All Chapters of Beyond the Forge : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The tires ran over the wet, lonely road.I kept my forehead pressed to the cold window. Rain poured down the car roof and blurred the windscreen. I noticed a single drop crawled down the glass, fighting to escape.I wished I was that drop."Leo, please stop sniffing. It's annoying."Viktor's voice rolled from the driver's seat, low, heavy, and final. In the rearview mirror, his eyes were fixed on me. They never blinked."I'm not sniffing," I snapped. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. "I'm cold. Turn up the heater.""The heater is already on high." Viktor tightened his grip on the wheel. "You're shaking because you're scared. Most boys cry too.""I'm not crying!" I kicked the back of his seat hard out of sheer annoyance.He simply pulled over to the side of the road. He wasn't angry. He switched off the engine and went quiet. Darkness swallowed us. There were no streetlights, but only rain drumming on the roof and the black woods pressing close.Thump. Thump. Thump."Why did we

"Leo! I need you to scream like I'm hitting you real hard."Viktor whispered in my ear while the strap whistled through the air.Crack!The leather strap landed on the back of the bolted chair instead of my back. I screamed like I was in pain, raw and real, because I was already in pain; this made it very easy. The camera in the corner blinked in acknowledgement. Someone was there watching. Maybe my father or even the Headmaster.Viktor leaned in, body blocking the camera lens just enough. His thumb brushed my lip exactly like in the car. "It's better if you play your part well. If they sense I'm too soft on you, they'll send someone worse."Something in the way he said it made me think this wasn't just about the Forge. The way his jaw stayed tight. The way his eyes kept staring at that door. Like he was scared of someone else entirely. Someone who had already been in this room tonight and left his shadow behind.Viktor raised the strap again for the camera, and now it was my turn to

The dark felt like it was pressing down on my chest.Not just darkness. Weight. Like the ceiling was slowly falling and no one would hear it crack.I sat on the wet stone floor with my back against the cold wall. My palm was flat against Toby's carved name. T-O-B-Y. My fingers kept moving across the letters slowly, as if touching them long enough might tell me something the stone couldn't.The paper note Viktor wrote was still crushed in my other fist. Just two words that hit. "Trust me."Those two words were the only warm thing keeping me together in this world right now.Then I heard footsteps.Slow but deliberate. Not the usual heavy boot-drag of the guards. My heart jumped hard once, then went quiet, the way it does when your body knows danger before your brain does.The lock clicked.The door opened slightly, just enough for a shadow to slip through it and shut back. Darkness followed immediately.But I knew the smell instantly. Gun oil, sweat, and something underneath both of th

Content Warning: This chapter contains themes with institutional abuse, psychological manipulation, and implied violence. Reader discretion advised.The dormitory lights clicked off at eleven and I lay in the dark counting every breath like it might be the last one that still belonged to me.The key was warm in my palm. I kept running my thumb across the letters scratched into the metal and trying to decide what they meant now. T-O-B-Y. Either the most real thing in this place or the most carefully constructed lie I had ever been handed.I still did not know which one.That was the thing Viktor had done to me that Julian's fists never could. He had made me uncertain. About him. About the key. About my own chest and what it did every time I thought about the dark room and his mouth and the way he pressed that key into my hand like it cost him something.At two-thirty I made my choice.Not because I trusted him. Because staying meant my father won. And I had decided somewhere between th

I didn't answer with words.I just shoved the damn key in.My blood made the metal slippery because I squeezed it too hard. My hands wouldn't stop shaking, but I twisted anyway. The lock clicked too loud, like it was announcing to everyone in the building that we were here.Viktor was already moving. One hand gripped my shoulder, the other holding the baton. It was the first time I'd ever seen him stop holding back. He planted himself in front of me, blocking the narrow hallway like he was the only one standing between me and the end of everything."Stay behind me," he growled. His voice was low and final. No room for argument.Julian was already there.Three guards stood with him, rifles held low, their faces blank like stone. The red emergency lights made everything look like dried-up scabs. Julian's smile twisted tight."Well," he said. "Look who finally grew some balls."Viktor didn't waste a breath on him. He just stood like a wall, solid and unmoving.The first shot hit like thu