Disclaimer : No own.

Sorry for the long wait, but updates are gonna be slow.

Thanks for the reviews! And even the people who didn't . . . 200 people have read the first chapter. BOOYEAH!

Thanks go to the wonderful b4k4 b3dux, who, as always, got me off of my lazy ass to write this!

Chapter 2.

What's Christmas? Caleb wondered, staring at the simple calendar hung upon the white wall. Thanks to his raptor vision, he could just faintly see the word staring at him from the date his mother had yet to cross off; December 25th.

Caleb didn't actually know what these 'dates' were, but his mother had told him when he was younger that there was one for each day, and that was that. He still didn't understand, but he didn't dare ask out about his queries in case he got another beating. She never spoke of them again, which confused him slightly, as they seemed quite insignificant. But, every day, at exactly the same time, she would cross of each 'date' as it came.

When Caleb was four, his mother had taken a week out of their 'schedule' to teach him to 'read'. It hadn't taken him very long to grasp the concept, which made his mother ecstatically happy, mumbling something about how the 'stimulants' had 'improved his intelligence'. That had been his only weeks respite; the rest of his entire life had been a twisted, tortuous path of pain.

This room he was in now had been his home for the entirety of his life. About ten by fourteen feet, it was all he had ever known. In here he'd been taught all he needed to know, been tortured, anything his mother wished to do to him. Most often it would be him strapped down to the table, with his mother literally screaming at him, spittle flying from her mouth, for him to do something, something that helped to prove he was his father's son. He saw her pages and pages of notes on 'invisibility', whatever that was, which giant crossed etched upon them in that thick black marker pen.

The world seemed like a very small place when it was just a room.

He heard the door of his 'room' creak open; instinctively stiffening and retracting his small wings further into his back. The click of heels across the while linoleum sent shivers down Caleb's spine, yet he managed to keep his expression neutral. He had always wondered where he had gotten his ability to look so uncaring despite his emotion from. Certainly not his mother; he could see the look of glee upon her face each time she discovered something new about him. Like how he had developed a resistance to liquid nitrogen in his veins but burning it up, for example.

She walked in, wearing the same black skirt suit that she wore every day, it seemed. She ignored Caleb and walked over to the calendar, as per usual, and crossed of the 'date' with a chunky black marker pen. She stood in silence for a moment, seemingly staring at the wall, when she turned on her pointy heel and walked over to sit on the chair by his bed.

"Caleb." She whispered. He looked up at the ceiling as she shuffled her chair closer; fearing what she was about to do to him. He felt one of her perfectly manicured hands reach up and stroke his thick black hair away from his forehead, the other unseen. His gaze flickered to her face for a single moment, locking with those golden eyes, before travelling down to see her stroking the metal handcuff that kept him strapped to the table. "It's Christmas."

He looked at her uninterestedly before moving his head, gazing once more at the ceiling. "I know you don't know what it is . . . but I'm sure I'll tell you someday. Once I've finished what I'm doing. Anyway, you're only eight. Plenty of time for us to do Christmas. Your brother and sister are probably celebrating it right now."

She often spoke to Caleb about his older siblings. His brother, who was apparently about fourteen years older, and his sister, who was about nine. She would say about how they lived with his daddy now, and they were living a happy life without him. She would describe his daddy, saying how lovely he was, before saying he didn't care about Caleb, which is why he wasn't here. She only spoke of them when she was in a bad mood and wanted to torture him with more than just pain. He hated her speaking of them.

It just made him feel more alone than ever.


He was prepped. He was strapped down. The anaesthetic he could only wish for was still in the clean, shiny white cabinet, only for use in special situations.

His mother picked up the scalpel, holding it up to the bright light. It reflected off of the shiny, polished metal right into Caleb's almost black eyes. She reached over him to grab a fresh white cloth, before using it to rub the object even more, as if there was some imperfection that only she could see.

Caleb tried to relax his muscles; after eight years of this, he had learnt that when he tensed it only hurt more. He briefly wondered what it was going to be this time. He'd had everything from injections of boiling liquid metal, to having him cut open and having various muscles examined in detail. Very rarely did his mother give him that precious medicine; the anaesthetic.

His mother stood up once more, placing the scalpel upon a metal tray and wandering over to the cabinet. Caleb held his breath. She couldn't be getting the anaesthetic, could she?

No.

She returned to his side, carrying a tiny black square with a small, blinking red light. She set in on a small square of white cloth, next to the scalpel which Caleb had grown to fear so much. She turned his head toward her.

"Caleb. Do you know what I am going to do to you?" he tried to shake his head, but his mother simply grabbed onto his hair, preventing him from moving his head. "Answer me, darling." She still carried that sickly sweet tone of voice, but the twin hurricanes swirling in her eyes gave away her true emotions.

"No, mother." She tittered.

"Well. You going to be part of my plan, darling. I asked your daddy and your sister, but they refused. Don't you want to be better than them?"

Frightened of her getting angry at him for not speaking again, he spoke. "Yes, mother." He hated speaking. It was half out of fear; one wrong word and he could find himself with a needle of some sort of poison in his arm, and half out of will; he never seemed to want to speak, perfectly content with silence.

"Good. Now. I want you to go and find your daddy and his family, okay? Can you do that? It would make me very happy, Caleb." Caleb's heart soared; he could finally meet his daddy! But the joyous emotions soon left him as his mother picked up the scalpel, bringing it to the crease in his arm.

He had forgotten about the upcoming pain, it seemed as though his mother had actually wanted to make him happy, for once. But as soon as she sharp metal came down on his soft, bronze skin, and his vision immediately darkened from the pain, he knew he should never had doubted his mothers cold-heartedness.

"Merry Christmas." She whispered, just as his vision flickered and mercifully died.

Lucia Martinez had never been known for her kindness.