Dog Blood

think. I’ve lost track of what’s bullshit and what’s fact.
    Mallon removes the strap across my forehead, then lies on the floor and does something to the chains holding my arms and legs down. I try to lift my head and look, but I can’t see anything. He’s out of sight under the bed for a couple of minutes doing Christ knows what; then he scrambles back up and brushes himself down. He stands on the other side of the room and looks at me.
    “There you go, you can-”
    Before he’s even finished his sentence I’ve realized the shackles have been detached from the bed frame. I swing myself around in a sudden single, painful movement and use my weight to throw myself forward and stand up. My legs and arms are cold, numb, heavy, and unresponsive, but I know this is my chance to kill him. I raise my aching arms and stretch a length of chain between them, ready to wrap it around the fucker’s filthy neck and squeeze the life out of him. I lunge, but he sidesteps easily, then sticks out a foot and trips me. I fall quickly, too fast to put my hands out and stop myself. My left shoulder clips the edge of the chair, and then my head smacks against the wall. I roll over onto my back in agony, head spinning and vision blurred. Mallon stands over me. He looks down, shakes his head, and tuts.
    “Do you think I’m stupid?”
    He moves the chair out of the way and sighs with disappointment.
    “Honestly, Danny, weren’t you listening to anything I said earlier? Haven’t you worked it out yet? The more you struggle and fight, the less you’re going to achieve.”
    In the confusion of my pathetic, fumbled attempt to attack, I managed to kick the door shut. It opens again, and Mallon gestures for the two men outside to come in. One of them, a huge, evil-looking bastard, grabs the chains hanging from my wrists and hauls me up onto my unsteady feet with worrying ease. If he’d been like us, I think to myself, he’d have been a Brute. He grips my arms tight, and it feels like I’m being squeezed in a vise. There’s nothing I can do about it. The other man walks toward me and puts something over my head. It’s a pillowcase, I think, thin enough for me to be able to breathe but thick enough to block out the light and stop me from seeing. The chains around my ankles are padlocked together. The floor is cold and wet under my bare feet.
    “Stay calm and keep your temper in check and you’ll be okay,” Mallon says. “Fight back and you’ll regret it.”
    Is that a threat or just a warning to play by his rules? Whatever, the slight glimmer of hope I’d been feeling since Mallon’s earlier visit has gone now and has been replaced by fear. What are they going to do to me? I’m completely at the mercy of these foul bastards, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I feel like a failure, ashamed that I’ve been beaten by the Unchanged. Even if I did manage to fight them off, I’m still bound and chained. I’d never get away.
    “Move,” the huge man standing behind me grunts in my ear, his voice deep, loud, and emotionless. He shoves me square in the middle of my back, and I fly forward, barely managing to stay upright and not trip over the chains between my feet. I almost fall, but one of the men-it might even be Mallon-catches me and pulls me back up.
    Head bowed, all I can see is my dirty, shackled feet. My legs feel leaden with pain and weak with nerves as I realize this could be my final walk. All that crap about not fighting fire with fire and trying to break the cycle… it was all lies-a cheap, pathetic ruse to keep me occupied and catch me off guard. And the worst thing of all is how easily I fell for it. I should have seen through the bullshit. They were just trying to keep me pacified to make it easier for them to kill me when they’re ready. What am I walking toward? A firing squad? A stoning? The room where I’ll be given my lethal injection? I try to stop-try to turn around and fight my way out of this-but the fuckers surrounding me are having none of it. They restrain me, but they don’t strike back, not even allowing me the satisfaction of going down fighting. When I stop struggling again, they relax their grip and let me walk on alone. The journey to my final destination feels endless. I think about Ellis, and then about Lizzie, Josh, and Edward, and the pain and frustration is too much to stand. I start crying like a fucking baby, sobbing and shaking and pathetic.
    We turn right, and I trip