Page 1

Chapter 1

‘There are fates worse than death’ is a phrase often uttered by those who have never truly faced death. If they had, then they would know not to underestimate the animal inside that wants nothing more than to live. There is very little that can keep it from scrabbling inside the ribcage, just behind the breastbone, persistent on doing everything it can to keep the heart beating and lungs filling with air. The animal inside does not care about pain, or humiliation, or degradation. It just wants to continue, no matter the price.

It was the little animal inside that kept Jesse from plunging the shard of glass into his jugular then and there. Perhaps it was because he was a coward. Those watching might have thought he was brave, but they could not feel the hot slide of piss trickling down his leg.

There were nearly a dozen men circling him. They hesitated to attack not out of fear of him, but rather of each other. They eyed their opponents nervously but practically ignored Jesse because he was not an opponent.

He was the prize.

He thought about running the glass blade across his throat. Over his wrist. Into his inner thigh. He would bleed out in minutes. They would likely do with his body what they were planning to do anyway, but at least he would not have to be present for it. But...the little animal racing inside his chest, it wouldn’t let him. It wanted to live just a few minutes longer.

The fight broke out then, one man pulling a blade from his pocket and jabbing it into another’s side. There was a scream and a spray of blood. It was clear from the very beginning that these men were willing to do each other grievous harm in order to be the last one standing…in order to get their hands on fresh meat- the choicest cut any of them had ever seen.

Jesse ended up backed against a wall while much larger men fought around him, over him. The glass stayed hidden in his palm, his knuckles white and his grasp on it just shy of cutting. He would only get one chance to use it. He had to make it count. The fact that they didn’t see him as a threat was a much greater weapon than the one he held in his hand.

He was in a prison yard, surrounded on all sides. There were many more men watching the fight than participating in it. Jesse was aware of their eyes on him as well, flicking back and forth from him to the fighting men. He knew their thoughts- perhaps all the initial challengers would be too injured to claim him, then a new round might start. No matter what, it would end with the victor sinking his teeth into tender meat and that too, would be a spectacle for the others to watch.

Jesse’s wide blue eyes drifted somewhat erratically over the crowd as it grew and grew. He noted that there was a nucleus- a hub around which the other men rotated. The nucleus was the biggest man he had ever seen and the others appeared afraid to go anywhere near him. He was a hulking brute. His massive form was so large it was barely recognizable as human. Where others wore coats, he wore only a shirt that was unable to constrain his shoulders. The seams were torn where they joined the sleeves. The sleeves too were torn halfway up his forearms. Veins like snakes wove their way up under the tautly stretched fabric over his biceps. He had sensual lips and chiselled features, but his face was too broad, too large, his chin too wide to be considered handsome. Even his jaws seemed wrapped in thickly corded muscle, like a pitbull. He sat in casual repose with his legs stretched out and his hands clasped over his abdomen. He watched Jesse with dark, hooded eyes.

He ignored the men fighting all around him, kept his eyes fixed on Jesse and Jesse alone. The intensity of his gaze was piercing. The intent...well, that was obvious too. He wanted him as much as, if not more than, all the other men that were actively beating each other’s skulls in. Yet he didn’t move, didn’t lift a finger despite the very obvious fact that he could easily win against any man here. He just sat there. Jesse wondered what he was waiting for.

Another scream drew his gaze back to the fight. Most of the men had fallen now; there were only two left. They threw punch after punch. Both competitors seemed unstoppable. The surrounding men watched and cheered as one finally fell. He was brutally beaten, thrashed, his ribcage stomped and kicked, his attacker not stopping until it was clear he was dead. It was obvious that the victor was taking enjoyment in the systematic destruction of another human being’s body. Jesse wondered what such a man’s conception of sex was. What pleasure would he reap from the pain of his partner?

He waited until blood poured from the man on the ground’s mouth and eyes. He waited until the victor turned to him and smiled with jagged teeth.

“Hello prettypretty. I fought for you, and won, yes. Now you are mine, my pretty little wife.”

It sounded like an endearment, but Jesse was smart enough to know it wasn’t. He pressed his back against the wall and felt one of the stones dig into his spine. The wall was not smooth. In fact, it was very rough and poorly made. Climbable, if one were light and nimble enough to do so. The spikes at the top would keep one from going further, and coiled razorwire above that ensured it. But, it was a way to keep breathing, if only for a little longer.

Doing what any reasonable person in his position would do, he pretended to submit. Acting like a whipped puppy, he let the man take hold of him. He let him drag his nose over his face, he even let him kiss him. His teeth touched more of Jesse’s lips then his mouth did. They scraped against him as if planning to eat him. The men were cheering. The fight had been great entertainment and what was about to happen would be even greater entertainment. The hulking man’s eyes bored into him.

Jesse’s focus flicked back to the man molesting his face. Moving as if dreaming, Jesse drove the piece of glass up through the softness between his chin and Adam’s apple. He lost hold of it when the blood poured over the hilt and made it too slippery to grab. It was left lodged somewhere in the floor of the other man’s mouth. He fell to the ground choking and gurgling and clutching at his throat.

And then Jesse flew.

His small fingers closed over the rocks above his head and his shoes were kicked to the side. He used his toes to dig in and propel himself onwards and upwards. His climb was frantic and fast. It wasn’t until he reached the spikes at the top that he slowed. His eyes were wide as he judged the distance between the spikes, then grabbed hold of the rust-covered metal and began to work his ribcage between them. Jesse’s unusually small size had never served him before, but it did now. A large, heavy man with big, clumsy hands and feet could never have made the climb, nor could he have squeezed his torso between the spikes to end up perched atop them. They were aimed downwards to prevent anyone from climbing over. The slope allowed Jesse to hook his legs over two of them and sit facing downwards with his back against the wall. The only thing that kept him from slipping and falling was the white-knuckled grip he kept on the bars. He did not know how long he would be able to maintain it.

During the climb, it was as if a buzzing static had filled his ears. He had been deaf to anything but his own heartbeat pounding in his chest. He slowly became aware that someone was clapping. He looked down to see the hulking man standing in the center of the dead. At his feet was the one Jesse killed.

“Ha-ha!” he laughed, though it sounded strange, as though the man weren’t quite sure what a laugh was and was only imitating what he had heard from others. “The little bird has not only wings, but teeth. You have impressed me, and that is hard to do. Come down from your perch little bird, you will not be harmed.”

He stood with his massive legs braced apart, each one as thick as Jesse’s waist, and his hands on his hips. It was clear he had every expectation of being obeyed. It was easy to see why. The trunk of hundred year-old oak tree would have been less vast than this man’s chest.

Jesse had no intention of obeying. He shook his head while trying to hide how hard the rest of his body was shaking too.

The man crooked his finger at him, “Come, come. You cannot stay up there forever. It would be better for you to come down now.”

For him maybe, but certainly not for Jesse. “Fuck you!” he spat down, regretting it almost instantly. Only a fool would anger a man who looked like that, especially because he was right. Jesse would have to come down sooner or later.

Instead of appearing angry, the hulk seemed only surprised. “Big words for one so small.”

He turned to the men watching, and there were many, and said to them, “This one is mine. The one to bring him to me, unharmed, will be richly rewarded.”

A murmur ran through the crowd as he turned and walked away. Some of the men settled in to wait with their hungry eyes fixed on the small figure above them. Others hovered like vultures over the men on the ground. Not all were dead, and they roused as their pockets were picked and their shoes stolen from their feet. Limping and nursing broken bones and broken pride, they retreated. Two remained on the ground. They would not be getting up.

Jesse watched in stunned horror as they were hauled up by the ankles on poles and their throats cut. It was clear that one of them hadn’t actually been dead as he drowned gurgling on his own blood.

“Oops!” shrugged the one with the knife and the others laughed heartlessly.