LOVING THE MADMAN

Punished for a Voice

TROY

THE YEAR, 2010

AGED 15

“Cyan!” Miles’ voice broke through the cold morning. “Fall out!”

We lined up in rows on the frozen yard, ten of us recruited to be trained as warriors.

I was the only Lycan among werewolves, but the skinniest and lankiest all the same. Cyan, the youngest at thirteen, stumbled forward into the sparring ring, looking terrified.

“Jin!” Miles barked again.

The oldest, at eighteen, and biggest stepped out, smirking.

Jin had yet to discover his wolf, just like me and a few others. But most of the boys already had.

The match-ups were never fair. And the trainers didn’t care.

“Defeating your opponent has nothing to do with your size,” Fugrak said, emerging from one of the shelters scattered across the training yard.

His cold eyes assessed us, lingering on me.

Cyan trembled. Jin grinned cockily.

My hands balled into fists at my sides.

I hated the way the trainers enjoyed watching wolves break wolves.

It was sick.

The youngest always bled first.

Miles’ whistle signalled the start of the fight, and Jin immediately rushed forward, ramming headfirst into Cyan's stomach, throwing him to the ground.

Cyan hit the floor hard.

Before he could recover, another kick sent him rolling in the opposite direction.

My fingernails dug into the flesh of my palm, drawing blood. My teeth gritted against each other.

This was so f*****g unfair.

Jin straddled Cyan and began to pummel his face, over and over, enjoying as the blood soaked his fists.

I wanted to yell at the f*****g bully to stop, but speaking on the training grounds was forbidden. We were drilled every dawn to speak only when spoken to.

“You're not here to speak; you're here to fight,” Fugrak always barked.

Cyan’s eyes found mine, filled with pain and hopelessness. He’d already accepted he would die right there on the icy ground. But I wouldn’t let it happen.

“Stop!” The angry command ripped out of my throat, shocking the whole yard.

I had spoken.

Jin froze, his hand suspended in the air for a moment. When he realized the order had come from me and not a superior, he scowled, then went right back to pounding Cyan.

“I said…” My legs moved of their own accord, crossing the yard till I stood before Jin. Grabbing him by the shoulder, I roared, “STOP!”

I hurled him off Cyan so hard he tumbled twice before crashing into a rack of training weapons. The whole frame collapsed on impact.

Jin groaned, trying to push up, but I was on him again. My bare feet drove into his face, shoving him deeper into splintered wood and steel.

Whips and spears and other training equipment gouged his skin, drawing blood.

He howled out in pain.

I dragged him out by the shoulders, flinging him face-down onto the frozen ground.

Then, my foot came down between his shoulder blades, pressing his head into the icy ground.

“You enjoy beating the weak, don't you?” I asked.

His reply was a muffled noise.

I pushed harder until I heard the crack of bone in his nose.

The yard was dead silent, everyone’s attention riveted to what was happening.

Miles’ lips were thin with rage. Fugrak was calm, his hand on his brother's chest to keep him from storming towards me.

I took my foot off Jin and stepped back, sending a final kick to his ribs before turning away from him.

Cyan had already limped back to the line. His eyes were wide, full of gratitude and terror. He was scared for me now.

“Seize him,” Fugrak ordered, and two trainers moved forward to subdue me, one on each side. They wrenched my arms behind me and forced me to my knees.

“First you broke the rule by speaking,” Fugrak said, approaching me with his brother.

He crouched so close, I could smell his breath. “Then you interfered in a fight that wasn’t yours. We are the Accursed. We do not help the weak.”

I glared up at him.

“You should’ve let him die on that floor. With honour.” He exhaled hard through his nose. “You’re stubborn. You’re so…fucking stubborn, Troy. What is wrong with you?”

He raked a hand through his long, matted dreadlocks. “You disobey orders. You listen to no one. What is wrong with you?”

I stayed silent.

What was wrong with me? Or what was wrong with him? With them? With their rituals and stupid customs?

What kind of monsters pitted young wolves against each other, made them tear into their own, bleed, sometimes kill, and called it training?

“First, we’ll take your hair,” he announced. Miles immediately left, disappearing into a shelter, and returned, toying with a blade enthusiastically.

“Then we gag you with a silver muzzle to quiet that reckless tongue of yours.”

I fought the hands pinning me.

Silver burned like acid; the thought of it against my skin made my stomach roll with fear. I tried to hide it, but it must have flashed in my eyes because Fugrak smiled.

“Mara won’t like it, but at least she knows to stay out of our training,” he said. “She can nurse you back after. You’re lucky.”

He took the blade from Miles, who gripped my head as Fugrak started to scrape off my hair. Black tufts fell onto the icy ground.

They were taking my hair. Fugrak knew how much I loved it… how Mara would hum while she oiled it, how it was the only softness left in my life. And he was taking it to break me.

“As my adopted son you should be like me… or at least damn well try,” he hissed. “But what are you? A rebel. You won’t follow our customs. I can’t even imagine how much more intolerable you’ll be once you discover your wolf.”

The blade scraped across my scalp and nicked skin. Blood trickled down the side of my head.

“People say it’s because you’re not one of us. People say it’s because you’re a lycan.” He pressed harder, his voice growing more agitated. “But I know it’s because I’ve not been hard enough on you.”

The blade dug deeper again. I clamped my teeth on my tongue, refusing to give him a sound.

“I should’ve thrown you to the training grounds when you were six. I should’ve thrust a spear into your hands at ten,” he snarled.

I went still, refusing to flinch or resist.

Resisting would only give them more. They wanted me to fight, and I'd rather die before giving them that satisfaction.

By the time Fugrak was done, my head was raw and bald and sore. I was healing, but it was slow.

“Bring the silver muzzle.”

One of the trainers disappeared into a storage hut and came back carrying something wrapped in oiled leather. He wore thick, black gloves to keep it from searing his skin. Even from where I knelt, I could smell the sharp, acrid metal.

He set the thing down in the snow and unwrapped it.

I gulped.

It wasn’t a full cage of silver… that would kill any wolf. Instead, it was a brutal hybrid of leather straps and curved silver bars. The inside was heavy black leather stiffened with steel, but at every key point—the chin rest, the bars across the mouth, and the ring that closed around the back of the neck—thin strips of silver had been fixed in, enough to burn but not enough to kill.

A silver bit ran behind the teeth so you couldn’t talk or bite without tasting metal.

Whoever had designed the torture device was a psychopath.

Another trainer followed with smaller strips and gloves… protection for themselves. They wore heavy leather guards over their forearms before touching me, because even the briefest contact with the silver left horrid-looking red welts on their own skin.

Miles and someone else forced my head forward, further brushing my already sore scalp, and lowered the muzzle over my face.

I held my breath and shut my eyes.

The leather was cold, the silver colder. As the straps cinched tight against my skull, the thin silver bars kissed my cheeks and jaw, and my skin hissed where it made contact. It locked with a click at the back.

I grunted out in pain, earning a psychopathic snicker from Miles.

The bit pressed into my tongue, making speech impossible, each breath I took stinging.

“Take him away and lock him up for the rest of the day. Give him no food or water,” Fugrak ordered.

Hands grabbed my arms and dragged me forward, towards a shelter reserved for punishment. I could smell the walls from here… the rancid stench of old, rotten blood.

I tried to focus on anything but the pain burning through me… the sting of the muzzle, the blood running down my neck, but Fugrak’s voice thundered across the yard. He was preaching to the boys, using me as his sermon.

“This is what foolishness earns you. This is what happens when you break our laws.”

We were almost at the shelter when a sharp whistle caught my attention.

Weakly, I turned my head, the silver bit scraping my tongue.

Akira.

She stood at the edge of the yard, panting hard, her hands resting on her knees from the run. News of my punishment must have spread fast.

Her eyes clashed with mine, full of fear. And when she saw the muzzle clamped over my mouth, my blood dripping onto the snow, her face paled.

The guards hauled me toward the shelter, and I felt Akira’s gaze continue to burn into my back long after the door slammed shut.