Page 8 of Oh, Sacred Dark
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Roman woke with a muffled gasp.
Don’t make noise, don’t make—
He could hear people outside the door. His father, probably, and Jeremy, and Len. He’d dozed off even though he was supposed to keep his form on his knees, but it had been days since he had slept. The hunger was eating at his stomach, air spinning around him.
He could smell blood. Maybe they had killed someone else, or had kidnapped someone and would make him watch them, would dig his face into the floor if he threw up or whimpered or tried to stop them again.
Roman opened his eyes. There were no cement walls, no glaring bulbs. Soft light hit the wooden floor in rectangles, cut through by the window panelling.
Outside, a dog barked, and Roman tumbled out of the tangle of sheets on his bed.
He was shaking too badly to stay on his feet even as he realised he wasn’t in Imber territory anymore. The hunger was real—he hadn’t eaten in five days—but everything else was in the past.
He was safe, right now. As safe as he was ever going to be.
His body didn’t seem convinced.
“Please,” he mumbled. He could feel the Drop pulling at him, digging its claws into his chest, leaving bloody gashes behind. He was dissolving in acid, skin and muscle dripping away from him.
He got on his knees, wringing his left wrist in his right hand. Pushed his forehead against the bed. Begged, “Please, please,” but the Drop took him anyway.
It felt like the worst pain, and the worst loneliness, a body could go through. Like being stripped of agency and pushed into a black hole where there was nothing but shame, that choking, corrosive sense that inundated all of Roman’s senses.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. It was being caught in a state of terror and self-hatred for hours and hours, a torture that went beyond skin and bone.
This was what he had always been—worthless than nothing, his dad had always said. He took up space, a pollutant, a toxin. Scum, or sludge, or pus oozing at the edges of a wound.
He belonged at the end of a leash, or a fist, or the heel of a boot.
With a muffled cry, he slipped into the darkness.
There was nothing but the Drop and then—
A knock on the door. Roman startled, looking around wildly. Hours had passed, he could tell by the markings of light on the walls. He scrambled up, strangling the noise that wanted to come out as his knees screamed at him for the position he had been in, but the pain was nothing he hadn’t felt a million times before.
He stabilised his breathing. No one could know about the Drops, or they’d use them against him.
He opened the door. Tyler stood on the other side, ever-present frown on his brown face, almond-shaped eyes narrowed. It took everything in Roman not to flinch away or fall onto the floor and beg for just a little more time. He wasn’t ready for whatever was about to happen.
The room tilted, and Roman turned quickly, sitting on the edge of the bed. He waited. There was a buzzing in his ears. He didn’t know if he’d made a mistake, but Tyler was saying something and he had tolisten.
“I know this is a new place and stuff, but you’re gonna have to interact with some of us sooner or later, yeah?”
Roman struggled to process what was being said. A public punishment? Or…an initiation? “Okay,” he settled for replying. Whatever he had to do, he’d do it, as long as nobody else was hurt.
“Okay…” Tyler paused. “So. Why don’t you come down to dinner?”
Shock rocked through Roman. Dinner? He was beingrewarded? He looked up, had to know if this was a trick or a joke. He was so hungry—just a little bit of food, and he’d be fine.
Where Roman had expected mockery or sarcasm, there was nothing more than slight irritation and confusion, as if Roman should have expected what Tyler had said.
“Okay. You coming, then?” Tyler prompted, and Roman jerked to his feet, trying to appear obedient but not too eager.
The meal, of course, was a disaster.
Roman was sat beside Tyler and a woman who began arguing with the Dom immediately, making Roman freeze and hope Tyler’s anger wouldn’t be taken out on him. He seemed to misstep at every opportunity—waited to be given permission to eat, spoke only when spoken to, ate as little as possible—but Tyler still glared at him almost constantly.
