Parasight

by E. S. Carter

  “Take it,” she repeats, as black spots swirl against my vision and an invisible fist crushes my lungs.

  I drop the phone with a clatter on the table top, the muffled voices of Cole & Luke echoing from the speaker and drifting away on the heavy New York breeze. With a weak hand, I touch the brown paper bag and grip it between jerky fingers. The waitress steps aside but doesn’t leave as I frantically pull the bag to my lips.

  Nothing. What the fuck is a paper bag going to do for me, and more importantly, how the fuck did this frail bitch get the drop on me?

  “Take a few deep breaths into the bag,” she instructs quietly from somewhere off to my left. “In and out, no more than a dozen times.”

  I choke into the bag, the crinkling of the paper like gunfire to my ears.

  “That’s it,” she encourages softly. “A few more, then remove the bag and breath slowly and deeply.”

  My windpipe opens, and the first dregs of blissful air seep into my burning lungs.

  In and out. In and out.

  When my vision clears, and my hand relaxes, I can feel my chest opening and closing around each breath. The crunching of the air expanding and contracting the bag turns from something brutal into a soothing melody, and by breath nine or ten I’m fully over whatever-the-fuck just happened to me.

  I pull the paper from my lips and look down at the innocuous object. A simple brown bag just saved the Devil’s Reaper.

  Blinking slowly at the absurdity of the moment, I turn my head to my unlikely saviour - a girl, who, only moments ago, I thought to be the one that would finally manage to kill me.

  The waitress stands there, hands tucked into the front of her apron, the fabric moving with every nervous twist of her fingers. She’s early twenties, petite, mousy, and the last person on earth I thought would help someone like me. I want to laugh out loud at the irrational thoughts I had about her killing me. This girl, with her nervy movements and submissive posture, couldn’t kill a damn fly, let alone The Reaper of The Red Order.

  “How’d you know to do that?” I ask, motioning towards the discarded bag with a slant of my chin.

  She shrugs before awkwardly glancing down at her feet, and I feel a residual burn creep over my cheeks making the scars on my face tighten and itch.

  “You were hyperventilating. It’s when the body receives more oxygen than it needs and lowers the carbon dioxide in your blood. It happens during anxiety attacks. I know because I’ve suffered with them my whole life.” She shrugs again, a small tilt of one shoulder this time, and continues, “The bag helps you breathe in less oxygen and refills your blood with carbon dioxide. The effect is almost immediate.”

  Her eyes tentatively find mine, only flicking briefly across my disfigured profile before returning to hold my gaze. I was wrong about this girl who appears weak yet has a quiet strength behind her average brown eyes. She fights hidden demons, yet still stopped to help one in plain sight.

  Gratitude is a foreign concept to me. I mean, I’m indebted to the Hunter brothers, which they know, and I thank Anne, Hunter Lodge’s housekeeper when she feeds me, but only because Cole would tear out my tongue if I didn’t. But genuine gratitude for a stranger, for someone weaker than me, has never happened before and I’m confused by what I’m supposed to with it.

  “Thanks,” tumbles from my mouth. It tastes weird, but not unpleasant on my tongue, and the waitress’s eyes widen slightly as if I’ve shocked her as much as I’ve shocked myself.

  “Grim, Grim!” my discarded phone demands. “What the fuck is going on?”

  My face contorts into an unpractised and likely excruciatingly ugly attempt at a smile. I leer or grin, especially when inflicting pain on someone deserving of my knife, but I never, ever smile.

  “No problem,” she replies softly, her returning smile far more natural than mine. “I think you’d better let your friends know you’re okay. They sound rather worried.”

  I glance back at the phone on the table top. It’s all but vibrating across the surface with the combined yells and demands from both Luke and Cole.

  I drag the phone towards me using just a fingertip and turn to look at the girl once more, but she’s already gone. I bring the device to my ear while I stretch my neck around to watch the girl disappear into the café. When I face forwards once more I spy Miller coming out of his office block and walking briskly down the street.

  “Untwist your fucking knickers. I’ve got Miller. I’ll be on the jet in less than an hour.”

  I disconnect the call before they can bombard me with any further questions. My little episode does not need to be common knowledge. It’s never happened before, and I will not allow it to happen again.

  “It’s about the girl,” the devil whispers in my ear.

  My chest threatens to tighten at the remembered words, and I eye the paper bag ruefully.

  “Oh, fuck off, for fuck’s sake. She’s just a girl. Likely a dead one,” I grit out, the words redundantly directed at the innocent brown bag. With an angry fist, I grab the offending item and crumple it up tightly, my knuckles cracking with the pressure. Then, without looking back, I toss it into my steaming mug of tea, drop a fifty on the table, and storm away from the café with a fire in my belly.

  I’ve got something to prove, and unluckily for Miller, he’s going to bear the brunt of it all.

  We need Miller alive.

  Sorry, brothers. I’m not making any promises.

  As I stalk my prey through crowded, downtown streets, I feel my blood thicken and pulse.

  This is what I was made for - chasing prey deserving of my knife.

  Not saving some broken girl that I foolishly kept as a trophy.

  As I close the gap between me and my target, I vow my next trophy will be more fitting, and hopefully, for Cole and Luke’s sake’s, not deadly. Miller must be important if they need him alive.

  Still, there’s plenty of fun to be had before I deliver him. And I know just which part of him I’m going to keep, I think to myself with a grin, as I watch the pretentious prick run his hand through his artfully dishevelled hair. I mimic his movements and rub my hand over my stubbled head.

  Miller, you and I are going to have so much fun. I’m about to make you a star in my next trophy movie.

  Grim

  “You scalped the motherfucker?” Cole asks in disbelief as he stands over the huddled form of Miller, now deposited safely in the back of a van on the Hunter Lodge estate.

  “He’s alive,” I state obviously because anyone with eyes can see Miller sobbing. His tears and snot are making pretty tracks in the dried-on blood that paints his once handsome face.

  “Oh, I took his pinky finger too. Smarmy fucker wore a ring on it. What man wears a signet ring on his little finger? The wanker deserved to lose that digit and the poncey ring.”

  “That poncey ring is the reason we needed this wanker alive,” Cole grits out through his tightly clenched jaw.

  The man is going to give himself a headache and crack a few teeth if he doesn’t loosen up some. I watch as Cole reaches inside his jacket and pulls a handgun from his shoulder holster, abruptly shooting a now begging Miller straight between the eyes and silencing him forever.

  “What the ever-loving fuck did you do that for?” I whine, like a kid who has just lost his favourite toy. “I didn’t kill the bastard, he could still talk, he was still useful,” I mutter sullenly, looking at the slumped corpse I could have had more fun with had Cole not had a hissy fit and ended him.

  Cole slips his gun back into its holster, takes one last look at the dead man and spins to face me with fire in his eyes.

  “When I say I need someone alive, it’s because I have a use for them. Bringing me a fucked up, broken man with his skull exposed renders him useless. That fucker-” he points angrily to the body at his feet “-was a member of a club we needed access to, a club that buys and sells people, men, women and children, for all kinds of uses.”

  He takes a step back and prods at
Miller’s limp hand with the toe of his shoe indicating the pinky finger I cut off which now sits happily in my back pocket, staining the denim of my jeans a pretty scarlet.

  “The finger you cut off with the poncey ring was the fucking key to The Kingdom. Without an introduction from a paid member-” he nudges Miller’s body with his foot to make his point “-we can’t infiltrate.”

  He regards me quietly. His face a mask of calm concealing the annoyance and anger that pulses off him in waves. His controlled anger has my Devil hissing in my ear.

  “Well, that sucks,” I reply with a shrug. “Just point me in the direction of the next fucker with a key and I pinky promise not to harm a single hair on his or her head.” I grin at my double joke. Pinky promise, hair on his head - get it? Yeah, you get it.

  Cole stares at me. I can tell he’s fighting against the need to punish me for disobeying him. We’ve never come to blows but that doesn’t mean like most brothers, by blood or not, he doesn’t want to rearrange my handsome face now and again.

  He pauses for a second then smirks at me. I’ve seen that smile before. It’s usually the one that adorns his face right before he kills his unsuspecting prey.

  “She’s alive, Grim,” he states with a taunting smile. When I remain silent, forcing my body not to react to his goading, he studies me a few seconds longer before adding, “I guess you thought she was dead. Is that what had you freaking out in New York? Did you think I was going to tell you that your newest trophy was lost?”

  I bite my tongue until I taste blood and will my fists to remain limp at my sides. He’s looking to provoke me. Fucker.

  “Who is she to you?” he presses, repeating the question that he asked me a few weeks ago.

  “She’s no one,” I spit out too fast. “I’ve never seen the bitch before. She was alive when I killed Forester, so I brought her to the Hunter’s lair to be saved,” I mock, derision dripping from every syllable.

  “She’s been asking for you,” he states, his calm tone a harsh contrast to mine.

  I tear my eyes from his and turn my back on him, my eyes locking on Hunter Lodge in the near distance.

  “She doesn’t need to meet me. She’s seen enough monsters in her lifetime, no need to introduce her to another.”

  I jump down from the back of the van and slip my hand into my back pocket. Turning to face Cole once more, I idly toss the severed finger at his feet.

  “Let me know when you have another mark, until then I’ll stay at the river house.” I turn my head to give one last glance at the impressive and imposing building that’s been the headquarters of the Hunter family for generations, and my home since they rescued me as a young boy. I mumble quietly to myself as I walk away in the direction of the river that borders this vast property, “It’s getting a bit crowded at your place, and I don’t play well with people.”

  “Grim,” Cole calls out when I’m only a few metres away. “I’ll send over one of the girls, maybe the blonde one you like. I think you could do with letting off some steam.”

  An image of white blonde hair caked in blood and filth flashes through my mind, and I pick up my pace, but not before shouting over my shoulder, “No. Don’t send anyone over. If you do, I’ll likely send them back in pieces.”

  The river house is more a fishing cabin, albeit a luxurious one, that sits in an elevated position on the banks of the fast-flowing waterway that all but encircles the twenty or so acres of Hunter Lodge. Many small streams feed into the main river, making it an additional natural defence to the property. The electric fences that border the opposite banks are enough of a deterrent to most intruders, but if they don’t stop you, you’d be stupid to try and cross this river, even during summer. It’s got a ridiculously fast current and seems bottomless. Something I found out to my detriment during my first year here. Another time one of the Hunter brothers had to come to my rescue.

  As I walk the well-trod path through the long meadow grass, I skim my eyes across the small woodland that brackets the river and a flash of white catches my gaze through the trees directly to my right. My footsteps halt, my eyes scanning the dense foliage. No one comes here but me. Anne doesn’t send staff to clean the river house; that’s my domain. Besides, I’m extremely OCD about cleanliness. Nobody would do as good a job as me. That place is fucking spotless, and I never play here. Ever.

  The movement happens again, this time further into the woods. It’s not an animal unless we have polar bears running fucking wild on the estate. It’s a person dressed all in white which tells me it’s not an attacker because who the hell would be stupid enough to try and sneak up on someone in head-to-toe white?

  A fucking idiot, that’s who and a dead one at that once I catch them.

  I trail my fingertips over the knives on my belt and head slowly and quietly towards the direction of the movement. When I reach the tree line, I crouch in place and wait.

  Everything is silent, apart from the incessant singing of the birds up high and the whispers of leaves in the early summer breeze. No crunching of footsteps, no more flashes of white.

  I stand and head towards the area where I saw the last movement. Life has taught me how to be a ghost. My feet leave no tracks and my size is not a hindrance as I effortlessly slip behind one tree to the next. This polar bear isn’t going to see or hear me coming.

  Onwards through the small thicket I continue, my senses tuned into the surrounding woods. Nothing or no one is here. It’s like my mind is playing tricks on me. I reach the edge of a bank that leads down to one of the river’s feeder streams, having encountered nothing untoward, not even a footprint in the softer ground or a bent blade of grass and I’m about to turn around and head back when a small splash alerts me to the water. It’s likely a fish, but this stream is far shallower than the river and easier to pass. My instincts tell me to check it out. Just as quietly as I made my way through the trees, I creep over towards the edge of the lightly sloped bank. The closer I get, the more of the water I can see until a pair of bare feet come into view, followed by legs swathed in wet white cotton that floats and swirls against the limbs in the water. Another step brings into view thighs, followed by a small waist. The fabric transparent enough to see the outline of a belly button and the sweet curve of small breasts peaked in beaded dark nipples.

  “I can hear you,” a soft voice all but whispers and my hand curves around the handle of one of my smaller throwing blades.

  One more step and I can lean over and see the face that belongs to the body.

  With closed eyes and a serene smile, the woman tips her head back towards the sun. She’s lying entirely in the water, her upper body only half submerged as she leans back on her forearms, elbows bent. Long, wet hair that shines like oil falls down her shoulders, over half of it swirling around in the water at her back like tendrils of inky smoke.

  She’s familiar and yet not. Her skin is pale, but the apples of her cheeks are pinked by the sun, her lips a deep, fleshy red that’s too natural to be painted on. Her slender, smooth neck arches and exposes a delicately curved clavicle, the diaphanous fabric of her dress clinging to her perfectly shaped tits that bob just above the waterline with each deep breath she takes.

  This girl is ethereally beautiful, but it’s when she opens her eyes that my head spins and I stumble back, almost falling flat on my arse like a spooked child. Those eyes haunt me. Iridescent blue, and almost lifeless, they look like the eyes of the dead yet have a depth that speaks of untold vitality. They stare up at me like a cloudy summer’s sky, peppered with wisps of life so vibrant you willingly want to drown in them.

  “You drag your right foot slightly. Injury?” she asks me. Her soul-destroying eyes unblinking, never once passing her gaze over my face or my form. She just keeps staring into the bright, sunny sky.

  “Who are you and what are you doing so far from the lodge?”

  My voice is foreign to my ears. Tentative, careful, shocked and wary.

  She leans her head back further un
til the water licks at her forehead and her long hair is fully submerged. Her eyes close as she sighs at the contact. It’s as if she’s letting the water wash away all her woes. Every second she lies there she seems lighter, more buoyant, more alive.

  “Thank you,” she replies eventually without answering my questions.

  “For what?” I croak, my body wanting to slide down the bank and lie next to her in the cold stream water.

  “For killing him,” she answers with a smile. “For killing them all.”

  Calliah

  I had felt him before he stepped foot in the trees.

  I heard him as soon as he did despite the fact he conceals his movements well.

  His scent blew on the breeze as I lay down in the water. The dark, earthy musk enveloping me just as it did when I was in his arms.

  I could taste him on my tongue as he got closer. His eyes on my body a physical caress like that of a lover. Not that I’ve ever had one of those, but it’s what I’ve dreamed it would feel like.

  My sister, Damaris, once told me never to give up hope or they would win.

  She took her hope to the grave.

  I concealed mine in my chest and barricaded it behind bars of wire and thorns. To everyone, I appeared without any. It’s what kept me alive.

  I would peel back its barrier in the dark of night and silently slip within its bubble. I would dream of fresh air, blue skies and cleansing waters. I would wish for a life I never knew.

  Born to The Kingdom, as far as I’m aware, my life was endless servitude. My very being was merely a vessel for the pleasure and service of others. Be that as a slave, as a punching bag, or, later in my life as a hole to be used and filled. I must have had a mother once, as I have a name, and many owned by The Kingdom didn’t even have that. Why give bother to give property a name when we were worthless? I don’t know how old I am or how many years have passed since I saw my sister. All I know, right here and now, is that I could taste death that day. I welcomed it. I begged for it with pleading arms, yet it was my saviour’s arms that wrapped around me and held me close. The embrace of this, strong, powerful stranger enfolded me in a blanket of the very thing they’d all but extinguished.