by Owens, C. M.
Brazen’s eyes shift from angry to understanding, and then he walks over to wrap his arms around me. His soft lips stroke mine as he pulls me up on top of the interrogation table, and his gentle hands cup my face as he stares into my eyes.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry,” he murmurs against my lips, and my hands jerk his body to mine as I feel his perfection through his shirt.
“We have to get to the lab right now. We’ll leave in the morning though, and we’ll just make the journey back and forth until this is resolved.”
“Thank you,” I whimper as several tears stream down my cheeks, and his comforting lips embrace mine.
“I can’t believe he told you all that shit on your birthday,” he growls as he lowers me to the ground to lead me out.
“He didn’t tell me that on my birthday, that’s what he told me the night I came to your hotel room in Berimond. He just went to see her on my fucking birthday. It’s the same thing he did three years ago on the same exact day.”
Brazen’s eyes show some confusion now as he opens the door to the quiet hallway. Alex’s body has been removed, and I’m sure Hale is feeding her blood to help heal her. My free hand fists at my side while my other grips Brazen’s almost too tightly.
“He told you he went to see her on your birthday?” he asks in bemused suspicion.
“Yeah. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Let’s just get this lab thing sorted out, and then let’s go act like a couple who just got engaged for the second time - champagne and sex… lots and lots of sex,” I sizzle out, and a smirk invades his face.
He’s not smiling as large as I expected though. He seems distracted now, and it’s a little puzzling. His pale eyes seem to be studying facts I can’t see as he stares straight ahead.
He opens the door to the lab for me to walk in first. I know his detective look when he’s thinking about a case, but normally he doesn’t mind thinking aloud to get my input.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper as we slide in behind the crowd in the tight space.
“Nothing, baby,” he lies, and I narrow my eyes at him just as Clay walks over to pull up a large screen.
“Our friends in the northern United regions have discovered something none of us were able to catch. I’ll let Dr. Sallan relay his findings, and the reason we’re meeting here is because from now on all of our meetings will seem as something else - a staging process. We have insiders apparently stashed in every compound, every group, and every station. You all are some of the most trusted people within the United and its allies.”
Brazen’s grip tightens on my hand, and then the short full blood doctor steps up in his white coat fashion.
“This blood had us baffled for a minute. We thought it to be a superior understanding of biology and possibly a cloned form of blood when we first examined it. It’s not though. This blood is from a dead human which is why there is not a sexual need following consumption,” he blurts out very matter-of-factly.
Disbelieving gasps and jaw-drops spread around the room. I’m too numb to really react. I look over to see Hale’s eyes burning into mine. My eyes dart away promptly, and now it’s my grip on Brazen’s hand that tightens.
“It’s impossible for us to feed on dead blood. The antigens, healing properties, and all together taste expire with the host. It becomes toxic in our mouths,” Alex chimes in, and my eyes dart across the room to see her standing without flaw.
Fucking bitch.
Brazen’s arm now wraps around my shoulders, and he glances at my pupils to check for my Ms. Hyde half.
“You would be right under normal circumstances,” the doctor chirps. “These people, however, have found a way to preserve the blood after life has expired. The complex strands of blood we thought to originally be synthetic are actually created from a complicated preservative. This procedure would involve injecting the human veins with the preservatives while they’re still alive. They then drain the living human of all their blood. It would be an excruciatingly painful process to say the least. This sort of practice has never been thought to exist, and it would cause a riot among the humans if they found out.
“Right now we take blood donations, and they easily feed our population though the diluted taste is not desirable. If many full bloods learn they can drink the blood without infecting the human, moral coats will be shed instantly. The human race will be extinct in far less time than we originally projected if this gets out. Hence the privacy of the lab walls for this meeting. Obviously this isn’t the answer we had hoped for, but Commander Jude assures me he and his team have come across something that will sustain the full bloods within three years. So all is not lost, and we will have the opportunity to hear more on that when they have conclusive results.”
Clay steps back up to take the head of the room, and he clears his throat before speaking.
“As you already know, this is highly confidential. Only the people in this room, along with the other heads of the United regions not yet in attendance will have privy to this information. I’ll speak with all of you at a later date,” he says in adjournment, and we all start shuffling out of the small space to head back out into the oxygen rich hallways.
“It’s just one big twist after another,” Brazen sighs out.
My lips press against his arm as I lean into him, and he holds me to his body momentarily before his eyes move to Hale. I’m curious as to why he’s so intensely focused on him, but he kisses me lightly on the forehead to distract me.
“Captain Mordel,” Clay asserts. “I need you to contact all the full bloods in leading commands to tell them we’ll be making base in Hershian for a while longer. Use Nicholas’s office if you don’t mind. It’s very soundproof and swept for bugs regularly.”
“Of course, Commander,” Brazen formally offers, and then he leans down to gently stain my lips with the sweet taste of his before walking away.
“Araya, I need you to be ready. You’re our best interrogator by far, and we’re going to need you more than ever right now. We’ve got too much going on at once. We’ve never had such large scale concerns, and I’m worried what will happen if we miss even one piece of the puzzle that keeps getting scattered around,” Clay sighs out.
“You know I’ll be ready,” I say comfortingly, and his arm wraps around my shoulders as he starts leading me down the hall.
“Are you okay? I heard about your incident with Alex.”
“I’m fine. Is she pressing charges?” I grumble.
“She filed a report, but Hale convinced her to only ask for you to be on probation. That means no direct contact or communication, you can’t be in a room without three or more people, and you can’t even breathe a word in threatening context to her for the next two months, or I’ll be forced to demote you. You’ll be investigative interrogator instead of lead interrogator for the United if that happens. I don’t want that, and quite frankly, the United can’t afford to lose you as lead. Alex agreed… thankfully.”
She fucks my man, and I’m the one to be chastised. Now I’m supposed to be grateful she didn’t press charges. Isn’t justice grand? Fucking irony.
“Well isn’t she the sweetheart,” I snark.
“I think you need to speak to Hale about what went on today. He said he tried to talk to you earlier, but he knew you were on the verge of losing it when Brazen broke you away from the group, so he left before you came out.”
“I’m sure he was more concerned with caring for Alex,” I grumble in distaste.
“He didn’t care for Alex, Angelica did. She was the first one to plead your case, and she explained about your situation with your new full blood father as an explanation for why you acted the way you did.”
“Alex knows damn well why I did what I did, and don’t call him my fucking father. He’s the sperm donor. That’s it.”
“You need to speak with Hale,” he sighs out as if he’s hiding something.
“I have no intentions of speaking with Hale ever again unless absolu
tely necessary. I told Brazen I’d marry him, and I feel it would be a betrayal to keep speaking to the man he fears the most when it comes to me. Not to mention, I’m done talking to Hale. All he does is hurt and confuse me. For a man who never loved me, he sure as fuck knows how to break me over and over again.”
Tears fall free, and Clay’s arm around me tightens as we round the corner close to my office. I don’t feel like falling apart right now - not in front of him. He has more than enough shit to deal with to have to worry about my sick triangle.
“I’ve got some things I need to catch up on while I’m here. I don’t want to leave the replacement for Hershian in a bind. I’ll call you later.”
He purses his lips, and then he nods. “Let me know if you have a hard time finding a new permanent residence, though I can’t imagine any compound not wanting you.”
“Thank you,” I murmur softly while heading to my office.
The dark, deeply padded room hides behind my windowless steel door, and I open it to see it’s not dark after all. There’s a small light casting its glow around the room, and a movement startles me into a screech.
“Sorry,” Hale murmurs as he steps into the light, and I exhale very loudly.
“What the fuck are you doing in my office?” I pant out in my breathless rattle.
“I needed a heavily secure room to make these calls,” he utters mildly.
“So you chose my office?”
“Yes I did. It seemed a little less cold than the others.”
I take a deep breath, and then I cringe when I see he has found my secret stash of pictures I keep in my lower desk drawer. There are pictures of me and him all over my desktop now.
“Fuck,” I mumble while collecting the scattered pile. “I suppose you had to ravage my drawers too?”
“I was looking for a pen. You have everything in the world in your desk except for a pen,” he murmurs softly as his hand brushes mine.
I jerk away and rip open one of the top drawers to reveal at least fifty pens.
“Really? You couldn’t find a single pen?” I scoff.
“I stopped looking when I ran across these,” he says while motioning to the pictures I’m shoveling back into the bottom drawer. “So you’re willing to marry Brazen even though you’re not over me?”
“I am over you. As of tonight, it’s fucking official. If you fuck Alex in here, at least get my shit out first. I just came to finish up my paperwork before I leave. I’ll take it back to my apartment.”
“Araya, talk to me. I need to tell you something that has been killing me for years,” he groans. “Don’t marry Brazen, baby. I won’t live if you do.”
Every teardrop able to rush my lids falls out in unison to drench my face instantly as the bowling ball crashes to the front of my stomach once more.
“You can’t say shit like that, Hale. You’ll live, and you’ll be just fine. You never loved me, you love fucking other girls… including Alex. You broke me, and you win. I give up trying to love you. Just let me be happy with the only other man I’ve ever cared about. He’s good for me even though I’m terrible for him,” I sob out, and his arms wrap around me as I cry into his chest.
“Araya, I really fucked up worse than I meant to, and I saw it tonight. Please give me just a couple of months. Don’t marry him yet.”
I shove him off of me, and my eyes burn with resentment and fury as I scold, “Stop it! Just stop! You threw me aside. I’m sick of your mind-fucks. We’re savagely connected. Nothing else.”
I barge out of the room with my files in tow, and my tears race down my cheeks as I feel him whipping me around. My back presses against the wall and his lips cover mine feverishly as desire pours in. The files drop and papers slice against each other as they crash to the ground. My hands wrap around his neck, and he pulls my hips up when my legs wrap around his waist. It’s so fucking hard to deny him, but I have to.
He rips my shirt open as he forces me back into my office, and then my back slaps the top of my desk as the sound of his belt rattling rings like the sanity bell.
“Fuck! Stop,” I blare, and I use my gift to sling him off me.
“Araya, I love-”
“Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t do it. Don’t say it,” I say through gritted teeth as my tears fall fiercely.
I run out again, and I leave the papers in their messy pile on the floor as I rush down the winding hallways. My tears drip down my flushed face as the taste of Hale lingers on my lips. I can’t go back to Brazen’s apartment looking like this. I can’t explain what just happened without him, me, or both of us losing control. Why is Hale doing this to me?
I burst through my door without even swiping my key, and I slam against it with my back once I’m safely inside the dark, cold, and windy room. Why are all of my windows open?
I flick the light switch up, and nothing happens. Great. They must have cut off my power while I was gone. My fucking bill was paid though.
I huff as I use my gift to shut all the windows at once, and then something happens I could have never prepared for. Streaks of pain surge through me like running knives as my piercing shrieks scream out uselessly in my heavily padded apartment.
My body spasms as I convulse from the electricity violently surging through my body, and I scream out again as another zipping sound spirals toward me and connects with my chest to pierce my weakened flesh, drawing my blood to the surface. My gifts are rendered useless as the electricity courses through my body, and the face of my attacker stays hidden in the shadows of the home I once considered safe.
The eerie silence shatters against my screams and the laugh of one sadistic bastard in the room with me.
“It’s funny how things work out. I was starting to worry you wouldn’t come back tonight,” Leon’s maniacal voice chirps.
Chills spread over my convulsing body as he steps out in front of me with his glowing night eyes. I would shiver if I could stop shaking long enough, but all I can do is panic. I’m ungifted when electrically charged, and I’m completely vulnerable to any attack he wants to send my way like this.
“What’s the matter, Ms. Crush? Not able to fling me across the room or go invincible? That’s a shame. It’s so pathetic how easy it is to bring you down, but so few know about your little weakness. I, however, know everything there is to know about you now that you fucked my life up.”
Vengeance fuels his hatred as it spews from his words. His smile spreads, carrying a malevolent glow to his burning eyes.
“I… didn’t… fuck it… up,” I chatter out through the convulsions. “You did… you… bastard.”
“Even now you’re a defiant and disrespectful little bitch, aren’t you? That’s good. It’ll make this so much better. You see, there’s this wonderful dream I’ve always had. I’ve always wanted to feel the burn of the sun warming my skin. I’ve always wanted to taste the food the hybrids and humans take for granted. I never though it possible until your boyfriend walked out of that building alive and well,” he growls.
No. No. Please no.
“You… you staged the… prison run ambush,” I grunt out through the streaking pain.
“I did. I never even gave a damn if the full blood prisoner escaped. I wanted your hybrid ass dead,” he growls. “I was disappointed when I saw you running around, but there was a small victorious twinkle in my eye when I saw that arrogant cocksucker you call a boyfriend blown all to fuck. I shot out your blood truck myself so no sneaky half breathers would have the chance to heal and rise from the ashes. Then you go into a building where all hope is lost, and come out with a completely healed full blood. Now I personally checked all the buildings - including the ones you knocked down - before you got there, and there wasn’t a drop of blood on the premises. That leaves only one answer to his miraculous recovery… your blood.”
He shoots another strand into my body from his energy gun, and I scream as more waves of vicious currents surge through me. I hear the cracking of my bones as my body distor
ts tï the most heinous positions and I begin gasping for air.
“Now here’s the best part, I followed you. I watched from the safety of my black tinted windows of my vehicle as your boyfriend climbed out of the car and stepped into the sunlight. I watched him stretch out his arms and soak in the sun no other full blood has ever experienced. I saw the reddening of his skin as it filled him with warmth. Then I followed you again. I watched him eating, gorging himself on heaps of food. You selfish bitch. Your blood can change us all, and you’re just going to cling onto it as if you have some divine right.”
I scream again as the pain consumes me, and I feel a few of my ribs shattering. He glares at me disapprovingly before shooting another streak into me. Tears drip from my eyes to sizzle against the currents radiating over my skin. I taste my own blood gurgling in my mouth, my eyes begging to roll back, and my body giving up the fight to be still.
“Tonight that changes. Now as much as I fucking hate your hybrid filth, I want to taste the sun. So I’m going to take your blood, and then when I’m done with you, I’m going to share your secret with the rest of the fucking world so they can take their turn. You’ll be nothing more than a full blood’s ticket to sunshine and food. You’ll be treated with the fucking respect you actually deserve, and you’ll be locked up like the animal you are while feeling these glorious currents of energy zapping through you like a curling rush.”
I almost want to bring my savage forth, but I know I’ll fucking kill everyone here right now in this condition - Brazen included. I continue my screams even though they’re in vain, and then he kicks me in the face to draw out my blood even more. My skin has become almost as fragile as a human’s right now. If this keeps up, I’ll fall to pieces before he can finish his job. I’m actually praying for that.