Page 96 of Yours on the Canvas

“I’m here,” I choke out, tears finally breaking free, burning hot down my cheeks as I gently gather his frail, battered body into my arms, pressing him gently against my chest. “I’m right here, baby. I’ve found you.”

As I hold him, my eyes drift away from his face, catching the pale light of Deck’s flashlight sweeping across the back wall behind the cot.

My breath catches at what I see.

Scratched deep into the cold, damp concrete are dozens of thin, jagged lines. Grouped neatly in sets of five, crossing over each other, row after row after row. A calendar of torture.

Ninety-two days marked in blood and stone, counting every single second my dove had spent locked away in this tomb.

My tears mix with his as my grip on him tightens, the gold ring on my pinkie finger pressing hard against his skin.

They had tried to break him. They had tried to bury him.

But they underestimated my boy, and he had left a breadcrumb.

“It’s over,” I whisper into his hair, kissing his brow as the rest of the team secures the perimeter upstairs. “Nobody’s ever taking you from me again.

26

Jack

The ride back in the backseat of the sedan is a blur of jagged jolts and blinding, white-hot agony.

I had lost the fight tonight, and Ray and Dad were pissed.

I can still feel the sharp, punishing impact slamming through me from when they shoved me against the car, dropping me to the cold, wet ground of the parking lot outside the warehouse where I fight. They took full advantage of me while I was down, raining kick after kick into my ribs while screaming about how much money they had lost.

Now, sitting in the back seat, I try to force air into my lungs, managing only a shallow, burning pull that’s just enough to keep the encroaching blackness from completely taking over.

Tears wash tracks through the mud that sits heavy on my face, dripping down onto my tattered shirt, which barely covers my bruised chest. It’s cold and filthy, but I don’t feel the physical chill anymore. My skin has gone numb to the daily routine of violence, and my mind drifts away from me more often now. That is when Ray and Dad hurt me the most, when I’m too hollowed out to even fight back.

I ache for Sol. Missing him feels like a knife twisting straight into my heart. Every time I think of him, a little piece of me breaks away, like sand at the water’s edge, slowly being washed away until there is nothing left.

I can’t feel his touches anymore. The ghost of his fingers on my skin has faded into nothingness. I can’t smell his scent, and as desperately as I try, I can’t quite picture his face. It’s distorted, blurred at the edges.

He’s there in my memory, and yet, he’s gone.

I flinch as the tyres hit a pothole with a heavy shudder, my ribs grind together with a sickening crunch that echoes straight up into my throat, tasting like copper and old iron.

I knew the second I had lost tonight. The moment the heavyweight fighter had caught me with a brutal, unchecked left hook that dropped me like dead weight to the canvas, I knew I had failed them. I knew what was waiting for me when this was over.

My father and Uncle Ray don’t say a single word during the entire drive. They don’t have to. The heavy silence in the car hums with a cold, vicious fury, suffocating every ounce of air out of the cabin.

When the car finally stops, the doors fly open, and strong, calloused hands grab me by the shoulders and collar, dragging me out across the rough gravel and hauling me toward the side of the house. My boots drag uselessly behind me, my legs completely unresponsive beneath the crushing weight of utter exhaustion and pain.

I know what a broken rib feels like; I can feel the jagged edge of bone pressing dangerously close to my lungs every time I take a shallow, wheezing breath.

The heavy wooden door opened with a sharp, protesting screech, and they don’t bother walking me down the stairs. They just pitch me forward. and follow me down.

I tumble down the steps in a tangled heap of bruised limbs, crashing hard onto the stone floor at the bottom. The impact drives the last remaining oxygen from my chest in a sharp gasp.

Dad drags me by the hair, turns and locks me in my kennel, flicking the light out when he walks up the stairs.

I lie there in the damp dark, curled into a tight, miserable ball, shaking violently as I struggle to pull air back into my lungs.

Footsteps echo above me, and then the heavy wooden door slams shut with a final, crushing thud. The deadbolt slides into place with a definitive clack, sealing me in absolute, pitch-black darkness and suffocating silence.

The harsh yellow fluorescent light doesn’t even come on tonight. They left me in the dark.