When he finished, Iza stopped the tape.

“You can take him now.”

Felix entered the room. He unlatched Cassius from the chair and hauled him to his feet. Cassius had the thought to rip his arms away, but he thought about a lot of things he shouldn’t.

He was lead out by the long chain. Seeing Felix holding his leash didn’t hit him hard anymore. The first few months had made him feel less than shit, but the years had been favorable for him. It seemed like everything had boiled down to being mad or submissive to all the shit thrown his way. The torture and the mistreatment was nothing to him now. Perhaps if he was someone else, or if he was fragile like other Mekiah he’d met, he would have broken a long time ago. It wasn’t him. Standing up to Iza or Felix was a past-time, something he enjoyed to an extent that was probably worrisome to some. If anyone gave a shit about him that is.

None of them cared about him. The Shadows, the ones that should have been a little more invested in his life, had left him for dead in the Veil. It was more concerning than Iza and the Capital, for the Shadows to let him die would cost money for the Exteru and cause trouble for General Iza. The fact that Katson had been killed by the energy blast the demon had let out was a reminder that he wasn’t safe on his own. How he’d survived being burned alive and having his throat torn out was a pressing issue, but he didn’t know what to do about it. He was heading back to his cage and once he was chained, he wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing even if he tried. There was no definite answer when he’d be released again. It might be five months before he was put out on the field. It was all up to General Iza and the Capital on what they were going to do with him.

They might just transfer him out after this fuck up.

Past three hallways and three pairs of guards, they ended up in a blocked off room sealed with a large metal door with a small window. It was a one way mirror, where they could see him once he was inside and he couldn’t see out. There was one bed, a toilet, and a sink.

Felix unlocked the large metal door and dragged him into the room. His chains were released. Like heavy weights, they fell from his body and left him light and airy.

The door bolted shut after him. For a moment he stood over his bed, staring. There was no feeling of being home—no feeling of belonging or safety. It was just cold.

After the moment passed, like a whispered prayer for the dead, he lied down on his side. Trapped, yet, he could escape to his mind anytime he wanted to, if only he wished it. Going to the Veil was allowed, but he could get there with a small push. The only thing that really held him back from always being there was the heavy device strapped to his ankle. It was a Dissipater, used to block all his magic except when he was out Tracking. Even then, he wasn’t allowed to use his magic’s full potential. That’s what it was supposed to do, but there was only so much the machine could do and when he truly tried, he could force out more magic than he figured other Mekiah could.

Katson was the only other Tracker he’d ever met and in the short time that they’d known each other, Cassius realized the things he could do weren’t normal. Breaking through Dissipaters and connecting with the Third Eye, were impossible and unthinkable things. He’d only mentioned these things off-handedly on their first job and he was glad he did. Katson had looked at him like he was dumb one and had made sure to stay away from him the rest of the mission.

Cassius sighed.

Katson shouldn’t have been there in the first place. General Iza had put in the request for a second Tracker only because Cassius hadn’t been pulling in the results. Now Katson was dead, Iza was throwing a fit, and Cassius was going to be the one to take it in the ass.

He placed his hand on the wall, the metal cool against his skin, calming, but not enough to ease the stress. A pounding formed at his temple, spreading through his head. Slowly, he eased out a strand of magic. The only way to escape was to reach beyond himself. With just a small push, he broke through all the restraints. Then, he was floating in an abyss of darkness. The Veil was quiet when he wasn’t searching. In this state, it was a warm blanket encasing him. Without it, he might have gone insane long ago.

He came back hours later.

Unlike how he’d hoped, he was still in his cage.

The room had been called his since he was ten and in that time it hadn’t changed much. There were long cuts on the metal walls left by his sharpened down fingernails when he was fifteen and always looking to start trouble. Around those years, he was bored out of his mind. Catching escapees and criminals had lost their affect on his mind, leaving him unsatisfied when he successfully tracked down a person. There had been no thrill in those times and none anymore. It had been zapped from him and now he had to push through the hazy times like he always did. But it was coming to a point where he didn’t want to anymore. He didn’t want to put up with General Iza or his fucking worshipper Felix. The whole system and the Exteru were a bunch of ass-wipes that were fighting a war that had ended over four hundred years ago. The Mekiah had done some shitty things in the past and they were still paying for it.

But that wasn’t his problem.

He would find a way to get out of this.

He’d finally came to his breaking point.