by Mason Sabre
If he lost it, they were both screwed. Zoey still had her wand. She was still in the chair …. But Jason didn’t lose it. In fact, he was calmer than she was feeling. He was still, deadly so.
There was a woman on the bed. It was Shayla. Crystal knew without asking who it was. She knew by the look of pure satisfaction on Moorley’s face when he saw the reaction on hers. The bed wasn’t a bed, but a trolley. Shayla had tubes coming from her arms. They ran along the side of her, and all the way to the back where they ended in a vat at the head end of the trolley. It was filling with blood—Shayla’s blood. The silent monitor attached to her gave out readings across a sheet of paper. She was alive, barely, but she was alive. Her chest rose slowly. The screen that held her heart rate blipped and lined, blipped and lined. It was going to stop any moment.
Moorley was at his computers again and he tilted a screen, so Crystal could see it. “As you can see, there isn’t much of her left. Only the fundamental functions are still ticking. You can have her back when I am done, but I am afraid she is a little useless. The left and right hemispheres blinked out about an hour or so ago. Only the reptilian portion of her brain remains active.”
Unconsciously, Crystal clenched her fists around the edge of the chair. It made the spikes in what was holding her dig in and send pain all the way up her arms and then down to the pit between her navel and pubic bone. “Why?” She shook her head, trying to hold on. Not because Shayla meant anything to her. She didn’t know her. But the wolf in corner cared, and she was somehow pulling raw emotions from him and confusing them as her own. There was a link passing between them, an invisible cord that went all the way across the room. She had to swallow down her pain, his pain. “She’s just a girl.”
“Why?” Moorley asked with raised brows. “Science is why. Do you know how fascinating these shifters are? What their bodies can do? Could you imagine the leaps medicine could make if Humans could heal the same way they can? Do you know that cancer is rare in shifters? It’s like their bodies fight it the moment it starts. Little warriors in their blood battling anything that doesn’t belong.”
“You’re trying to tell me you’re doing this for the good of mankind?”
“No,” he said.
Jason moved unseen to the rest of the room. Even to her, he occasionally blinked in and out as if her mind wanted to forget she could see him. But god, she’d not forget him. She’d never forget him. He got himself in the gap between where Moorley stood gloating and where Zoey stood, holding the wand. She was one wrist movement away from a snap.
I’m sorry, she found herself thinking, hoping that he could hear what she thought. Hoping that somehow, she could send her thoughts to him so that they might ease the grief that had settled into him. They had known, he had known, but this was it, the confirmation that Shayla was gone.
“It’s been a while since I had a witch I could use to fill up our resources,” Moorley said, bringing Crystal’s attention back to him. “I think we are running kind of low.”
“There’s a …” She was going to say, good one, before she caught herself and met Zoey’s gaze. No, there was nothing good about her. Not anymore. She was spoilt, wicked. “There’s a witch you can use right next to you.”
“There is?” He turned to Zoey, his expression mocking Crystal’s suggestion. “Zoey? Did you hear that, girl? She thinks I could use you.” Zoey and Moorley laughed together as if they were sharing some kind of in joke between them.
“She’s always been a fool,” Zoey said, and then, just like that, she raised the wand and snapped it clean in half.
“Noooooo.” Crystal couldn’t help the scream that came from her lips, from her gut. Her head filled with searing pain. Her heart pounded in her chest and threatened to come out through her ribs. “Why, Zoey … Why?”
“You’ll not need it any longer,” Moorley said. He had a needle in his hand. He went to aim it at Crystal, and she squirmed in her seat, trying to get herself away, even though that was impossible.
Jason leapt. He came from the shadows beside Shayla’s bed. There was a flash of fur, a scream, blood. Like the true hunter he was, he leapt at Zoey—the biggest threat—and sank his teeth and claws into her arm, biting down so hard bones cracked and crushed and she fought and pulled, but he shook his head like a dog with a chew toy and he bit through her arm. Blood spilt out all over him, all over the floor. It was hot, red, the rich metallic scent filled the air, but it was mingled with the scent of urine. One clean bite just above the wrist. Her dead hand bounced against the floor and Zoey clutched at her arm where blood poured out. She stumbled back, trying to mutter at him, but he was on her so fast. On her faster than she had time to react. He slashed out, swung a paw at her face and ripped away flesh. The speed of it sent her to the side, slamming her head off the concrete floor. There was a wet sound, a sloppy sound, and when Zoey limped to the side and raised herself enough. Only one side of her head was the shape it was meant to be. The other side had caved in. Blood ran down across her eye. Jason glared at her; his growl was a low rumble in his throat. He lifted his blood covered paw again, slashed out and this time, she didn’t get up. She didn’t even move.
Only Moorley remained in the room. The other Humans had taken the smart option and left. They were no match for a wolf. Not for a wolf whose emotions and sheer fury were driving him. They were thick in the air. So thick they could reach out and grab it. He gave Moorley no time, no warning. Moorley screamed and dropped the needle, but it didn’t matter. Blood sprayed his face and ran down the front of his shirt.
Jason was a blur of movement as Moorley aimed for the door and tried to run, greys and yellows flashed in front of him and as fast as he was trying to get away, he stopped, bent over, his hands going to his middle as his guts slopped down. He grasped at them, making a sort of half scream, half wailing sound. Crystal turned her head away, trying not to gag at the doctor’s slipping intestines. He gave a sound, so loud, so screeching and nowhere near human that it hurt Crystal’s ears. Then he fell. He was dead before he even hit the ground, and maybe that was a kind of mercy he hadn’t deserved.
Chapter 15
Crystal’s body shook from a mixture of what had just happened and from the magic that was leaving her body. Her body grew cold in waves of despair. Her pot was growing emptier by the moment, and she couldn’t stop it. The vacant space inside her was expanding and every ounce of magic she’d held, both new and old, seeped through the cracks. She was sure if she looked on the floor by her feet, she would see it there—a growing pool of everything she was. Then she would die, much like Moorley, holding onto her guts, only her guts were metaphorical and there was nothing to hold onto. Nothing to grasp that she might make herself whole again.
She closed her eyes, let her head hang as sorrow took up residence in her head. There was no fighting this. No fighting everything, she had once been. It was gone.
There was movement behind her. A shifting of the air. How long would it be before she lost that ability too? Before she became just like the Humans? She could get her magic back. She could heal, she tried to tell herself that, but it would take years. She might be dead before she became even an inch of what she had been.
They had taken it from her. Zoey had taken it. For another witch to break a sister’s wand like that was nothing short of evil. Crystal couldn’t even look at her. She couldn’t put together the image of the friend she’d held in her head all this time and that of the woman lying dead on the floor.
Zoey’s body lay not far away. Her hand was reaching out as if she had thought maybe she could get away. Crystal wasn't sorry she was gone. She wasn't sorry that Jason had bitten one of her hands off, because she had done much worse snapping her wand. She had cut Crystal’s hands off with that move and then torn her apart for good measure.
At some point, as Crystal had sat there, mourning herself, her magic, Jason shifted back to man. He knelt beside her. He’d wrapped a sheet around his waist and he looked up at her with those s
ame sorrow filled eyes she felt herself. “I’m sorry about your wand,” he said.
She only nodded, biting on the edge of her lip to keep it from quivering.
“Let me cut you loose.” With one swift swoop of a clawed finger, he cut through the thing that had been holding her hands down. It was like a melon peeling away, leaving her hand cold and wet. Whatever it was, was hard now. It fell on the floor with a thud and rolled to the side.
“I’m sorry about Shayla,” she said, whispering. She wasn't sure she was strong enough to speak any louder. She wasn't sure she was strong enough to hold onto herself and not break down in front of him. She might have lost her wand, it might take years to rebuild it, but he had lost his friend, and that was something no amount of time could ever replace.
He’d untied the ropes around her ankles, but he hadn’t stood. Instead, he had his hand against his forehead. Crystal reached for him. Slipping her fingers into his. “I have to finish it off,” he said, slowly raising his gaze to meet hers. “She’d not want to be left like that.”
Crystal pulled his hand to her and clasped it between both of hers before bringing it to her mouth. “She isn’t in there anymore. That’s not Shayla you’re about to end.”
When he went to Shayla, the first thing he did was turn off the machine that was printing the readout. It wasn’t keeping her alive, just telling them that she was still with them … that her body was still doing what it needed to do to keep her there. When he flicked the switch, it removed the static sound from the air and brought about an even thicker silence.
He ran a hand across Shayla’s head, pushing her hair back from her face. He smiled at her, a sad smile if there ever was such a thing. The tubes were easy to pull out and Jason removed them one at a time. There wasn’t much blood flowing through them now. The vat under the head of her bed was full. She was gone. Her skin was white, paper pale. Her face was sunken in at the cheeks. Crystal had not seen her in life … in life before this, but she could tell the girl had probably been pretty, not attractive, but pretty.
Her heart was still beating. Her chest was still rising, and as Crystal came to stand beside Jason, she knew that there was no fixing this girl. They could maybe heal her. Maybe somehow get her body pumping with blood again, but what would come out the other side would not be the friend he had known. He knew it too.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Not to Crystal, but to Shayla.
“Do you want me to do it?” Crystal was beside him now. Her legs ached with stiffness from sitting in one position. Her body was empty, quiet. The soft hum of her magic was all but gone now. Nothing but an echo.
“No,” he said. “I should do it. I can do this for her at least.”
He placed a hand across his friend’s mouth and with his thumb and finger he gripped her nose. Shayla didn’t fight, or try to hold onto the life that every single being is programmed to retain. Even her desire to stay alive had been taken from her.
Jason sucked in a breath as he pressed his hand down harder, and Crystal willed Shayla to die, for her body to let go.
She slipped her other hand into his hoping to give him some comfort, some support. To show him that he wasn’t alone in this moment. Maybe one day, when he would be sitting, dwelling on this and if he had done the right thing, he would find Crystal in his memories and be happy.
The computer on the desk flashed with a warning across the screen. It read, “Alarm.” The images blinked for a second and then that was it. Nothing. Just the shape of Shayla’s brain, no lights, no heat, no activity going on inside. Jason let go. Shayla was gone.
Crystal drew him away. He still held her hand, but she let go of it so that she could slip her arms around him, so she could hold him. He let her, pressing a solid wall of naked muscle against her.
Something between them connected as he did. A light went on between them and inside her mind, some door opened. He held onto her tighter, as if he was feeling it too. She could hardly breathe, hardly hold herself upright.
Then he dipped his head down and kissed her, claiming her mouth with his. Magic flowed between them. Not magic from him, but new magic. Magic that he had somehow ignited.
When he broke away from their kiss, she left her mouth open, left her pot open inside too. And as she held him, she realised, god did she realise. “I don’t think I need my wand anymore,” she said. “I have you.”
The Forgotten
Book Thirteen
Chapter 1
It was poetic and reminiscent of a time not so long ago. The bus, the chains, the way the Humans had Stephen Davies enslaved to their selfish cause, again. Even the unending darkness had no peace for him; but all of this, he resolved as he glared out of the window, was nothing more than an odd sick sense of déjà vu.
They passed by the dominating fragments of the Human race. Vile creatures, afraid of their mortality and the evolution they faced. They could cage it up and test it, or even kill it if they so preferred, but they'd never stop it.
His wife, Helena, rested beside him. He clutched her hand, reluctant to let her go, even for a second. He'd waited two years for this moment. Two long years where he'd put on hold, his life, his plans, everything that made him who he was. But he'd do it again, for her ... his mate ... his Human.
It was a journey for them both, and the Humans kept them captive all this time, but this was the final one for Stephen. The last leg of his fascinating, yet different and strange voyage. For Helena, it was a new beginning, a new life, a fresh start.
Helena … he thought. The mother of his unborn children, the only light at the end of his long and darkened tunnel. Every breath he took was for her. Every moment he fought was for her future, and that of the lives she held inside. These were their last moments, their last few minutes. She rested her head against his shoulder, and he pressed his face into her sweet-scented hair, staring out over the top of her head.
Oblivious to the future, Helena slept. Her breaths were quiet, and her hand lay upon the swell of her distended abdomen—an instinct. Even the Humans around them had to protect the preferred lives inside her. Lives that had yet to discover the inhumanity of mankind and the evil that ravaged the world and corrupted the minds of the innocent.
He pulled her closer. The chains around his wrists didn't allow for much movement, but he took what he could, and stole a moment of comfort from her … comfort that his tiger needed, the beast inside content to sit with his mate. After a few minutes, he let his eyes close and inhaled her scent one last time, so he could engrave it into his memories before they had to say goodbye.
The next steps of his plan ticked over in his mind. Each one of them tweaked to absolute perfection. Not a single step could go wrong, or out of line or the actions that followed would miss the rope, and everyone would fall, even Helena.
There was no room for failure.
The foolish complacent Humans sat guard. There were two, both consumed in their readings of the outside world, both thinking they had broken him, bent … did they not realise that Stephen Davies would never bend to their will?
As Helena slept, Stephen kept his face angled to the window, but he was following the reflections of the Humans in the glass. No one noticed that he had picked his and Helena’s handcuffs. No one moved as he slipped his off and set them behind Helena. Even she slept on, unaware of the tightrope they were about to walk.
The Humans had been so foolish when they put Stephen on a bus he knew. He had cleaned it for them, prepared it, but in doing so, he had learnt every inch, every weakness.
Six steps. That was all he needed. He visualised them in his head, watching the shadows of his imagination act out his plan before him. There was a perfect sequence in which things needed to happen.
This was it ... this was finally it. He took one last glance out of the window and into the drab sky, offering a request to the hand that guided them, protected them. There was nothing else that could save them now, other than his plans. "Please make it."
H
e gave the nod and rose, stepped backwards and yanked Helena from her seat to her feet before she realised she was awake. On instinct when her mind thought she was in danger; she resisted his grasp and tried to throw him off, but Stephen held on.
“Trust me,” he whispered.
Five steps to the Humans.
One …
One Human scrambled from his seat. His clumsy hands dropped his paper by his feet, and he slipped as he lunged for the locked box close to him.
Two …
The other Human stepped toward them, his arms out, his mouth moving. “Sit down,” he shrieked.
Three …
Stephen thrust his free hand out and met with the flesh under the Human’s jaw. He sliced through it without thought and grabbed the back of the Human’s tongue and ripped it out.
Four …
Stephen slammed the Human back against the door that kept them imprisoned on the bus. One, two, three times he smashed him. Blood from his crushed skull marred the glass, and with one final thrust of his body, the door swung open. Stephen dropped the lifeless Human and squinted out into the darkness.
"Forgive me," he said; then he pushed his pregnant wife from the moving bus and into the unknown.
Five …
The other Human plunged a silver filled syringe from the lockbox into the back of Stephen's neck.
Six …
The inevitable and obvious step. The unintentional and yet foreseen part of his plan that Stephen had refused to acknowledge.
Death.
Chapter 2
Death: the permanent and final termination of vital organs and functions that sustain life and living organisms. A phenomenon of sorts brought on by many things, old age, malnutrition, disease, and the good old needle filled with silver to the neck while travelling at high speed and shoving one's pregnant wife out of a bus. That was what went through Stephen’s mind as he fell … wrong, plummeted, from the bus and down towards the ground and the woods.