Lag 6.11 (Un-Betaed) (1k Preview)
Lag 6.11
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“…en shit like you think that they can call the shots, that they can mess with their betters, when they try to crawl out of the mud and drag good people down to their level…”
Words drifted past the haze of pain and what was likely a concussion, easing him slowly back into agonizing consciousness. Ngggh. The sound was muffled, a mouthful of dirty cloth still shoved firmly in his jaw. He groaned again as the world returned to him, sensations exploding all over his mind and body in ways that were entirely unpleasant. Nggggghhhhh.
He was a mass of aches and pains, nearly every single feeling popping into his conscious mind ringing with the same note.
Pain.
Axel Ramon peeled one eye open, the dried blood encrusted on the other making so much as a blink from that side of his face just short of an impossibility. He was upright again, his butt planted firmly on a chair. Not by choice, of course, but then if anything resembling a choice was offered to him, he would never be anywhere close to here in the first place. Wherever here was, anyway.
“Winslow’s a fucking madhouse,’ the voice continued. Despite keeping his head down, Sparky still had one good eye able to tell him that no one else was in the room but him and whoever this Empire asshole was, the man’s boots being the only pair of footwear in the room other than his own. “Fucking full of shitskins, spics, gooks, chinks and mutts. All the trash that can’t control themselves, really. You end up there.”
The rational part of his brain kicked in as the speaker took another long pause, pain and haziness ignored for a few seconds as a pair of amber eyes flickered across the floor of the dark room. It took no time at all to take stock of his environment, given that it seemed like some kind of basic studio apartment.
At least, it used to be at one point.
Time, neglect, and outright vandalism seemed to have turned the space into something that would probably have been perfect fodder for some kind of indie horror movie, not much needing to be done to make the place look any scarier than it already was. Apart from what seemed like a portable camera perched on a short stand several feet across from where he sat and just in front of the other occupant of the room – And wasn’t that fucking worrying – the room seemed to be almost entirely empty, indistinguishable from one of many in the various run-down properties all over the Bay.
But why me? Why am I here? There was no answer to that question, none that he wanted to acknowledge at least. More than that, there wasn’t much information for Sparky to gain without actually lifting his head to scan the room. Even still, the teenager didn’t dare to raise his gaze and potentially meet eyes with the only other person in the room.
That was just asking for trouble.
Like I’m not in a shitload already, he snarled back at his own thoughts. How did this happen?
“You know what I mean, kid?” the voice asked with a sigh. “You know Winslow’s a shithole, right?”
Sparky chose to ignore that rhetorical question as he tried to focus past the raw mass of bruised flesh that was his body, attempting to take stock of his situation. I’m in a chair in some shitty room in some abandoned building. He could guess that much just from the peeling wallpaper, stained walls and creaky wood floor he could make out just from flicking his eyes across the ground. The fact that the only lighting in the dim room seemed to come from a single flickering light-bulb just overhead didn’t exactly make his job any easier.
“Not Arcadia. Not Immaculata. Not Clarendon. All the animals go to Winslow and you take your shitty lives out on the good people, the people that this city was built for.”
Attempting to move his arms, the teenager was able to quickly confirm something that his unconscious brain had already let him know. Fuck me. Both of his arms were held behind his back and around the wooden chair, tied together by a piece of thick rope securing his wrists. His heartbeat picked up as he felt the ropes give slightly as he tugged on them a bit, only for his mood to sink even lower as he realized that he would need a good deal of privacy to actually get anywhere. Double fuck.
“You name a fucking subhuman and they send their shitspawn right to that school.” Sparky followed the pair of legs with his eyes, boots stomping over to the door of the room as his captor leaned back against the wall and continued speaking. “Yeah, they’re poor, or disadvantaged or whatever, that’s what they all say, but they still keep breeding and fucking up our schools, our city, with their shit.”
It was odd really, hearing him speak even if Sparky wasn’t actually listening. The man’s tone and words were almost perfectly contradictory, and even he had to wonder how so much hate could leak out from a voice that sounded more amused by what he was saying than anything else. “And our kids, our next generation, gotta suffer for it. That’s just unfair.”
Okay. Honestly, the thing that really seemed unfair to Sparky was how much shit he was being put through. If it wasn’t enough that his hands were tied, both of his legs were bound as well, albeit in an altogether different way. Both of his ankles were secured by the same sort of rope, each tied to a rickety chair leg by the ankles with much better knots than the ones around his wrists.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fucking hell! Fingernails dug into his palms as he tried not to scream out loud in frustration, already something of an impossibility with the rag in his mouth choking most sound.
“This is our city, our country, our legacy, but you people won’t let us enjoy what’s ours,” the voice continued on, a pause every now and then between sentences that was a bit too long for something as simple as a breath. “Brockton Bay was built by our people. The Empire is our heritage. ABB, Merchants, you’re all fucking parasites.”
Merchants? ABB? How am I part of th- Sparky bit down on the urge to voice his question, the taste of blood in his mouth suddenly all too noticeable as he ground his teeth and kept his head down.
He wasn’t dead.
Yet.