It had been a week since Jamie had said that he wanted to attempt the Initiation Trial, and the pack had finally finished all of the planning for it. The Trial would have three stages: one physical, one emotional, and one individualized. The physical stage was pretty standard among Initiation, while the emotional stage obviously had to be altered to fit the person on Trial and the individualized could be anything at all. During this time, Jamie had been required to remain in his cell and eat all of his meals alone, as well as have no contact whatsoever with any members of Initiation, meaning that he had to handle going to stations on his own. If any incidents happened in the station, Insie didn’t hear about them. Insie occasionally checked in with Elle to make sure that his favor was being carried out fully, though he knew it would be, and Elle assured him that it was. Finally, the Saturday of Jamie’s Trial came. Initiation always waited until after the dogs had come out and returned, then would meet up in the showers for the Trial. Bee was the one that broke all of them out of their cells, through the clever use of a toothpick to disarm the lock, then the use of Bahrya and Insie’s combined strength to lift the bars enough for them to get out. Once the pack had all been taken out of their cells and Jamie had been broken out as well, they went to the showers. Once there, the Trial could commence.
The Initiation pack stood in a straight line, each member facing the greenhorn attempting to join the ranks. Insie, being the leader of the pack, was the one to warn the new initiate of what would soon come.
“Jagger,” he started, “A week ago you said that you wanted to join the Initiation pack. We warned you about our trial and the dangers that would come with it, but you said you wanted to attempt it regardless. Now is your last chance to back out. I am reminding you that this trial has killed nunkers stronger than you before. Do you still want to do this?”
Jamie nodded his head silently. At this, Insie nodded back, signaling to his packmates that they could proceed.
“There are three stages to your Initiation,” Bahrya said, “each of them will push you to your limit and more. There is a physical stage, an emotional stage, and an individual stage.”
“For your Trial, Bahrya is in charge of the physical stage,” Rodent chimed in, “I am in charge of the emotional, and Insie will be in charge of the individual since he was your tour guide when you first got here. Are you ready?”
Jamie nodded again. There was no turning back now. The Trial had begun.
“The physical challenge will come first. For this challenge,” Bahrya paused, looking to Insie for approval, which was quickly granted, “you will have to fight a member of the pack.”
Insie watched as Jamie’s face quickly turned pale, showcasing how surprised the nunker must have been at the task before him. Insie would be surprised if the boy had ever been in a fight, much less had he ever won one.
“Who do I have to fight?” the greenhorn asked after a moment of recovery. Bahrya stepped forward with a smirk, only causing the initiate to pale more.
“You will spar with Bahrya,” Insie confirmed. The pack had decided that Bahrya was the best opponent not because of his physical strength, but because he was the most objective about new initiates. They had decided that he wouldn’t go full force, since the greenhorn would have no chance if he did, but he wouldn’t pull back if he noticed Jamie slipping.
“Ready?” Bahrya asked, getting into a fighting position. Jamie certainly didn’t look ready, but he lowered his stance and nodded his head despite it.
Bahrya charged and the fight began. Jamie ducked out of the way before Bahrya could make contact with him and turned himself to be behind his opponent, quickly kicking at the underside of Bahrya’s right knee, causing him to lose balance and favor his left leg momentarily. Jamie took this moment to drop and sweep the back of Bahrya’s left leg, knocking him off of his balance and sending him to the ground. Insie couldn’t help but be a little impressed. The nunker didn’t have much muscle, so he used strategy to avoid fighting his opponent directly, throwing Bahrya off his guard.
Bahrya, having regained his momentum, was now prepared for this kind of fighting. He stood up at his full height, clearly effective in intimidating the greenhorn into believing he was going to attack again, but he only waited. Insie felt himself smirk internally at this. Bahrya only needed one quick interaction to figure out his opponent’s fighting style, and now he already knew how to beat it. Bahrya was being defensive now, instead of his normal offensive style. This meant that Jamie would have to attack first, which the nunker clearly didn’t know how to do. This part of the fight would be the one that the pack had to watch very carefully, since Jamie would need to be able to do both. It only took a few seconds to show he could fight defensively, but being able to fight in an offensive style is important too.
Jamie realized his predicament, but acted quickly. He dashed to Bahrya’s left, causing him to turn, expecting to have to grab him, then froze his momentum dead in its tracks and kicked out at Bahrya’s torso, sending him stumbling backwards. From the look in his eyes, Insie could tell that Bahrya had decided that he had seen all he needed to in order to fight effectively against the initiate. Bahrya kept his defense up, keeping the boy out of his comfort zone and causing him to need to attack once more. Jamie appeared to have no more tricks up his sleeve, and charged directly at Bahrya. Now, Bahrya was ready. He launched a punch directly into the nunker’s jaw while easily evading the charge, making his opponent stumble and nearly trip. Then, while Jamie was uncoordinated, Bahrya kicked his legs out from under him with one fluid motion. The initiate tumbled to the ground, soon to find Bahrya on top of him. Bahrya landed one solid punch to the nose, drawing blood, before Jamie’s defensive instincts kicked in once more. Realizing he was trapped, Jamie purposefully absorbed two more punches before striking out his hand to grab his opponent’s left wrist, freezing the punch that was going to land right on his left eye, then yanking the arm to his right with all of the force he could muster, causing Bahrya to lose his balance and fall partially off of the boy underneath of him. Bahrya faltered, but grabbed onto the arm holding his wrist with his free hand as he fell, then threw the boy up over his chest. Jamie, helpless to the attack, hit his back on the concrete below him, the impact momentarily knocking the wind out of his lungs. Bahrya moved quickly, climbing over the boy and immediately pinning both of his hands over his head. With that, the fight was over, and all in the room knew this. Bahrya stayed in that position for a few more seconds, trying to give himself and the initiate below him a chance to steady their breathing before climbing off of him and extending a hand to help the losing party to his feet.
Insie had to admit to himself that Jamie had done much better than he had expected, especially considering his physical state. Though he had lost, he had shown a much higher skill level than the group had anticipated. Insie made eye contact with Bahrya, seeing a similar degree of surprise hidden deep within his eyes. They would discuss that later though, as it was now time for the emotional portion.
Rodent stepped forward once Bahrya had returned to his place in line.
“Next is the emotional portion of your trial. Are you ready?” she asked, keeping her face cold and distant while she spoke, as did the rest of the pack. Jamie nodded yet again in response, still catching his breath. Stri stepped forward, hobbling on makeshift crutches that Elle had obtained for him to use to get around on his own.
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“Then hit me,” Stri said. Jamie froze, his mouth falling slightly open.
“What?” he asked dumbly.
“We have to do a lot of things down here that are fucked up,” Insie clarified, “so to prove to us that you can handle that, you have to hit Stri and knock him down.” Jamie just stared at them. Nobody in the pack gave anything away in their expressions, each of them wearing a completely neutral yet expectant mask. Stri, most of all, looked expectant yet unafraid of being hit-even with the gashes still deep in his back. After a few moments of just staring, Jamie shook his head.
“I can’t hit him,” he said, ending the matter there.
“Why not?” Bahrya pressed.
“I get that a lot of the things down here are twisted and sick, but I’m not going to hit him. He’s done nothing to me but try and help and if we’re going to be part of the same pack then I don’t want to have the history of punching him when he was on crutches that he only needed because of the deep wounds that he got protecting me.” he said. Silence fell over the group, before, finally, someone spoke.
“Fine,” Rodent said with an empty look, “then it’s time for the individualized portion. Take off your shirt.”
Jamie’s breathing suddenly stopped. He made eye contact with Insie immediately. Insie stared back, revealing nothing in his expression. None of them spoke a word for seconds that seemed to drag on endlessly. Finally, Jamie closed his eyes.
Insie wasn’t sure if Jamie would be able to do it or not. That was how Insie knew to pick this as his task. When the greenhorn closed his eyes, Insie thought that it meant that he couldn’t do it. He was somewhat surprised when, after closing his eyes, the boy lifted the shirt over his head and dropped it to the ground.
The silence was deafening. Insie could feel the shame and apprehension radiating from the nunker before him as a group of people the boy truly didn’t know stared endlessly at what must be his biggest insecurity. Insie looked at the armies of crosses burned into flesh on the initiate’s chest. Each one was a different size, looked to have different depths, and none of them were aligned. But Jamie taking the shirt off and letting the pack see the scars was only the beginning.
“What are the scars from?” Rodent asked.
“Burns,” Jamie replied, opening his eyes.
“How did you get them?”
That was the main part of this section of the trial. Now that he had shown them the scars, he had to tell them where they came from. Jamie closed his eyes again and tried to steady his breathing for a few moments. Once his breathing sounded somewhat normal, he spoke.
“My Mother would burn me,” he said, opening his eyes. Insie had suspected parental abuse, but he never understood why they were crossed.
“When I was 15, I came out to my parents as gay,” he continued. Insie couldn’t help but be shocked. He wasn’t so scandalized about the initiate’s sexuality, but he could hardly believe that it could be connected to this. Looking around, he saw a similarly well disguised surprise coming from each of the faces of his packmates, none of which Jamie noticed due to the fact that he was looking at the ground the entire time he spoke.
“My father left about a week later, taking my little brothers and sister with him. He left a note for my mother that said he would come back when their plan said he could. I was heartbroken. The only person I had left was my mother; everyone else was gone. Then, after church on Sunday, my mother took me into the basement of the house, which I had never been in before. There was a row of tiny crosses on long poles with handles mounted on the wall, each one a different size. That was the first time she burned me. She did that every Wednesday, Sunday, and each holiday. On my birthday she did it 16 times. She said that since she did it for each year I had been wrong” he spat the word wrong with a kind of suffering that each nunker understood on their own, “that when I turned 17, I would be cured from my sin. Then I could be her son again, and my family would come back to us.”
He had kept his eyes on the ground the entire time he told the story. The pack was stunned, yet Jamie knew nothing of it since he wouldn’t raise his head up high enough to see.
There was only one thing left to ask. Elle, speaking for the first time during the Trial, took the liberty of asking it.
“Jagger,” she said, getting him to look at her, “How old are you?”
“16,” he answered.
“When is your birthday?”
“How many days have I been here?”
“In total,” Insie answered, “I think it’s been about ten days.”
Right then, the bell to release the nunkers for breakfast rang, signaling the new day.
“In that case,” Jamie replied, “Today.”
The day following the night of Jamie’s trial, the Initiation pack had to begin discussing the results.
At breakfast, Insie knew that would be a difficult thing to do. They had to discuss it in order of how it was executed, but all any of them could think about was the individualized portion of the trial.
“So,” Insie started once all of the members had sat down, “it’s time to discuss the trial. We have to go in order, so we need to start with the physical portion.” The table looked to Bahrya for his thoughts, given that Bahrya had been the one to fight with the initiate.
“He’s pretty good for his physical condition,” Bahrya offered, “definitely more comfortable with defense than offense, but that is something that can be worked on as he gains experience. He really just needs to get healthier and he’ll be a much better fighter; his strategy and tactics are already solid.” This is what Bahrya was trusted to do: judge outsiders’ threat levels. He was by far the most objective of the group, therefore he caught on to most of the deception that the others-even Insie-couldn’t catch right away. If Bahrya said someone was a threat to the group, the pack was wary of them. If he said they were harmless, they let their guard down-within reason, of course. For Bahrya to give such high praise of an outsider, he had to be truly impressed by their skill. Looking around the table, Insie noticed that each member of his pack seemed to agree with what Bahrya had said, and he knew that-for his condition-Jamie had done well in his opinion, too. This meant that he had passed the first stage.
“He didn’t punch Stri,” Elle said, “even though we told him that he had to in order to guard his chances of being one of us.”
“He couldn’t have known we were testing him,” Stri reasoned, “because he seemed shocked when Chippy suggested hittin’ me. He thought we actually wanted him to do it. He even seemed a bit sad when we moved on-like he thought he’d failed or somethin’.”
Insie nodded at this, agreeing that the greenhorn couldn’t have known it was a trick. He thought that the pack had wanted him to strike Stri in order to show his capacity for handling bad situations, but, in reality, they had been testing to see if he still had moral sense, independent thought, and willingness to be open with the pack, even if that meant contradicting what they expected of him. He had done all of that extremely well, despite not realizing that he had been expected to do it. Finally, it was time to discuss the third stage. This was the part that the pack was anxious to talk about.
“So, the third stage,” Insie began, still trying to remain professional and objective, despite the thoughts running through his mind.
“Okay, how messed up is everything that he told us about the scars?!?” Rodent screeched. She had been the first to lose her control, then the rest of the pack followed quickly after, now discussing it in an informal manner.
“One of the issues that we had with him before his trial was that he didn’t have an initiation to go through like the rest of us when he was abducted, but I think we can all agree that his life before The Coves should count as one,” Elle said, resulting in resounding nods from everyone at the table.
“We’ve all had our share of tortures while down here, but I can’t imagine having my life from before my initiation be hell, too,” Bahrya replied.
“So, what do you think Ince?” Stri asked, ready to settle the matter.
“I think we’re ready to vote,” Insie said, “All in favor of Jagger joining Initiation, raise your hand.”
Every hand at the table went up, including Insie’s own. Usually the process of breaking everything down took ten days due to the fact that most of the initiates struggled with one or more aspects of the trial. Since Jamie had done so well and he was already so well liked, one day was all it took. The pack decided to wait until the next day to tell the greenhorn that he had passed the trial, content to let him worry for a few hours while they focused on how to help him improve and adjust to Cove life before they had to censor themselves in front of him. That conversation could wait until later though, as the nunkers went back to eating their food quietly.
“Oh, Stri, I almost forgot; I should probably tell you something” Insie started, getting the nunker’s attention.
“What’s up, Ince?” Stri questioned, tilting his head to one side.
“You remember how on the first day of Jag sitting with us you kissed him on the cheek?” Insie asked, not even trying to suppress the smirk growing on his face. Stri’s eyes narrowed.
“What did you do?” he asked.
Insie’s smirk grew into an unrestrained grin as he said, “I told him you did it because you thought he was cute.”
Insie laughed as four ice cubes flew at him from Stri’s direction.