by Laken Cane
It was her way of refueling. Because of all that had happened, if she hadn’t taken a moment to recuperate she might have lost her mind. Her way of recovering wouldn’t have been understood by the crew—by anyone, actually—so she took a little vacation and left things to Shiv Crew, Jeremy, and Ellis.
Ellie would take care of everything for her. He’d explain to the new members of the crew that occasionally Rune took a few days off.
And he’d say it with his cell in his hand, his gaze constantly wandering to the display to make sure he got no mysterious texts with a single word on the screen.
Blood.
Jeremy, junk food, and alcohol were all the stimulation she wanted in that week. She could have spent the time in some exotic locale but wasn’t willing to go far and didn’t want to leave Jeremy.
When her doorbell rang at seven that evening, she frowned. Jeremy should be arriving, but he’d simply have used his key. Maybe he was carrying something and had no free hands.
Jeremy wasn’t the flowers and candy type of guy, so if he carried anything it’d be booze and takeout.
She peered through the fisheye on her door. “Shit.”
“I know you’re in there, Alexander. Open the door. I have to talk to you. If you’d answer your fucking phone I wouldn’t be forced to show up at your house.” Then she muttered, “Fucking ugly house.”
Rune wasn’t offended. Her house was ugly. But she was pissed. Her night was supposed to be stress free, not screwed up by the floater, Sherry.
Sherry rattled the doorknob. “Not going away, so you might as well get this over with.”
Rune thumped her forehead against the door. “What the fuck do you want that can’t possible wait a few days?”
Sherry lowered her voice. “I saw you. At the purge.”
“Uh, yeah? I’m aware. I saw you too.”
“Open the door, Rune. You’ve been AWOL for three days, and your fucking assistant refused to tell me anything.”
“I’m taking a short vacation.”
Dammit. Jeremy was going to show up any second, and the last thing either of them wanted was Sherry to see him there.
“I need to talk to you. And believe me. You don’t want me talking about it out here where anyone can hear.”
“Fuck you,” Rune bit out. “I need you to get away from my house.”
“Fine. At the purge I saw your eyes. I saw your eyes go red, and I saw, for one brief tiny second, the cutest little pair of fangs—”
I will kill her. Rune yanked the door open so fast and hard that Sherry stumbled back, her eyes wide.
Rune stood in the doorway, aware a low growl was escaping from between her clenched teeth but too angry to care. Sherry, of all people, had glimpsed her monster.
Sherry righted herself but moved no closer to the door. She held a gun in each hand, and kept them leveled at Rune’s chest. She’d come knowing Rune was going to be pissed and was obviously willing to risk it.
For a long, shocked moment she stared at Rune’s face. “Fucking hell. Who beat the crap out of you?”
“Tell me what you want and get out of here. But let me say, your life is worth shit now.”
Sherry swallowed hard but didn’t run. “You are a fucked-up bitch, Alexander.”
“And you are just fucked.”
Sherry’s eyes wavered, but her guns kept her brave. “So I know what you are.” Then she looked at the sun and frowned. “Somewhat,” she added.
“What. Do. You. Want.” She’d die before she let Sherry see her shame.
“Five grand to start.”
Money. She’d risked her life for a few bills. “Not going to do you a whole lot of good in hell, my friend.”
Sherry shrugged. “I don’t plan on going to hell, at least not right away.”
Of course the five thousand dollars would keep her happy for a little while, and then she’d be back with her threats and her guns and her knowledge. But who would believe her over Rune?
It was a chance she was willing to take. She wasn’t giving money to the conniving piece of shit. “No.”
“Then I’ll go to Cross.”
“Sweetheart, he’ll kill you faster than I will.”
“I heard rumors you’re fucking him. Don’t you think he’d like to know exactly what he’s fucking?”
Rune started to shut the door. Stupid bitch. She had nothing.
“I’ll tell him about your parents—that they’re vampires. At least Daddy is. I sent Mommy to hell, didn’t I?”
Rune dug her fingernails into the door, concentrating on the pain when one of them splintered under the pressure. She’d been doing so much better. Jeremy helped her get rid of the guilt, the grief, the overflowing, crippling emotions.
But there was Sherry, bringing it all back up.
Sherry’s face was pale, looking odd in contrast to the tan of her shaved head. And finally, Rune caught a spark of desperation deep in her brown eyes.
That helped calm her.
“What’s your story, Sherry? Who do you need to pay off?”
Shockingly, Sherry began to cry. “Fuck you! Just give me the money. Give it to me, or I swear I’m not going to stop until you’re tested and killed for being a fucking murderous monster.”
When she’d been too young to argue, her blood had been drawn and tested innumerable times. Despite her Otherness, there was no proof of it in her blood. Not that the lab could see, anyway.
And just then, Jeremy’s rented car purred quietly down the street.
Fuck. Fuck.
“Come back tomorrow and I’ll have the money.”
Sherry’s eyes widened. “What?”
“You heard me. Now get out of here.” She slammed the door in Sherry’s hopeful face.
That girl had shit going on, but she’d fucked up by threatening Rune instead of asking for help. She’d come back tomorrow, but she wouldn’t find Rune there with a fistful of cash.
She leaned against the door, shaking. Images flashed, and she shook her head hard, trying to force them away. She was sick. Sick.
She should have gone to find her father. The vampires would flee that nest for a few years. They’d find another, safer nest. But if she talked to Llodra, she could convince him to hand over her dad. She needed to talk to him. She needed to know things. To be forgiven things.
Would it help? Maybe. Maybe for a little while it would give her some relief, just as the punishments did. Maybe.
I killed them.
I made my parents vampires.
I’m a monster.
Shit.
She sank to the floor and crawled into a corner, unable to beat back the images any longer. The awful, bloody, gory images. She remembered her mother screaming. Didn’t she? What was her father doing while Mama was screaming? The things she couldn’t remember her mind made up, she was sure. She could no longer tell fact from fiction.
But the screams were real. The blood was real.
When Jeremy touched her she screamed. She hadn’t heard him enter the house—had forgotten all about him.
“Baby, baby. What has happened?” He pulled her into his arms and rose, then carried her to the bedroom.
There were no sounds but the low keening cries born of a broken mind, and she trembled with terror. She knew that was going to be the last time she was sane, surely it was.
She was going to break. She was going insane. And that right there was her deepest, biggest fear.
“You know how vampires tend to go crazy eventually.”
Jeremy’s thoughtless words echoed, over and over.
She was a type of vampire, wasn’t she?
And she was going crazy. Who had put that in her mind, all those years ago? She couldn’t remember. She just knew it was so.
“No,” she screamed.
“Open,” Jeremy said, his voice calm. He flicked a pill into her throat, then another. “Shhh, Rune. Hush now.”
She could barely see. The crazy always rendered her…crazy. She
couldn’t speak coherently. She couldn’t do anything but lie in the dark as she was attacked by her mind.
“I’ll fix it, baby. Hush.”
He would. He always did.
In seconds he had her ankles and wrists in the strong, silver cuffs attached to the metal railings of her bed.
Silver didn’t hurt Rune, but silver hurt her monster. If her monster fought back, the cuffs would keep it from escaping and killing Jeremy. Always thinking, was Rune.
Jeremy, her savior. He beat the monster. He punished it. He controlled it. Though she liked to pretend Jeremy knew nothing of her monster.
He knew only of her need.
And when she was being beaten and hurt—because she deserved it for what she’d done, for what she was—she would awaken the next day able to function. Happy, even. Relieved. That was her release.
Until the next time.
Tomorrow, she’d be able to breathe again. After a week with Jeremy, she’d be a different person for as long as a few months, maybe.
She’d have paid him if he’d wanted money, but he didn’t. Jeremy enjoyed his work.
Too bad she had feelings for him, because sometimes…sometimes part of her resented the hell out of him and what he was willing and eager to do to her. She wanted to shoot him in the head and laugh at his pain.
Jeremy grabbed one of her blades from the dresser and began cutting the clothes off her body. The knife was sharp and Jeremy was enthusiastic—she felt a searing pain and then the stickiness of blood when he nicked her thigh.
Those were the only touches she needed.
Her monster opened its eyes at the pain and breathed in the familiar scent of blood and the hated scent of Jeremy. Her weak little monster.
When her clothes lay in shreds around her, Jeremy placed the shiv on her belly and looked down at her with hot blue eyes. He undressed quickly, impatiently throwing his things in a single pile for quick retrieval later.
He grabbed the shiv and breathing hard as his usual excitement and desire overtook him, lightly trailed the point of the blade over her right breast.
“This is how I show my love,” he whispered.
The drugs were beginning to work. They put her in a whole different place. It was as dark as ever, but she saw glimmers of hope shining like the sun in that darkness.
Oh yes, yes, she could get better. She would feel better.
But something was different about Jeremy that night, and even through the haze of drugs, uneasiness crept through her damaged mind.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on what she wanted to say. Finally, after three attempts, she got the words out. “What’s wrong?”
He smiled, pushing his blond locks back with one hand as he continued caressing her skin with the knife. “Hard day, baby. Real hard day.”
For both of us. But she could feel the controlled rage coming from him—the drugs had managed to stomp down some of her overwhelming fear—and she could feel his rage. She could feel his…hate.
“Careful,” she said, or tried to say. Maybe it came out clearly and maybe it didn’t.
He ignored her.
Did she really want to die?
She flirted with death as though it were an irresistible man whose embrace she craved. But when it came down to it, did she really want to begin her journey into the afterlife? Was she finished, really finished, with this life?
“Jeremy.” Her mouth was so dry. Her words were thick and chewy, like taffy. Bad taffy. She tugged at the cuffs. “Water.”
“Shhhh, Rune. Hush.” With one casual but quick movement, he slapped her already bruised face. “I’ll take care of it like I always do. Tie you up and hurt you…makes you feel so fucking good, doesn’t it, baby?”
Yesssss…
“And that,” he continued, “makes you a fucked-up little cunt. But me, I aim to please.” He slapped her again, harder.
The slaps were stirring her anger, her outrage. Hurting her monster was one thing. Humiliating her was another.
“Stop.”
“But honey, we always do it your way. Let’s try something different. For kicks.” His grin stretched across his flushed face, making him look like the monster he really was.
He slid his fingers between her legs, rubbing with slow, heavy strokes.
She was helpless and at that moment, responsible for nothing. Nothing. God, that felt good. She let go.
Letting go meant the memories would come, the punishment would come, and she didn’t have to control a damn thing. Letting go was not about sex. Nothing they did was about sex, not really.
“Yes,” she said.
Not that it would have mattered if she’d said no. She knew that.
If he went too far he’d text the prearranged word to Ellis, and Ellis would come take care of her. After all, Jeremy wouldn’t want to lose her. She was his drug.
“Try not to kill me, you piece of shit,” she whispered, and realized that maybe, just maybe, she was simply not ready to die.
Chapter Ten
“Rune, Rune, oh God, Rune.”
She tried to open her eyes and succeeded in getting one of them to open halfway. Just enough to see Ellis looking down at her, his eyes wet, full of torment.
She did that to him.
I’m sorry. If she could have spoken, that’s what she would have said.
Half the bag of blood he’d hung had already flowed into her veins, which was why she’d regained enough life to be able to see him. To be aware.
Flashes of her experience with Jeremy struck like lightning, there and gone, and she was aware of the effects of the beating. Relief.
She could cry, and would, when she was better. It was so nice to cry. Real tears tinged with pink.
She faded in and out. It was dark, then light. Quiet, then loud. There was peace, then discord. Ellis leaned over her, lying with his cheek on her chest. When he finally sat up, the entire side of his face was covered with blood and gore.
“Who does this, Rune? Who does this?”
Me, baby. I do this.
“No more,” he whispered.
But she floated, floated on pain and release and peace.
The next time she awakened, Ellis sat in the chair he’d pulled next to her bed, his chin on his chest, asleep.
The pain roared over her. Ouch. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, and when panic began to set in, she closed her eyes and concentrated on controlling it. What the hell, Jeremy?
He hadn’t killed her, but there were worse things than death. What if she didn’t heal that time? What if the blood wasn’t enough?
Every time was a new discovery. Her monster was the reason she was able to come back from Jeremy’s gruesome ministrations…the monster plus the blood.
The blood made her high, made her happy. Just like the punishments.
Her eyes shot open. “Ellis,” she yelled, though what actually came out was a hiss.
Somehow, he heard.
He leaned forward, grimacing. “I’m here.”
Another hiss.
“Don’t try to talk, sweetie.” He smoothed her hair back. “Now that you’re…awake, I want you to just listen.”
Shit.
He moved into the perfect position for her to see him with her one good eye. The concern was there, in his sweet face. But that wasn’t all.
He was raging mad.
“I don’t care about your past. I don’t care that you have a monster inside you that you’re trying to…to torture away. I don’t care that having the fuck beat out of you makes you find a little peace.
“I don’t care. I’m way past that point. See, what you’re doing is selfish. Evil selfish.”
Her heart began beating fast and hard, and her already compromised vision clouded further with fog from tears she was so rarely able to shed. Damn it. I’m sorry.
He pressed his lips together and took a deep breath through his nose. “I know you don’t think so, Rune, but you’re a wonderful, amazing, beautiful person. I lo
ve you. Many people love you.”
He took her hand, his thumb lightly rubbing her skin, faster and faster. She doubted he was even aware he was doing it, and she hadn’t the strength to pull away.
“I took pictures. I took pictures of what was done to you. If I have to, I’ll show them to the crew and we’ll force you into a hospital. You either do it voluntarily, or I’m going to make you do it.
“You need help. That’s the bottom line. You need a lot of help. And I aim to get it for you. You’ll be pissed at me for a while, but that’s okay. You couldn’t possibly be angrier at me than I am at myself. I should never have gone along with this. I should never have rushed to save you without getting you some help. Yet I did. But what would you do if I wasn’t here to save you, Rune? No more.
“I thought I owed you because you…because you saved me. You saved me. But I’m not saving you. I’m making it easier for you to hurt yourself.”
He leaned forward, his face filling her vision. He no longer looked like the sweet-faced little assistant she trusted with her life.
“You go ahead and blink that one good eye if you understand me, girl. Because if you don’t, I’ll keep talking until you do.”
She didn’t want him to keep talking.
She blinked.
Even that exhausted her.
What the hell did Jeremy do to me?
“Rest, dear. You have three days before you’re expected back at work. You’re not going to be completely healed, but you’ll live. Thank your monster for that.”
The next time she woke up she could talk, and even move. Her first thought was of Ellis and his anger. Then she thought of Jeremy. He’d nearly killed her. But she couldn’t put the blame on him, not really. The whole fucked-up mess was her fault.
Dread made her clutch her stomach when she remembered Ellis’s deadly earnest words. He was going to make her see a shrink. Going into therapy was right up there with losing her mind.
It terrified her, the very notion.
The needle was no longer in her arm, and no bags of blood hung beside the bed. She felt the amazing effects of the blood, though. It was like coming out of darkness and confusion into light and a curious sense of well-being. She didn’t know why—she only knew it was the greatest feeling she could ever imagine.