Pet: Torment - Chapter TwentyEight (Patreon)

Iris

“Iris, no!” I hear multiple people call my name as I sprint to the door, intent on being the first to greet him, to finally speak to him. But Xion is much faster than me. She catches me easily, her body colliding with mine.

“Careful!” Ezra hisses.

But Xion has me in a tight grip, attempting to pull me from the room despite my struggles. Tears burn my eyes in desperation as I keep my eyes on the door, my fingers outstretched uselessly.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Xion growls in my ear, but I ignore her. This may be my one chance.

Remus must hear the commotion because he enters without waiting, and his presence alone pulls all life from the room as silence envelopes each of us. My struggles cease instantly as I look at him. He’s dressed in his usual white attire, his hair held away from his face. He is emotionless as he enters, his eyes void of the life I’ve grown used to seeing there. He is completely different and utterly terrifying.

So much so that I forget everything I said prior to this moment. Remus's eyes find me and Xion, and I cry out when the weight of gravity rattles my bones, ripping me from Xion’s arms. My feet don’t have time to touch the ground as I am pulled before Remus, on my knees. I look up at him, feeling more frightened than I ever have. Remus rarely used his abilities on me, even when we first came into contact with one another. It not only feels violating, but it also makes me feel much smaller as it forces me to feel the power gap between us.

But Remus isn’t looking at me. He wouldn’t give me that satisfaction in this state. He’s looking at Xion, speaking to her in their language.

I grit my teeth, trying to lift myself from his hold as I speak. “At least have the decency—ngh! To look at me,” I manage.

I’ve never felt regret so quickly in my life as Remus shifts his gaze from Xion to me. The blue flecks within his purple gaze burn bright as he smirks down at me, holding his hand over my body.

“Okay,” he says.

Suddenly, the weight of the world crushes my body. It’s slow and deliberate to draw out my pain as he uses his power to crush me in front of everyone. I scream, my tears falling rapidly as pain hits me, and I can’t even move. And as I look up at him, he’s doing as I said. He’s looking at me, excitement in his eyes to watch me be crushed like the insect he sees me as.

Xion is next to him, grabbing his hand as she screams at him in their language, and the pain stops. She continues shouting at him as Ezra kneels next to me, his hands gently wrapping under my legs as he picks me up. I can’t even hold my head up. My body is exhausted, and my muscles ache.

But as I am taken from the room, I lift my eyes as much as I can to see Xion is still speaking to Remus. But instead of him looking at her, he’s watching me. I can’t hold his gaze. I look away, hating the way my body trembles just from having him look at me.

As Ezra leads me through the hallway and back to my bedroom, I note that Sky follows us, her face mingled with fear and worry as she watches me.

Ezra is gentle with me as he lays me back in the bed that I’ve been bound to for the past few days on Xion’s order. I hate this bed. It feels like all I ever do is lie in it and recover, this time no different.

Ezra still refuses to look at me as he sits in the chair beside the bed, running his fingers through his hair in distress.

“Do you have a death wish?” he asks.

I don’t respond.

“You can’t be volatile around him. If you ever want him to remember you again, you have to be alive for that to happen, Iris,” he says.

I look away from the window to Ezra, expecting to see anger in his expression, but I don’t. I only see desperation.

“It was an anomaly in the first place that he kept you around. I don’t think you realize how strange it was that he indulged you as much as he did. Right now, he is not that same person, not even the one you met. You have to give us a chance to figure out how to approach this,” he says.

“Fine,” I say, turning back to the window.

Ezra is silent for a moment, his soft chuckle of disbelief filling the room.

“Fine? That easy?” he asks.

I don’t look at him as tears fall.

“When Remus choked me the first time, he used his power to prevent my arms from even fighting for my life… this time, he was going to crush me alive. He was going to flatten me while I was alive and screaming until my body gave out from the weight of his will. He’s never used his power on me that way, not even in the beginning. You’re right, he isn’t my Remus,” I say.

Silence drifts between us as I try to put what happened out of my mind. My hand grips my necklace as I try to fight the thought of him pushing past his siblings to finish what he started from my mind. At least before, Remus allowed me the illusion of a fight. But this time, he has been seconds from killing me with only his siblings quick reactions preventing him from doing so.

I hear Ezra stand to leave the room, and he says something to Sky under his breath before leaving us alone. After a moment, Sky moves to sit on the edge of the bed. When I turn to look at her, she gestures to the door on the far side of the room.

“Do you want to get out of here?” she asks.

* * * * *

Fresh air is just what I needed. Being locked in that room, in that foreign place, with watchful eyes of the creatures who put me in that position in the first place, constantly on me, was bad for my mental health. And as we walk along the forest floor beneath Xion’s home, I feel more peaceful than I’ve felt in days.

When I lived on Earth, the forest was a dangerous place. That’s why we gravitated to the blight. The forests were filled with dangerous animals and even more dangerous people. So, being able to explore this one, even if it’s in a foreign world, is helpful.

“I know what you’re going through must be hard. I’m sorry they can’t understand that,” Sky says behind me. “I think they’re as terrified as you are.”

I scoff, looking up at Xion’s home. Remus has yet to leave, making me curious about their conversation.

“Of course they are. They just figured out their life is a lie,” I say.

Sky shakes her head as she changes her pace to match mine. “I know your time on Earth with Remus was hard. But there are things you don’t know about him that make them more cautious now that he is back to his original self--who he was before he met you,” she says.

“If you’re going to hint at things—”

“No, I won’t do that anymore. It does no one any good to keep you in the dark,” she says. I note that her hands twist in front of her as she finds the strength to speak.

“Did you see that planet on the way in? The one that looked like an implosion?” she asks.

I nod, recalling how weird Remus acted as we passed by.

“That planet used to house life. It had an entire civilization on it. But Remus lost his temper one day, and…well, you can do the math,” she says.

My eyes widen, and a fresh set of chills appears on my arms. It’s like the more I find out about him, the more capable of destruction he turns out to be. I knew he could destroy mountains at worst. But entire planets? It only adds more questions as to why his mother would go to such lengths if this is what’s possible, should he find out.

Sky continues, however.

“If Remus suspects or maybe discovers what happened between you, there’s a chance Xyrannis could die for it,” she says.

“And Ezra told you this?” I ask.

She nods.

“Is this why he won’t look at me? Why he’s acting so weird?” I ask.

Sky looks away. “He’s just in shock, is all. He looks up to Remus. And to see what he’s done to you…it’s hard for him to stomach,” she murmurs.

I can’t help but feel like her explanation has more meaning than what she’s telling me. Ezra has been a sadistic being from the moment I met him. But now he can’t stomach my treatment because it taints his perfect image of his sibling?

It doesn’t make sense.

I flinch as pain washes over me, and my legs buckle. I stumble to the ground, and Sky comes up next to me.

“Maybe we should go back. You shouldn’t be walking in your condition—”

“No. I’m going crazy lying in bed all the time. I’m just…weak right now,” I say.

Sky is quiet for a moment. I can tell she wants me to go back but also understands how difficult it is to be there—being so close to Remus and not being able to tell him who I am.

“Why do you think it’s the rings that are hiding them?” Sky asks, breaking the silence as she helps me up.

“It’s not outside the realm of possibility,” I say. “How do they know exactly who is entering and exiting the atmosphere and the plane? And Remus told me it was his mother who put them in place. Why would she do that? She wants to make sure a certain signature never enters,” I say.

Sky doesn’t respond, so I continue.

“Think about when we were on Earth. Remus couldn’t find Ezra. He couldn’t trace or sense him or whatever it is they do when they know someone is coming and going. But when I walked into that holding cell, Ezra thought I was Remus. He could sense his essence inside of me. What if… whoever is out there could sense it too? What if my visions were that person trying to contact Remus, not me? And that is why his mother is so strict about them bonding because, like Xion said, she’s running from someone,” I say.

Sky’s eyes are wide as she contemplates my theory. But it all makes sense, especially now that I can speak it out loud to someone who is unbiased in the situation and won’t shoot down my theory to desperately claim their mother would never do something like that.

But there’s no way of confirming that theory. Because if any of them were to ask, she would only wipe their minds and make them do only God knows what else. Our best bet is to get Remus back while not raising his suspicions. We must keep his mother as far away from this as possible until we can figure it all out.

But the real question, the one that I fear most, is: Who is Remus’s mother so desperate to remain hidden from?