six /pk

On a dark winter night, they find him wandering barefoot with cuts in the pads of his feet and a dead-eyed gaze. They kneel down in front of him, they ask him, ”Hey kid, where's your mom?”

Because all living things have one.

He opens his hands which had been balled up into tight little fists. In the center of his palm lay the withered petal of a rose, its corner curled and darkened with blood.

”Gone.”

”How?”

His gaze moves away, stumbling over the instruments and charts on the wall of the doctor's office. There's a clipboard hanging beside the exit, the rows numbered one to five. That's all the kid knows, he can't read the rest.

He hisses, pulling his feet upwards out of the bucket they've just been guided into. Hands force them back down. Blood and dirt make the water go a dull, greyish-pink.

”I asked you how.”

The water stings, he curls his toes up as if the smaller his foot is then the less it will hurt but it doesn't work. He thinks about his mom and how if he cried about it then she'd only make the water hotter so he swallows the pain down.

Then remembers he doesn't have to anymore.

"Daddy," he mumbles, "With hands like-"

He raises his hands up in front of him to demonstrate, fingers clenched, digging in and twisting and holding so tightly until-

"We get it."

The boy drops his hands and gazes down at the flower petal sitting on his knee. The blood on it is dry now, cracking at the edges and flaking off, leaving little flecks on the fabric of his pants.

"Whose blood is that then?" asks the man standing behind the doctor. He's got a notepad and a pen and he's been watching the kid like a hawk since he found him outside.

"Mine."

The doctor pauses then and pushes the kid's jacket open, moving his hands up and down his body to feel for another wound. Maybe he would have missed it otherwise, the incision on the child's wrist. It was a job half-done, finished before it could even hit anything vital. The wound was crusted over with blood and a second rose petal pressed to the skin there.

"From your father?" asks the doctor.

The child shakes his head.

"Your mother?"

The child nods.

"Why?"

"Erase her mistake," he says.

The man with the notebook writes something down, the doctor is silent as he carefully cleans the wound. The kid watches as the flower petal is peeled away, then as a needle is threaded.

"Will it hurt?" he asks.

”Less than the cut did.”

But that had barely even registered. He kicks his feet in the water, idly watching as it splashes the side of the container. The man with the notebook is still writing but every so often he glances at the kid. The doctor sews. The kid bites the inside of his cheek but he doesn't make a sound.

"How old are you?" the man asks.

He thinks about it for too long. It's hard to say, he'd only ever known that house. The sun had gone up and down a lot though, the food had happened once each time and he only ever had to do the training once for every time it was light. If he tries to count the passage of time on his fingers he can't, there isn't enough room.

"Hundred?" he asks. It's as good a guess as any.

The doctor has to stop, he's barking. The kid jumps a little at the sound, turning to look at him with so much confusion that even the man's mouth flickers up briefly at the corner.

"What's your name?"

His stitches are finished, feet dry and bandaged. There's a cup of juice in his hand for the blood loss and a blanket around his thin frame for the chill. His eyes are sleepy, no longer focused, head nodding down towards his chin.

No one will be looking for a kid like this.

"Doesn't matter. Your name is Six."

He's smaller than the other kids, by a lot. They have years on him because he's a wild thing caught between generations. They don't usually take kids this small but since 6 basically walked in through the front door, they make an exception.

And at first he's confused. They feed him two extra times a day, he doesn't know what to do with that and gets caught putting handfuls of muesli into his pockets, a little bird rationing for a long winter. Shadowcat hits the back of his hand with the flat of a bread knife when she sees him doing it but 6's grip only tightens around the cereal.

Shame has nothing to do with survival.

The only life he's ever known is this one and maybe that's why he never learned how to properly yearn for something else.

Sometimes there's a dream, a popping sound, then long dark hair falling, channelling like a river. A heady warmth under his hands, the angry whistling of a tea kettle ignored.

Then he wakes up and is surrounded by the same four walls that he's always known. A square mirror is drilled into the wall beside the door, not real glass because then he'd have something sharp. A dresser sits against the wall opposite, top two drawers are empty, he doesn't really have things. Finally, a bed made with thin, clinical sheets and a single blanket, two right now though because it's winter.

Home sweet home.

It took a couple years to be tall enough to see into the mirror and then by the time he could, he was disappointed to find his reflection warped by the cheap plastic. The first time he saw his own eyes, he was surprised. Part of him had thought he'd look more like 5, tawny hair and deep, warm, green eyes.

But his hair is dark and ashy, his gaze eerily cavernous and the colour of the table in the mess hall.

His name is tattooed on the side of his neck, '6' it reads. 5 says that a number isn't really a name, she says her other one once to him in secret and it sounds so foreign, so weird that he forgets to remember it. She's 5, he's 6. After him came 7, then on and on.

There's no point in getting attached, he only knew 0 for a week before she was gone but 5 is a sticky sort of person. You try to brush her off and she holds on tighter. 6 doesn't really get how she's stayed so stubborn after all this time but she tells him that he's just as bad as her.

He disagrees.

"Exactly," she says, "You donkey."

He isn't very good at friends but 5 doesn't care much, she never has. He finds company jarring and she doesn't like to be alone but she's older and stronger so she always wins.

He can't speak love languages well. It was 5 who bore the brunt of teaching him that love wasn't meant to be said with a fist, mostly because there was no one else to do it. Part of him still doesn't understand but he wanted to for her. The first time she tried to hold him gently, he panicked and kneed her in the stomach.

She screamed so loud that they'd both gotten in trouble.

In those days, when 5 got in trouble, they gave her more rounds in the ring but when 6 got in trouble, he got solitary. It's not as desirable as it sounds, even for a boy like 6.

You're never really on your own in there.

And the man was curious with 6, he always wanted to see just how far he could push him before he snapped.

The first time they put him in the ring, every single person in the room bets against him because they place him against 8. Even though he came after 6, he's older, stronger and has a full head of height on him.

As expected, he's knocked down in the first ten seconds. His back hits dirt floor so hard that he can't breathe and 8 parades around him like he's already won. Helix and Shadowcat don't call it though, they just stand there and watch as 8 drives his foot down hard on 6's thigh.

Thing about 6 is that he was raised to take a hit. Every time 8 knocks him down, he pulls himself back up but he doesn't fight back. Every now and then he looks at Helix and the man shakes his head. More bets are placed against him, a voice from the crowd, "Kill 'im!"

Then Helix signals.

The fight ends two minutes later, with blood running down 6's chin and a chunk of 8's ear on the floor between them.

House always wins.

11, 12 and 13 arrived all together one night back in '80 but 6 never thought much of them. He could tell with a look that they were different than him. Soft hands. 6 never had much patience for kids when they were new, he was better at dealing with them when they'd already been broken by the man with no face.

5 takes a liking to the boy though, says he reminds her of 6 when he was new too. 6 doesn't see it, his eyes are too big and he hides behind 11 and 13 like a deer might between trees.

6 watches the three of them sometimes and it's like the time when 5 told him her other name, foreign, just something else he's never going to fully understand. He didn't know family could be so delicate and seeing them with each other is a small agony, part of him wants to destroy it.

"Jealousy doesn't look very good on you," 5 teases him.

"Me?" he says, "You're just scared I'm going to dump you for that happy family."

But she's right, 5 often is.

And he feels her drifting away from him long before he wants to admit it. Maybe it's the way that they meet in the ring sometimes, two animals circling each other instead of the way the other three look out for each other. Anyone so much as touches a hair on 11's head and 12 is trying to destroy them.

But 5 and 6 know better, they've never held back. One time when he's twelve, 5 breaks three of his ribs. He has to sleep sitting up for two weeks and can't fight for three. Soon as he's better he breaks three of her fingers as payment and then they're balanced again.

Something changes though between them. Too many transactions like that maybe.

Or it's because as time goes on, 6 loses his fights less and less and every single time, he finds a more efficient way to win. There's no show to his methods, no more cheering for the little underdog. There's just pain, small, brutal, neat.

One morning, 9's not at breakfast but 6 fought her the night before and he doesn't worry about it.

Then 7 finds him later after training, cruel little grin on her lips, "You were too thorough. You know not everyone takes shit like you, idiot."

He doesn't get it at first.

"They put her down. Like a lame dog."

10 takes it out on him later in the ring, well tries to.

6 has him pinned beneath his knees, his hand around his throat, pain running through him so hot that his skin is burning when 10 opens his mouth, "Gonna be a killer twice in one day?" he chokes out.

And he was thinking about it.

Blood pouring down the side of his head from hitting the floor earlier, lip split and bruises so deep it's to the bone, he crawls off of 10.

Later that night, when he goes to find 5, her door is locked.

"When are you going to stop punishing yourself?"

Recovery from solitary always takes a minute.

5 is back lounging on the foot of his bed in the infirmary, book in hand and a stupid sad look on her face. 6 doesn't like it when she looks at him that way and he's told her so at least a hundred times.

"For what?" he asks.

"9."

"I'm not."

"New question then, when are you going to stop trying to get yourself killed?"

"Is that what I'm doing?" he asks.

He genuinely doesn't know. When he wanted attention when he was little, he rarely had to seek it out. His mother would find him and give it to him whether he wanted it or not and when you're small like that, and that's all you know, you don't know what you should be looking for.

"You stabbed Helix with a fork. The only reason you're probably still even alive is because of how much money you make them."

"I was trying to stab 8."

"That doesn't matter."

6 sits up slowly with a groan, shoulder clicking. There's an angry sound coming from his side and every bone in his body hurts. He stares down at 5 for a long moment, then nudges her with his foot. "What's that?" he asks.

She turns the book over in her hand to show him the cover. "East of Eden," she says.

"You've read me that one already."

Lots of big words and big ideas but he'd tried to keep up. Most kids arrived already able to read, someone had to teach him. 5 took it upon herself.

"Yeah well you forgot the message in it so I'm reading it to you again," she says, then licks a finger and opens it up to page one.

6 gazes down at her, thinking back.

"Now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good," he mumbles.

He hadn't forgotten. He just didn't think it applied to him.

5 taps his foot with the closed book.

"You can be."

"No."

"You can try."

No.

"Okay."

They keep him locked up for three days this time because they don't know what else to do.

Helix spends a lot of quality time with him but for once, it does no good. 6 fights back when he's not supposed to. On the second day, Helix comes out with a broken nose and Shadowcat goes in with a crow bar.

At night, everyone can hear him screaming. Shadowcat calls the Doctor in because 6's shoulder needs to be put back in place. His meals come with no utensils and it's only when they tell him that they'll let him see the body that he finally calms down.

Helix makes him apologise for the nose, then they take him to her.

5 looks a lot smaller than he remembers. They've shaved the hair off of her head. Her skin is mottled yellow and black where his palm hit her chin, pushing her head up, too far to the side.

He hears the sound again in his head, a heavy splintering.

And her body falling like the strings had been cut.

He picks her hand up, the fingers are stiff, they've begun to curl inwards. 6 laces his fingers through hers anyway, pressing the pads of his fingers hard into her knuckles so that she can feel it too. Her skin is cold from the fridge, there's a nothingness to her that feels nostalgic and he knows he's held someone like this before.

When they're already long gone.

"Told you so," he whispers.

And for once, she doesn't argue.

His last time in the ring is against 12.

Shadowcat senses the danger before Helix does but by then it's already too late, the bell has rung and bets are being passed around like candy.

6 stares at 12.

He still remembers that scared looking rabbit that showed up seven years ago and it's all he can see still sometimes when he looks at him. Things change though, home has done to 12 what it does to every kid who winds up in this shithole. That deer in headlights look is gone, that sweetness scraped from him until looking at 12 feels a little like looking in that shitty square mirror on the wall of his room to 6.

And it's disappointing for some reason, like 6 helped make it happen or something.

Maybe he did a little bit. 7 told him that when 12 found out about 5 he'd taken it pretty bad. 6 found out for himself a couple days later, they'd both gotten solitary as a result.

Their fight lasts ten minutes. It ends with 12's jaw broken and 6's left eye in the dirt at his feet.

They call it a tie.

House always wins.