I didn't come here to just observe the damage being done. The President has granted me full rights as Xtavia's first general," he said, "This also includes the right to confiscate any item or Mekiah in your possession."
Darkness fell over Iza's face. He snatched the document from Mica's hand. His eyes ran frantically along the words, each passing second a blow to the armor he'd built around him. Mica took this sweet chance. The pain and the defeated look on Iza's face didn't make up for the disrespect the general had shown him, but it was beautiful anyways. For days, he could feast upon that look.
It was short lived. Iza tossed the paper onto the desk and stood up.
"Take him general. He's worthless to me anyways."
Mica folded the paper and placed it back into his breast pocket. He smiled as he did so.
"Of course."
He could feel the waves of anger coming off of Iza. Mica took it in stride, a victory he found easy to take. However, breaking the Mekiah would be a different story. He'd been led around on a loose chain and it had turned him into a spoiled slave. It wasn't supposed to be his job to correct this behavior, but after being under Iza's care, he wasn't taking any chances in someone messing up again.
He got what he wanted. The rest was up to him.
Iza went back to writing. It was as if he was trying to convince himself that he'd won the conversation when they both know Mica had. It was a dismissal Mica could take with stride. Nothing Iza did could put him down and Iza knew this. He was scared of the things Mica could do, though he didn't show fear at all in his face.
It was there. Buried under all the masks he changed when he needed to. Mica could see this clearly because he was the same. When he looked at Iza, he saw something like a reflection. But it was almost like what not to become. There wasn't enough determination in Iza's eyes and he let his emotions take over him. He had no self control.
It was the biggest weakness any man could have.
Mica left the office. The door closed and the smile on his face disappeared.
He pulled his phone from his pocket. The screen lit up and immediately began to dial the only number stored in the contacts. He walked down the hall as it rang.
"General Rexton, you're calling sooner than expected," President Maxem said.
Mica looked around before he spoke. "I'm also returning sooner. We've got a lead, but the Mekiah is withholding information."
"Is he not responding to torture?"
"It wouldn't make much of a difference. He's been punished so many times without a good reason, I doubt anything works on him anymore." It was the simplest explanation he could give at the time. Iza hopefully hadn't broken the Mekiah, though it seemed he was doing just fine. He was more hostile than most he'd come across, but it was a character flaw that couldn't be changed unless they wanted a defected product.
He heard Maxem sigh. "Are you bringing him to Keshtin?"
"We'll be leaving in the morning."
"Good." He paused. "I want you to keep an eye on General Iza, but do not do anything. I want to know how much trouble he's causing."
"Yes, sir."
"Was there anything else? Do you know anything about the attack?"
Mica looked behind him. The halls were empty as he'd requested before he came to Iza's office. He waited a few seconds, to let the tension build up. It was fun to keep Maxem on the edge of his seat though he could ruin Mica if he wanted. But the secret he was keeping was on the tip of his tongue. Maxem was someone he'd once trusted, though now they were somewhat enemies. The President didn't know that and it was crucial he never did.
"Nothing, sir," he said, the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Nothing at all."
"Well, then, I'll see you once you arrive."
The call ended and Mica pocketed the phone.
Maxem wasn't dumb, but he was trusted Mica more than he should.
Mica turned around and looked at Iza's office door. He was confident things would go to plan. If things didn't, he would find a way to fix them before they destroyed anything important. Plans were just that. Plans. It's why he had multiple in motion at all times.
This was the time he'd been waiting for.
There wouldn't ever be a better time.
***
Cassius woke sometimes in the middle of the night. He held up his hand, searching for it, but he couldn't see it. The edges of his palm were faint, barely there. The darkness was empty as it always was and as his strength slipped away, he fell back into his mind.
The Third Eye felt empty and far away, a mere sliver of what it used to be. He couldn't tell if it was the Third Eye rejecting him or if he was too weak to connect with it. Passing through the Veil was harder than it should be. Most of the time he could slip through with the blink of his eyes.
Now he could barely keep his eyes open. Without the comfort of the Third Eye, the dark was taking over, consuming him to the point he was forgetting all the things that made him stronger than any other Mekiah.
His mind was wasting away. Drifting further from him, the hunger for the power was out of sight. It was what kept him living each day. Knowing that he could be the one to end them all had been a dream, but also a reality he could imagine.
Everything that had led up to this point, Iza, Rexton, the world, were mere things of the past. He needed to forget about them and control his anger.
Come tomorrow morning, he would be ready to fight again. The Third Eye couldn't keep him out forever. Sooner or later he would find out what it was hiding and what Rexton was up to. He couldn't believe that it was just coincidence his information was missing from the millions of data stored inside the Third Eye. It made no sense.
His hand fell to his stomach. The Veil and the Third Eye were beings of their own kind. He connected with them in ways he could never attempt to describe. The Exteru would never understand, but they would try to exploit it.
While other Mekiah wanted to pray and believe that the world would change or somehow the Exteru would see their wrongs, he saw no point in doing any of that. If there was a higher being, it would have helped them long ago.
And if the Exteru were the high beings, as said in legends, they were not the creations of a kind god.
Mekiah would be better off protecting their own.
Their hope was nothing but silent screams into a black void. Only they could hear their cries of pain.
He closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep. The cement floor beneath him reminded him of a time in the HIVE. Together, with his siblings and mother, they huddled for warmth. It was sad and strange.
At least it was familiar.