by Quil Carter
Then he felt a stabbing pain, and a hand hold the left testicle firmly.
Sasha choked, and with a lurch, he vomited onto the ground. He became frozen under the pain, and even his weak pleading ceased.
Kel seemed to sense this. He removed his boots from Sasha’s shoulders, and with Kheva’s mumbled instruction, the sharp pain that was stinging Sasha’s testicles ceased. Kel then rolled Sasha onto his back, and he then saw the horror of what Kheva was doing.
The man with the green-yellow eyes was kneeling in front of Sasha, a syringe in his hand… full of creamy opaque liquid.
Sasha’s semen.
Kheva then drew out another needle, and grabbed the right testicle. Sasha looked down in horror and felt another stinging pain, identical to the first one, and saw Kheva inserting the needle into his scrotum. He watched in disbelief as Kheva drew back the plunger, this syringe as well filling with cum.
Kheva looked at the barrel of the syringe and nodded, then tucked it too into his robes.
“Alright,” he said with a nod. “Let’s get out of here.”
Sasha inhaled a sob, and began to cry.
Kel looked down at him, his expression full of sadness. “What about Sashy?” he asked, but Kheva was already taking care of it. The strange-eyed man pulled a third needle from his robes, this one already full of a clear liquid, and bent down.
Sasha tried to recoil away, but Kheva pushed the needle into his skin and injected the clear liquid into Sasha’s body.
The reaction was almost immediate. Sasha’s face relaxed and his crying stopped, but it was replaced by strangled gurgles and muscle twitches. Kheva rose to his feet and nodded his approval at this, and then leaned down to pick up the flashlight. He placed the light in the middle of the road, and pointed the beam at Sasha. The flashlight illuminating the dazed boy, shedding a light on a strange scene that would terrify even the bravest of them.
Kheva took a moment and looked down at Sasha, and a sinister yet smirking smile appeared on his face. He leaned down and brushed a hand over Sasha’s head, smoothing back the man’s short black hair, then Kheva’s fingers travelled to Sasha’s nose where a trickle of blood had begun to flow, and collected some of it.
He brought it to his lips, and his eyes brightened with contentment.
Then his attention suddenly shifted, and he looked behind his shoulder.
“He’s coming. I can hear the car,” Kel said, his hands clutching his stomach.
Kheva nodded, hearing the same thing. He took one more fleeting glance at Sasha, then turned and walked past Kel. Kel obediently followed, though he looked back several times with longing and sadness, at the still boy on the side of the road.
Then the two of them disappeared back into the woods.
CHAPTER 3
Jobe let out a long breath and watched Sasha as he slept. How could someone with such a troubled mind look so angelic while he was asleep? He looked peaceful, so relaxed, yet just underneath that surface Jobe knew there was a storm raging, chaos and darkness at every turn.
Not to mention the abundance of demons, ones that Jobe didn’t know how to fight; though he so dearly wished he did. Jobe had been Sasha’s guardian since meeting and befriending this weird, yet amazing, guy, and it made his heart physically hurt to not know how to help him, or how to make him truly happy.
Sasha whimpered, and Jobe watched his forehead wrinkle as he scowled. A moment later, his face scrunched before a huff of air was blown out of his nose.
Before he could stop himself, Jobe raised his hand and motioned to brush back Sasha’s hair, but he paused. His hand hovered in the air, inches from those dark strands, but then, as if thinking better of it, he dropped it. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t know why he’d raised it in the first place.
What had happened last night? Jobe leaned back until his head hit the wall, a couple pillows behind his back propping himself up on the left-hand side of Sasha’s double bed. He had barely gotten any sleep last night, he’d been up nursing an incredibly sick Sasha and worrying himself silly about how he’d found his best friend.
He’d… been on the side of the road with his pants and boxer briefs around his ankles, and he was acting like… he was acting like he’d been drugged. But there were no signs of…
Jobe swallowed hard, his ears catching fire just thinking about it.
… there was no sign that he’d been raped. No blood or anything like that. But there were signs of a struggle and Sasha had scuffs, scrapes, and road rash all over him. Jobe had gotten Sasha in the car, where he’d thrown up all over himself, and had driven his friend home. He’d called Lex repeatedly, but Lex had casually mentioned that he’d had a date that night, and he wasn’t picking up his cell phone. Jobe had left a message for him to come over as soon as he could, but it was nine in the morning now and nothing from him yet.
There was a heated debate going on inside of Jobe, a large part of him felt awful for not taking Sasha directly to the hospital but he knew doing that would terrify Sasha. The other part of him pointed out the fact that Sasha had smelled like weed, and upon further investigation it looked like he’d smoked half of Jobe’s joint, but Sasha was no newbie to weed and that shouldn’t have caused any of this.
Jobe groaned and ran a hand down his clammy face. He didn’t know, and he didn’t know if what he did was the right thing. Sasha was such an enigma, he was so unique, and though he had his quirks, his quirks added a layer of predictability in a way. Jobe could rule out Sasha wandering off with a man, and he could rule out deciding to find a place to rub one out. That just wasn’t Sasha, and he didn’t have a tiger sex drive, or a lack of self-control, to make him unwilling to wait.
Then what happened?
Sasha made another whimpering noise and started shifting around, automatically, even though he’d chastised himself for it earlier, Jobe’s hand lifted again.
But this time, before he could stop himself, he rested it on the side of Sasha’s head.
The act itself made Jobe’s heart spasm, before it filled with electric pulses. He held his breath, letting the jolts rush through his body, and gently drew back Sasha’s hair.
Jobe… don’t… he’s… he’s nowhere near ready.
Like his inner conscience had walked in on him doing something forbidden, Jobe swiftly retracted his hand. But whether it was his touch that did it, or the absence of it, Jobe didn’t know, but whatever trigged it… Sasha opened his eyes.
Jobe smiled, his heart flip-flopping in his ribcage. Sasha looked back at him sleepily, and Jobe felt a flicker of relief when he didn’t immediately demand an explanation as to why Jobe was physically comforting him.
“Hey…” Sasha murmured. He slowly sat up in bed, deep circles framing his eyes, and he looked around his dark bedroom. Jobe’s best friend squinted as he blinked hard, and his eyebrows met when he scowled deeply.
“How are you feeling?” Jobe asked. His brain was running circles around the dozens of questions that he had for Sasha, but he refused a voice to any of them at this moment. There was a faint hope that Sasha would bring it up on his own, but even if he didn’t, Jobe wanted him to have time to wake up, shower, get dressed, and eat. There was a time and a place for everything, and Jobe had decided that it would be selfish for him to demand answers right away.
But god damn did he ever want those answers. Sasha had terrified him last night, and any explanation that Jobe had come up with was so out of Sasha’s character it was outlandish to even give it a serious thought.
Sasha’s scowling eyebrows twitched, and Jobe could practically see the gears attempting to turn inside of his head. “I…” He let his words trail for a moment before he looked up at Jobe. “I gotta go pee… really bad.”
Jobe chuckled and slid off of the bed. “I bet you do. Okay, go pee and I’ll make you some brekkie. I brought–” Jobe looked behind him as they both heard a knock on the door. “That’s Lex… I… you were kind of sick last night so I called him over. Go take a le
ak, baby.” Sasha nodded, and with a big yawn, he staggered towards the bathroom.
Jobe walked in the opposite direction and saw Lex taking a water glass out of one of Sasha’s kitchen cabinets. He brought it up to the light with an analytical expression on his face and turned the glass back and forth.
That earned himself an eye roll. “He isn’t that bad,” Jobe said with a shake of his head.
Lex’s eyes flickered to Jobe, and Jobe became aware of the fact that Lex looked to be in a foul mood. Perhaps the date last night hadn’t gone well. “I’ve seen him wash dishes before, it is that bad.” He made his way to the fridge, the glass looking like it had passed inspection, and he opened the door and grabbed the water jug. “He never has anything good in his fridge. No wonder he looks so sick, you let him live off of ramen noodles, microwaved burritos, and frozen pizza.”
“I let him?” Jobe said, his voice holding a slight level of offense. “You’re his guardian and uncle, Lex.”
“I feed him more than enough. He’s nineteen, he has to get his shit together and start joining the real world.” Lex took a long drink from the water glass, but upon lowering it, he saw the annoyed gaze of Jobe currently drilling holes into his face. “Don’t start this shit on me. Why am I here? What crap did he get up to last night?”
Jobe glanced behind his shoulder when he heard the shower’s faucet get turned on. It sounded like Sasha was going to have a shower before he emerged. He stared at it for several seconds, his lips disappeared into his mouth, and contemplated how much information he wanted to give Lex. There was a balance he was going to have to strike, giving Lex enough information for him to realize that this was serious, but not enough that he exploded over it.
“He…” Before the next word could leave his mouth, Lex held up a hand.
“All of it,” he said flatly, and the glare he gave Jobe suggested that he’d just jumped inside of Jobe’s brain and had found a little elf trying to bury controversial information. “You can’t keep hiding Sasha’s… Sashaisms from me. I gotta know.”
Jobe tried to keep his expression neutral, but it was difficult considering Lex just spoke his inner thoughts out loud. Sasha’s uncle knew Jobe almost as well as he knew Sasha, and it wasn’t an uncommon thing for the man to use this knowledge to his advantage.
And Jobe and Sasha’s disadvantage.
But that was just Lex. Sasha’s uncle was a great guy, but he could be rather blunt, and when it came to Sasha, he didn’t handle his nephew with the kid gloves that Jobe did. Even though Jobe had tried–––Oh, had he ever tried–––to force those gloves onto Lex’s hands. Lex had been given custody of Sasha at a pretty young age, and as the only parent that Sasha had left, he took the role rather seriously, and the role of authority figure even more so.
And when Sasha had started having problems, Lex’s control over Sasha had exploded. This had gotten… unfavourable results on Sasha’s end.
To say the least.
“So, what happened?” Lex asked. He shook his head when he noticed Jobe beginning to prepare breakfast and nodded towards the door. Jobe looked and saw McDonalds in a paper bag, with three coffees still in their cup holders. Jobe stared at it, disappointed he wouldn’t have a physical distraction while he was talking to Lex, but with a relenting sigh, he grabbed the bag, a coffee, and sat down on Sasha’s couch.
Sasha’s living room was always cluttered, his whole house was, but it had taken a turn for the worse recently. It was full of mismatched furniture: an old blue couch covered with a blanket, a green recliner with a piece of wire sticking out of the back who caught all who forgot to steer away from it, a nicked and scratched coffee table consumed by clutter and old pop cans, and an area rug that had seen better days, one that had been hauled home by Sasha when he’d found it beside a free sign during one of his night walks. He also had a 31-inch TV atop an old coffee table, and VHS movies, DVDs, and video games stacked around it.
To make this place worse, Sasha didn’t own a vacuum cleaner, and unless Lex brought it down for him, he was always too shy to ask for it. Jobe hadn’t understood why until he observed Sasha asking to borrow Lex’s broom, and had heard Lex’s nice sarcastic quip, alluding to Sasha’s cleaning habits, or lack thereof. Jobe had concluded then that it wasn’t that Sasha was a slob–––Well, no more than most men obviously suffering from depression–––He just didn’t want to deal with Lex’s smart-ass comments whenever he asked to borrow something.
“Well?” Lex’s voice dug its way through Jobe’s inner thoughts and dragged him back to reality. Jobe’s gaze, which had been staring at Sasha’s framed painting of a tiger he’d found at the Salvation Army, turned back to Lex.
Lex stared back, a sausage and egg McMuffin in his hand. When they made eye contact, he did a ‘well?’ motion with his face and hands.
Jobe grabbed his sandwich and let out a long… long breath. “Sasha was sitting in the car while I went inside the party…”
“Inside the fucking car?” Lex said flatly. “Did he even go inside?”
“That’s not important,” Jobe said back, a sharp point to his tone. “What’s important is… when I returned a couple hours later he was gone. I drove down the road, worried as fuck and… and I fucking found him on the side of the road. He was really out of it, he had a fever and he didn’t even know where he was. He was completely fucked up.”
Jobe was expecting a look of concern on Lex’s face, but instead Lex’s expression only turned annoyed. “So, he fucking got high?” he said angrily. “He got drugs and he got himself fucked up?” Lex’s jaw locked and he shook his head.
“No,” Jobe said. He didn’t want to tell him how Sasha’s pants were around his ankles, that’s the last thing he wanted to do. “I don’t think that’s it, but… but I don’t know what it was. I stayed up all night watching over him, making sure he was okay. He only woke up right before you came and…” The shower turned off and Jobe’s words trailed, before saying in a subdued tone. “… he really worried me.”
Lex, with his jaw still tight, put down his half-eaten sandwich. He rose to his feet, but as soon as he did, Jobe shot up. “Don’t get pissed at him. You’re not going to help.”
But Lex didn’t care. “He worried the fuck out of you, he deserves to have someone pissed at him,” Lex said angrily back, his eyes emerald on fire. “I’m done with his fucking juvenile way of existing. It’s bad enough he’s a fucking failure at life, but now he’s going to do stupid shit and put even more stress on you and me?”
Jobe reeled. “How can you say that about him?” he snapped. “He’s fucking depressed, he deserves compassion, understanding.”
“He deserves a smack upside the head and some fucking tough love,” Lex yelled back. He looked past Jobe, just as the bathroom door opened. Jobe whirled around and saw Sasha walk out, wearing only his old jeans.
Sasha stopped when he saw the expression on their faces.
“What did you get into last night?” Lex demanded. He stalked past Jobe, but Jobe grabbed his shoulder and clenched it. Lex wasn’t having it though, he pulled his shoulder away from Jobe and crossed his arms, right in the hallway, blocking Sasha’s path.
“Well?” Lex snapped. “Did you do some more fucking drugs? More than the Xanax you pop like candy?”
Sasha stared at Lex, his expression unreadable, then he walked right past him and towards the door. Jobe followed him with his gaze, confused and worried he was just going to take off, but strangely, Sasha only locked the door to outside. He then walked to the kitchen window and locked that too, and then doubled back and disappeared into his bedroom.
And Jobe heard that window lock.
“Sash?” Jobe called. Lex, his eyes still full of annoyance and anger, glared at the bedroom door, but he didn’t say anything.
“Sasha!” Lex snapped. He took a step towards the door, but then Sasha emerged, anxiousness radiating off of him.
Lex couldn’t care less. “What the fuck happened last night?” h
e demanded.
Sasha stopped, his eyes flickering back and forth. “Did you see anyone outside when you came here?” he asked them both. “Anyone… wearing black?”
Jobe and Lex both just stared at him, Lex only now seeing bruises and rashes on Sasha’s body.
“Are you fucking high?” Lex asked angrily. “Someone dressed in black? I asked you a question, Sasha. What happened last night?”
The tension in the air seemed to physically crush Sasha’s body, his shoulders tightened and his eyes became downcast. “I… don’t want to talk about it,” he said simply. He raised a hand and wiped his nose.
“Holy fucking shit!” Jobe gasped. He put a hand over his mouth and gawked at Sasha’s arm.
There was an open cut on it. The slash was about an inch long but it was deep, deep enough for the thin layer of yellow fat to be seen. It was split open, and at the very least required stitches.
And… Oh fuck, there were other wounds on him too.
“Sasha!” Jobe cried. He ran over to Sasha and grabbed his arm. “I didn’t even fucking see these last night. Sasha… baby, why!?” His eyes burned and his heart felt like it was going to give out. Jobe looked behind his shoulder to Lex, hoping to see concern on his face… but there was only more anger.
“So you’re cutting yourself again?” Lex asked bitterly. “I’m only going to ask you one more god damn time, Sasha. What happened? What the fuck did you do? Or what the hell did you take?”
Sasha’s face tightened, but instead of the anxious sadness that seemed to follow Sasha around like a shadow, a flicker of anger burned instead.
Or perhaps it was desperation––anything to escape Lex’s direct questions.
Jobe felt a swell of protectiveness, but before he could jump in to protect Sasha, surprisingly Sasha did it himself.
“Sasha Zakharin!” Lex roared. “I asked–”