Well, this was a fast update. I had originally intended for this scene to make up chapter 10, but decided on writing more for Curt instead, so it didn't take me long to finish this and post it as chapter 11, lol.

Special thanks to my anonymous reviewer who commented on chapter 5. Really glad that you like Jay. Honestly I'm so happy about how much my readers appreciate Jay's character. I could never have predicted that he would be so lovingly received by so many fans. ^-^

Also, another warning to readers: There are some general violence/abuse tropes throughout this particular scene, so brace yourself for some heavy-handed conflict. I hope that you'll like the payoff, at least!

*Jay's viewpoint*

I was still stinging when I opened my eyes. Not as bad, just a little in places all over, where the strings had been slicing me. Where had they gone?

I looked down, but my head wouldn't lift up, only my eye was moving. I saw that the strings were gone. I was free, but I still felt weighed down.

Under me were soft things like covers for a sleeping place. Not mine though, not his. This was someone else's sleeping place. Larger and…nicer, softer. I still felt cold, with no covers over me, but it felt much nicer than before, when I was tied.

I wanted to look more, look around at where I was. My head was barely turning, even when inside I was telling it to move, move. Why was it acting different? Even my eye wasn't quite the same. It wanted to shut, like I wasn't done being asleep yet. It didn't make sense. Where I was didn't make sense either.

Around me I saw plain shelter walls, brown blocks on one side and gray on the other. Near the floor was a broken tunnel cap, like the one I would use to go in and out of his shelter. There were metal boxes, hinged so they could store things, and a glowy ball of bright machine light hanging from the white shelter top. Next to it was a door with a shiny handle, bright in the light from the ball, like how fire looks in the shelter I shared with him. Where was he now, I wondered? The keen eyes had taken him, and they…they had taken me too.

The door opened, and a hairless man in brown clothes stepped towards me. He shut the door again, clicked something on the handle. There was a machine strapped to his side. I still couldn't move.

It came into my head, just then, that we were both somewhere bad.

The man was babbling at me as he walked. My claws snagged in the sleeping place as I tried my hardest to move them. They could barely twitch. Now he was next to me, tugging me by my arm, my covers, hands off, you creep! Stacey had jabbered that at a man I used to know, hadn't she?

I growled, but it wasn't easy because my even throat felt slack. Slower than I'd ever moved them, my lips curled back to flash my teeth. He grabbed my leg, pressing down where machines had stung me before, and the pain made me move. I sunk in my claws through the cover on his other arm, aiming to pierce through the juice channels.

He jabbered louder, and his hand on my leg moved back to strike me on the ear. I reeled as he pulled me up. There was so much more I could have done to hurt him, make him pay, but I was so weak. Why couldn't I move?

He threw me down, on the floor this time. I folded over, fell on my knees and collapsed forward, half on my side. Everything ached and I groaned. Then I noticed the heat. In front of me were metal bars, painted white, flowing with warm air like I hadn't felt since before I sank in the water. I sighed, sighed again, breathing out easy as I lost all the stiffness of so many freezing lights and darks. It was so…good….

The hairless man babbled, but my thinking was lost in the heat. He paused, babbled again, paused as I shut my eye, thinking that if I could stay here forever I might, I was mesmerized, I had jabbered after the show. Only when his babbles got louder did I look up, moved my head the small bit that I could to see him.

I saw a flash instead. A metal rod swiped down, hit my face with a crack like breaking freezing branches, and then I was on my back, groaning again. Stinging fire spread beneath my skin. My jaw was too far across my face, I could feel it busted at the hinge. When I moved it to cry, the hurt brought sparks to my sight.

The hairless man bent over me. His breath was chopped into noisy, wheezing bursts as he watched me writhe on the floor. Then he grabbed my jaw so fast and hard that it made me heave a breath, gasping like a fish. As he pulled me off the floor by my face, I clamped my eye shut. It hurt too bad to think. He set down the rod to seize me around the brow with his extra stubs, and jammed my jaw into place. The crack it made was even louder than the one from when he hit me. At least now it was placed right again.

I wanted to bite, so bad, wanted to sink teeth into meat and rip it up, rip everything in my reach, rip, rip…but nothing would work right. It felt like moving through mud, sinking, trapped. I barely moved at all before the hairless man shoved me away. I sprawled on my side.

Every breath against the floor was a struggle. I looked back at the man as he tugged off the brown cover around his gut and let it hang down the side of the sleeping place. He walked in a curve, curving back towards me, the shark always circles its prey, the screen had babbled when I was small. I shuddered hard as I let go of air, and I fixed my eye on my hand next to me. I tried to curl my claws, make fighting possible again. Every little piece of motion came so slow.

He was back. I felt it when his stub claws ripped down my head cover. He gripped my hair and pushed me up with it until his face was looming in front of me again. I tried not to think of how much it hurt as I kept my sight on my arms, wanting to hold myself up with them. Too slow, too slow, I was moving through wet concrete, close to drying. He jabbered at me loud and on the inside I had panic. My mouth moved open, aching still, and I thought I should jabber something back, wanting him to stop, what could I jabber that would make him stop, stop, please, just let me go!

I moaned at him, a slurry mess that I knew sounded nothing like the old things I was thinking. But then his lips curved, a good thing, wasn't that a good thing? He must have liked that, must have understood, since he was babbling again. His hand jerked my hair and my head snapped back with it, but his lips were still curved, and then I thought maybe he had understood me after all, and if I just tried again he should let go….

Then with his stub claws, he reached in his covers and pulled another glassy tube. Its spike was capped, but he flicked it off, then aimed it towards my neck, straight for the jugular, hahaha. I made myself move back as much as I could, and tucked in my chin, twisted my head to keep things difficult for him. The spike came forward, and his stub claws passed under my mouth.

Bite! The urge tore through my thoughts as the man pushed towards my throat. Bite, bite, spear the meat, snap the bone! I focused on the hurt that still rang in my head and made it drive me to move. Straining everything at once, I dug in my teeth, slow for me but fast enough to make his skin rip. I was faster than he thought.

He swiped away his hand, jabbering loud things, and struck me. It stung, but with that instead of spikes inside my skin, I wanted it. I held my eye shut and breathed even, steady as I could. He stood up and let me drop, and grabbed the machine that was strapped to him. I watched as he held it, but didn't pull it free. He wouldn't kill me. Blood dripped from his stubs and I wanted there to be more. Wanted to bite and tear!

When he turned away, I looked at the rod he left on the floor. Maybe now I was moving just enough to take it, turn the tables. I tried as the man babbled, loud and sharp like bangs from the machines. My arm was moving. Slow, it moved so slow that I still felt pinned in mud, but it was moving. My claws came closer and closer to the metal.

The hairless man walked back before I grabbed it. There was something else in his hands. I growled, but by now it sounded more like groaning. He pushed me on my back and sat on my chest, grabbed me hard beneath my face and showed his teeth like he wanted to kill me. Part of me didn't care anymore if he did, because at least I'd die warm.

Then I saw the thing in his hand, a metal tool for snapping. He jammed it against my teeth, sorry kiddo, we're gonna have to pull this one out. No, he wouldn't kill me, only make things hurt more.

I gave up on the rod when I realized how close the machine on his side was. All his stub claws were working to keep me from biting as he tried to wrench out my teeth, but that meant I could move my hands. I gritted my jaws together hard to stop him as my arm began to move, slow and aching, but not lifeless, not yet.

Dad…Dad knew how to make those machines work. He used to teach me, son, if you don't learn how to shoot in this day and age, you're gonna end up somebody's dinner. And that was before, before the world even got cold. I knew that I had to remember. Keen eyes were dangerous things, and Dad never let me forget.

My fingers reached the straps, but I didn't think I could keep my arm lifted long enough to take the machine. I winced as he drove the tool between my teeth and clamped. There was no time left.

My fingers hung on the handle, just long enough to twist in the stinging end of his machine. I aimed in towards his flesh, towards the parts that would hurt the most. My fifth claw jammed the trigger, that's it! And the thing fired, lucky, lucky, bullet in the chamber.

Dad would be proud.

He squealed, like a pig, as juices spilled from his gut. He flopped against the floor and his tool clattered next to me as he let go of it, clutching his bulging body. I heaved myself onto my stomach, crawling towards the broken tunnel cap in the wall. It was exactly where I wanted to go, if only I could drag myself there. One arm after the other, I scraped across the floor, away from the heat and the squealing. I heard more voices out past the shelter walls, and then banging at the door. Slamming followed it, but whoever was out there couldn't get it open. It was the hairless man's fault, I thought. He had wanted to hurt me with no one to watch. Now he would die by himself.

I crawled the last bit forward to the tunnel and slid inside, as the hairless man babbled one more time, and stopped. I heard the door finally buckle, but by then I was deep in the dark, dragging my way out. I wanted to live. I wanted to see Dad again.

I would fight through anything to see him.

I know this chapter might not have been a fun read. Let me know how you felt about it, or send me your thoughts on what you think is happening with Curt right now. Any input would be very much appreciated!