I Hate This Damn Cage
Ayla
My head is spinning as I stand in the middle of this damn room. I wish Thane was here to help me and talk me through all the swirling emotional shit I’m trying to work through in my brain.
“Find your rage and cling to it. Don’t focus on the other garbage. It won’t do you any good. Raven instructs from somewhere behind me.
“Is that what you are doing? Focusing on rage?” I countered, raising an eyebrow at her. My anger is rising, and I am starting to think that it isn only fair for me to be dealing with my trauma when she has her own, she clearly is refusing to work through, but who am I to judge?
“Not about me Ayla.” Raven reminds me as she walks around the room. “What do you hate most about this room?” She asked and I feel the list
could be endless.
“I hate how cold this room is. How they treated me like a lab rat.”
“I hate that no shifter attempted to help me at all.
“I hate how helpless I felt being dragged into this room.” I can feel my rage start to build. I close my eyes as memories assault me, bits and pieces that I can remember. I hate them all.
I walk over to the table with all the damn straps, So many straps I couldn’t break free from. “I hate that they took something from me that wasn’t meant for them. It was meant for Thane, and they robbed us of it.” 1 grip the table as pain and hate starting to rise up in me, battling to dominate the way I feel. My knuckles turn white as I grit my teeth and replay everything in a terrifying loop within my mind. My eyes start to pulse as Aramana is begging for control. I look down at my hand again as I feel my power rising within me without pulling on a thread. It feels like a building, pulsating force that needs to be let out.
“I hate this table. I hate these straps, and I hate that damn two–way mirror!” I yell as power bursts from my hands, sending the table into the mirror. It crashes through it in a mess of bent and tangled metal. It flies through the mirror into the adjacent room. Glass shards fly around me, but they never touch me. I bring my hands up and study them. I turn them around a few times as the blue swirling power continues to cover my hands,
I turn quickly to find Raven across the room, picking tile chunks out of her hair and off her clothing as she stands from her crouched position.
“That’s pretty damn cool.” Raven coughs a little as the dust is settling in the room.
“It’s new. I’ve never….I’ve never had this happen before.” I say raising my arms up so she can see iny blue hands.
“Well, good. New whatever that is unlocked. Now shut it off before you take the building down while we are in it.” Raven walks toward me and I back up a little.
“I don’t know how. I have never shut my hands off before Raven.” I exclaim, starting to panic.
Haven watches me for a little bit then slowly y starts to back away toward the exit. “I guess we better find my shit for you to zap then huh?”
“Zap? This isn’t funny, I could hurt you, Raven
“I doubt it. I am fast, remember? How do you think I dodged that huge chunk of glass stuck in the wall? Raven points to the wall close to where she was standing and she is correct. There is a huge chunk of glass stuck in the wall.
Just take a deep breath and don’t touch me.” Raven exits the room, and I quickly follow, I hate it there anyway so I will take any excuse to leave.
We continued our way down the hall toward the huge hole at the end of it. The door Cyrus demolished so Thane could get to me..
“This is where the door was That Cyrus blew up. I was kept d through the darkness that once held me in fear.
down there.” I point toward the darkness, but because I have my wolf again, I can see
“He does love his explosives, doesn’t he?” Haven asks and I smile.
“Yes, yes he does.” I answer as we both stare at the hole in the wall.
“You
want to go down there?” Raven asks and I think for a little bit. look down at my swirling hands and back at her.
“Might as well fuck shit up as you say.” She smiles at me and steps through the hole first, I can’t help but wonder if that is her way of accepting my bodyguard role or not.
We travel down what is left of the stairs to the dark dungeon below. There is debris of broken concrete and stairs. Lights flicker in and out as we attempt to climb over all the debris.
I walk to the center of the dungeon and look around, using more of my night vision than anything. This is where I was kept. 1 was locked down here, naked and cold. Starving and desperate for it all to be over with. I close my eyes and I hold my head down, trying to work through the hurt.
“You survived. You got out.” Raven’s voice pulls me out of my negative headspace. I feel a tug on the bond, and I tug back. I still have to tell Thane about all of this later and that is something I don’t want to think about right now
to
I walk across the dungeon and see it. The cage. The kennel. My home for several years. Bile shoots up the back of my throat as I attempt swallow it down. I stare at the damn thing, feeling my eyes tear up. I refuse to entertain the memories that are attempting to pull me under. To drown.me.
“They kept you in that all these years?” Raven asks quietly. I turn to look at her and can see a righteous anger across her features. She is mad for me. I am as well.
I turn back to it and pull my arms up again noting the power still swirling around. “I HATE…THIS DAMN CAGE!” I yell as I grip the cage with my powers swirling, sending it into the wall by the destroyed stairs we climbed down and around. This time Raven covers her head, but slowly removes her arms and looks around, seeing that she is safe within my shield. The cage is no more. Its metal twisted like pretzel as it lodges in the concrete wall.
“How did you do that? Do both?” Raven asks, in awe.
“I have no idea.” We start to hear groaning and creaking. The reality of this building coming down on us becomes a real possibility. I look down at my hands and they are no longer swirling blue. Maybe the buildup of my power has settled itself.
