by Laken Cane
The outside of the building looked so benign, giving no hint of the bleak darkness inside. Her walk from the car to the front doors seemed to take an eternity, each step an effort. Her gut was screaming for her to run back to the car and get the hell out of there—to call in reinforcements.
It was every horror movie she’d ever seen, scoffing at the stupid heroine for going into the house, the basement, the woods. Alone.
She knew bad things were about to happen, but she kept right on walking.
There was nothing else she could do.
Not really.
She pushed the door open and went inside, her senses on full alert.
The room was large and dim, as though sunlight couldn’t possibly penetrate the stained glass windows. She caught a certain scent she’d smelled only in churches, one she’d never really been able to identify.
And another scent, weak, but there. The scent of disease. One of the people standing there was ill.
Emerson waited, but he wasn’t the only one.
“Cuff her,” he said, nodding to a man standing behind her. He looked at someone else, a tall redhead who glared at Rune as though Rune had somehow managed to offend her. “Mare. Hide her car.”
The man behind Rune grabbed her arm and she heard the chain of handcuffs rattle as he started to follow his boss’s orders.
Rune turned, almost casually, and punched him in the throat.
He gagged, eyes bulging, and fell to the floor trying to breathe.
She turned back to Emerson, who watched her with a gleam of amusement—and no surprise.
“I saw that coming,” he said, smiling.
“Where’s the kid?”
“Rune,” he said, his voice soft, “I appreciate your bad ass, truly I do. But you’re in my house now. And nothing that happens from here on out is going to be good for you. I can promise you that.” He walked closer to her, unafraid.
“I want to see the kid, Emerson.”
He ignored her words. “We’re going to do this again and if you don’t behave, the kid will be hurt. Nod if you understand.”
Fuck you, asshole. “Yeah, I get it.”
He looked down at the man she’d punched. He still knelt on the floor with his fingers to his throat. “Corbin. Get up. If you let her punch you again, the kid isn’t the only one who will suffer for it.”
Corbin got to his feet. Rune didn’t flinch as he bruised her arms with his angry grip. He tightened the cuffs too much, on purpose, she was sure.
She was also sure the tight cuffs were just a drop of annoyance in what would soon become a river of pain. Before this was over, Emerson was going to hurt her, and he was going to enjoy it.
“Are you immortal, Alexander?” the COS leader asked, genuine curiosity in his eyes.
“I don’t know.”
He nodded. “You’re like a baby. I’ll tell you what. When you’ve done what I need you to do, I’ll help you find out. Deal?”
He and Jeremy Cross could have been brothers. They had the same soullessness in their eyes, the same desperate evil in their smiles.
She sneered. “You know what, Emerson? I’ll be the one walking away from this. In the end, you’ll just be dead.”
For one millisecond, before he could control it, she saw his fear. His eyes dilated and his lips parted, a quick breath of terror escaping into the still, musty church air.
He was afraid of her. And he knew she knew.
She sighed, waiting for it, and he didn’t disappoint her.
He doubled his fist and hit her, smiling with grim satisfaction when she spat blood. And then he hit her again.
Corbin held her against him, his hands steadying her. “Hurt?” he asked.
I’m surrounded by sadistic bastards. Was she surprised? Not even a little bit. She pushed away from Corbin, her attention on the SCOS leader.
Her lips numb, swollen, and bloody, she spread her feet to balance herself. “Fuck you, Emerson. You’re shit, hitting a restrained woman.”
He threw back his head and laughed, then stopped as abruptly as he’d started. “You’re not a woman, Alexander. You’re a monster.” He eyed her mouth. “You’re healing as I watch.”
“Jealous?” she asked, knowing better than to push him, unable to stop.
“Oh no. I’m grateful you’re a monster. That’s why you’re here, actually.”
“You said you’d trade the boy for me.”
He shrugged. “I lied. I can’t let him go.”
“So your plan is to kill us both.”
“Did you really think I wouldn’t?”
“I had a chance to save the kid, Emerson. I took it.”
“Yes,” he replied. “Such a brave soul. Or you would be, if monsters had souls.”
“I’m not the soulless one here, dude.”
He gestured impatiently. “I’m tired of your mouth, so shut it. Corbin, search her. She’s not going to hurt you.”
Corbin started at her back, his hands wandering to places no weapon could hide. She bore it stoically, knowing to do otherwise might get the kid hurt. But when he finally walked to the front of her to finish his search, she caught his cruel stare with hers.
“Before this is over, I’m going to kill you, Corbin. And I’m going to make it hurt.” She knew her face was calm and her eyes empty except for the truth of her words.
He faltered. “Shut up.” But his voice was hoarse and the scent of his fear filled her nostrils.
She smiled.
They didn’t know her, not really, or they’d have taken a lot more precautions than fucking cuffs. She’d break the chain that connected the restraints when she was ready, and these men would witness just what her monster could do.
She almost felt sorry for them. Almost.
Corbin released the straps that held her protective vest closed and pushed it off her shoulders. Slowly, while the redhead and Emerson watched, he slid his fingers under the hem of her shirt.
He groped her breasts, squeezing and pinching, his touch angrier because of his fear. “Should I strip her?” he asked Emerson, his voice breathless.
Emerson pursed his lips. “She should be humiliated. Do it.”
Only the thought of Matthew kept her still. Her body vibrated with fury, and despite her control she was unable to keep her fangs from dropping as she submitted to Corbin’s eager fingers.
But when she stood before them naked, shuddering with rage, and Corbin ran his meaty fingers over her belly and lower, not even her fear for the boy could keep her controlled.
She struck like a snake, her fangs raking furrows in Corbin’s neck. The taste of blood stoked the fury and before he could react, she took out half his throat.
He fell to the floor, clamping his fingers to his wounds, unable to scream. He writhed in agony, his mouth wide, his eyes bulging.
“I told you I’d fucking kill you,” she said. “And I told you I’d make it hurt.” She leaned over him, her voice soft. “Does it hurt?”
But Emerson wasn’t stupid and had come prepared. She looked up from the downed man, but she was too late to do anything as Emerson rammed a long metal object into her side.
She had no idea where it had come from, and seconds later, didn’t care.
The shock went through her, short circuiting her brain, sending a terrible, confusing pain into her system.
And worse than the dose of electricity she’d been hit with were the long strands of silver the object shot into her bloodstream. She recognized them immediately. Silver, to an Other, was an unmistakable agony.
She could fight with silver. She could wear silver. But when the deadly stuff got inside her, she was fucked.
For a second she forgot where she was. She was back in her house with Jeremy Cross shooting her full of silver, his familiar face lined with rage and what he thought of as love.
But no, this wasn’t Jeremy.
And she wasn’t home.
She wasn’t familiar with the object Emerson held—had never see
n anything like it. It looked like a cattle prod and delivered a hell of a shock, but the business end seemed full of tiny needles, each one driving liquid silver into her body when he hit her with it.
“Rune, meet the vaccinator,” Emerson said, breathing hard. “Say howdy.”
He drew back the vaccinator, holding it like a fat spear. “It has various settings. I have it set to deliver tiny little drips of silver into you, but those shocks are set on motherfucking high.” He rammed it into her chest.
She lost her breath, her words, her ability to even think. There was nothing but pain and hot, suffocating terror.
“Look,” the woman screamed. “She’s pissed herself!”
Rune’s body curled into a tight knot and began to spasm. Hate, hate, hate.
But finally her brain started working again, slowly, sluggishly, and she pushed her mind into the darkness so she could think. There was nothing else. No sensation, no body, no people.
In the dark, there was only Rune.
And her monster.
But her monster was as hurt as she was, and could not help.
She slid inexorably into death’s open arms, ready for the sweet peace the reaper could give her.
Emerson wrenched her out of the darkness. “Don’t die on me, you fucking beast. I’m not finished with you yet.”
Could she die?
Her lips, her eyes…they sat heavily and almost numbly upon her face, and she couldn’t make her fingers work. She wanted to touch her face, to see if it was still there, but she couldn’t lift her arms.
Then she remembered why. They were cuffed behind her back.
You’re okay, Rune. You’re okay.
“I thought for a moment I’d lost you,” Emerson said, leaning over her. “I thought for a moment you weren’t immortal after all.” He laughed soundlessly, sending out little puffs of air that covered her skin like moist, repulsive plastic wrap. He wiped a finger through the sweat on his forehead. “Whew!”
He handed the vaccinator to the redhead. Her name was gone from Rune’s memory as though it’d never even been there. Perhaps it never had been.
“Can I shock her?” the redhead asked. “Just once?”
Emerson glared at her. “Are you fucking stupid? Didn’t you see I almost killed her?”
“Yes, but she’s okay now. You hit her too many times.” Her knuckles whitened from her tight grip. “Let me, one time.”
Emerson snatched it out of her hands. “I told you to hide her fucking car. Go, now, before I hit you with it.”
The hatred, the cruelty. It was as familiar to Rune as breathing, but she never ceased to be surprised by it.
She thought maybe mankind was doomed.
And in the end, there would only be the monsters.
Chapter Twenty-Five
He jerked her to her feet, cursing when her legs wouldn’t support her and she fell to her knees. “Get up, Rune. Get the fuck up!”
She closed her eyes and gathered her strength. She was Rune Alexander. She was fucking super Other. Emerson and his torture devices weren’t going to keep her down.
Not ever.
She got to her feet, but the effort that cost her weakened body was nearly all she had. She shivered as coldness seeped into her bones.
“The silver will kick your tail for a while,” Tim said, “but if you’ll stop being such a pussy I’m sure you’ll find it in you to walk the fuck out of this room.” He pushed her, sighing when she swayed drunkenly. Like it was her fault and she was sorely testing his patience.
When he lifted the vaccinator and pointed it at her, she forced herself to take a step. Where the hell am I walking? She tried to say the words, but her mouth wasn’t working. Not yet.
“Keep going,” he urged, poking her spine with his evil, silver-filled stick. “There’s a door in the back. I want you to go through it.”
His stare was an icy assault on her body, heavy and invasive. She was nearly certain he wouldn’t try to touch her, as the now dead Corbin had done. Something inside his eyes made her believe he would allow others to degrade her in that way, but that he would not.
Maybe he couldn’t. Whatever his reasons, she was thankful.
She stepped carefully through the doorway, stopping when she saw stairs leading down. No way would she be able to navigate stairs without falling.
But he grasped her upper arm and guided her away from the stairs, to her right, and down a long, skinny hallway with doors on either side.
After a quiet walk down the hallway that seemed to take forever, he took a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the door at the end.
“Matthew?” she managed to ask. Her lips felt oversized and alien, but the feeling was coming back into them. It was hard to force the word past the dryness in her throat. She’d have killed for a drink of water.
He shoved her inside.
The windowless room was illuminated only by the light coming in from the hallway. It would be filled with shadows when he shut the door, but she’d be able to see better in that dimness than Emerson, or any human, could. But there was nothing to see.
The room was empty.
“Matthew,” she said again.
Emerson stood in the doorway. “He’s in that corner.” He pointed to the far side of the room. “I’ll be back as soon as I get things squared away. You’re here because…” He paused before continuing, his voice stronger. “Because I need a favor from you. Of course you’ll do what I need in order to save that child, won’t you? Anything I want.”
The bastard had her right where he wanted her.
She didn’t wait for him to shut the door but walked toward the corner, sniffing the air for the elusive scent she finally caught. It was the odor of sickness, but it was weak, even to her hypersensitive nose.
Sickness was easy to trace for an Other. It stank of dark, slithery things. Of shiny green goo and thick, slimy pools atop which stirred bloated insect bodies. Of steaming piles of bloody rot.
All that was there, in the air, becoming stronger the closer she got to him.
The kid was dying.
Tim gently closed the door and she heard the click as he locked it. The room was dark but in seconds her eyes had adjusted and she could see clearly enough to pick out the tiny, unmoving bundle in the corner.
She dropped to her knees beside him. “Matthew? Can you hear me?” She pulled experimentally at the cuffs but realized quickly she was too weak to break the chain connecting them.
Emerson had known what to do. If she got her strength back without feeding, she’d be surprised. Right then she was almost human weak.
The boy was unconscious and zipped up into a sleeping bag. He was turned to the wall and she couldn’t see his face, but when she concentrated, she could hear his breathing. Barely.
“Kid?”
He groaned.
Her heart fluttered and for a second, she forgot to breathe. I’ll take care of him, Berserker. He’s alive. He’s alive. “Matthew. Come on, baby. Wake up.”
His sluggish turn toward her was agonizing to watch and once again she gave a tug at the cuffs.
In the dimness of the room his face was a pale moon, full of sunken craters, and he stared out at her from huge, fevered eyes.
Her stomach knotting with anxiety, she leaned closer. “Hi, baby. Do you remember me?”
“Want to go home now,” he whispered.
“Soon, Matthew. I promise.”
“I want my mother.”
“I know, baby.”
Already tiny, the child had become gaunt and wasted during his time with Emerson. His lips were dry and cracked, his skin paper thin. Even in the darkness she could see the branching blue veins beneath his skin.
If she didn’t get him out soon…
“What did they do to you?” she asked him.
He pushed his tongue out to wet his lips and for a second it hung there, as though he was too weak to withdraw it. He whimpered, then closed his eyes.
Her heart
was breaking. “They made you read, didn’t they?”
“Promised to take me home,” he replied. “He lied.”
Emerson had dangled promises before the boy and had drained him dry. “What reading did he want from you?”
Matthew sighed. “When would he die.”
Rune frowned. “Did you tell him you couldn’t do that?” The kid could find lost people, not predict the fucking future.
“He’s going to die.”
“You can tell that?”
“I told him you can save him. Like you did that girl.”
Oh shit. “What girl?” she whispered. “Lex?”
“I saw it in my head when my dad came to get me.” He closed his eyes, and this time didn’t open them. “I want my dad.”
“Rest, baby. I’ll get you home.” It wasn’t a promise she was going to go back on.
Matthew wasn’t Other, but he was as enigmatic a human as Rune was an Other. The boy had some impressive power. That power, given a chance, would only grow.
But now she knew why Tim Emerson wanted her. He wanted to feed from her, wanted her to heal whatever sickness was growing inside him.
When she’d fed Lex she’d healed her, but had no idea if her blood would affect everyone the way it had the Other.
Probably not. But her blood would make him an addict.
The man had no idea what he was asking for. Regardless, she wasn’t planning on letting him live long whether he forced her to feed him or not.
She was getting stronger by the minute. She wouldn’t be monster strong, but she was still Shiv Crew. She wasn’t helpless. But she had to get the cuffs off.
She crouched beside the fading child. She closed her eyes, ignoring the lingering effects of the silver still floating through her bloodstream. The weakness and pain from not only the silver but the jolts of electricity continued to make her brain stutter and her hands tremble. Spasms of pain poked at her, almost teasingly. The bastard had scrambled her thoughts and devastated her body, but she was no stranger to violence. Definitely no stranger to pain.
So she knelt beside Matthew and closed her eyes, gathering that agony to her. Eagerly. It would make her strong.
She hadn’t forgotten how to use pain. Hadn’t lost that part of herself despite the doctors’ best attempts at making her better.