Uendeligt: An Infinitely Forever Novel

by S King

  “I’m sorry.” He said.

  Raising a brow at him, I waited for the other shoe to drop. Neither of us were good at apologizing. Especially when we felt that we were in the right. I’m sorry didn’t exist in our vocabulary but like everything else in these past four months everything had changed. Hadn’t it?

  “I shouldn’t have attacked you when I had hurt you first.”

  Slowly, I got off the bed and wrapped my arms around myself. I didn’t want to be so petty I kept bringing it up, but I needed to know. Just for the sake of argument.

  “Did it go any further?”

  “I can’t remember.” He answered honestly. Kicking off the door, he crossed the room in a few short strides and sat on the bed in front of me. “The only thing I know for sure is the fact she was forced to do it.”

  “Forced?”

  “Someone—” he shook his head, “according to her. There are two people—a man and a woman. They’re…” He trailed off as if he were still trying to wrap his head around the new found information. “They claim they’re above the courts and scientists.”

  “How is that possible? The founders of our bullshit society were the ones who created all of us.”

  He rubbed a hand along his jaw, “but where’d they get the money? Or the idea for that matter?”

  I walked to the window and just stared out at the black. Thanks to the isolated location of Demir’s house there were no passing cars, street lamps, or anything else to guide anyone lost along the beaten paths that led up the mountains. Like the scenery in front of me, I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel we were in.

  Who in the hell were these people? Moreover, what in God’s name did they want?

  “The good news is they’re helping us,” he added.

  “In what way?”

  “How do you think I was able to find you?”

  Looking at him over my shoulder, I waited for the answer to come. Demir had a way of getting things done against all odds and that didn’t end with just asking around. Like me, he had an intuition that made people think twice about messing with us.

  “Whoever they are, they want us out of the guards and away from Castlehedge.” He continued.

  “Ok, but why? It doesn’t make sense.” I raked my fingers through my hair and turned my back on the window. There was nothing out there to guide me to the answers I desperately needed anyway.

  “No, it doesn’t,” he agreed and rubbed his hands together. “But it’s an olive branch.”

  “How many more branches do we need to take before it’s enough?” I threw up my hands, “for our entire lives we have done everything we were told to do just to keep our heads attached to our bodies and now? What? They want me for fuck knows what.” I threw out my hands, “yet and still, someone says they want us out?”

  Demir silently watched me from his position on the bed.

  “We have two damn mouths saying two different things.” I shook my head and grabbed a change of clothes. “On one hand there’s the scientists and courts that want me dead one minute and the next?”

  I shrugged, kicking the bag under the bed before marching into the bathroom. “They want me alive. Then there’s these mysterious people getting in touch with you saying to get out while we still can?” I stared at my reflection as Demir leaned against the doorframe.

  So much for running away while I still had the opportunity. With this new found information, I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave Castlehedge with a peaceful mind. Not knowing just what these people wanted, I’d be consumed with curiosity and end up in a bigger mess than if I had just stayed.

  “What do you want to do?”

  Blowing out a hard breath, I braced my hands on the white marble counter and stared at the sink. “I want to blow all of them to hell and back.” Looking at him through the mirror, “why should we have to be forced to live a life we didn’t choose for ourselves?”

  He looked away from me as if…

  “Demir what’re you not telling me?”

  “Nothing.”

  I had thought we had gotten past the need to tell each other lies. But as I narrowed my eyes at him and studied every line on his face. The gold burning in his eyes and the way his body tensed under my scrutinizing gaze. I knew he was, once again keeping secrets from me. However, as a snake of fear coiled in the pit of my stomach, making it hard to breathe. I knew this new secret was something I wasn’t ready to handle.

  “What is it?” I asked through clenched teeth.

  “Luminous, it’s been—”

  “Tell me!”

  He stilled and the walls slammed down over his face. Lifting his eyes to me, he said nothing.

  Backing against the counter, I raked my brain for the piece I wasn’t getting in this fucked up puzzle. The courts wanted me. Just so they could deliver me to the scientists. Which meant there were only two reasons behind the why of my apprehension.

  One, I was to be fixed to become a more ruthless killer than I was. I would be enhanced with the latest treatments and forced to complete series after series of trainings to test out my new strengths. The other possibility made me want to throw up.

  Looking at Demir, I forced myself to ask the question burning a hole through my throat.

  “Are they going to make me undergo a new trial?”

  He didn’t say anything. There was no reaction. No shift in his eyes. No muscle jumping in his jaw. Nothing.

  Through clenched teeth, I asked, “they want me for a breeder?”

  There it was. Right there in his dull gold-silver eyes. Dancing like a damned spirit about to torment the living. Fear. Regret. Rage.

  The room spun at his lack of response and my breathing was next to nonexistent. I couldn’t be a mother. Not to a child created in a fucking lab. Not by someone who wasn’t…rapidly I shook my head and backed away from Demir.

  “Luminous,” he tried to take a step toward me but stopped when I held my hands out in front of me.

  “Why?” Tears flowed from my eyes like a damned faucet while my heart raced against my ribs. No, this wasn’t right. I wasn’t anything special. Not even with my talents or with my training. I was just good at my job and nothing more. I was just me.

  “They believe,” he swallowed hard and looked around the bathroom. “They believe since you survived the fall from the cliff and went after Lovett you hold the answers to their failed experiments.”

  Balking at him, I slid down the wall and felt my mind short circuit.

  “The judges,” he continued, “were ordered by the scientists to bring you in alive so…you…” Why was he having such a hard time getting the words out? Wasn’t he apart of the judges who had signed off on the order?

  An order needs to be unanimous among the voting judges. I don’t have that power.

  The admission was something like a blow torch being shoved in my face. Demir had nothing to do with this. He had voted against the order because he knew I was alive. Because he didn’t want anyone having to go through what we had to when we were growing up.

  “You are to be delivered to the scientists. At which point, the—” he blew out a hard breath and shook his head. His face contorting with a pain I had never seen in him. “At which point, you will be inseminated with the strongest guard members—”

  My throwing up in the toilet made him stop talking about my infinite fate and come to me. As everything I had eaten within the past few days came up and out, he held back my hair and whispered how sorry he was. But I couldn’t focus on his words.

  You can’t go back to Castlehedge unless you want to die. Shang’s warning made all of the sense in the world now. Everyone knew the scientists to be capable of manipulating the eggs to separate into twins and triplets. And on rare occasions quadruplets. Because of the manipulation and act of God raging through the scientists, the subject would often give birth to only one surviving child. The others? Stillborn.

  To think that was my fate. That was how my dice fell. The cards had
fallen, and I was to be the unnamed subject. Pushed to grow attached to something inside me before the kid was ripped from my arms and placed with a normal family after the training.

  Another round of evacuation ripped its way up my throat as I clawed at the toilet and tried to banish the thoughts from my mind. Over and over on hyper-speed the images of what might be played in my mind. An unknown man becoming a part of me. A child I’d never see after birth. A lifetime of breeding like a fucking dog before the scientists had enough and committed me to the Honor Guard’s firing squad in the darkest pits of the Onyx Elite chambers

  “Luminous,” Demir kissed my head and whispered, “I’m going to protect you. No matter what. Do you understand me?”

  I was at the point of dry heaving and blinded from the tears. But still, something in my mind found his words to be as comforting as my father’s hugs.

  I nodded, wanting desperately to hang onto the promise as if it were the only lifeline offered in a condemned ocean of death and pain.

  “Nobody is ever going to do that to you, got it?” He turned my face to his and wiped the corner of my mouth. “You’re not going back to the scientists. You’re not going to face the judges. Do you understand?”

  I searched his eyes for any indication of doubt. Of a lie. Something that could enrage me to the point of grabbing a hold of my escape plan and run with it. But there was nothing in those orbs I had dreamed about in my three months of being unconscious. Nothing but a cold hard determination that radiated through warriors and soldiers.

  Demir was telling me the truth and now, thanks to the little revelation I had just had. I didn’t have any other option except to believe the words coming from his mouth.

  “Do you understand? I’m not going to let anyone take you anywhere.”

  “Promise?” The single worded plea was pathetic at best.

  I had always rolled my eyes at stupid movies that had scenes like this one in them. I had countered and argued the fact the male lead was nothing more than a horny bastard who just wanted to get his rocks off. And the only way to do that would be to win the favor of the female lead.

  “I swear on my life,” he stared at me and didn’t blink as his eyes bore into mine.

  I clutched his shirt and pressed my ear to his heart. The steady thump…thump…thump offering me the type of peace I needed. The only thing I could do right now was stay hidden and find out who the people were egging Demir on to get us out of Castlehedge.

  §§§§§

  The day had come and gone with me holed up in the spare bedroom just staring out the window. I watched the sun come, shift and die out. And still I sat in the window staring at nothing. My mind hadn’t calmed down since last night’s evacuation fit. If anything, the images grew more vivid the longer I sat in the window.

  A kid. Several kids. An entire football team with bench warmers included. The thought was as nauseating as it was when I had first figured out the truth. Shoving my feet out from under me, I pushed my damp hair from my face and left the bedroom.

  Karina and Dristan had left Demir’s shortly after I had woken up and Demir was off doing what judges do. Passing judgements, signing orders, dealing with the ilk of society. And what was I doing? I was wandering through his house, staring at the minimal artwork and furniture.

  I had explored the basic rooms of the house yesterday after I was left to my own vices and the house had fell silent. The kitchen was nothing like the kitchen in the other house. But it served its purpose. Stainless steel appliances, black cabinets and drawers. White marble counter tops and a deep chef inspired sink finished off the room.

  A part of me knew I needed to eat something just to maintain the strength I had managed to build up. But the other side of me wanted to just crawl under the house and wait for death to take me. Everyone I was close to had their own business to tend to and there wasn’t anything I could do to be of any help.

  Dragging my feet into the living room, I pushed the thoughts of eating aside and breathed in the fresh air coming from the cracked windows lining the wall. Much like the kitchen the living room held little to marvel at.

  Black leather furniture sitting comfortably spaced out faced the wall of windows overlooking the mountains and treetops. A gold trimmed, glass coffee table sat in the middle of the floor and a fireplace rested comfortably in the corner of the room where the windows stopped at the adjoining wall.

  As sad as it was to say, I wanted Demir to come back home just so I would have something else to look at.

  Making a face, I tilted my head to the side as a thought occurred to me. I could cook. By the time he walked through the door, I’d have a full dinner ready and then the night could pass away with conversation about why the stars were so unattainable.

  “Sounds reasonable enough,” I grumbled spinning on my heels and marched to the kitchen.

  The automatic lights clicked on, lighting the way to the refrigerator. “Let’s see what you have in here, Judge Losett.” Narrowing my eyes on the contents of the fridge I debated with myself on what I should make.

  To my surprise, Demir had everything from fresh vegetables and fruit to fresh meat. I had the pick of the litter and the possibilities were endless. But what would he like? It wasn’t like he and I had gone on a countless number of dates or spent enough time together in a comfortable setting that I knew what he liked and didn’t like.

  Twisting my mouth to the side, I threw caution to the wind and opted for the safest option. Steaks, a Caesar salad, fresh roasted potatoes, a side of fried green beans sautéed in onions. As I laid out everything and rummaged my way through the cabinets for pans and pots, I wondered what he liked for desert.

  Thanks to our years of training and strenuous diets none of the guard members had ever had anything sweet. Not until we were assigned to our respective guards and off probation with the courts. Most of the members I had encountered had never even touched a cake or cookie out of fear they would be deemed as a failed experiment and sent back to the lab. Was Demir the same?

  Shaking my head, I tried not to think of anything having to do with the labs or scientists. Instead, I opted for just making dried strawberry chips and call it a night.

  Four hours and a few choice words later, I was leaning against the doorframe of the wine cellar and contemplating my options. Red, white, vintage, bouquet.

  “What to choose? What to choose?” I grumbled to myself.

  Demir had a whole damn vineyard in his wine closet. Everything from the most expensive bottles money could buy to cheap bottles that are suited for just need a drink type of situations.

  “Fuck it,” I grabbed a bottle of red and slapped the light before closing the door. If I were going to drink it wasn’t going to be wine. Bourbon, rum and vodka were my go-to when it came to alcohol and thanks to being on the run I hadn’t had the luxury of tasting wine from around the world.

  Setting the bottle down on the table, I went back to the kitchen and grabbed two glasses from the wine glass rack. As I came back into the dining room, I couldn’t stop myself from staring out the window again.

  Summer would be here soon enough. Longer day light hours, warm nights meant to be spent surrounded with friends and a bonfire raging. But what was I going to be doing?

  The only thing I could see myself doing was this. Right here. Making dinner and waiting for Demir to come back just so I wouldn’t be subjected to the tortuous thoughts my mind enjoyed replaying in my mind. Waiting for Karina to come by for a visit. Cleaning the house because what the hell else was I supposed to do?

  Closing my eyes, I counted back from ten and took a deep breath. Everything was going to be ok. If I kept telling myself it was going to be fine then it had to be.

  “Luminous?” Finally. I breathed slowly opening my eyes and turned around. Demir looked like something out of a wet dream.

  His shoulder length black hair with gold strands was down, dried in loose messy waves from his shower earlier in the morning. A close trimmed beard that
made his bone structure look sharper and more defined hid away the soft lightly tanned skin covering his body. Those damn lips that made a saint curse and a sinner pray tilted up in a smirk while his dull gold-silver eyes analyzed everything. From me to the set dining room table. A thick brow arched up in question as he tilted his head.

  Standing at six-foot-seven and built like a linebacker, he was intimidating at best. I knew what hid beneath the black button down and the black slacks fitting to his body like a second skin. The shirt being unbuttoned at the top showed off his proud neck and hinted at the muscles in his chest straining against the fabric.

  A simple black belt held the pants on his trim waist while the fabric hugged the powerful muscles of his thighs. Shiny dress shoes completed the look and made him look like a business executive coming in from closing a major deal.

  This was the person—the man I needed now. Biting my lip, I breathed in his expensive cologne.

  “Luminous?” He looked at me, setting down the briefcase on the couch. “Are you ok?”

  “No,” I answered softly, “but I will be pretty soon.”

  His eyebrows slashed down in a hard line before he opened his mouth to ask for clarification when I jumped on him.

  Chapter 12 Notice from the Damned

  I caught her without thinking twice and smirked at her, moving some of her ombre gun metal gray hair away from her face. If this was how I was going to be greeted when I came home from dealing with the judges of Onyx Elite and the orders. Well, I could get used to something like this.

  “What’s it going to take to make you feel better?” I asked and stared at her lips. She just had to give me the greenlight and I’d take the lead. But I had to admit, I was starving.

  As soon as I had come through the front door, I smelled the food wafting throughout the house. And when I saw the table set to look like something from a movie, my stomach instantly started growling.

  Between the food and Luminous standing in front of the window with her baggy sweat pants, one of my thermal shirts covering her much smaller body and her hair falling in a river of gun metal down her back. I wanted to cry.