The Society Series Box Set 2

by Mason Sabre

  Tripping, Stephen stumbled onto a grass verge and caught himself before he landed flat on his arse. It was the edge of a neatly cut lawn. Instead of the wall where the tunnel had just been, there was now a hill, a grass-covered hill that meant he was stranded in the middle of nowhere and no idea how to move on or get out of there. "Great … just bloody great."

  The boy wasn't there either. No one was. No family to greet him on the other side, no lost loved ones. If this were someone's idea of heaven, then he would find management and put in a complaint. There wasn't a drink. There wasn't a wall lined with Humans for him to kill to his heart’s content. “Maybe this is hell … yes.” He nodded. The more he thought about it, the more that made sense. Green grass, lawns, pretty flowers … they would all be his mother’s version of heaven, but his?

  No. If this were heaven, he would have been put into the woods. He would have been given animals to hunt and fresh meat to gorge himself on.

  Still, he would complain the first chance he got.

  For reasons he couldn't explain, and not that there was anyone to explain to, Stephen walked away from the path and along a thicker one that led away from where he had just come. He could piss and moan if he wanted, shout even at the injustice of everything and that his wife was back that way, but there was no one around, and also if there were, he was sure as shit, no one would do anything for him.

  Heading toward what looked like a hill, he followed his internal compass. It pointed in that direction, and right then, his instincts were the only things speaking to him. Thoughts of Helena and the children filtered their way into his mind, but the more he walked, the more they became fleeting, like they were there in his heart, in his soul, but the part of him that worried about them, the protective side of his nature, it was calm, resting. He couldn’t even muster the worry if he tried.

  Walking toward the hill, Stephen let his mind settle into a gentle nothingness. It was easier that way, easier here. At home, his mother had tried to teach him how to do it. Meditation, she’d told him was the key to calmness, but he could never sit still long enough. Raw energy always bubbled inside to make him need to do something else, to be somewhere else.

  But in this place, wherever he was, it was so much different. He walked, but it wasn't the same frantic kind of walking he would have done at home. It wasn't fuelled with that need to do something. It was only when he reached the top of the hill, and the other side came into to view, did he stop. But that was just because the boy was there, again, standing, waiting, doing that silent thing of nothing.

  "Now there's a surprise." Stephen all but ran from him at the sight, because it snapped Stephen's head back into reality and brought him down from his almost happy place to this again, with a crash. “Are you going to talk to me? Tell me where we might actually be going?”

  He didn’t expect a reply, and he wasn’t disappointed. The boy waited and only moved when Stephen got close enough.

  “You know, I can’t hear myself think with all this chatter you keep doing? Maybe you need to pipe down?”

  The area was straight off a postcard. Everything was so bright, so vibrant. Even the air held the sweet scents of a summer’s day, and Stephen could smell them, he could smell everything.

  They came across a small footbridge and on the other side of it was a street, except it wasn’t the kind of street Stephen was used to seeing back home, or in Exile. Those seemed dark and grey compared to this. This was someone’s page from a fairy-tale book. “If you take me to a cake with a label that says, ‘eat me’ on it, I’m going home.”

  The place reminded Stephen of something Aiden might draw, only the colours didn't go over the lines, and the animals were more than stick figures with fur. It was paved too, oddly. The same colours a child might use to add in a path and make it bright.

  They came to a house, and there were actual people, two women. One was sitting in the garden at a small table with a tiny cup and a pot of tea that was decorated with flowers, and the other was crouched beside the rose bed. They looked the same, but not quite.

  "Nice roses." Stephen stopped with his hand on the small gate and the other shielding his eyes from the sun. Neither woman spoke or even moved as if they knew he was there, so he pushed the gate open. "Don't mind me, I'm just some guy whose ingested something that clearly isn't agreeing with me." Waving a hand in front of one woman's face, he shook his head. Not even a blink, a whisper. "This is ridiculous."

  The women were elderly and twins. They were probably the kind who stayed together their entire lives, and one day, they would die together. The woman crouched near the roses counted the petals on each bud, except she counted them backwards, all the way to zero. She turned to her sister. “All the roses are gone.” She didn’t need to say more. The fact that the roses were gone, to her at least, because they were right there, was enough to fill the air with the sadness that came from her and bring a dark cloud into the sky.

  The other woman smiled and gave a gentle shake of her head. “No. You’re just not looking hard enough.” Rising from her chair, she went to her sister and took her hand to lead her to the roses that had been in front of her the entire time. “See? There are more. The roses never go away.”

  Eyes lighting up, the darkness coming over rolled back, and the woman’s heart leapt. “My roses. Ninety-nine, ninety-eight …”

  “This is one of my most favourite places,” a voice said from behind Stephen, and he didn’t turn to it at first because his fists clenched instantly, and his back went rigid, and he needed a moment … just one, to put his mind back into a calm place.

  “Freya …” Biting down every word that wanted to spill out of his mouth, Stephen gripped onto the gate and stared at her, half waiting, half expecting her to laugh at him and then walk away.

  “You took your time,” she said arms folded across her chest.

  “Me?”

  She arched her brow and nodded, pursing her lips in that all-seeing, all-knowing way that made Stephen’s blood simmer to almost boiling.

  “Well, I was a little busy being dead. What’s your excuse?”

  “I was waiting for you.” She said it with such ease, but such accusation, as if he had been late on purpose for a meeting he had no idea he was supposed to be attending. He bit so hard on the inside of his lower lip he almost drew blood.

  “Fine,” he said, accepting her accusation. “Where am I?” There were more important things going on than to win a contest in who did what to who. He could do that later, but right then, what he needed was answers and an answer of how to get back to his body.

  He knew, even before she spoke, she wasn't going to tell him, but still, he waited. Still, like a fool, he hung onto that piece of hope.

  “Where do you think you are?”

  “Don’t … not again.”

  She held her hands out to the side and shrugged. “You know the answers, Stephen. You just have to look.”

  He felt like a defiant schoolboy as he stood there, glaring at his teacher. Freya was older than him. Hell, she was probably older than most of the places he had visited, but she had the face of a child and the annoyance of a teenager. “Walk with me,” she said.

  He did.

  “Do you know those women in the garden have been together since the moment they were conceived?” she said, talking as they walked together. They left the garden and went along a path Stephen hadn’t noticed before, but he said nothing about it. It was another thing that didn’t really matter to him just then. “Even through their adult lives, one has not left the other. The one counting, she is autistic, and the sister at the table is not. Yet she gave her life for a sister who would never really understand what it meant to be a sibling. Do you know why that is?"

  Freya had her hands behind her back as she walked, walking like she was about to break into a skip. Stephen stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Perhaps there was no one else to care for her.”

  She nodded. “When you understand the answer to my quest
ion, then you will have the answers you seek.”

  Mind grating, he stopped. "That's it? That's your answer?" He didn't give her time to answer him, not that she was going to. He huffed out a breath, and at the same time, the boy came from nowhere and stood beside Freya. "Oh, for God's sake. Are there Freya lessons on how to annoy the hell out of someone? Psychology training sessions of getting into the tiger psyche?”

  “Stephen …”

  “No. Don’t Stephen me, okay? Give me answers. Tell me something I can actually use to sort all of this shit out. The both of you. Him with his silence …” He went closer to the boy. “Can he even talk? Is this like some Christmas Carol bullshit where everyone shows me the errors in my ways? You want me to get cosy with the Humans and be best bosom buddies with them? Hug fucking Lee Norton and rock him to sleep? Is that it? Understand other people’s ideologies?”

  “You’re not helping.”

  “Not helping? Ha.” He waved his arms and shook his head. “You’re not helping. He’s not helping. Me? I’m walking around in the dark smashing into things I didn’t know were there and still can’t identify.”

  “You’re angry.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  She arched a brow.

  “I’m gloriously fucking happy, can’t you see?” He bared his teeth in the biggest grin he could manage.

  “And now you’re being childish.”

  Pressing a fist to his own mouth, he swallowed down the words that so desperately needed to come out. “And you’re being …”

  A pause as she waited for him to answer.

  “Freya …”

  Chapter 13

  Stephen shouldn’t have been surprised at the way Freya ignored him. It was, after all, her forte. Even as his gaze bore into her back with enough force to slice her through the middle and reveal her secrets, she didn’t give in. Damn her. If cutting her in half would have found him the answers, he might have considered it.

  Instead, he walked away. He'd not play this game now, this thing. If she wanted him, she could come to him and sort out whatever the shit was she wanted. Fisting his hands into tight balls at his sides, he held himself rigid. Even though she gave no action or complaint, she knew he wasn't behind her. She knew it, and still, she carried on because she also knew when curiosity took over him, he'd come running in the end, like a damn lapdog.

  "Shit." Pain shot through his jaw as he gritted his teeth and the curiosity that would eventually kill him, pushed at the base of his tiger, and brought out a growl from deep in his throat. He took a defiant step backwards, though, ignoring Freya, ignoring the beast inside him who knew she had the answers. Pressing his feet flat against the earth, he almost literally had to hold himself in place and fight every vein in his being not to give in. The sisters were still in their garden, one sipping tea and the other with her endless counting. To be attached to someone that much … to give up your own life for them. It was madness, but then he pictured Evie and Gemma and knew in a heartbeat, he would give his life for them. In a way, he already had.

  The biggest thing that told Stephen, Freya was playing, was her speed. She strolled, a woman ambling through the fields, but Freya was more than just a woman. She was more than anything. Valkyrie.

  “I’m not playing this game with you, Freya. Keep walking.”

  She put her head back in response and her hands behind her back, skipping again. Deep rebellion pressed into Stephen, and he mentally took a grip on himself so as not to give into the magnetising need to walk to her. She was waiting … waiting and playing, because if Freya wanted to leave, she could, and not him or anyone else could stop her.

  “Fine,” he yelled when she gave no answer. He put himself in the opposite direction and strode back the way he had come before. He was a hunter, cunning and strong. He was dominance and power. He would not bow to her. No. He was not the hunted.

  When he’d walked for a while, he wasn’t so sure how long really, maybe ten, twenty minutes, he stopped. “Oh, fuck off.” He was outside the garden again, standing at the gate. “Is this one of your mind games?”

  “Fifty, forty-nine, forty-eight …”

  “Come on, Freya, you can do better than this?”

  Somehow, even though he hadn’t walked back on himself, he had gone all the way around and then come back to the gate. Even Freya was at the same distance from him on the hill, and she was still moving. He put his head back, eyes to the sky. “I’m sorry. Okay? Whatever the hell I did, I’m sorry.” He let the sun warm his face as he waited for an answer. None came. “Fine. We’ll play it her way.”

  He was almost hesitant to go after her because he expected she would vanish or fool him with something and then he’d be left stranded, looking like an idiot. Not that he didn’t already feel like one. When he went toward her, the world moved like it was supposed to. No ticks, no weird circles. “Are you going to at least tell me why we are here?” he asked when he got close to her. “What is this place?”

  She wasn't so hard to keep pace with, and he could have out-walked her if the mood came upon him. She walked freely with an angelic look on her sweet face, but only a fool would fall for that twice.

  “Freya?”

  Raising a brow, she glanced at him like he was a petulant child, and god damn her, she made him feel that way too.

  "Where do you think you are, Nick?" She added his name at the end on purpose, and it was like a kick in his gut.

  “If I knew, I wouldn’t have asked.” She gave him a sigh and shook her head. “Don’t start that. Is it so hard for you to tell me where we are? Why we are here? Do you even know, or are you messing with me because you’re bored?”

  She stopped, hand on her hip and head angled to one side. “You’re a smart man. Where do you think we are?”

  Letting her words ride over him with nipping precision at her lack of answer, Stephen backed up and took a breath. “Heaven perhaps. Or, some kind of heaven.”

  “Only some kind?”

  A snort. "If this were the real deal, you’d answer my questions. Like, why is the sky blue? Why can we see the colour yellow when we aren’t meant to? Why do you play these games? And …”

  “Nick.”

  Ignoring her, he carried on. “If this is heaven, where are my grandparents? Where is the heroic parade to welcome me? I am Stephen Davies. Where is the gunfire at dawn?” He held out his hand in some grand gesture that she didn’t pay attention to.

  “I see,” was all she said, and that dismissal roused his tiger, pushed him, but before he could release anything, Freya turned tail and walked along the path again. It was beginning to get tiring and grate on him.

  “You’re just going to walk off again?”

  “I’m letting you calm.”

  "I am calm." He caught up with her again and walked … just walked like she wanted him to. It seemed in a way, they were going to walk to the end of the earth, especially with the way the land angled itself and gave the illusion that it stopped. "I love these encounters you, and I have," he said after several silent minutes. "You're always so chatty. Hello, Stephen. How are you today? Well, I'm just fine, thanks for asking." He lifted his hands up, holding his hands in the form of talking puppets. "And how are you today, Freya?' ‘Well, you know, I am a little worried about my friend. He is lying in a house somewhere, hiding from the Humans, and he is in this strange coma, and his wife is pregnant.' ‘Really? You don't say? That's so terrible.' ‘Yes. Yes, it is."

  "Are you done?" She stood before him, her silvery eyes on him, her lips pursed. All she needed was claws, and she could be killer Barbie in the return of the plastic warrior. He’d be action man; sod Ken doll.

  “Are you going to answer my questions?”

  She almost … almost gave a nod. “You already know the answers.”

  Throwing his hands up into the air, he let out a deep rumbling growl, and when he brought his hands back down, he held them in front of Freya and mimicked strangling someone with a series o
f sounds, growls and groans, and forced out cuss words no one would have been able to make out.

  That time she rolled her eyes at him. She rolled them so much that rather than stop him, it made him want to carry on, but it was to no audience because she walked again and left him to wallow in his own frustrations.

  Like a trained puppy, he trailed after her, cursing himself as he did, and the need to bow to her for some reason always came out when she was around. His father would have been proud. Malcolm had tried for years to get his son to toe the line, toe it in the manner that was respectable of course, but he had failed, mostly.

  When they did stop, it wasn't because of Stephen this time. No. It was Freya who made the decision to stop walking. The women and the house were out of sight, and instead of walking in circles, they had actually gone on a different route. There was an obstruction in the middle of the path, with panels at either side holding gates together to form one. “Well that makes perfect sense,” Stephen said, walking towards it. “Where is the rest of the house? Someone pick it up and drop it on their sister?”

  “The gate makes sense?”

  A glare. “I was being sarcastic.”

  “Oh. Glad you told me.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “Do you practice infuriating me, or does it just come naturally?”

  “Am I infuriating you, Nick?”

  Damn right she was. “Stephen,” he said. “My name is Stephen.”

  Of course, he was Nick, now, and she was right to call him that. Even Helena only knew his new identity and nothing of the real man she’d promised her life to. But he needed someone to say his name. Someone to acknowledge who he was, who he had been and the man inside. The stiff set of her jaw told him he’d not get that from her, though, and the itch would never be satisfied.

  Better to try to let it go than fight to hold on to who he had once been.

  Letting out a breath, he went to the gates and put himself, so Freya was behind him. It gave his head a moment of peace. He didn't touch the gates, but a small part of him wanted to. It tried to go against the protest his instincts were giving. "They have a habit of putting random gates in the middle of paths?”