Darkroom Saga Omnibus 1

by Poppet

  The women leave the men to their expert ministrations, running water into the tub and pouring in quarts of milk. This is all very Egyptian, and weird.

  When his trousers are cut off I look away, listening instead.

  “James, you take his left, I'll support his right.”

  Glancing back their way, I wonder which of them is James.

  With Seth's arms slung across their shoulders it looks like they're carrying a paraplegic to the bath, slowly lowering him into it.

  I can only imagine how the milky bath-water is turning pink with blood. Antsy, wound up and ready to snap, I walk to his bar fridge, opening the door and peering curiously inside.

  Selecting wine, I grab a glass off the tray and pour myself a measure from the already uncorked bottle.

  Sitting down, I wait, wishing I could understand, and help.

  The wait is interminable, but after much scurrying and coming and going of the silent sirens, the big dudes carry him bandaged and clean, and wearing loose pyjama bottoms, down the passage, away from me.

  The blonde is the first to return. He stalks into the lounge, looking me over in my pj's and glowering at the drained wine glass, “You're still here?”

  Where else am I going to be? It's not like I have happy hour to get to.

  “He's my brother-in-law, I didn't want to leave him,” I snap, irritated by his condescending scowl.

  “We're his brothers, we're fully capable of taking care of our own.”

  “And you are?” I ask, standing, barely reaching the top of his bicep.

  “Andrew.”

  Cocking my head, I find his lack of conversation telling. If he's Seth's brother, that makes him Victor's brother too. And by default, then he's also my brother-in-law.

  “So we're family?” I pry, becoming more and more self-conscious the longer he stares at my rack. Silk nighties aren't exactly expert at hiding cold nipples. If anything they highlight them, and he's staring like he has a fixation on breast-feeding.

  Sighing, glaring at me with bland grey eyes, he looks behind him as if wanting back-up before facing me, saying in a monotone voice, “We're adopted. Most of us are his adopted brothers. But yeah, in a sense we're family.”

  “Is Seth adopted?” I ask, surprised by the revelation in this expansive family. He looks so much like Victor that I never questioned it, until now that is.

  He shakes his head, answering “N–”

  When a voice snarls behind him, at me, “You ask too many questions, woman. You're on a need to know basis. If you have questions, ask Alpha.”

  He comes to stand next to Andrew and I stare at the blue eyed goon giving me the heavy glare. He carries himself like a street fighter.

  Feeling affronted, I arch eyebrows, “And who is Alpha?”

  They glance at each other, humour at my expense evident.

  Andrew seems the nicer of the two, giving me a wry shrug, “God.”

  James, who doesn't bother introducing himself, gives me the once over, raking my naked legs and staring at my cleavage for as long as Andrew did.

  God, this gives me the fucking creeps.

  I stand my ground, glaring back, “Well thanks for your help.”

  And with that snooty declaration I go stalking down the passage as if I have every right to wander around at will. Not knowing where the fuck I'm headed, I just follow the light, entering a deep bedroom silenced with a plush taupe carpet and mocha suede walls.

  The broken brides show me the blood bag hanging from the hook, communicating charade style that they have to stay to replace blood loss.

  I nod, “Thank you.”

  Smiling my gratitude, it finally dawns on me that they can't smile. To laugh or smile would cause unbearable pain sewn up like that. The thought brings on an instant wave of sadness and I look away to hide the tears rushing into my eyes.

  He's a fucking monster! How can he do this to them? How!

  Padding to the wide bed with massive wooden posts, I look down at the patient. He's watching me with his soft hazel eyes, the expression in them unfathomable.

  Patting the bed at his side, he mumbles as if he's had a Novocain injection, “Sit.”

  Perching next to his legs, I take his hand again, averting my gaze from his scrutiny to instead examine the micro-fibre tape holding gauze to his masculine arms. He has dark hair, like Victor. When I met him I spotted the resemblance immediately.

  Squeezing my hand to draw my attention back to his face, he cocks his head, “What is it?”

  His wounds, they remind me so much of the horror I went through. I hate this cruelty, the endless pain around me, the disfigured women, his body so broken he would have died without intervention. It festers the unhappiness multiplying in my soul and I shake my head, the tears coming on again.

  “It's his way. Don't hold it against him,” he mumbles, thick and slow.

  Snapping back to confront that statement, I wipe the tears away with my free hand, “His way? How can you think this is okay?”

  “Hurt manifests in different ways. He hurts me because he loved my mother so much she wounded him deep down where no one can see. He looks at me and sees her. Looking at me hurts him. It's a very roundabout way of showing how deeply he loves.”

  “What happened to her?” I ask, dropping my voice to keep the conversation private.

  “She died when I was too young to remember her.”

  I wish I could give him a hug or something, to let him know he's not a reject, he's okay. He's not unlovable, he's a good guy, and it's a crying shame his own father refuses to acknowledge that.

  But I can't because he probably hurts all over, so I fidget, picking at the paisley swirls on his duvet cover, “So uhm, why milk?”

  “It neutralises acid.”

  That gets my attention, and I blurt, “Acid!”

  This time he gets unshed tears, his sorrow wiping his courage away, showing me a raw and tortured soul, exposing a man who's endured things I can only imagine. My parents hated me, but at least they didn't do … this!

  “We'll talk about it another day,” he nods, finalising the discussion over what transpired.

  Trying to lighten the heavy atmosphere, I pipe up, “At least you're a doctor. You knew what to do.”

  He shakes his head again, slurring, “I specialised in pharmacology. I worked the lab for dad until Victor needed me at his surgery.”

  Intrigued, I get comfortable, folding my leg underneath me, “The lab? For the manna?”

  He nods, looking ashamed, refusing to meet my gaze.

  “Cosmetic surgery is easy money. I loved working with Vic, but now the practise is shut down and we live here. I need to start something new. Just to keep busy…”

  His tone implies 'to escape, to get away from Him'.

  “I should leave you to rest,” I smile, patting his hand.

  “Shauna …”

  Stalled, I wait, watching his kaleidoscope of expressions until it halts on contrite and anguished.

  “I'm sorry. I looked everywhere. I couldn't find him. I couldn't bring him ho-me.” His baritone cracks, hoarse, his Adam's apple working convulsively as if he's choking on a silent sob.

  “It was worth a shot. At least you tried,” I mutter, the constriction in my chest suddenly unbearable. My own grief is like walking carrying a heavy weight that makes breathing difficult. It makes functioning difficult. But the last thing I'm going to do is blame Seth for something that was never his responsibility.

  Gritting my teeth, I hiss under my breath so only he'll hear it, “If you want to find him, interrogate Peter.”

  He nods, giving me a hooded stare, the atmosphere final. I know it's time for me to go.

  As I get off the edge of his bed he grips my hand, tight. Pausing in the motion, I look down at him, raising eyebrows in silent question.

  “Thank you,” he slurs.

  It's soft, saturated in emotion that is so vast it could fill a library with encyclopaedias on the depths a human can go fo
r humiliation, gratitude, and shame. It's a thank you for saving his life. But if I was merciful I would have left him to die, to escape. And that just goes to show I'm not merciful, which makes me as flawed as God.

  “Anytime,” I smile, spontaneously leaning over and placing a kiss on his forehead.

  With the silent ladies watching me walk away, chills chase a cold fever across my shoulder-blades.

  •

  Seth:

  She moves like a dancer, graceful and sleek, the silk clinging to every curve and swell.

  I'm grateful I'm in bed under a puffy duvet because I have a boner so hard it's making me light-headed. When she bent down to kiss my brow I had a perfect view right down to her taut navel.

  Holy fuck that's a fine piece of ass.

  What I couldn't tell her was how after medical school I specialised in pharmacology, to make Dad proud. I so badly wanted to be him one day. He was my idol, my mentor, my role model. My world revolved around him and when I grew up I wanted to give him every reason to be inflated with pride … but it didn't pan out that way. Even though I stabilised the new ingredients into the pills, perfecting the cocktail that is Manna, nothing I did was good enough. I was always lacking. Always the fuck up. Never Victor. It seems ironic that I'm still alive and Victor died by his hand first.

  God damn I miss you brother. I miss you so much it's a living tumour of pain mutilating my heart.

  Glancing at the first woman I brought home to meet dad, guilt filters toxins into my sedated bloodstream. The hurt is in her eyes when she steps closer, gently brushing the back of her fingers down my cheek in silent affection.

  She can't kiss me. Not ever again. Dad made sure of that.

  We were only eleven at the time. I stole her life the day I naively brought her home. I can't bear the guilt and look away, knowing having Shauna here must hurt Elle more than what Alpha did to her. Things I'll never know because I wasn't here, and he made it so she can never tell me.

  He made the children suffer. We all suffered under his wrath, in the siege of his endless fury and discipline. Now that he's murdered Victor I know in my heart he doesn't love children at all. He never did. In my drugged up haze I cling to the germination of a new vocation.

  I'm a trained surgeon, the son of a psychopath.

  I think I finally have the answer. I will live to make him proud of me. I will run an immigrant's free clinic from the shelter outside the prairie.

  I'll make you proud of me dad. Just you wait and see.

  The children will suffer for the sins of the parents.

  Like I did. Like I still do.

  ~ Chapter 10 ~

  You must submit to and endure for discipline;

  God is dealing with you as with sons.

  ~ Hebrews 12:7

  Jude:

  I'm torn. Victor hasn't regained consciousness and I need to get an MRI. He's in a coma and I have no clue how severe the neurological damage is without it.

  Staring at the rhythmic spike of his pulse, I wonder how in the world I can infiltrate a hospital to get this done.

  Shit.

  Sitting down at the desk opposite his bed, I start Googling on my laptop, finding the perfect outlet for my dilemma. A private radiology practice in Claremont offers MRI, and as they are not a hospital I should be able to sneak us in after hours and do my own scans without detection.

  Poor old Seth, his heart was broken he couldn't find you, but I don't trust him. There is no way I'm letting them put your life in jeopardy when you can't even fight back.

  Fuck that, and fuck them.

  •

  Shauna:

  I've spent a lot of time with Seth while he's recuperating. The only book we're allowed to read is the bible, which is really banal for someone who would rather be reading a smutty romance novel, but we make do with what we have, so I've been reading to him from the big black book of madness.

  It took a lot to hold my tongue at how 'god' gives mankind just ten rules to live by, and then adds a gazillion sub-clauses. Jee Cee Em, so much for keeping it simple. All the hate speech is in the sub-clauses, not in the ten golden rules. That alone is bipolar and hypocritical. The ten commandments don't say 'thou shalt not fuck your wife during her period.'

  It doesn't even command we get married to copulate. It doesn't say 'thou shalt not be gay, black, kinky.' Or 'thou shalt not abort or partake of oral contraception.' Or like the Catholic's condone, 'Thou shalt have anal sex if thine budget is broken by the fertility in thine partner's womb'.

  Or … fuck … or how about 'Thou shalt give thine rapist visitation rights to ruin the innocence of the resulting child and forever persecute the female gender.' Or 'thou shalt make the woman cook and the man shall hunt and provide monetary compensation for sitting on his ass while a woman does all the menial labour in a homestead.'

  It doesn't say 'thou shalt ensure thy womenfolk wear long skirts and men can wear whatever the fuck they want.' In fact if memory serves me well back then men were wearing skirts too, so what the fuck man! Just, what the fuck!

  Ten rules … all this other stuff is just shit. And shit it is!

  I declare it all shit, it stinks, it hones, and it is offensive as a smelly ass.

  I have to say that when it comes to satisfying his demands god sure does like to shift the goal posts around. First he says he'll heal them of every hardship that comes their way, and then he's the one subjecting them to plagues and disease.

  Wow, another what the fuck.

  Mine eyes have been opened and what I'm faced with is the rule book to a cruel and corrupt cult.

  The ten commandments include 'thou shalt not kill', and a few paragraphs later the Israelites are ordered to go on genocidal killing sprees. Didn't they ever question these contradicting directives?

  What's that stupid saying? Ah yes. The one hand giveth while the other taketh away.

  I'm reading this just to get a handle on how 'god' thinks. The problem is it's simply exposing that his moods change with the winds, and keeping him happy isn't as easy as just doing what he says. The rules change faster than the shifting sands in the dunes of the Sahara. The dude needs medication for his mood swings, and maybe a padded room and a lovely white coat with lots of buckles.

  Aside from my internal conflict at my refurbishing of biblical knowledge, I've also been secretly hoping to find a way to contact the outside world, to get help, to get out. But I've gone through all my stuff and can't find my cell phone, my phone book, or my computer.

  They've shut me off from the beyond, leaving me with the only hope of getting a message out via a séance, contacting the dead and asking them to haunt the fuck out of my parents so this time they'll hunt for me and rescue me from this living hell.

  It's the little things that are really damn big things which nail home the ruthless fact that I'm a prisoner. Victor's family is scary and confusing, and it's alien. This isn't Little House on the Prairie stuff, this is Adam's Family on satan juice stuff.

  Seth gave me the go ahead to snoop to my heart's content, just so long as I stay on this level – our level. It seems a simple thing yet it has given me endless comfort. God placed me on Seth's floor of this compound, of which apparently nine levels are above ground level, and nine are below.

  I'm thinking when I was kept in storage I was in the sub-levels somewhere. But being here knowing there is someone else around, someone who will hear me if I scream, just another life to share space with, it's a salve during my dark grief.

  He's eased it for me, a little. That was until his howls woke me, filling me with trepidation, making me run the width of a humble hotel to his bedroom to find him wrestling with bedding, covered in a cold sweat. A cold sweat!

  I thought it was just a saying, but it really happens.

  Watching his nightmare play out while I looked for an opening to catch the arms he was holding up defensively, fighting something away in his slumber, grunting and puffing, the sleep strangled screams froze my marrow. He's a heckuvalo
t stronger than he looks.

  Holding his arms down took all of my body weight, not to mention he's wounded and drugged up on painkillers, putting him at a disadvantage. It made sleep impossible and I curled up next to him, silently crying in the dark, afraid to leave him, afraid to be alone.

  He sat up, plumping the pillows, holding his arm out in invitation, “Come cuddle.”

  Crawling over the covers I lay down next to him, afraid to hurt him because he's bruised and broken, but the solid thump of his heartbeat under my ear soothed fraught nerves, the heat emanating from him a sublime comfort.

  Cozying up to him, I relished the warmth, the softness of the bed, and for a moment life was normal in the luxury of platonic companionship.

  Blinking tears away I watched the dark, finally prying, “How come you aren't married?”

  The rhythm under my ear accelerated, and he spoke as if from a deep well of sorrow, “I can't. I've made mistakes which still haunt me. Courtship was never an option for me.”

  Titling my head to see his barely illuminated face, I stared into the visage so like my darling's, seeing in it a plethora of regrets. Maybe he just had his heart badly broken and never got over it. Or maybe he's waiting for someone special, someone who was forced to marry someone else?

  Love sucks.

  Relaxing again, I speak quietly, “Loving someone means having your heart broken. I see wisdom in your choice.”

  “Victor didn't mean to break your heart. He loved you, he did.”

  The thought of Victor just makes me miserable. I had heaven for a brief moment. Whoever said it's better to have loved and lost doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about.

  That was last night, and it was the first time since he's been back that I could smell his aftershave, the one that I noticed the first time I met him. He smells dreamy.

  I told Seth about the blood covenant I was subjected to and he got a dodgy look when I brought it up, changing the subject, asking instead how I faired with him away.