Prologue
'No! Wake up you little shit!'
He kicks the small boy in the ribs, but gets no response. 'How did he get in contact with the police without me noticing?' Claude mutters under his breath. Oh well, he thinks, with a bitter curse. Not much I can do about it now. Better just enjoy the time I have left.
He walks over to the boy and grabs a wad of slate-coloured. He roughly yanks him up, dragging him along the rough stone floor until the boy gives a soft whimper, betraying his consciousness. Claude slams him into the floor, leaning down over him and dragging his bloody nails down his bare chest, digging them into his bruised and broken ribs until he draws another whimper of pain. Claude smirks and lowers his hand, gliding his fingertips along the boy's torso before pausing just between his legs. The boy stiffens beneath his grip.
Claude grins.
He gently tugs the boy's underwear down, grinning maliciously as the child beneath him opens one cobalt blue eye, followed by the other of a lilac hue. The eyes that had been so happy before, so full of joy, were now dark and hollow. They glared at him as Claude runs his finger over the boy's crotch and forcefully spreads his pale cheeks desperate to feel his tight heat once again, even if he only has enough time to feel it around his fingers. That would do, for now at least.
The boy's hands had been rendered useless after Claude had snapped his wrists in a fit of rage, and broken some of his fingers. But still Ciel tried to push him away, weakly and without effect. Claude roughly spreads the boy with his fingers, wanting to hear him scream and scream. He does, the boy's small body arching in pain. His agony only drives the man above him to continue.
He pulls out his fingers as he hears the piercing cry of police sirens, bringing them to his mouth and sucking them one at a time.
He pulls a pocket knife out of his pocket and forces the boy's purple eye closed, carving a cryptic symbol into the thin skin and grinning madly as the boy screams and thrashes, ripping open the lacerations on his legs and back.
He hears the slamming of car doors and finishes his work, branding the boy as his. Forever his. The boy had stopped screaming some time ago, resorting to heaving sobs and small whimpers. He leans down, licking the boy's ear.
'You're mine now,' he hisses. 'No matter what. You're mine. You are one of my chosen children, and you will never escape me. I will haunt you for the rest of your life, always there, always watching. You will never let another human being touch you, because you. Are. Mine.'
The boy stares into the crazed yellow eyes above him and sucks in a raspy breath. 'If you consider yourself human,' he managed, 'then you're even crazier than I thought.'
'I AM NOT MAD!' He roars.
'Denial,' he breathes.
'You're such a brat!'
'I'm the brat, am I? Just when I thought we were beginning to understand each other. What a pity. 'Because all I see when I look at you is a psychotic bastard desperate for his next fix, and whenever you don't get what you want, you go mad! So desperate for someone to appreciate you even when you know they never will. Nobody cared for poor Claude the orphan. And all you've ever wanted was HIS approval. Well you know what? You'll never get what you want because, you are alone, you sick, twisted-'
'Shut up,' Claude growls. 'Just shut up!'
'I'm right aren't I?' The boy continues. You know I am, and no matter how much you deny it, you will never be satisfied. NEVER! No matter how hard you try, no matter how many children you destroy, it will never be enough to make him care! And you'll be left hungry for the rest of your sad, pitiful life while you rot in a jail cell!'
Ciel had been waiting for the kick. And the next, and the next, and the next.
What he had not been waiting for was the slam of a door echoed through the warehouse. And he hadn't expected the voice to follow.
'Step away from the boy, Claude.'
'Holy shit! You, really you?!' Claude cackles. This is great!' He roars, breaking off into a loud attack of manic laughter.
'Yes, Claude,' the stranger replies, her calm tone accented by a thick English lilt. You and me, right now. So you're going to turn around slowly, and let me shoot your brains out.'
'Mey-Rin!' comes a warning tone.
'Fine, fine Sebby. Don't get your knickers in a twist.'
'Oh!' Claude giggles. 'Just how many of my Chosen Children am I going to meet tonight, eh? Have you missed me?'
The woman's voice filters through the room again. 'Oh, sweetie, the only way I could miss you is with a bullet, and even that would never happen.'
A gunshot cracks through the air, barely registered by Ciel as he blacks out at last from the pain.
