Possession

I’m a beast pacing around my cage waiting for the next fight. It’s all I have, those brief moments of rage and destruction. It’s a sort of freedom. Then I go back into the cold, dark emptiness. That’s why I don’t speak anymore. What’s the point? I stopped being human a long time ago. I’ve given up on anything but that cycle of violence and isolation—until they throw *him* into my cage. They expect me to kill him as soon as he gets me through my injuries. That’s what I usually do. People thrown in with me make so much noise with their begging that I have to kill them to shut them up. But Lucas is different. He’s quiet. Lost. He intrigues me. So I don’t kill him. I claim him instead. At first, my handlers are happy. They think he makes it easier to manage me. Control the beast by controlling its possession. Beasts are simple like that. What they don’t realize is that he’s waking up the man I used to be—and that man is a hell of a lot more dangerous than the beast.