Cassius didn't like being alone in the room with the Remu doctor who didn't seem to care if Cassius was in extreme pain. In fact, it seemed like the man wanted to cause him more pain than the wound was.
The lashings had left his entire body aching and he'd cried out all the tears he had inside. He'd been ripped open by the beating. The only thing he wanted now was to be left alone to contemplate what he was going to do now. He wasn't left alone.
The doctor was still there by his side, sticking his fingers all over his back with no prediction. The man jammed his fingers into whatever ointment he had with him and slathered it over the entirety of Cassius's back. Each time he felt the man's hands upon him, he thought he was being hit all over again. It shouldn't have been as bad as before, but it felt the same. He had the thought to conjure up the magic he had left and blast the man on his ass, but he was already in hot water as it was.
The power he had when he faced Rexton and the man named Lucius, it was beyond anything he'd ever seen in the world. He had no idea he had that kind of power. He didn't know it was possible to harvest something that great in a mortal body. Now that he did know, he didn't know he was supposed to feel about it.
Being able to touch the Third Eye was one thing, this was something entirely different. This kind of power meant he had something he could use against them. Rexton, Iza, and any other Exteru who wanted to get rid of him which was the majority.
He gave his restraints another pull.
It was light, not as if he was trying to dislodge his hands from the headboard. He tested rope, but it burned against his already sore skin. The skin around his wrists were bruised from when he tried to get a look at Rexton. All he'd ended up doing was hurting himself more.
The motion pulled him away from the humiliating scene. The doctor fussed with his aching back and he slipped to the dark expanse of his mind. He didn't try to contact the Third Eye. For the first time in years, he didn't want to be inside it. He didn't want all the information running inside his head. And he didn't want to run into that voice.
The demon had been with it.
Or the demon was the voice. He really didn't know anything that was going on besides the fact that he'd fallen into hot water again. Rexton had transferred him to a new SWARM and tomorrow he would be meeting his new crew.
Members. Colleagues.
He didn't give a fuck who they were. They were going to be the same as the others. Mekiah don't mix with Remu and Exteru. They were below second-class citizens. They were dirt in the eyes of the public. He doubted it would be any different in the Capital.
All this thinking was making his head spin and with the doctor touching him, he couldn't fall asleep. He was trapped between fallen into darkness and being ripped back to reality by the aching pain in his back. Then, when the doctor had finished covering his wounds and had packed his things, he was left alone in a quiet room.
He didn't know where Rexton was and he kinda didn't care. He was worried though that he wasn't looking at the situation in the right way. Rexton had been friendly—sort of—when he'd healed Cassius and hadn't tried to force information out of him too aggressively. It was the kind of mind games Iza would have played if he was smart enough.
That the thing though. Rexton was way smarter than Iza could ever be. He had his emotions under his thumb, had everyone on his side, and had the brains to not burn bridges he would need in the future. He'd trapped Cassius in a corner and made it seem like he had nowhere else to go.
And he didn't.
Cassius was now on Rexton's side, as the man had intended. He had no choice but to play by the new rules—even if those rules would strip him of all his dignity and freedom.
That was what all this was about. Freedom.
The whipping might have been a show for the guards—he saw that now—but it also sent a cold message. Rexton was telling Cassius that no matter what Cassius was still a slave. He was still under his thumb. He was putting up a face to cover the wounds he'd made, but he wasn't going to fall for that shit.
He'd spent too many years being pushed around by Iza to simple roll over by the first person who showed even a small ounce of kindness.
It wasn't even kindness really. When he stepped back and looked at the bigger picture, he could see all these puzzle pieces line up. He didn't know how they fit or what Rexton was planning, but he did know that Rexton wasn't on anyone's side. Rexton worked only for himself.
The trait seemed to be in everyone Cassius had fallen into the hands of. Iza, Rexton, Felix—they were out for their own gain and it didn't matter who they had to destroy to get what they wanted.
He somewhat understood their thinking. Getting into the minds of his captures had saved his ass so many times, he couldn't count them on his fingers. This was really about survival. In order to outmatch them, he had to start thinking like them. It was disgusting and the worst kind of torture he had to go through just to see another day, but it had to be done.
His eyes fell on the red marks covering his wrists. The rope should've been nothing against his magic. Except he'd fried all of it away last night.
That night, when he'd met Lucius and had risked his life to run away from Rexton, had felt like a turning point for him. His life wasn't as simple as he'd once thought. Before all the drama, before he'd been bitten by that fucking demon inside the Veil, he'd lived as a simple rebel slave. He'd dreamed of escape before, had planned since his teenage years of killing Iza with his bare hands, but it never seemed so hard until now.
Though he'd been naive, when he was younger he had something he didn't have now—hope. It was a disgusting feeling he couldn't fathom ever having again, but there was a part of him that ached to feel something like it again. No matter how hard it was on the base, he'd survived through it because he thought there was a silver lining. He thought things would get better once the opportunity came to him.
It never came. Not even when he escaped the first time and after the second time he'd been beaten and pushed down like a rodent. He was less than vermin. He was absolutely nothing.
Rexton had reminded him of his place and then had the balls to say to his face how little Cassius knew. Rexton had rubbed it in his face—his failure and his weakness.
And now he was to become a member of his SWARM. Like he was some item Rexton could collect and use for play. Hunting down criminals and runaway Mekiah wasn't just a slave duty Cassius had to do. It was Xtavia's way of showing how trapped he was. He betrayed his own people to live another day and handed them over to the Exteru for them to be slaughtered.
He was disgusting. He was vile.
He tugged once more on the rope, twisting it tightly in his hand until he felt it burn into his palm. Maybe he deserved all he got. His whole life had been selfishly used to fight for his safety and for his gain. There were so many Mekiah he could have saved, so many he could have pretended had escaped from his sight.
They would have known.
Every single person on his old SWARM would have known the deception only because they could monitor the Veil. They would have known each time and he would've been killed the moment they realized.
Cassius felt the doctor leave his side. The man packed his bags and left the room.
There was a deep and cold silence after that. He lost to his wandering thoughts which lead him from last night to the days he spend cold and alone in his small room, and then how he could continue on under Rexton's rule. He didn't know if he could. Rexton was deceiving, even more so than Iza, and it was getting harder to see the emotions behind that cold face.
He couldn't worry about it now. The next morning would be the start of something new and he had to be ready for what Rexton had planned. His stomach twisted and churned, but he wasn't afraid of Rexton. The man was Remu, flesh and blood, and mortal. What made him hesitant to fall asleep was that he didn't know what would meet him in his dreams. He didn't know a thing about his magic, his ability to connect to the Third Eye, or the demon who spoke to him. Those things of the unknown sent chills through him.
He chased after sleep, but it was a lost effort. So, he laid there and waited for the next day to come.
***
Mica pulled away from the Third Eye and entered the Veil. The voice was quiet now, but he could still feel it with him. He was still reeling from Cassius's outburst. Though he was tired and worn out from chasing Cassius down, he didn't want to leave the voice behind just yet. The connection calmed his nerves and eased the ache in his mind from the days work. He wandered through the darkness without knowing where he was going or if there was anything here for him.
He'd visited this place every night since he found it as a child. When Maxem brought him into his household, he'd been frightened and alienated from his new family. If he could even call them that. It was more like a small SWARM the way Maxem operated them all.
It had been an escape and it was still like that for him now. He'd grown with it, though it hadn't changed much over the years. The voice was the same and the eerie feeling he got when the Eye probed through his thoughts was the same. It was really all the same, but in his head, it had become comfortable and more familiar than the real world. Outside of this darkness, he had to face the harsh reality.
He had power over most, but he was still under the authority of President Maxem and the Exteru Council. They dictated both Remu and Mekiah. They held the upper hand.
Even when living with Maxem, he wasn't brainwashed like Maxem wanted him to be. Lucius was dumb, but he didn't believe any of it either. Maxem spouted off about Mekiah and while Lucius like to mess with them for his own enjoyment, Mica wanted to believe Lucius was smarter than that.
The time passed slowly, ticking away in his head. It still wasn't enough. He was to meet with Maxem tonight. Just thinking about it drained his energy.
He let out a sigh and reached back to the real world. The room was bright, his office blurry for a moment before his eyes adjusted. He took in his desk, the door, and the brown walls. Two brown shelves were pushed to the wall and books on magic, the history of Xtavia, and the holy scripts detailing the fall of Mekiah and the rise of Exteru covered every shelf. They overflowed and some had to be stacked on top of each row of books.
Running a hand over his face, he leaned back in his chair. For a split second, Cassius's face flashed in his head. He looked different then, when he was tied to Mica's bed and exhausted. His dark skin had glowed and Mica had the thought to touch his curly brown hair. It had been inappropriate, almost evil to think that when he'd ordered Cassius to be whipped.
He didn't know what to do with the strange feeling except squash it down. A frown pulled at the corner of his lips.
He had a plan. He needed to stick to it. Letting Cassius or his feelings get in the way was not part of anything and he didn't want them to be a part in the first place.
Mica pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Fuck."
He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Blood smeared and dripped down onto his shirt in small droplets. The shocking pain hit him between the eyes. He smacked his hand over the spot and groaned out as the pain increased. It felt as if someone had shoved a knife through his head.
At the corner of his eyes, black spots danced and scattered across his eyesight. He covered his eyes, gritting his teeth as the pain went from unbearable to a soft ache. It pulsed in a strange way he couldn't really describe except it was stagnate now. He took small breaths and stood up from his chair. It hurt to keep his eyes open, but he tried as best as he could to fight through the sharp pain.
He walked to the door, staggering as he was hit with another shock between his eyes. The shock knocked him to his knees. He held himself up on all fours, hands clenched, but he still hadn't closed his eyes.
He reached out to the Third Eye in hopes he could escape the agonizing pain. An electric shock rippled through his body and he crumbled to the floor. He seized, eyes rolling into the back of his head, and his scream choked down by his inability to move his muscles. A light flashed, though he couldn't think about anything but the pain and the electric shocks going off in his nerves. The room brightened and another shock rippled out from his body and across the room.
Books flew off from the shelves, pages ripped from their spines and scattered on the floor. He was covered in pages and ash as the page corners were set aflame by the electric current. Another shock hit him, only it was faint, but the damage to the room had already been done. His desk had skidded across the floor and the papers had flown away with the book pages.
He didn't have the strength to life his head, but from where he laid, he could see cracks in the two large windows behind his desk. The wallpaper had cracked and one shelf on the bookshelf had cracked in the middle.
He crawled from the floor to his knees. The black dots wee still dancing in his vision and he closed his eyes, squeezed them until they hurt, pressing his finger tips into the corners. He chased them away with more pain, but it was never as bad as the pain of shock waves going through his body. With a shaky hand, he touched between his eyes to the place where the pain had started. When he pressed down on it hard, there was nothing.
He let out a gasping breath and tried to get up on his two feet. The room swirled in an array of color and he stumbled to grab onto his desk. The lights in the rooms had blown out and now he could see the chunks of glass surrounding him. He didn't understand, but it was still too hard to think about anything right then.
Though he had nothing to remember, nothing except the blood on his hands and the searing pain. But he did remember that he was to meet with President Maxem. He still had things to do and even this—the strange pain and the horrifying shock waves that seemed to come from within him—couldn't be used as an excuse. He didn't even know what he could say about this—didn't know what he could tell himself so he didn't go insane thinking about it.
There was nothing he could say, nothing he knew about what had happened. When he'd tried to connect with the Third Eye, that's when this chaos had happened. It could have something to do with that and if he was being truthful, it always had something to do with the Veil or the Third Eye. They were connected to one another, close beings, and for all the years he spent going through one to get to the other and coming back to earth, he should know everything about them.
He didn't. The voice was never clear and always spoke in cryptic ways. It had been alright until now. Nothing had ever made him question or want to know more about the Third Eye until this.
He reached out to the Third Eye. He wanted to speak to the voice and wanted to know what had happened to him this night. His powers were never this strong. Being that he was a Remu, he shouldn't have any powers in the first place, but this was surprising and almost terrifying.
The second he tried to touch the Third Eye, he was zapped. He let out a soft whimper, one he would have been ashamed of it if the situation was different. He really didn't understand any of this.
He looked down at his hand, flexing his fingers and trying to think hard about this. The Third Eye wasn't letting him in or something was blocking him. He didn't have any clue what could be blocking him either. He'd never had trouble getting into contact with the Third Eye or the voice before in his life.
He placed both hands on the desk. His head fell down and he pursed his lips. The voice might still be able to hear him if he spoke. He still might be able to get in touch and get some answer. It would be a long shot.
"Are you there?" It felt silly talking out loud.
He waited in silence and after a few minutes, he looked around the room. It was a complete mess.
"I need your help," he whispered in spite of his reluctance.
He hated how small he felt right then. He felt helpless and lost in himself. He'd never felt like that before until now, not since he was brought from the streets to live with Maxem. After he found the voice and the Third Eye, he never felt like that again.
He was back there again, wallowing in the silence of his own thoughts. The voice wasn't answering and every time he tried to reach the Third Eye he was zapped.
The alarm went off on his phone. He silenced it.
Giving one more glance at his destroyed office, he left the room while trying to straighten himself out. He had only a few minutes to clean the blood from his hand and face in the bathroom before he was due to see Maxem.
It was harder to get back into his stoic form, but after years of practice he slipped on the mask. He would deal with this mess later.