by Erin Hayes
“Got all your toys out, I see,” he said, trying to hide the pain in his voice.
He failed. Miserably.
Jerrick scowled at that, but they otherwise ignored him as they continued to set things up around him.
Sighing, Isaac looked around him, trying to see what he could make out within the nearly pitch-black room. The first thing he noticed was his immediate situation: he was chained down—heavily chained; he was sure there was a dead man with the local hardware store’s name emblazoned somewhere on his outfit along with a very empty hardware store to his name—and padlocked to what he could only guess had once been a stage prop. The chair, if it could actually be called that, seemed to be fashioned to look like an old Medieval torture seat that had been stripped of the gimmicky spikes and reinforced with whatever the brothers had on hand: steel bars, awkwardly shaped plywood, zip-ties, and—yup—even more chains. He rolled his eyes before turning his attentions elsewhere.
Whatever this place had been before, the two had done everything they could to strip it away. Even the original wallpaper had been torn out, only a few jagged, fleshy strips offering any hint that there’d been something there in the first place. The floor was cold and lifeless gray, the occasional tuft of material or a twisted staple in a corner giving away that, like the wallpaper, the carpet had seen the same treatment. Letting his head dip back, Isaac could see that the ceiling, which had multiple outlets for bulbs spaced evenly about, had been violently stripped of every fixture and appliance—each vacant light slot a gaping chasm of even deeper darkness ripped into the tapestry of the already shadowed blackness. Even portions of the ceiling tiles had been ripped out, leaving pipes and wires showing just beyond the depths like exposed veins, arteries, and bones peeking through an open wound.
All of this was poorly lit with a series of stage lights slung up on teetering iron stands that were scattered about the vast space, none seeming to have any real thought placed behind the positioning other than whatever immediate need had been had.
It was tactical without showing any long term thought or dedication, and it was ugly.
It all seems so fitting, Isaac thought.
So he told them so.
Jerrick snarled at his words and slammed a small blowtorch down on the counter beside Isaac. “I am becoming increasingly eager to use this on you!” he informed him, tapping the index finger of his left hand against the cylinder of the tank as he jabbed at Isaac’s chest with his suddenly clawed right.
Three layers of chains and a palm-sized padlock divided the gesture from Isaac’s actual chest, and the vacant expression Jerrick’s efforts earned elicited a snarl from him before he turned away.
“Yea,” he chided, punctuating his taunt with a laugh, “it helps when you don’t armor your victi—OOMPH!”
A fist in Isaac’s jaw stole the full impact of his mocking tone, sending his head slamming back against the reinforced backing to the chair he was chained to. Stars flashed behind his vision and he whimpered as the room turned first to one side and then the other beneath him. The left side of his vision went dark for a moment before one of those stage lights came on with blinding intensity and heat, turning the darkness into a scarlet curtain. Blood. He realized that he was looking through a haze of his own blood.
Shield your mind.
Ezra and Jerrick glanced up, seeming to have heard the same thing that Isaac had. But… but he hadn’t really heard it, had he?
Isaac blinked through both the haze of his dizziness and the half-curtain of blood.
Zoey? More blinking.
No… she wasn’t there.
He wouldn’t have allowed her to come.
He blinked again.
Then again, since when had she ever needed permission?
He whimpered again as just enough clarity came to him for him to realize what he’d heard. Obediently, he shielded his mind. After a moment the hybrid brothers, glancing skeptically at one another, continued about their preparations.
Zoey, Isaac thought, wondering if she was actually out there somewhere to “hear” him, please tell me you didn’t—
Considering what I woke up to and all I’ve been through, darling, I wouldn’t finish that sentence.
He didn’t. He didn’t even allow himself to humor the thought of what he might have thought to finish that sentence.
Can you move? Zoey asked him.
Isaac frowned. Not at all. I’m chained to a chair.
I know, Zoey answered, I’m asking if you can move the chair. I need you… she broke off for a moment and Isaac worried that the brothers might have somehow interrupted their connection. A moment later she came back and said, Two or three feet. Can you move the chair two or three feet to your… uh, your left?
I might, he admitted, but they’ll notice.
Trust me, did she actually sound entertained just then? They’ll have better things to worry about. Just move, like, now.
Now? Isaac resisted the urge to look around, wondering if she was already there. As in, “right now”-now?
NOW!
Reclaiming What’s Hers
Isaac couldn’t get the chair to move the three feet she needed and, worse over, the effort had toppled the chair he was bound to onto its side.
I’m sorry for this, she warned him, yanking the wheel only slightly to the right and casting her aura out in front of her. She’d have to time it right to keep from killing him, but, as Serena would say, “It’ll be really cool if it works.”
At that point, though, there was no backing out of what she’d already committed to…
~About Ten Minutes Earlier~
Delilah and the rest of her back had been all on board and prepared to do whatever it would take to save Isaac and, in the process, kill the hybrids who were threatening their way of life. When Zoey stepped out of her room in the dark blue tactical jumpsuit, however—something that looked like a cruel crossover between a latex fetish number, a horny video game lover’s idea of “tactical body armor,” and a leather-lover’s wet dream—she had seen a sudden reluctance in all of them. She couldn’t blame them. She looked… well, Serena was right, she did look good in it, but since they were heading on a rescue mission and not onto the dance floor of the Blue Moon it felt incredibly inappropriate.
I bet she even purposely rigged the zipper to not go up all the way in the front, she thought to herself, wrestling between concealing the ample cleavage that the outfit exposed without making a bouncy scene for the gawking male therions.
Delilah had to clear her throat three times to get everyone’s attention. Then, pausing a moment longer on Zoey’s outfit, she cleared it a fourth time. “I… uh, take it we’re ready then?”
Nodding, Zoey reclaimed what little dignity she felt she could and had nodded, leading them towards the door to the building.
“Just need to grab some things from the Jeep,” she explained before pausing to look back. “I don’t suppose you can grab a few things for me, can you?”
A short time later, Zoey’s ridiculous outfit felt a little less so after draping what felt like a small armory over it. Over a dozen throwing knives sheathed along the length of a belt that was draped over her shoulder, a set of holsters at her hips that held a pair of pistols loaded with enchanted bullets (courtesy of her late friend, The Gamer), and, to top it off, a katana that she’d recently acquired from a colleague overseas strapped to her back.
Delilah, shoveling both the requested supplies and her packmates into the Jeep, took one look at Zoey and smirked.
“You look like you’re ready to fuck up this entire city!” she barked with laughter.
Zoey smirked at that and, realizing that her cleavage was still exposed, said, “Thanks for at least not saying that I looked like I was ready to fuck the entire city.”
Delilah’s laughter doubled at that as she climbed into the passenger seat. “Now that you mention it…” she said in a sing-song tone.
“Don’t make me stab you,” Zoey grinned
playfully back, starting the Jeep.
There were ten of them in total (including Delilah), which, though it was enough to weigh down the Jeep and make for an awkward experience navigating, Zoey wasn’t positive would be enough to challenge the hybrids. Especially not after Delilah had clarified that they’d lost almost three-dozen the night before.
Though she wasn’t sure if she was confident in what they were embarking upon, she’d said, “I’ve been up against worse odds before.”
That, at least, wasn’t a lie.
She just left out the part that she’d been up against worse odds with the benefit of having a crew of more than just a ragtag group of therions to challenge them.
All the same…
Her desperation had begun to outweigh everything else, doubt included. With that, and growing urgency, she’d taken to the streets with a level of boldness that left insanity several miles behind in a cloud of exhaust and surrounded by tread marks burned into the street. Some of the therions howled with excitement while others screamed in raw, blind terror, certain that they were all about to die. With no small amount of shock, Zoey realized two things:
First: the therions screaming and crying that death was imminent sounded just like she had all the times she’d been riding shotgun with Serena behind the wheel.
Second: she was among those laughing and shrieking with laughter.
By the gods, Isaac, she’d thought to herself, you actually did it! You somehow managed to turn me into somebody like Serena when the time called for it.
Talk about a miracle worker!
Now she just had to save him!
Locking onto his auric signature, Zoey took a turn at nearly one-hundred-and-ten miles per hour—one side of the Jeep lifting up and leaving them rolling on only two tires before crashing down again—and made the connection to warn him of what was coming:
Shield your mind, she’d instructed.
Though she couldn’t be sure just who or what was helping the brothers, its psychic abilities had proven in their last encounter to be an issue, and if she had any hope of her not-quite-ready plan working out she needed them not to “hear” her coming.
The building that they had Isaac trapped inside was, Delilah explained, a homeless shelter. Or, rather, it had been. Pushing her mind’s eye to the absolute limits, Zoey scanned every square inch of the building’s interior, mapping out everything from weak spots in the structure to the occupants, both living and dead.
It had taken everything in her power to keep herself from getting sick and throwing the top-heavy vehicle into a suicidal tailspin at the “sight” of all the bodies they had stockpiled in the back.
As luck would have it—if such a small benefit could be considered lucky—there was an area in the wall just in front of the hybrids that, between years of neglect and what appeared to be a sizable termite problem, was weak enough to drive the Jeep through. It would offer them the benefit of surprise, allow Zoey to unload their “army” straight into the faces of their enemies, and put her right beside Isaac.
Unfortunately—because didn’t Lady Luck always have a drawback?—Isaac was bound right on the other side of that weak spot.
And the three feet of space she needed to get the Jeep through without hitting him was not about to be met with him lying on his side right where the Jeep’s front-left tire was about to be.
I’m sorry for this, was all she could offer while the little Serena voice in the back of her mind popped up in time to say: “This will be really cool…
“… if it works.”
Zoey had learned a while back that she was never about to be winning any competitions in the realm of coolness. As far as she was concerned, she was about as cool as a Samsung Note 7 stuffed inside a burnt-out toaster on its way to the surface of the sun. In Layman’s terms: totally uncool.
But when it counted most, she was the Fonz riding an iceberg through a December midnight.
As she used the first half of her aura to shield the front of the Jeep (and all those riding in it), the second half phased through the soon-to-be demolished wall and started lifting the chair that Isaac was chained to. A flash of debris and the roar of destruction were a distant concern as Zoey yanked her bound lover out of the vehicle’s breakneck path and directly in front of her.
She pushed herself to focus then, knowing that she had only one chance to take advantage of the moment for everyone’s benefit. Her mind connected in that instant with every therion on the Jeep, giving them a psychic “view” of everything around them—“telling” them in less than a second what would have otherwise taken over an hour of detailed mapping—as she lifted herself out of the driver’s seat. Kicking herself over the windshield in an auric-driven summersault that landed her on the hood, she sprinted towards her lover, another auric tendril already beginning to work the padlocks that held the chains around him. The Jeep barreled forward, slamming into one of the legs of Isaac’s chair and sending him toppling over the hood, throwing chains and locks against the windshield as they were yanked away from the force. Zoey’s eyes widened, seeing the mass of wood and steel hurdling for her, and she threw up an auric shield in time to save herself from being crushed.
Then there was an arm around her waist, the firm muscle beginning to bulge and expand around her like an airbag. She looked up, seeing Isaac’s rapidly changing body rip free of the few chains still holding him, and felt a flutter of relief when she saw that, aside from a few cuts and bruises, he was otherwise unharmed.
She’d made it in time!
I was supposed to be the one saving you! she pouted as he pulled her into his chest.
Who’s to say you didn’t? he replied, a toothy therion grin replacing his usually coy and playful one.
Along with ten other therions, Isaac leapt free of the Jeep as it began to capsize, the heap of screeching metal corkscrewing through the room towards the brothers.
Ezra and Jerrick: brothers.
Isaac’s memories supplied the immediate curiosities.
The moment of shock and the weakened defenses that came from it showed Zoey everything else.
Germany: Bergen. Parents: sang and therion. Humble beginnings. Doctor Friedrich von… Zoey’s eyes widened and she wretched, wrestling to free herself from Isaac’s arms.
“N-no!” she clawed at her head, trying to free herself from the flood of memories.
Doctor Friedrich von Schneider.
Organ hammocks.
Nazi experiments.
“NO!” she was sobbing now; four years of humiliation and torture and dwindling hope—only hate left—passing through her mind as though she’d been right there on the slabs with them.
The hybrid twins dove free of the Jeep, letting it crash through the far wall behind them. They were scrambling to get on their feet, but their minds were already open books to Zoey, who saw everything—EVERYTHING!—following their escape. Trembling, she saw them fight to keep their insides on the inside while they fought with one another, each wanting to die after all they’d suffered through but not willing to allow the other to commit the act. All that resentment carried over, and they took out every moment of pain and rage—every living thing they came across somehow reminding them of somebody who they saw as an extension of somebody who’d wronged them: parents who’d condemned them from birth to be different and humans who’d allowed such atrocities to come to light. Nobody was safe from the shadow of their hatred.
They raped.
They tortured.
Zoey saw it all.
And, worse yet, Zoey understood it all!
“If it wasn’t for people like you,” Isaac had said, “then the people like Serena wouldn’t know when to stop; when to put a cap on their crazy or suicidal ways. Then it might be them that the world needs saving from the next time.”
Who might these two have been if it wasn’t for what had happened?
What would they have become if only somebody like Zoey—
“KILL YOU ALL, YOU FILTHY FU
CKING DOGS!” the one called Jerrick was screaming as he scrambled to his feet.
Delilah and four others of her pack were on him then, already transformed and tackling him to the ground. Zoey lost sight of the hybrid under the mass of snarling therions, but his pained and enraged screams carried over. Seeing this, Ezra—the tank of a hybrid that had caught them off guard their first night at the club—was rolling off his back to climb to his feet, aiming to take on the horde attacking his brother. Then the other five therions made their move.
Every inch that Ezra fought to gain was taken and he was pushed back another foot. The first of Delilah’s packmates had the snarling hybrid on his back, the second, not far behind, taking his ankle into a clawed grip and working to hurl him back into a waiting packmate. Ezra yanked his leg back, pulling his attacker off his balance and driving him into the hybrid’s waiting hands, which throttled the therion, earning a panicked yelp before a loud SNAP signaled the loss of one of their comrades. Before the body of the dead therion had fallen to the ground, another was on Ezra, snapping his jaws in his face. Ezra separated the two jaws and kept pulling until they were no longer attached. Letting out a series of wet and garbled barks of agony, the mutilated therion was an easy target for more of Ezra’s rage before he was thrown like a blood-spewing missile into the other three who weren’t busy with Jerrick.
“NO!” Zoey threw out her aura, lifting him off the ground and propelling him through the ceiling before slamming him back down on the ground. Her feet were already off the ground, her body soaring across the room towards Ezra as she reached back with her mind to Isaac. The Jeep! It’s in the back! she told him, planting an image of his goal into his mind.
Between the outfit, that little stunt with the Jeep, and this, Isaac called back, already on all fours and scrambling for the Jeep, I’m beginning to think you got ahold of Serena.
Ezra, snarling, was working on standing again. Though Zoey’s grip on him before had been too tight for him to escape, the hybrid had managed to transform in the brief time, and the snarling maw that greeted her as she hurdled towards him drew back to expose his waiting teeth.