IGNATIUS The Colors of Rage

Chapter 3 b Betrayal

Nansen placed a heavy hand over Iggy’s shoulder. Hot with anger, Iggy turned his ear to face him. “What’s it going to be, Iggy?” Nansen pondered. “You tried to kill yourself yesterday. Now, you're getting a second chance to die, but you are having second thoughts? Look at you! You don’t even know what you want!”

Iggy shook his head stern and crossed his forearms. “No,” he grumbled. “Nothing makes me want to die more than being betrayed by my own brothers. I want to die, but I’m not going to die how I want.” 

“None of us can be so sure of that, not yet.” Nansen drew his hand away and Iggy dropped his face against the table. 

Baine stood at the threshold, rubbing his hands together. “Everything is set,” he confirmed. With ears perked and red, Iggy lifted his head. “We’re ready to start.” 

“Already?” Nansen replied. 

Overwhelmed with flight adrenaline, Iggy jumped out of his chair, but blind, clumsy, and weak, he skidded against the tile and fell.

Nansen went to pull him back up. “Fear makes you sloppy,” he pointed out. 

Iggy thrashed away. “I can’t trust you!” he screamed. “You won’t help me! This can’t happen! Not tonight, not now!” 

Disguised in the darkness of sightlessness, Baine managed to cross the room without Iggy noticing. He wrapped his strong hand around Iggy’s left arm, clenching his horrid scar, with a grip that was tight, as usual. A shriek blared out from Iggy’s mouth as if he was being skinned alive. The terror, the long avoided nightmare! He pulled away with all of his strength, but it wasn’t enough. Nansen came to his side and grabbed his other arm as it flailed about in defense. Simultaneously, Baine and Nansen pulled him off of the floor and carried him out of the room. 

“I knew that you’d act like this…” Baine mumbled. “You’ve always been so afraid.” 

They came to a large room. In the dead center, two cots were parked parallel to one another with a medical table set up in between. Baine pulled toward the right. “Let’s put him on this cot.” 

“Cots?!” Iggy blurted. “They’re coffins! Not cots! Coffins!”

They threw him face down. He squirmed and kicked, but he was trapped between the blanket covered hammock and their hands pinning his arms into his back. Over the soft edge, he could see one hand thrifting through medical accessories on top of the table. Beyond it, Emi sat down in a nearby chair and was drumming the tips of her fingers nervously across her chin. 

Iggy struggled his face to the other cheek and set his focus on Nansen, who stood nearby. From the other side of the cot, Baine glanced back at him, too. Nansen’s eyebrows were hard, and his complexion pale white, but contrarily, he grinned. His voice dropped quiet. “I’m a little ashamed to say this,” he whispered, “but I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.” 

Iggy’s fists clenched into balls and behind his grinding teeth he roared in protest. As he attempted to thrash himself free, Baine’s fingers pinched him, serving him as a very real reminder that he was still at his mercy. 

Nansen crossed his arms high over his chest and swallowed dryly. “We shouldn’t do it, though. He’s only seventeen!”

Baine rolled his eyes and sighed. “Think about it this way; if we keep him, he’s going to die. If we turn him, he might die. Either way is bad, but we have to take our chances. Firmin is going to get us sooner if he finds out that we’ve killed his New Generation. I mean, it costs way too much money to make these people. Not to mention that if he lives, we won’t have that lunatic so close on our asses. And no more guard duties! There’s really no debate.”

Nansen looked down at him again, his eyebrows came a little lower, and his mouth shut rigidly. He had the words on the tip of his tongue, but to send them out was a struggle all its own. “Sure…” he admitted, while tired of convincing himself that it was a bad idea. “But, you know the virus is going to force a lot of growth, and it really hurts. I feel really bad.”

“Well, we tried to fatten him up, didn’t we?!” Baine exclaimed. “Straight forward, I have no idea how this kid is still alive after fifteen years!” He looked around his shoulder at Emi. “Just so you know,” he spoke to her sincerely, “you are right. That the both of you will be a lot safer after this, especially while you live here. This place was never meant to be a place for the uninfected.” Baine swallowed hard. Iggy felt his hand shaking and knew that he was coming closer. He could already feel his warm breath. 

Nansen gripped the side of the cot. “Dad will understand, right?” 

“Dad?” Baine drew back. “When’d you start calling him that?! I don’t need permission from anyone to do what I want to do.”

“Come on,” Nansen bargained. “Do you think he’d side with us if he were here?”

Baine shook his head. “I don’t know, but what difference does it make? We aren’t waiting for him.”

Iggy advised from below, “you shouldn’t do anything without consulting him. You care about him and what he thinks…? You wouldn’t want to hurt him, right?” Baine and Nansen both tilted their heads back and howled in laughter. Iggy hadn’t been more confused in his entire life! “I don’t understand! Why are you laughing?” his voice shredded. “I don’t understand!”

Baine pressed his fingers into his back as he leaned in. “No one asked you.” He looked up at Nansen whose Adam's apple rose and fell as he swallowed. “I bet that you wish to be the one to drink,” Baine smiled, “since these last fifteen years have teased us both day in and day out.”

The shadow around Nansen’s eyes darkened at the idea of it. “I won’t lie.”

“But, you’re about to be having issues of your own. You won’t have the strength to do this with me.” 

Nansen pulled his chin back. “What?! There’s two of them, and the two of us-”

“No, you’re tainted,” Baine returned. “You drank from that b***h in the garden.” 

Nansen threw his hands up. “Come on! I’ve been itching for this!”

“Look, it’s only logical to tell you ‘no’.” Baine lifted a hand toward the ceiling. “Once the sun rises, her blood is going to start burning. All of it. Including what you took. If you weaken out in the middle of this, one of them will wind up dead. If you taint them with her dying blood, then who knows what could happen? I warned you to stop taking a long time ago. Didn’t I? Now, look what you’ve done.”

Nansen’s face twisted and he gripped his hands over his pressured wrists. “Ah!” he hollered steam. “Oh my God! Fine! I’ll stop taking from others! I swear, that’s it. I won’t do it again! Lesson learned!” He threw his hands down to his sides and rumbled with frustration.

Baine pinched Iggy’s arms tight into his back and rolled his shoulder away from the mattress. “Go ahead and hold him for me.” Dutifully, Nansen clenched Iggy’s arms into his back with even more force. Helping. 

Iggy’s eyes nearly bulged from the sockets, wanting to see only to escape, but unable to see anything. Muffled against the blankets, his mouth flew open and he screamed from the top of his lungs. “Please don’t!” he wailed and kicked his legs and tilted his shoulders side to side, attempting to pry himself out of the groove of the bed. “Please! I will learn anything! I will learn how to protect myself! I promise! Please, don’t make this the only way out. Give me another chance!”  

Baine peered down on him. Iggy’s blue eyes met his shadowed green eyes. A moment of silence descended. Then, Baine said easily and confidently, “this is the only way out. I’m sorry, but I have to do something that you aren’t going to like very much.” He gazed up at Nansen. “Just make sure that I stop in time.” 

“You got it, boss.”