Darkness Taunts

by Susan Illene

  I turned my head and stared at the wall. He was the only sensor who hadn’t been there last night, but that didn’t absolve him of guilt. I had nothing to say to him.

  “Melena, we had to take you,” his voice came out pleading. “The supernaturals were influencing you—forcing you to do things for them. This was the only way we could save you.”

  I closed my eyes and tuned him out. It wasn’t hard to do with the drugs. He talked for a while more, but it didn’t sound like anything except an annoying buzz in my ears. I drifted to that place between waking and sleep. At some point he must have left because I woke up in the dark alone. My mind felt clearer than before, but I had another problem.

  My bladder was full—too full to hold much longer. Minutes ticked by until I resigned myself to two choices. Pee on myself or ask for help.

  “Hey,” I managed to croak out. The IV kept me hydrated, but my mouth felt like it’d been filled with cotton. I cleared my throat and called out louder. “Hey!”

  Someone came in the room. The light almost blinded me when he turned it on. I eventually recovered enough to find him hovering over me with his arms crossed. He had shaved dark hair and a medium build. I remembered him standing next to Jerome in the parking lot the night before. In another life I might have considered him handsome, but not now.

  “What do you want?” he asked. The smile on his face made me think he was enjoying himself.

  I gritted my teeth. Now was not the time to annoy my captors. “I need to use the bathroom.”

  “Are you going to be a good girl and go without a fight?”

  Deep breath. “Yes.”

  “Promise not to try and escape.” He gave me a pointed look as if he doubted I could agree to that. “Because the only thing you’ll be pissing in is a baking pan I’ll slide under your ass if you make one wrong move.”

  I probably wasn’t in the best shape to make a break for it anyway. The drugs were still in my system, if not as bad as before, but I doubted I could put up much of a fight yet. I could honestly promise not to run—this time.

  “Fine,” I said. “I won’t try and escape.”

  He reached for my ankles and freed them. I rotated them around in an effort to get the feeling back. He limped to the other end of the bed. This must have been the guy I kicked in the knee the night before. It’d been a solid hit. I watched as he worked at the knot binding my arm. He clucked his tongue when he loosened the rope enough to see the chaffing where I’d had my brief struggle with it.

  “I suppose,” he said, “I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t at least tried to get away. You put up a good fight last night. Where did you get your training?”

  “I’m an army of one.” I couldn’t resist mocking the old army commercial.

  He snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  The rope fell away from my wrist. I struggled to get up one-handed and groaned when I inadvertently put weight on the other one. Damn, I felt like an invalid. It took a little more maneuvering to get my legs over the edge of the bed. The dark hair guy stood there not even trying to help. Amusement glittered in his blue eyes.

  I stood up only to fall back on the mattress again. A wave of dizziness hit me and it took a moment for it to pass. I eyed the IV still stuck in my arm. “Is that really necessary?”

  He shrugged. “It makes it easier for me to administer the drugs for your wrist and keep you hydrated.”

  “What kind of medical training do you have?” With my luck, he had no idea what he was doing and I’d end up paying for it.

  “I’m a licensed physician’s assistant.”

  Better than I thought, though I’d have preferred a hospital to fix me up—or a vampire.

  I tried standing up again and managed to stay on my feet. One halting step at a time I walked with the dark haired guy as he led me out of the room, holding the IV bag for me. We didn’t go far. The bathroom was directly across the hall.

  My captor followed me inside and shut the door. I glared at him. “I said I wouldn’t try to escape.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone on my watch.” He nodded at the small window over the bathtub. “You could always change your mind and then I’d be stuck trying to repair more injuries after you tried to go through that. Besides, someone has to hold this.” He held up the bag I’d almost forgotten about. At least it had a long reach. A pole to hang it on would have been better.

  I stood there for a moment shifting from foot to foot. The set of his jaw said he wouldn’t leave. I was wearing a dress with no underwear on so at least he wouldn’t see much. Grasping the sink counter, I lowered myself onto the toilet and yanked the back of the skirt out from underneath me. It took a minute to relax, but at least the guy had the decency to look the other way.

  Once finished, I moved over to the sink and sort of washed my hand. It was trickier than I anticipated with the other one out of commission. Someone had already washed the blood off where I’d slashed my wrist the night before so at least I didn’t have to worry about that. The fact they’d done it while I was unconscious bothered me, though.

  After finishing, he led me back to the bedroom, catching me both times when I started to fall. My legs didn’t seem to want to cooperate anymore since the urgency from my bladder had been taken care of.

  I stopped at the bed and stared at the wrinkled white sheets. The guy nudged me in the shoulder until I relented and crawled onto the mattress. He grabbed the rope connected to the headboard and wrapped it around my wrist. It galled me to lie there and let him do it, but I had no energy left to fight him. I stared up at the ceiling wishing I was somewhere else.

  He stepped out of the room, leaving the door open, and came back with what looked like a medical bag. My lips thinned when he pulled out a syringe and stuck it in a bottle of clear liquid, drawing it out.

  “This will help you sleep,” he said, shooting it into my IV line.

  I had to fight tears as the drug coursed through my veins. It was putting my body into the same lethargic state it had been in before. I’d hoped to get clearheaded enough to work out an escape plan. Now I wouldn’t even be awake to try. If they kept me drugged all the time I might never get free.

  Captivity with Variola had been awful. She’d had her men beat me within an inch of my life, but somehow this bothered me more. You expected evil from vampires, but not from guys who should have been on your side.

  ~~~

  Someone slapped me. I gasped and opened my eyes. Jerome sat on the side of the bed with a hard look on his face.

  “Alright you little nephilim whore, time to start talking,” he growled out. “Tell me where you’re really from.”

  I set my jaw. That was about the last way he’d get me to talk. How did he know I wasn’t from here anyway?

  “Gonna be like that is it? I ain’t got no problem giving a little incentive to help you loosen your lips.” He grabbed my wounded arm and jerked it up.

  I cried out before biting my lip. No amount of pain would get me to admit to living in Fairbanks. He’d find Emily and I would not let her fall into the hands of these people.

  “We found your purse in that vermin’s car,” he spit out. “Your driver’s license is for California. What were you really doing up here?”

  I tried to keep the relief from showing in my eyes. They say procrastination is a bad thing, but because of it I hadn’t gotten around to updating my driver’s license to Alaska. There’d been nothing in my purse that could tie me back to Fairbanks since I’d only put my ID and a credit card in there. Working off my old California tale, I could tell some truths without giving away the most important parts.

  “I was asked to come here to help with the demon problem,” I admitted.

  Jerome narrowed his eyes. “Elden said a female sensor helped raise you. Didn’t she tell you to stay away from them?”

  “Sure,” I said. “But they killed her and they’ve been holding me captive for awhile now.”

  Luckily, I had a lot of history to use
if I didn’t get too detailed. Maybe I could even get some sympathy if I played my cards right. Not that I really wanted it from a man who would slap me awake. Bastard.

  “I had my medic check you over while you slept,” he said. “He’s positive you’ve been sexually active, and by the way you acted the other night I’d say it was with the nephilim. Care to explain that?”

  My eyes widened and I looked down my dress. Oh God, did they do something to me while I was knocked out? Nothing felt off, but Lucas had been rough when we were together. I couldn’t tell if the slight ache I felt came from him or someone else. If not for the drugs and my broken wrist, I might have paid more attention the last time I was awake.

  “What have you people done to me?” I asked, barely keeping from shouting.

  His grip on my arm tightened, making me wince, but I kept glaring at him with the full brunt of my anger.

  “What?” he spit out. “Does the little whore think she’s too good for her own kind? Don’t worry. I ain’t gonna let any of my guys fuck you until I’m sure that nephilim didn’t get you pregnant. We gave you something to help with that, but those things aren’t full proof.”

  His name calling was starting to piss me off. “I’m not a whore and your guys aren’t ever touching me.”

  “Oh, they will. Just not before we can make sure any baby you’re carrying ain’t from some nephilim filth.”

  Why was he so stuck on that idea? “Nephilim can’t have children.”

  He shook his head. “They can’t get humans pregnant, but we’re exempt from their little curse. Didn’t he tell you that?”

  “No,” I said. That might explain why he used a condom. I wished I’d had time to ask him about it.

  “You really are naïve if you don’t know,” he said, letting go of my arm. “There’s an old story in one of our books that’s been passed down for generations. It talks about a nephilim getting a sensor pregnant. They found the woman alone after she gave birth to the child. The father and the baby had disappeared never to return. She refused to talk about it, but it ain’t hard to figure out. He was just using her to get the child.”

  I lay there not knowing what to say. Would Lucas do that to me? He’d never said anything about the possibility of getting me pregnant, but he had to have known. At the same time, Jerome wouldn’t have told me the story unless he believed it.

  I wasn’t going to jump to conclusions just yet, though. There could be an explanation this man wasn’t telling me. I knew from years of being an interrogator that one of the best ways to turn someone to your side was to cast doubt on their own. Find a weakness and exploit it. It was the old trick of divide and conquer.

  The sensors wanted me to turn against the sups, and this was a good way to do it, but Lucas deserved a chance to at least defend himself before I condemned him. We’d had enough misunderstandings between us that I wasn’t going to add to them before I investigated things further.

  “Do you know what the curse is exactly?” I asked. Might as well see if I couldn’t poke holes in his story.

  He grunted. “If you’d been raised with us like you were supposed to be, you’d know all this.”

  I froze. “What do you mean like I was supposed to be?”

  “Hey, Ian,” he called over his shoulder. “Get me that birth certificate I had faxed over.”

  The medic from last night came in with a paper in his hand. I shot him a dirty look, but he ignored it as he walked up to Jerome. I would never be able to look at him without knowing he’d touched me in my most intimate place while I was unconscious. Someday, he’d pay for that—they all would.

  Jerome held the paper up to my face. “Does anything on this look familiar?”

  I squinted at it. The birth certificate was for a Melanie Douglas, which didn’t mean anything, but as I continued down the page a few things stood out. The baby’s details were exactly like mine except the names and addresses—birth date, time, weight, everything. The father listed there was Jerome Douglas. My eyes widened in horror. No, it couldn’t be.

  He withdrew the paper. “That female child has been missing since one month after she was born. Her mother took off and hid her from me. What do you think the odds are that two female sensor babies—which are extremely rare to begin with—would be born on the exact same day?”

  “Not high,” I whispered. “But it could be coincidence. There’s no telling where the adoption agency that handled my paperwork got their information. Maybe my birth date isn’t even right.”

  “I thought you might say that, but it wasn’t your birth date that first tipped me off about you.” He pulled a picture out of his wallet. “Does this woman look familiar?”

  I peered at the grainy photo. It was worn from years of being handled over and over. The woman on it had brown hair that fell straight the same way mine did and her fine-boned features were a close copy to what I saw every time I looked in the mirror. She was probably close to my age in her mid-twenties at the time the picture was taken.

  A much younger version of Jerome with auburn hair the same shade as mine was also in the photo. He had a stern look on his face. The woman he had his arm around looked uncomfortable—like she would have preferred to be somewhere else. I’d long since given up on figuring out who my parents were, but the evidence before me said I’d just found them.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  He looked down at the picture. “She was a stubborn woman. Never did like having to stay at the compound or fulfilling her duty to help produce more children for our race. After you were born she made a run for it and I had to chase her down. By the time I found her, she’d gotten rid of you. She fought me and, well, it didn’t go the way I expected.”

  My throat swelled. “You’re saying she’s dead. That you killed her.”

  Jerome gripped me by the jaw. “Don’t be looking at me like that. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but she could fight like a hellcat. Guess you got that from her. I’ve missed her every day since so don’t think it don’t bother me.”

  Oh, I had a pretty good idea how my mother would have felt about being under Jerome’s thumb. No wonder she ran. I couldn’t believe I was looking at my father for the first time only to find out he was my mother’s killer. If I hadn’t hated him before, I did now.

  I looked him dead in the eye. “She didn’t love you, did she?”

  He slapped me hard enough to make me bite my tongue. The taste of blood coated my mouth. Yeah, I’d struck a nerve.

  “Don’t ever talk like that. I married her and made her happy. She had no problem giving me two sons…but then you came along and changed everything. She started worrying about raising a girl in the compound. I tried reassuring her, but she wanted to leave. It don’t work like that, though. For us, marriage is until death.”

  I wondered what he’d think if he knew Lucas had claimed me. That it could last until death too. Jerome and the others hadn’t said anything about it. It must have been some weird supernatural thing sensors couldn’t pick up on since I couldn’t detect it either. The bite marks had faded to almost nothing, not leaving much evidence to see. Did that sensor woman from long ago get marks like mine? I wasn’t about to ask.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked instead. This man clearly didn’t understand how love or family really worked. I felt for the woman who must have been my mom, but I didn’t want to talk about her with her killer anymore. Better to just find out his plans for me.

  Jerome smiled. “For you to do your duty to your race. We’ve only got a handful of women back at the compound who are like us and a few more who carry the gene. There’s five men for every one of them. It ain’t enough, but with you there it will help.”

  I shook my head. “I have no desire to have children, especially not with guys who kidnap and drug me. You can forget it.”

  “You ain’t getting a choice in the matter,” he gave me a stern look. “I doubt any of the men will want to marry you after they find out you were spreading yo
ur legs for a nephilim, but they’ll still be glad to get a child out of you. You’ve proven you’re a little whore so it shouldn’t be hard to rotate men after each birth.”

  “I’m not a whore,” I said through gritted teeth. “And I’m not going to be part of some baby factory. You won’t get me out of this city without the sups finding me.”

  I’d never tell him Lucas could pinpoint my location once he regained his strength. Even if they circled the house with their blood to thwart his magic, he’d find me as soon as I stepped outside—so long as they didn’t know they needed to prevent it. My greatest advantage laid in the fact they didn’t know Lucas could use some of his powers on me. I had to hope he’d still want to find me after what happened. That the reminder of what sensors could be like didn’t turn him off.

  Jerome laughed. “Little girl, they’re out there searching for you right now, but they ain’t gonna find you. As soon as we’ve got it set up, we’re gonna get you to Idaho where you belong. Right now you’re just distracting us from getting our job done with the demons and that’s gotta stop.”

  “How can you possibly call yourself my father? It’s been almost twenty-seven years and the first thing you think of when you find me is to breed me to your men?” This guy was a monster.

  I was too outraged to feel the hurt from his behavior. The rare times I’d allowed myself to imagine a reunion with my real parents I’d never envisioned this. When you’re adopted, you always hope you have parents out there who are sorry they gave you up and love you at first sight. Apparently, I wasn’t getting that, though I wished I could have met my mom. Instead she’d made the ultimate sacrifice to keep me safe.

  Jerome looked my prone form up and down. A disgusted look came over his face. “It’s not hard to hand you over to the men when I consider where you’ve been. You might be my daughter by blood, but no real daughter of mine would’ve given herself to a nephilim.”

  He wouldn’t get away with this. I had to believe eventually this would be over.