Free Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) by Damien Angelica Walters

once, but they had chains
attached to them. I don’t remember where the chains went.
    On the second night, they try to talk to the rest of us. They
say, “The old god is dead, killed by the new gods.” We cover our ears with our
hands to hide the sound, but they are relentless.
    Big takes out their tongues first.
    §
    After he remakes the red one’s legs, Big takes me out of my
box and puts me on the table. He runs his fingers along the crosshatch of scars
on my pale skin. My hands shake, but he pulls out a shiny box instead of the
sharp tools and opens the lid. I remember this box.
    “Yes, my pretty one,” he says, his voice stretching out to every
corner of the room. “You are strong enough now for these.”
    One by one, he places eight silver rings around my neck, stands
me up, and takes away his hands. All the weight inside my skull has turned to
air. His ugly teeth open up; laughter spills out.
    He hangs me back on the wall. I stand, moving my head from side
to side, and inside my neck, the cogs and gears whir a soft, metallic song.
    The third box is still empty.
    §
    Little Big comes in,and I close my eyes. I don’t
like his long, narrow faceand the skin on his chest pinned back to
reveal the metalwork within.A cage door screeches open. I made the
mistake of watching his remaking once. The sounds are bad enough—slippery, wet,
and scraping. Whenever he finishes, new spots cover the blue wall.
    Little Big isn’t allowed to touch me, and for this, I am
grateful.
    §
    The last perfect onewas here a long time ago. He
wore black rings on his neck, not silver. Big removed the skin on his torso (He
didn’t scream. He clamped a hand over his mouth and moaned against his palm. I
hope I am strong enough to do the same.) and covered the shiny gears with a
clear panel.
    After he healed, Big carried him out of the blue room forever.
    §
    The third box is no longer empty. I smell the new one, all
salt-sweat-angry. In the dark, he whispers, “Hello?”
    No one answers.
    §
    Big lets Little Big watch when he removes the skin from my
back. I try to hold in the scream, but I can’t. Little Big’s eyes light up, and
he claps his hands.
    “Do you see what I’ve done?” Big says.
    “Many improvements, many indeed,” Little Big says, in a thick,
raspy voice. “The old design was piss-poor at best.”
    The new one watches from his box; his eyes are blue, like the
wall. Big holds up the panel for my back, shaped thin at the waist with a tiny
hole in the center. I think my insides will leak out, but after Big puts in the
panel, he attaches a tiny silver key.
    It frightens me more than hurt and blood, and I don’t know why.
    §
    The new one holds in his screams for a long time.
    §
    I am healed, but Big hasn’t taken me out of the room. He
remakes the red one’s waist as tiny as mine and gives the collared man to
Little Big. That night, when everyone is quiet, I reach back and touch the key.
The perfect man didn’t have a key, and I don’t understand why I do.
    I turn the key to the left, but it won’t move, so I turn it to
the right. It clicks once, and I bite my lip before a shout can escape. I keep
still for a long time, hoping no one else heard the sound.
    I turn the key again. One tiny turn. One little click.
    The blue-eyed man speaks. “My name is William. What is yours?”
    I close my eyes.
    “Please. What is your name?”
    I have no name. I wait until the darkness swallows up his voice
before I sleep.
    §
    The one in red dies.
    When Big finds her, his shouts and screams fill up the room, loud
enough to send echoes through my head. He places her on the table and takes me
out of my box. First he wraps a string around my waist, then he holds it around
hers, nodding because we are exactly the same.
    He leaves me on the table next
to her while he opens up her skin. Her icicle fingers brush against mine. On
the inside, she is purple and grey and slippery and bits of broken metal. He
lifts up each piece. Little Big