“This isn’t Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” I huffed.
Fernando’s dark gaze flickered to mine. “Yah, it is. You murdered Grayse. I don’t know how yet, but I’ll have vengeance.”
“I think that line’s taken.”
“What do you want? Humans working here.” Cold and dismissive. Fernando turned away from Sun and me.
Now it was Sun, rather than Grayse, Fernando didn’t love her.
Somehow, Sun had known.
“You don’t pull that one on account of Blood Lifers are dying here. You study this: evolution. You want to study that or extinction?” Sun insisted.
“You always were a drama queen, whoever the frak you are now.” Fernando sighed. “What miracle do you want my magic fingers to pull off this time?”
“I have the brains, you have the…ethical hacking,” I explained. “When I was at Mann with that bastard Master, I broke into his study. I paid for it mind but I found a list: all the specialist slaves sent around the globe, their masters, and locations. I memorized it. You hack—”
Fernando frantically waved his hands around like he was swatting an invisible wasp. “Do you want to say that word any louder? Another time? Unencrypted? Where even are you? You’re not on a private computer…”
“How do you know? Been hacking us?” I couldn’t help hopping in my seat in expectation of exploding Alpha Geek, until Sun grasped my hand, and I noticed her stormy expression. All right then, best not to poke the bloke with a stick, whilst you’re asking for help, even when he is your lover’s ex. “It’s safer this way. You don’t need to know where we are.”
“Southwark, man,” the pink haired teenager, who was plugged into an online dragon game on the computer next to ours, helpfully offered with a grin.
Fernando smiled, white and wide. “London? Why don’t you come down Boston? To my university?”
I arched my brow. “Is your shiny lab with matching dissection tables all ready for us?”
Fernando tried — hard — to look hurt.
I could see the thoughts, however, whirring. I sodding wished that I hadn’t given him ideas. “All we need is for you to h – a – c – k Abona’s records and then match the slave names to the original Blood Lifers. Also see what’s been happening at the locations because it turns out some bleeding heroes called the Renegades have been rescuing these high-end slaves who were trained at the Estate where they got the same treatment as me, before being sold to princes and billionaires. Trust me, it won’t be a hard trail of breadcrumbs to follow because they’ll be dripping crimson.”
Fernando examined me in silence. It made me feel like my insides were on display bloody. Then he gave a sharp nod. “I’m warning you, this time it’s not a freebie. If I do this? Here’s the deal: I want to research him.”
The glint in Fernando’s eyes, as he pointed at me, made me shiver. I could already imagine the scalpel in his hand. “Hey now, I’ve had enough of being poked and prodded by so-called doctors.”
Fernando’s gaze hardened. “Then goodbye.”
“Wait, buggering hell, alright then.” I was panting, and my heart thundered.
When had that started?
Sun slipped her arm around my waist. Her fingers dug into me like a claim, as if she’d never let me go or let this wanker own me, like the slavers had, the Doctor, Captain…
“I’ll call you this time tomorrow.” When Sun licked up my neck I jumped; Fernando did too. “Light is mine. You want him? Na-ah, not happening. You find us what we need to know. Then we’ll talk.”
The screen went blank.
“That was some serious live action role-playing or something?” The pink haired kid gazed at us in awe.
“Yeah, something.” When I stroked Sun’s hand, she eased her death grip. “Still reckon Fernando’s a decent bloke?”
Sun shrugged but her expression was shuttered. I wished that I could’ve snogged the sun back into her.
“We’ll get Donovan back,” I promised. “Sod the Blood Life Council and wankering Captain. Bugger Fernando. We’re—”
“Don’t you dare say safe.”
Sun’s murmur was like a slap across the mouth. Her python gaze was hypnotizing. “You don’t get to leave me. You’re soft if you reckon that you can just sacrifice yourself. You’re my Author.”
I couldn’t meet her gaze. “Am I now? I didn’t reckon that meant much to you.”
Sun’s eyes widened with shocked horror. Had I been wrong about how much she treasured her election? Then she was snogging me. Her hand grasped behind my neck; her body wound around mine. Her fingers were playing with strands of my hair; my scalp burst in delicious tingles. I could hardly breathe: nothing but Sun, Sun, Sun… The whoops and catcalls from the teenagers sounded far away.
I was soaring. Lost in Sun: her touch, taste, and love.
Until Sun suddenly drew back like a snake ready to strike. “Remember that Emo kid who was spying on us?”
I risked a nod.
“Don’t you think that it would be wicked strange, if he wasn’t connected to all this?”
Reckoning that I was hunting Emo but then realizing that he was hunting me... The fight outside the Shard where he shot me… A gun the same as the Blood Life Council were using… The games of hide-and-seek ever since, even when I was with Will, except that I’d let it go because of Will…
Sun was right: This was my fault.
I must’ve allowed my thoughts to show because Sun’s gaze sharpened. “No more lies. You knew that something was up, didn’t you?”
‘I didn’t, love,” I insisted. “But that kid…”
“You saw him again?” She hissed.
I risked another nod.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I’m family.” She waved her hand, agitated. “Na-ah, I don’t want to hear it. Ever since you got that human pet, it’s like you’re not even with us anymore.” When Sun stood up, I could see that she was shaking. I didn’t know how to reach her. “I want to get Donovan back, but how am I going to get you back?”
Then Sun was gone.
Bang — there went the Internet Café’s door.
“Ouch,” the teenager sniggered, “you just got your ass kicked.”
I slumped back in my chair — squeak. “You’re not wrong, mate.”
The next day, I rested my forehead against the Internet Cafe’s freezing pane and shivered, whilst water tears snaked down the glass. I splayed my fingers, and their imprint was ghosted. Rain wormed down the back of my neck.
I sneezed, snuffling mournfully.
I didn’t go back in to the light and warmth, however, to mingle with the teenage crews and blokes writing their CVs or practicing for their citizenships because that was Fernando’s territory. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to return to Peter Pan’s and Sun either.
Not yet.
So, I was caught in dreary no-man’s-land, and sodding cold, it was too.
Fernando had looked like he was wet dreaming, when the monitor had sprung on, and he’d seen me slouched on the seat for our meet, instead of Sun…because Sun had abandoned me.
I’d rather not have known what Fernando’s come face looked like.
Fernando had drooled over my every word. I hadn’t blamed him because no Sun meant that I’d been back on the market: free to be owned. And it’d looked like Fernando had been eager to slip on the collar. Still, if I was going to be Fernando’s lab rat, then I’d demanded results: names and locations sent directly to Hartford’s iPhone.
Aedan had gifted the snazzy little number to Hartford. How was that for a get well pressie? That way Hartford would be able to work even whilst healing in Aedan’s bed. Hartford’s despair was now tinged with determination.
It was bloody terrifying.
I wouldn’t be the Blood Life Council for the world.
“There’ll be a pattern, there always is,” I’d told Fernando. “It’s just a matter of looking right. Someone’s hushing it up. A terrorist’s M.O. is fear, right? Panic?
Control? So, where are the corpses? The fires? If these Renegades hate the slavers anywhere close to as much as I do, then they’re not going to be asking nicely for them to free their property over a cup of tea.”
After my chat with Fernando, I should be going home again, except Sun and her silent accusations sucked up the air until I choked.
Sun had been this pissed at me only once before.
My Blood Lifer family and I had just moved into the apartment with the holes in the wall, the taps that never worked, and Mr Rat, and I’d discovered Grayse’s crimson evening dress balled at the bottom of the bedroom wardrobe. Bloodstained and still smelling of gorse and sunlight, it’d been Grayse in every bursting miraculous breath. The memory had cocooned me; I’d been safe in it.
I’d straightened out the dress, curling around it, as if I could bring back the shape of Grayse out on the moors. It’d held me in its embrace. How I’d bleeding craved to hold Grayse one more time.
Suddenly, that night had come crashing back: when Grayse’s dad — Master — had shot her, and that agonizing moment, when I’d known that I was going to bring her back as a Blood Lifer. Yet Ruby hadn’t been one to share her secrets. I’d been led like a puppy on a leash, rather than apprenticed into the dark arts of second life. In my hesitation, both Hartford and Donovan had grasped my hands, and their fangs had shot out to guide my own to the back of Grayse’s neck and her spinal column: the very place that Sir had desecrated with the tracker and branches of fire.
Then I’d injected the venom, as Grayse had died. Because our life…? It’s not only in the blood; it’s in our venom. That’s our evolution and strength.
I’d felt Grayse’s heart stop. Then there’d just been my own fast pulse and my venom seeping through tree-like nerves. Grayse and I had been one, as I’d authored her…and she’d evolved.
Into one of us.
When Grayse, however, had opened her eyes? I hadn’t kidded myself. She hadn’t been my Grayse any longer. She’d become someone else who was new born to this brutal world: born of my fangs.
And she was formidable.
“She’s not me.” I’d opened my eyes to discover Sun standing over me, and her face had been death white.
Tumbled in our wardrobe, wrapped in Grayse’s dress? My nose pressed to the satin? Silently crying?
I’d been so buggered.
I’d tried to push myself up but tangled in the dress, I’d landed on my arse. “I know that, sweetheart.”
“She’s dead,” Sun had hissed.
“Again, I—”
“You’re in love with a ghost,” Sun sobbed.
Sun had slammed out then, and I’d sodding wished that she’d clouted me instead.
Then there was Will. I couldn’t even think about Will. I couldn’t work out what was worse: my guilt for not seeing him or the guilt that I’d ever seen him at all.
I’d caught up with Trinity along the back of Borough Market, as she’d been strutting home. I’d wanted to know if she’d heard any whispers about Donovan’s kidnap.
Trinity had looked me up and down like I’d crawled out of the Thames. “Is that a joke, bruv? Are we your invisible army?” She’d snorted. “Or does this mean you be seeing us now that we’re useful to you?”
I’d scowled. “Bugger that. You and me? We’re no different…”
Trinity had shoved me in the chest. “Because you’re sorry for us? Do you reckon that we’re the same as some creature?” I’d drawn back; Trinity had known how to grab a bloke by the throat. “This Donovan? He be the same one as wanted to snack on my Will?”
I’d winced. “Heard about that, did you?”
Suddenly, Trinity had been so close to my face that her lips had been touching mine. “It don’t matter how much chocolate and BS you been feeding Will, I ain’t helping you find no monster.”
“He’s my bloody family, you stupid bint.” I’d twisted away before I’d been able to say…do…more.
I’d reckoned that I was learning this friendship business but I was still paddling in the shallow end.
Sighing, I slipped out my e-cig, clenching it between my trembling lips in the cold. A few more drags, then I’d have the balls to go home to Sun. Maybe she’d have forgiven me about Will or at least I could find a way to help her understand. I sometimes forgot how new she was to Blood Life and how confusing it must be to have to chain the instincts when she hadn’t learned through decades of loving a First Lifer like I had or the taming of slavery.
Crash.
Screaming agony.
Crash.
Blood dripping.
Crash.
Nose broken.
Dazed, I scrabbled behind me at the bastard First Lifer who was slamming me headfirst into the glass. There was copper in my mouth. Lights fairy danced.
I shot back my elbow, hearing the satisfying oomph of a connection. Pressure was pushing me flat against the café’s front.
The teenagers must be getting quite a show.
Someone was gripping me at the elbows, neck, and back… It was organized: a team of First Lifers.
Not again. I wouldn’t be kidnapped by First Lifers again.
I kicked my foot out, before pushing back, thrashing wildly. I was desperate to at least see my hidden enemies: the bleeding cowards who’d attack a bloke from behind.
A holler, cursing, and then…
Crash, crash, crash.
I yowled as my head was rammed against the glass and I heard it crack.
Sun…a dark tunnel of grey…Sun…
Sun wasn’t here, but she’d been meant to be. Had this kidnapping been for her? Yet because of my secrets she was safe.
Sun was safe.
Suddenly, there was sharp prick in my neck. The First Lifers plunged the needle in deeper. Somewhere in my scrambled brain, I remembered the thick transparent liquid, which Silverman had divided in his experiments: our venom in pure form.
I was the lab rat.
I couldn’t help it — I laughed at the sodding irony, as paralysis cramped my limbs and our toxin held me prisoner in my own body. I couldn’t even blink the blood out of my eyes.
Then the true terror set in. What did these First Lifers want me for?
Strangers’ hands seized me like they had every right to touch. Then fingers on my eyelids — intimate and wrong — closing them and forcing me into the dark.
6
NIGHT 6
Are you ill? What’s happened? You look…
Knackered? Like death warmed up? Starvation, sleep deprivation, and five rounds of torture on the trot will do that to a bloke.
Mr Blickle, the Blood Life Council does not employ such methods. I was assured—
Oh well, if you were assured…and you are again?
The woman who’s trying to save your ungrateful — and rather worn — behind from an untimely demise. If you wish to heal today and smoke that e-cig of yours, then secrets are on the agenda. If you also wish me to delve into your claims of unfair treatment...? That extraordinary mind of yours…I want it.
Let me get this clear, I’m only here and alive because of my photographic memory? I’d wondered at your generosity.
Talents are our genetic advantage and why we’ve always been the apex predator. What you’re also not figuring, however, is that when you’re persecuted, you use every trick and con to adapt.
That’s what makes me the bloody king.
You may be the king of cons, but you won’t be pulling the wool over my eyes, Thomas.
We’ll see. But truth or trust? None of that means a thing when weighed in the balance with pure survival.
Help, help, help…
I. Couldn’t. Open. My. Eyes.
Chains were tight around my wrists and ankles, tying me down to the cold plastic of an examining table. If you feel that once, then you never forget.
I couldn’t move, speak, or see but I could hear and feel…
Hands.
They were touching every bleeding inch of me
, probing and exploring, alien-like in latex gloves.
Bloody make them stop.
But they didn’t stop. Icy fingers owned me in the dark, as if I was a cadaver, ready to be sliced, before my lungs were pulled from my chest.
Inside panic coiled, but I couldn’t even shudder or pant. The venom kept my heart pumping as calm as you like. I could hear it, mocking in my ears — beat, beat, beat — as those hands reduced me to nothing.
Yet Sun wasn’t with me. Amongst the terror and despair — hallelujah to the heavens — Sun was safe. She should’ve been at the café, and if I hadn’t narked her off, she would’ve been.
Whatever these First Lifers did to me? No matter what the bastards stripped from me this time? They couldn’t hurt me, not truly.
Because Sun was safe.
“Subject One is perfect.” The hands’ owner — a First Lifer — patted my stomach.
My name is Light, my name is Light, my name is…
But I couldn’t even whisper it.
Dark. Violation. Dark.
Hours? Days? Weeks?
Trapped, powerless, and lost.
Entombed inside your own motionless body, time doesn’t mean a bleeding thing. All I knew was hunger, blood pangs, nicotine craving, cold, and cramps…
As a slave, I’d been strapped down and stripped of hair to become a plaything. I’d suffered surgery with no anesthetic, when I’d been implanted with the wankering tracker or had my fangs pulled out one by one by the Doctor.
I’d had no choice or control.
Yet I’d freed myself, slaughtered the slavers, and freed my family.
But this time…? I didn’t even know who’d kidnapped me, why they’d taken me, or if it was a death sentence.
“Subject One’s responding as expected. Let’s increase the dose,” the scientist’s excited Cornish voice urged his assistant above me.
Subject.
In one sodding word I was sticky labeled nothing, without an identity or personhood.
I was the monkey in the lab, and when did he ever escape alive?
To lose my freedom a second time was… My mind fled into the slave dark.
There was no Grayse this time to save me by reminding me that I was Light.
Rebel Vampires: The Complete Series Page 65