by D. N. Hoxa
“Can I use the bathroom?” I asked, keeping my head down, successfully avoiding eye contact. I needed to send a message to McGraw to tell him what was happening. Aaron turned to look at me, suspicion shining in his blue eyes. Boy, he did not seem to like me. Not one bit.
“I just need to pee, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”
And if I wanted to, you couldn’t stop me if your life depended on it. But I didn’t say that last one loud.
“You can even leave the handcuffs on. I like kinky,” I added with a wink.
I wanted to make him feel uncomfortable. People were never really themselves when they were uncomfortable. It worked. He shook his head but pointed at the door to my left.
“Through the bedroom.”
I hid my smile and walked to the bedroom. It was neat, the bed made, not a thing out of its place. The bed was queen size; thick, deep green drapes covered the windows. No pictures in there. His nightstand held only a lamp and an alarm clock. Round, black rugs covered the wooden floor. The door next to his nightstand probably was his closet. I had the sudden urge to go over there and smell his clothes, but thankfully, I mentally slapped myself on the forehead, again, and turned to the bathroom.
Once inside, I locked the door and took a second to breathe and look at myself in the mirror. My eyeliner and mascara were smudged. And my hair looked like it had been through a tornado. I sighed and reached for one of the bobby pins in my hair. I dropped the handcuffs on the sink a minute later, and I used toilet paper to wipe off the remains of makeup on my face. I redid my bun, working the tangles the best I could with my fingers because I couldn’t find a comb. Aaron probably didn’t have one, though his hair was pretty long.
My arm looked like someone had taken a piece of meat off it. The top of my head still hurt, but my thigh had stopped bleeding. I cleaned the wounds with the small hand towel hung next to the door and put the same around my arm to cover the vampire bite. It stung badly. My stomach hurt the most.
I cleaned the blood off my hands and my arms and was as decent as I could get. I got my phone from my bra to text McGraw. My bra was the only empty space in my body. I didn’t like to put knives in there, because the skin was too soft, but it was perfect for my cell.
Before I could begin typing, I received a text message from a private number.
Your threat was duly noted. We made sure you won’t make another mistake. We have your family. Give yourself up. Come to Lyndor and they shall walk away unharmed. You have one week. MG
“What?” I asked myself, laughing. I didn’t get it. So I read it again. And again. Until the meaning of the words registered in my brain.
The world around me shattered. Everything fell, leaving me floating in darkness. I no longer saw what was in front of me. My heart pounded and my head throbbed.
I read and reread the message, again and again. We have your family.
They had Ella. And Dad. I saw her face as she crossed the street, her shoulders hunched and her head down. They had her?
“No, no, no,” I whispered to myself. How could they? They’d promised me they would protect my family. Protect them, not hold them hostage. But as much as I wanted to believe that the text message was fake, deep down, I knew it wasn’t.
We have your family.
They had them. They took them. After everything I did for the Council. After all the people I killed…I gave them my whole life. And now Ella’s and Dad’s lives were in danger. All because of me. I’d been stupid and reckless and everything life taught me not to be. I’d been a fool, and now my family was paying the price.
It was too much.
I dropped on the cold floor, and I screamed. I screamed at the top of my voice until there was no more voice left in me. But I didn’t mind. All I could think about was them. Everything else was a blur—Aaron kicking in the door, calling my name, taking me by my shoulders.
“It’s okay,” he repeated, but he had no clue. My Ella was in danger. How the hell would he know what that did to me?
My family is in danger. The words repeated themselves over and over in my head and pierced me like cold, sharp knives. I closed my eyes and forced myself to take control. They had my family. Now was not the time to think about how stupid I’d been or how I’d lost four years of precious time with my family for this reason alone.
It was time to act before it was too late.
I forced myself to take deep breaths until my vision cleared, and I gathered enough strength to stand up. Aaron’s arms were on my shoulders, and he supported most of my weight. I reached for the back of his waistband and pulled out my gun. Then I pushed him away and walked out to the living room, my heart racing in my chest and my breathing uneven. Time was wasting.
Vladimir’s vampire was standing, looking around the room like he was lost. I wanted to laugh. His eyes grew wide the second before the barrel of my gun pressed to his forehead, and I pulled the trigger. A deafening sound later, he turned to ash in front of my feet.
“What the...” Aaron started, but I cut him off.
“He was a snitch. He gave away your location tonight,” I said before he could finish.
Aaron had been right. He’d been right about everything. The Council had tricked me, played me for the fool I was. And I never even saw it coming.
MG.
The message was signed by McGraw.
“What are you doing?” Aaron said, following me, apparently recovered from the initial shock I caused him when I shot the vampire snitch.
“They have my family.”
“Wha—”
“They must have been following us from a distance.” A very big distance, because I would have sensed them otherwise. “They probably saw me getting into the car with you,” I hissed, as if this was his fault somehow. But it wasn’t.
No, I knew exactly who was responsible. Damn fool. Fools, all of them. They’d turned me into a killing machine, never thinking they’d get to be at the end of my sword. Well, now they would know. The pain in my body had vanished, and I felt nothing except a wild desire to see McGraw on his knees in front of me, bleeding to death. I would start with him and move up to the Council and whoever else was responsible for this.
“Where are you going?” Aaron asked stepping in front of me before I could reach the door.
“To get my family back,” I said and pushed him away easily.
“Wait. Raven, wait!”
I turned to face him. “My name is Star.” Again, with the hissing, as if this was his fault.
I walked out into the hallway before he grabbed my arm again. “You’re going to let us explain this to you once and for all.”
“We can do that later.”
I had my family to get first. But when I tried to jerk my arm away, I couldn’t. Huh. I turned to face him again. Where had he gotten all that strength, all of a sudden?
“Listen to me. There will be no later. If you go to them now, especially now, they’re going to kill you, do you understand? They’re expecting you.”
He said that like it was a bad thing.
“Good! I’m counting on them to all be there. It will make killing them a lot easier for me. Now let. Me. Go.” It was a warning, and he’d be a fool not to get it.
“Don’t you want to know what you are? You’re three minutes away from finding out. Don’t do this, Raven.” Now, he was warning me, but it was a different warning. One that didn’t contain a direct threat.
“I already told you my name,” I said and pulled the gun up. I directed it to his face. Enough games. Time was wasting.
“Yes, I know what your name is, Star Watson. And you’re going to have to shoot me in the head if you want to leave, ‘cause that’s the only way I’m going to let you go.”
I froze for a second. Watson. It had been so long since I’d used that last name. I’d almost forgotten it. And Aaron knew it.
How? Star Watson was declared dead four years ago. As far as the RR was concerned, I’d stayed dead. So how the hell did he
know?
Reluctantly, I lowered my gun and let him pull me inside his apartment again. Maybe the Council’s lies hadn’t stopped with my family. Maybe they stretched wider. And I was going to have to meet these Elders if I wanted to find out.
17
——————————
We were no longer in Aaron’s living room, but the place surrounding us was nothing like the Council’s.
We were in what looked like a house. Most things were made out of wood, and they had loveseats set across the big space that was the living room. It even smelled like something was being baked. It was…comfortable. Homelike.
On the massive armchairs—chairs that looked appropriate for royalty—before us sat three men and two women. The first one was a woman dressed in a green dress that reached her knees. She had a round face and dark brown hair, skin slightly wrinkled and eyes the strangest shade of dark green.
Next there was a man, one who oozed sex, and though his hair was completely grey, he still kept it waxed like a teenager would. The other was a shorter, broader man, with long dark hair tied in a small ponytail. The bearded man to his left had a pretty large beer belly despite his muscled arms.
And the last was a woman. You couldn’t exactly call her pretty, but she was sexy. Probably twenty-five or six, the youngest among them. Vampire. Her curly hair was a deep mahogany red and reached down to her waist. She wore a nice tight black dress and very high heels. Her nose was a little too big for her face, but damn, she was sexy. And I wasn’t even into chicks.
They all smiled at me like they recognized me. Like they’d met me before. I couldn’t tell what any of them were. They hid their magic just like the Council members did except for the sexy one. Vampires couldn’t hide who they were if they tried. There was no spell that could make a heart start beating again.
I was still standing, taking in the sweet scent of the house. Even though they were sitting on the same level as the rest of us, they had a certain aura of authority around them. They were clearly in charge.
“Welcome, Star,” the green-eyed woman said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Right,” was all I said.
I wasn’t exactly sure how to react around these people. I just stood there until Aaron motioned for me to take a seat next to him. He didn’t waste time and started with the story of how I’d interrupted their meeting and killed everyone in the process…blah-blah-blah.
I waited in silence, analyzing their expressions. I felt like I was eighteen and in front of the fourteen members of the Council again. But this was different; they were different. They didn’t seem cold or scary, just authoritative.
My decision was made, no matter what the Elders—which was a strange name because not one of them looked even fifty—had to say. I would hear what they had to say, and I’d be on my way.
We sat in silence for a few moments, all eyes on me. I was content looking at my fingers, studying my black nails. Two of them were broken from the fight. I hated broken nails.
Control was hard to keep. I just needed to get out of here and fly to McGraw.
Oh, what I’ll do to you, you sorry old fucker, I kept thinking. Good thing they made me watch torturing techniques against my will. Not that I’d have the patience to not kill him on sight. Still, it was good to know that I knew exactly how to torture somebody.
Finally, the sexy older guy spoke.
“We are sorry about your family, child.”
Child? Really? Do I look like a freaking child to you? I wanted to shout, but I didn’t.
“Oh, don’t be. Really.”
“We understand it’s hard—” he tried to continue, but I cut him off mid-sentence.
“You do? Has your family been kidnapped recently by the people you trusted your life to?” No answer. “I figured. There is no need to understand. I am here to listen to what you have to say. I figured I owed you that since I’ve been killing Rebels for a while. I would appreciate it if you could get on with it. I have things to do, people to kill.”
“It is understandable that you would want them to suffer,” the green-eyed woman said.
“Oh, I don’t plan to make them suffer. I plan to take their lives, one by one until the last one of them is on their knees in front of me. They will all die.”
I could almost see the blood spilling. I wanted—needed to see it, now.
“Very well,” she said. She did not look happy, but I didn’t really care. “I suppose it is time to tell you a story.”
Before I could interrupt—did I freaking look like I had time for a story?—Aaron grabbed my arm and squeezed lightly. His eyes begged me to be still. To listen. I saw myself in them. Saw how wild I looked. How mad. Unprepared. So I bit my tongue and listened.
“Four hundred years ago, we were the rulers of the magical world on Earth,” the woman started. “It wasn’t perfect, but it was peaceful. We lived a content life, sharing this world with humans, keeping the necessary distance and keeping them safe from the occasional malevolence. We’d lived like that since the beginning of time. Until Samayan came into the picture. He and the rest of what call themselves the Council today were nothing but rogues who didn’t share the same beliefs. They were not happy with the way we ruled. They believe that we are superiors who shall not share this world with humans but lead them, make them our slaves.
“They wanted power, the Earth to themselves, humans at their feet. They raised their army, winning over the greedy, filling them with promises of power and wealth and a seat in their Council, with promises to rule the world and be nothing short of Gods.” Her eyes grew dark all of the sudden. “They had developed a potion with powerful spells beyond imagination, a potion that could manipulate the human mind. This was but the first step in their master plan. Once they had the humans on their knees, they’d have all the work force they would need to rebuild the world around them, make it one colony. Then, there would be nothing left for those of us who are against it, but to die or join their forces.”
“What happened?” I asked when she stopped for a second too long.
“My mate found a way inside their premises. He died, but not without taking with him all the samples, formulas, and the warlock who’d produced that nasty potion.”
“So why didn’t you take over once the potion was destroyed?”
The woman gave me a sad smile. “It’s a little more complicated than that. You see, they already had seen proof of what could be done with the potion. The majority still stood by Samayan’s side in the Council. They have been trying to find the right formula for the potion ever since.”
“But it’s been four hundred years! If they couldn’t do it by now, they’ll never be able to do it again.” Obviously. Right?
Silence followed. I knew what that silence meant before she broke it.
“They have produced the potion again.” Without realizing it, I stood up.
“When?”
“Last month,” the woman said. “They’ve been running their tests on humans, and they confirmed it last month. They are about to launch it worldwide by the end of the year.”
Impossible. It sounded ridiculous, even.
“How can you be sure?”
Did I really trust her? I’d already been fooled once. And as much as the woman sounded sincere, I still couldn’t let myself believe that easily.
“We have received footage from their first positive test.”
“I want to see it.”
I was so sure they’d tell me that I couldn’t. That they’d make something up, give me a reason to distrust them. But instead, the woman waved her hand, and a TV appeared to our side, just floating on air. Her power must’ve been massive. I doubted Council members could bring anything to existence with a wave of a hand in the Fifth Dimension.
At first, it showed nothing. Then the voices started.
“No, please…please, let me go,” a man was crying. Then came the view.
The room was dark, filled with candles. Two men a
nd a woman were tied to chairs I knew well. I’d wound up their prisoner more than a few times, but in my time no weird circle with other strange figures was drawn in white around the legs of the chairs. Such complicated drawings…I’d only ever seen them in Professor Simmons’s history books. In the right corner was a wooden table, large and covered with glass flasks of every size, containing liquids of every color. McGraw was working on it, mixing two of the blue bottles with a third dark liquid into a needle. It was big. It gave me the chills. I hated needles.
“Please…” the woman cried next. Her voice was so fragile, her dirty hair stuck all over her face.
McGraw acted as if nobody had spoken. He approached the first man and pulled up his sleeve. “No, please! Please!” the man cried. McGraw didn’t even flinch.
He put the sharp point of the needle into the man’s vein. The man screamed—a sound terribly close to those I heard in Lyndor…
It hit me like a flash of lightning. The tortures!
All this time, there’d been innocent humans being tested right under my nose, and I’d done nothing! I thought they were torturing Rebels! I…I felt sick.
It went on and on, as if just to remind me of every night I heard others scream in agony. And I did everything: shut my ears, sang songs in my head, hid myself in the cave—everything except help them. I relived each one of those moments with a new sense of guilt, one that sucked all the air out of the room for me.
Finally, the screaming stopped, and McGraw threw the empty syringe to the floor. The man he emptied the syringe on looked dead, not a muscle moving in his body. McGraw walked around him and undid the cuffs. The man fell to the floor the next second.