Page 53 of Inevitable Endings
I can feel it in the way they grab me, rougher than usual, more deliberate. One of them yanks me upright by the shackles around my wrists, the metal biting into my skin as they pull me out of the cell and into the hallway. My legs scream in protest, my stiff muscles nearly giving out under the strain. But I stay upright, my feet dragging across the damp floor as they haul me forward.
I don’t look at the cells as we pass them, not anymore. It’s too much of a reminder of the ghosts that haunt this place. But this time, as we move down the narrow corridor, I can’t ignore the subtle shift in the air. The walls are colder here, more solid, more unforgiving. We take a turn I’ve never seen before. The hallway widens, the floor becomes more uneven, and the faint sound of voices echoes from the other side of a heavy wooden door. There are more people here.
I see it then; the door’s carved with strange symbols, none of which I recognize. But the feeling is enough.
They stop in front of the door, and I hear the scraping of a key in the lock. The door creaks open, revealing a small room. The walls are covered in dark stains, the floor covered in some kind of rubbery matting, and the air smells sharp, sterile, almost, but there’s a tinge of something more sinister beneath it.
Two more guards stand inside. Both of them are bigger than the ones who usually drag me around, their eyes cold and disinterested, just like their comrades. One of them is standing next to a table, looking down at a strange contraption that makes my skin crawl just looking at it. Both dressed in all black, masks covering their lower faces.
It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen, but there’s something unmistakably menacing about it. It’s a machine—rough and mechanical, with a long needle attached to a tube, and a series of buttons and dials on its side. The whole thing looks like something cobbled together in a back alley, an amateur’s attempt at making a torture device. I swallow hard. I know what this is for.
They push me toward a chair in the center of the room, a cold metal contraption with restraints on the arms and legs. The leather straps are cracked, worn, and stained with something dark. Blood? Sweat? Both, most likely.
I hesitate, but only for a moment. I know better than to show weakness. So, I force my legs to move, my body protesting every step. They shove me into the chair, and before I can even brace myself, they’ve strapped me in, tight, suffocating. My wrists are secured to the arms, my ankles bound to the chair’s legs, and there’s no room to move.
One of the guards steps forward, pulling on a pair of rubber gloves with a sickening snap. His eyes glint with the kind of malice I’ve come to expect, but this time, there’s something elsein his expression. A kind of sick enjoyment. He picks up the machine.
‘‘This will hurt,’’ he says, his voice so low it’s almost a whisper.
He flicks the switch on the machine. It hums to life, the needle at the end vibrating in a way that makes my skin crawl. I try to hold my breath, but it escapes in a ragged sigh. The guard moves closer, the other one keeping a hand on my chest, forcing me to stay still, not that I’d be able to move anyway.
I don’t want to look. I can feel the cool metal of the machine approaching my chest, just above my heart. The cross. The mark of thePakhan. My symbol of power, the one that marks me as heir to the Bratva. It’s been with me for years, inked into my skin like a promise. A burden.
But they want to erase it. They want to make me forget who I am, what I was.
The guard presses the needle to my skin, and a jolt of pain shoots through my chest. It’s not like the cold, numb ache of hunger or the burning agony of old wounds. No, this is different. This is sharp. A thousand tiny needles, digging into the flesh, pulling and tearing at the ink that defines me.
The machine buzzes, its needle dragging across my skin, carving into the cross that’s marked me as the heir of the Bratva. Each movement of the needle sends another wave of pain through me, deeper, more intense.
But I don’t flinch. I don’t make a sound.
The guard works with methodical cruelty, carving something new into my skin, something ugly, something meaningless.
I can feel the machine moving in sharp lines, a jagged pattern surrounding the cross. It’s dark, thick lines that loop and twist around the edges of the mark. A tribal design, sharp and heavy-handed. It doesn’t flow or follow any rhythm, it’s forced, violent, a brutal attempt to erase my identity.
The needle drags again, this time cutting through the olddesign entirely. They’re covering the cross now, blotting it out with a mass of thick, black ink. The lines are messy, chaotic, as if they want to obliterate everything that ever mattered.
But there’s no elegance in this. It’s not a masterpiece. It’s the mark of a man broken, stripped of his place. They don’t even care enough to make it neat. The tattoo they’re giving me is nothing but an ugly, violent smear. It’s a rough, fragmented mess.
I can hear the guard’s steady breath beside me, feel the way his fingers tighten on the machine as he moves it across my chest. He’s enjoying this. They all are. They think that this will bring me to my knees.
But I won’t give them that satisfaction. I stay still, gritting my teeth, even as the sharp sting of the needle digs deeper. The ink swirls together in jagged loops, covering the cross, swallowing it whole. They don’t just want to erase my mark; they want to erase me.
I force my mind away from the pain. Focus on anything else. It’s just ink, just blood. The kind of thing that can be washed away, or healed. The body can only take so much before it breaks, but even when it breaks, it rebuilds.
I feel the pressure on my chest, a final twist of the needle as the last part of the cross is swallowed by the darkness of the ink. It’s done.
The guard steps back, admiring his work. I don’t look down at it to see its final fucking mess, not yet. I’m not giving them that satisfaction, not until I’m ready.
‘‘Now you’re just like the rest of us,’’ the first guard sneers. ‘‘No more pretty little heir. No more thePakhanof a lost organization. Just another broken man.’’
The words hang in the air, sharp and pointed.Lost organization.The way he says it. The way it sounds so detached, almost like an afterthought, not the pride of a man in power,but the bitterness of someone who’s already let go of something important.
I keep my expression blank, even as my mind races. Lost organization.It’s not our organization, is it? Not the Bratva, not the Brotherhood, not the family I was born into. The way he said it, it wasn’t possessive. It was almost dismissive.
A subtle shift, but it’s enough. Enough to make me pause, enough to make me take in the rest of the moment with more clarity. These men, these guards, they aren’t who they seem.
There’s a weight to their words, something unsettling. The kind of thing you don’t say unless you’re an outsider, unless you’re someone who doesn’t belong anymore.
