80: You’re not him anymore. III
**Bane pov**
A freezing-cold shiver traveled down my spine as Aife’s voice faded into the distance, like a long forgotten memory, and was replaced by the true voice of the monster. It sounded deep, ancient and sick with inhumane hunger.
“Break, Bane, my boy,” he whispered, no doubt trying to sound seductive and inviting. He wanted me to give in, to pretend there was some kind of benefit for me if only I gave up my body and soul for his evil plans. “You’re already broken and you know that. Let go,” he added, his voice became urgent, nearly desperate.
I dropped my head and looked down. I felt blood dripping from my nose, or maybe from my eyes, I didn’t know anymore and didn’t care either.
Everything, every damn part of my body, hurt and none of it was mine anymore.
The vision, dream, illusion - the fuck if I knew, whatever it was, the torture reset again. Kieran was on the ground at my feet, taking his last breath. Then I saw Zion, his chest heaving as blood trickled from his mouth and his body fought to stay alive.
And then, I saw myself, standing aside and watching as everything happened without moving a muscle, a look of complete indifference across my features.
“This time, it’s your fault,” the voice mumbled. “Look at yourself, just standing there, watching, doing nothing to help those you claim to love like your family. Don’t you feel ashamed of yourself? Don’t you feel guilty, Bane?”
“Please.” I choked out, shaking my head.
“Let me out,” the monster whispered. “Let me out and I will make it stop. I will make it all go away and you will never have to remember this. Just let me out.”
“No.” I hissed.
“You’ll thank me later,” he insisted.
“No-”
“Okay, then. Almost there,” he hummed.
I didn’t get what he meant until it was too late and another round of torture had started. First, it was the sound of the bones breaking, followed with a scream of a dying man. Then, all I could hear was the monstrous laugh that echoed inside my head.
And then, nothing..
A few, blissful seconds of silence before I heard it speak again, somehow managing to sound both as Kieran and the monster at the same time. “Zion was right about you.”
I tensed up, trying my best to not listen, to ignore and remind myself the voices weren’t real - it was all him, trying to get under my skin.
As if on cue, next came Zion’s voice. “You’re weak, Bane.” It snarled.
I shook my head and again, in the vision, the chains gave out and I fell to my knees. Zion wasn’t here, he didn’t say that - he would never.
As those words kept echoing around me, I clawed at my temples and squeezed my eyes shut, anything to get the images and voices out of my head.
“You were supposed to protect us, Bane, but now, look at you - chained and useless. You’re nothing but a shell of the Alpha you were supposed to be, a little cowardly boy pretending to play the role of a leader you would never become. Step down, Bane, let the monster take over, give up the control - at least he gets shit done. We can trust him more than we could ever trust you.”
I screamed because my voice was the only weapon I had left against him, but my screams, no matter how loud and desperate, didn’t shut him up even for a second.
The voice only kept shifting from one person to another until it grew deeper. “I protected you, Bane, I kept us alive. I ended the traitor before he slit our throat in the dark. You didn’t even see it coming, but I did, I always do.”
I shook my head again, refusing to believe his words. He didn’t do anything, he was scared of what happened himself but the monster wouldn’t admit that. He was trying to twist my understanding of reality again just to pretend he saved me from something.
He hummed, a deep and sickening sound while I spit blood onto the ground. I had no idea where it came from - maybe I had bit my tongue again, or maybe it came from the inside, but just like many injuries before, these didn’t worry me.
The monster, however, was enjoying himself too much to stop. “They will come for you, you know. Your precious friends, pack members, warriors and even other Alphas. As soon as they all hear what’s happening to the great Alpha Bane, they will use their chance to finally get to you. Kala, Zion, even your sweet, innocent Aife. All of them will come and find you, but not to save you. No, Bane, my boy, they will come to end you.”
I knew it was impossible, but I swear, I could feel the monster lean in closer, could feel the breath that wasn’t supposed to exist as he whispered in my ear. “They will stake you, burn you, cut you to pieces and scatter your ash in the wind. But I’ll still be here, Bane. I’ll sit back and watch how they will treat you, wait until they realize that I am the part of you they can’t kill.”
My body froze like he just threw a bucket of ice over my head. I wanted to die. Fuck, I wanted to live. I wanted to tear my own throat open and silence the bastard more than anything.
“Let go,” he whispered again, slower this time. “Let me in. I will take your pain, Bane, I will take it all until you feel none at all. You were never strong enough to carry it, let me.”
I shook my head again, barely able to think past the static sound that traveled through my skull in waves. “Aife wouldn’t want this,” I growled, surprised at how loud my voice came out.
The laugh that followed my statement was hers. “You fool. You don’t even know what she wants. She saw what you did, what you are and she’s running away from you, Bane. Far, far away. She knows that even if you survive me, you will never be free of me. I will never let go, Bane. Never. You can only dream of it, but reality is what it is and it’s best you accept that you will never be clean of me.”
The monster snapped his fingers and the barn came back into view. I was still holding by the chains, still heaving and trashing against them.
One of the chain links bent as I kept trashing even more when I saw her face again. Not the image of her the monster kept creating in my head, but the one that called me by my name, the one that looked at me like I was still human and meant something to her.
My vision blurred with unshed tears and burning rage. “Get out of my head! Get out of my fucking head!” I snarled at the monster.
He just laughed, as if my demands were the best jokes he had ever heard. “I am your head, Bane,” he announced in between the laughs.
Angered by his words, I pull at the chains again and my heart stops in my chest. The sound is louder than his laughter.
A snap of a link. One first, then another, and another.
“No,” I gasped, looked up in horror and then screamed louder, “no, no no!”
The chains above me rattled and before I could try to stop it, they snapped, and the next moment, I collapsed forward, catching myself on the ground, my hands bloody and trembling.
After a longer time, I finally stood up, my arms dropped at my sides for the first time in what felt forever.
I looked around, then up as the realization sunk in. I needed to find Thane and the others, needed them to chain and drug me again before he had a chance to do something I couldn’t fix anymore.
But just as I took the fist shaky step towards the barn door, I fell back to my knees and my eyes rolled into the back of my head as I felt him rob me of the control over my own body and mind.
“No,” I managed to choke out, the sound weak and barely audible, but quickly forgotten as I slipped into the depths of the monster’s mind.
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