Riders of B E R K

Part 29: I am Bludvist

Hiccup stared at the enormous face leering at him through the screens and frowned, his concussed brain struggling to process the words.

"My-my mother?" he murmured, shaking his head to try to clear his thoughts. "She-she died in a car wreck." The man on the screen leaned closer and roared with laughter, the dark sound echoing furiously through the room.

"And how did that wreck happen?" he sneered. "Your father was harrying my operations and I had to distract him, take him off the case. So my men ran your car off the road. I aimed to kill you both but only you mother died. No matter-it achieved the aim. He was replaced and his successor was a man with fewer morals and a blinder eye." Hiccup swallowed, anger clearing his muzziness more effectively than a gallon of coffee, a good night's sleep and a slap to the face.

"You killed my mother as a distraction?" he shouted. The man in the screen stopped laughing and his dead black eyes inspected the skinny shape like a nasty insect. "You ruined my life-as a distraction? Are you some kind of fucking psychopath?"

The interrogator cuffed his head hard and and winced but continued to glare furiously at the image on the screen. The man began to chuckle at the battered, defiant shape. "Yes, I believe that I am," he growled and narrowed his dead eyes. "But you...you hate him, don't you?"

Hiccup glared back at him, rage boiling in his chest. His expression answered more eloquently than any words.

"Join me," the man said suddenly, his low growl enticing. "Join me-and you can help me get my vengeance-and yours-on him!"

He considered it-he really did. All those years of absence, starting when his mother died, flooded back and they hurt, so much more than he would ever admit to anyone-even Gobber or Astrid. He had seen the little image of himself at his mother's funeral so many times but he could actually recall that horrible cold day, alone and utterly miserable, all but ignored by his father and broken-hearted at the loss of his mother. The image didn't show the tiny boy desperately grasping for his father's hand-only to be brushed away. It didn't show his tear-streaked face and feel the misery as he was scolded for crying-at his mother's funeral, for Odin's sake! And that was really, truly the last image there was of him and his father. Since then, there had been no presence at plays, sports events, graduations, parents' evenings...no trace at all that Stoick was his father. He knew that Stoick blamed him for Valka's death-for living when Valka had died-but now he had learned that it was all at Stoick's door.

He felt his body shaking with anger. Stoick had abandoned him after the funeral. Gobber had been much more of a father to Hiccup than Stock ever had been and the young man guessed he would not be alive now if not for his de factor father. But Gobber was on active service as well and couldn't be there all the time-and in his absence, in the care of uninterested housekeepers, there had been the bullying, the taunts, the repeated beatings...that over the years had rent him apart, broken him down until he had become the wretched joke he was today. He closed his eyes, his entire body rigid. And then there had been the worst, the time he had been just abandoned by his father and taken eventually to the home...where what they had done...still haunted his nightmares; where cutting into his own flesh offered the only crumb of solace; where he had seriously, genuinely considered ending his life. Stoick had abandoned him to that, leaving him behind like trash without a second thought...

Yes, he hated his father. And yes, the offer of vengeance was attractive...

His forest green eyes flicked up to the cruel face in the screens, the scars ugly on his dark skin. His eyes were dead, cold, emotionless. His expression was triumphant, enjoying toying with the boy. This was the face of the sadist who had ordered his men to drive a car off the road containing a young woman and her three year old son. Who had ordered that they die. Two innocent lives-one ended, one ruined on a whim-purely to facilitate his own aggrandisement and enrichment. He had wanted to stop Stoick, who was at least investigating and chasing this monster, trying to end his evil. The monster who had murdered his wife and tried to murder his son. The monster who had caused his mother's death and the cascade of disasters that became Hiccup's life.