That second night Jamie felt so ill he thought he was going to die. He curled up in his bed, gasping, hot tears falling down his face. How could he keep on going? He thought. Then he remembered the day before. The pain, but much more intense, the humiliation. Those two monsters at the bottom of the staircase laughing and whooping as he screamed. He loathed them almost as much as their father. Maybe more. Hate rose in his gorge like bile and he closed his eyes. If he could just get through this...
He became deaf to everything, dead. It was a tunnel of pain and as he lay there, panting, he hallucinated. It was a long, dark passage. There was no light, no point of infinity anywhere. Dead silence. Different shades of blackness. He traced his fingers over the brickwork which he could dimly see as coal-black dark gave way to coal-black gray. He tried to cut himself off from the pain in his stomach as it shrieked and gnawed. Like half-starved rats clawing with their talons, the agony pressed up through his belly and started to ascend into his rib cage. He chewed at his pillow and wondered if he was losing his mind. Maybe he had already lost it.
He would not let go. He could not. His anger, his obstinacy were the only things that had got him through the shipwreck of his life. The mother he had killed, as his father had told him. It was why he had never loved him, he supposed. He was a killer. He was unworthy of love. He saw other children, boys and girls, their little heads, blond hair, blue eyes, leaning on their mothers' chests. The women would kiss their shampooed locks and stroke their cheeks, their delicate fingers dwelling on their skin. The agony stabbed him in the heart. It was something he had never known, would never know. A mother's love. His self-control slipped for a second and he almost screeched into the wet fabric beneath his head. He bit into it, remembering his vow. He would never weep in front of them. Not ever. Not if they were to kill him. He would never give them that satisfaction.
He started to shiver although his face was as hot as a furnace. Oh, these physical pangs! Wasn't mental torment enough? Why did his body have to turn traitor?
