Blood for Honor

How long have I been gone? When will this hell end? Is anyone even looking for me?

These are all questions I have asked myself for only God knows how long—if there is a God. I’m not getting an answer.

I cannot even get an answer from that strange voice in my head. It is there, telling me to keep going and not to give up whenever I believe I have nothing left, but it never answers my questions.

Ice water rushes down my throat, suffocating me as I inhale out of pure shock, caught off guard by the strong hands of the man behind me. Coughing and gagging, I try to calm myself, despite the fire in my lungs overcoming the icy water, making me wish for it to return. I will take the ice over fire any day, but my wants are laughable.

I am the fire.

My handler, the owner of the strong hand gripped tight in my matted hair, pulls me out of the water before I can embrace the peace of darkness. I violently spit up the water that continues to choke me, and my ears ring from the lack of oxygen. I gasp covetously at the damp, stagnant air around me. Water streams from my hair into my eyes as I search for the light I know all too well. It hangs in the center of my hell, a literal and figurative light in the dark.

The edges of my vision darken, and sparkles shimmer in the harsh white light, but they fade with a decent breath of air. I completely ignore the well-dressed man watching on quietly with his hands clasped behind him, his face hidden in the shadows.

The hand in my hair forces my head down again, back into the barrel of ice water. I suppress the gasp that threatens to inhale another lungful of water and go still. But he knows what I am doing and doesn’t let me up. My lungs ignite from a lack of oxygen, even without the deluge of water. Against my self-control, I begin to struggle, desperate to make the pain stop and so very desperate to breathe.

My movements weaken, and only then am I lifted from the water and thrown unceremoniously to the floor in a limp heap. My head hits the concrete, and I cry out in agony. Tears mix with the water dripping off of me onto the floor. I roll onto my back, searching for my light, and savor each wretched breath that slowly puts out the fire in my lungs.

Part of me believes that this is all some sort of horrible nightmare that I can’t wake up from, but it is far too real for me to believe that wholeheartedly. The light is the only thing that allows me to hold on to reality. Without it, I sink inside myself, and someone other than me takes over as a now all too familiar song plays in the background. I don’t know who she is, but she isn’t nice. Not that I was ever considered nice, but she is something else—a whirlwind of fury and anger finely tuned into an obedient and blood-thirsty wolf.

And when the man in the shadows says jump, she asks how high.

She asks with my mouth, my voice. She controls my eyes that travel around the bare room to find her Master’s eyes when he finally steps out of the shadows. His gray-blue eyes stare at her, at me, in adoration. The man only shows himself to her, and I forget his face as soon as she sinks back inside me again.

She is me, and I am she. We are one, and I have no say in the control of what she proudly calls her meat suit.

My body.

And the worst part of it all?

I can’t look away when she does terrible things with my hands, and I don’t even know her name. I can’t do anything as my hands wrap around the stranger lady’s throat. I can’t pull away as my fingers choke the life out of her. And I can’t look away as the light leaves her eyes.

I cannot stop the satisfied smirk that spreads across my lips as I sit back and study the lifeless woman from my spot on top of her, where I pounced on her like a starving lion. The pride within me when the man says, “Good job, my dear,” sickens me, but she is delighted.

When the light is gone, I have no control. I might as well not even exist anymore—until she sleeps. As she slumbers, her control fades, and I am brought back in control of myself. I come back to stare at the hands that have become a terrible weapon to kill without question.

I am brought back to fear myself.

I no longer sleep. Not when every time I close my eyes, the only thing I see is the light being extinguished in nearly a dozen people.

Over and over again.

No one can overtake her. No one can overtake me—not even the biggest man.

He falls the hardest.

I don’t know any of them, but I do not doubt that it wouldn’t matter. If the man in the shadows says kill, I kill.

We kill.

I can’t escape it. I can’t escape her because she is me, and I am she.

My masked handler offers his tattooed hand, an intricate star prominently inked on the back and unfamiliar runes on his fingers. Every single one is different, and if I were anywhere else, I would wonder what they mean.

But I can’t care. Not here.

I take his hand time and time again. His skin is soft and warm to the touch—soothing despite what that hand has done to me. He pulls me to my feet, only for me to kneel before my Master—to let his praises sink into my very being.

When my Master’s hand cups my face, I smile brilliantly at him in adoration. My life purpose is to serve him—to do his bidding. I understand this within my spirit as the terrible guilt that haunts me subsides, and peace washes over me. It frees me of my tormented mind so that I can embrace this other.

I forget all the pain and shove it inside the dark, overflowing corners of my mind to be recalled later—to torment me when I least expect it.