The Chosen Seed by Sarah Pinborough

wasn’t about information, then he was seriously fucked. Could this be Bowman’s contacts? Were they just going to beat the crap out of him until he was dead?
    Eventually the punches stopped. Cass’ head rolled forward, but snapped straight up again when one of the bastards threw another bucket of cold water over him. He screamed behind the gaffer tape long after they’d closed the door and left him alone. This time he did drift off into blissful unconsciousness … but just as he did so, a thought tried to get his attention: they’d stayed away from his shoulder. Why would they have done that? Surely if they wanted to hurt him properly, then that would be the way to do it? It wouldn’t stop them keeping him alive as long as they wanted, but it would have put him in agony … Always questions, he mused as the darkness took him. Why the fuck was his life so full of questions?
    He must have been out cold when they came back, and everything happened so quickly that he didn’t know who he was, let alone where he was as the lights went on, the bag was pulled off his head and someone tore the tape from his mouth, leaving his face stinging. He gasped in lungfuls of cold air, his heart racing so hard that his eyes burned in the corners. For a few moments, as the golden warmth from his eyes turned inwards, his body felt no pain at all, as if he had healed, or become something bigger and better than he had been. With renewed vigour he tugged at the ropes binding his hands and feet until the chair tilted sharply, threatening to capsize.
    ‘You always were an angry bastard. Just calm the fuck down; you’re not going anywhere.’
    Cass froze with the first word and whatever glow he’d been producing vanished instantly, letting every ache and pain flood back into his bruised and battered body. It couldn’t be – it couldn’t possibly be him. He forced his blurryeyes open despite the bruises, squinting against the light. He had to see …
    An old man stood in an open doorway between the vast tiled garage and what must be the rest of the house. He wore a cashmere sweater and casual trousers, and an expensive watch glinted at his wrist. Those were just frills, though. What Cass saw, what couldn’t be changed by money or circumstance, was the man’s battered nose, broken four times by the time he was seventeen. Cass could remember him laughing when he told that story. He stared, aware that as he panted for breath a long line of spit was dribbling from the corner of his mouth and hanging off his chin. He no longer knew how he felt. Afraid, probably. Shocked, definitely.
    ‘Your shoulder’s healing fast. You’re lucky. Mine took the best part of a year. I was a lot older than you are, though. But still. You heal fast.’
    Cass sat and stared like a dumb idiot as inside his head memories that he’d spent a decade fighting came at him like juggernauts, each one hitting him with more power than the earlier punches.
    You’ve got to look up, Charlie .
    Well, what are you waiting for, Charlie?
    Run, Charlie! Run, Charlie!
    And always, always, those dark terrified eyes and the barrel of a gun. He could almost feel how his hands had been sweating. Time was folding in on itself. He was back where he started. Wheels within wheels.
    ‘Your face, however, is a right fucking mess.’ The voice was still all grit and growl but there was a touch of respectability in it that hadn’t been there before. Cass wasn’t the only one who had changed over the past ten years. ‘The boys did a good job on you.’ The old man didn’t movebut nodded at the two heavies on either side of Cass, who stepped forward and began to untie him.
    ‘But you deserved it. You lied to me. You betrayed me. I needed to get that off my chest. You’ve come off lightly, all things considered. The boys’ll take you to get showered and cleaned up now.’ He paused and stared for a second, and Cass knew it wasn’t only him who was being assaulted by the