Dark Vengeance Part 2

by Reinke, Sara

  He looked up at Aaron, ashamed. In that moment, as with Julianne, he caught a sudden flash of Aaron’s memories—not Aaron actively projecting them, as his brother Julien had done, but Brandon’s own telepathy awakening after its drug-induced hibernation. He felt it surge within him, his mind opening fully, and he broke through Aaron’s defenses, the natural shields he’d erected to protect his innermost thoughts and feelings, memories he had struggled to protect from his father—or anyone else.

  He saw the night of Lamar’s five hundredth birthday through Aaron’s eyes, or at least those fleeting moments after which he’d regained consciousness while strapped to the gurney. At first he hadn’t remembered what had happened to him, or where he was. He only knew that his arm hurt; his entire body, but especially his left arm, felt like it had been plunged into a bank of well-stoked embers, submerged from shoulder to fingertips among the red-hot coals. He opened his mouth, sucking in a deep breath to scream, but stopped when he sensed something—someone—in the room with him.

  It wasn’t Julianne or his brother, even though they would sometimes be with him whenever he’d come to, cleaning him up and offering him comfort. It wasn’t Lamar, even though he, too, would sometimes come to sit with Aaron following whatever beatings or abuse he’d been made to endure. As a man who’d once derived sexual satisfaction almost exclusively from the acts of either forcing himself on an unwilling partner or by inflicting pain and humiliation on even the most agreeable of lovers, Lamar enjoyed watching the administration of punishment and pain upon Aaron—and was equally fascinated by his son’s stubborn refusal to physically give in to it by crying out. Over the years, it had become a challenge to him to see just how much Aaron could take. It was a threshold that hadn’t been crossed by the night of his birthday celebration—or since.

  On that night, it had been a young boy whose presence had drawn Aaron’s attention. He’d found the boy—all wide, frightened eyes and dark, unruly hair—standing beside him, ashen and trembling. His gaze kept darting to Aaron’s left arm, and Aaron remembered now in grisly detail that the skin had been removed—Julianne had cut it from him in long, slender ribbons, meticulously fashioning each incision and slice so as to minimize damage to his underlying tissue, and to maximize the excruciating pain the grueling process had demanded.

  The boy was Brethren; Aaron could feel the familiar sensation in his mind, even though by that point it had been more than a century since he’d seen any others of his kind except for his brother, cousin, or father. He clutched at the boy’s hand, hurting, exhausted. The physical contact triggered something within Aaron, a sensation of a deeper, more visceral sort—the realization that he and this boy shared much more in common than their Brethren heritage.

  “Please,” he moaned, speaking simultaneously with his mind. You’re like me, he wanted to say, but the pain was so immense. It pulled at his consciousness as relentlessly as the tide, threatening to drag him under, to drown him. You’ve tasted the first blood.

  I…I’ll get help, the boy whimpered, wiggling his way free from Aaron’s grasp.

  No, Aaron pleaded. He wanted to warn the boy; he struggled against the cuff restraining his right arm to reach for him. No, please…don’t…!

  Because the boy didn’t understand. If Lamar found him—if he realized there was another like Aaron with the first blood within him—he’d be trapped just like Aaron.

  Don’t come back, he’d wanted to tell him.

  I’ll get help, the boy said as he scampered away. I’ll get my dad. I…I’ll be right back…!

  “No, don’t!” Aaron had screamed aloud, ragged and hoarse, summoning his voice at last. It had taken every last remaining ounce of strength he’d possessed; he’d been unable cry out telepathically to the child, unable to even hold on to the last vestiges of consciousness left in his mind. “No,” he pleaded, but it had been too late—the boy was gone. “No, you…you can’t…”

  * * *

  Aaron staggered back, shoving the heels of his hands against his temples, his brows knitted in a deep furrow, his teeth clenched as if he felt pain.

  “Get…out of my head…!” he gasped. He still clasped the gun in one hand, and began to hit himself with the side of the barrel, as if hoping to pummel Brandon out of his memories. “Get out of my head—get out of my goddamn head!”

  With a hoarse cry, he thrust the gun out and squeezed the trigger. He wasn’t aiming at anything or anyone in particular, but Brandon cowered reflexively, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders at the sudden, bright flash of gunpowder.

  His eyes wide and panic-stricken, Aaron fired again and again, each time swinging his arm in a new and different direction, spraying the entire room with bullets. Glass showered down from overhead, along with an explosion of sparks as a bullet hit one of the light fixtures. When another struck the stainless steel wheel to which Julianne had planned to bind and keep Augustus, it ricocheted with a flash of sparks, then struck the floor less than a foot away from Brandon’s knee. Bullets flew into the walls, the ceiling, and sailed into the farthermost corners and shadow-veiled recesses of the room. Even when the clip was empty, Aaron continued squeezing the trigger, arm swinging back and forth, wild and pendulum-like. At last, the gun fell from his hand, clattering to the floor, and Aaron collapsed to his knees.

  “He was in my head,” he gasped, his chest heaving, his eyes round and desperate as he stared at Brandon. “Please…God, he was inside my head.”

  Not me, Brandon realized, lowering his hands from his face. Lamar. He’s been trying to get his father out of his mind.

  He glanced over his shoulder and saw Lamar lying on his back on the floor. Julianne had folded herself over him, hiding his face, and it took Brandon a moment to realize this wasn’t a protective posture, but a grief-stricken one. Her entire body shuddered as she clutched at her uncle, and when she looked up at Aaron, her mouth hung open in a scream, her cheeks wet with fresh tears.

  “Bastard!” she screamed. Brandon saw blood on the front of her dress—Lamar’s blood. At least one of Aaron’s shots hadn’t proven so random after all, and this time, it didn’t appear that the old man was playing possum.

  “You bastard!” she screeched, staggering to her feet. “He…he’s dead, you bastard! You killed him!”

  Fists balled, she stumbled over to Aaron and began to punch him, swinging wildly and striking him in the face, head, and shoulders. “He gave us everything! Everything we ever had! He made you what you are, you worthless son of a bitch—you’re nothing without him!” Again and again, she pummeled him, sobbing all the while. “You’re nothing without Lamar!”

  He’s free without him. Brandon grabbed her roughly by the arm and spun her around to face him. Before she could open her mouth to gasp in shock—or summon another of those devastating psionic bolts to use against him—he punched her in the face with all of his might, feeling her nose crunch at the impact of his knuckles, her front teeth jarring loose from the force.

  Julianne crumpled in a heap, out cold from the blow. Brandon looked down at her, his heart seized with a mixture of pity and disgust. Then he turned, holding out his hand to Aaron.

  Can you walk? he asked.

  Aaron blinked dazedly at him, then nodded. Hooking his hand against Brandon’s, he let the younger man pull him to his feet. “I…I think so.”

  Good, Brandon said. I say we get the hell out of here.

  Aaron managed a feeble smile. “Sounds good.”

  * * *

  They leaned heavily against each other like the blind—or in this case, the deaf-mute—leading the lame as they limped toward the doors.

  Hang on a minute, Aaron said, and when he paused, Brandon glanced up at him. “I need to check on something first,” he said aloud—and didn’t need to add that the something was Lamar.

  Brandon nodded. Okay.

  Aaron walked slowly past his father’s wheelchair, which had tipped onto its side when Lamar had been shot, then knelt next to his father’s
body. Reaching down, he tucked his fingertips beneath the shelf of the old chin, feeling for a pulse.

  Is he…? Brandon asked, even though the answer seemed pretty obvious, even from a distance. Although his telepathic prowess had been formidable, Lamar hadn’t been a physically well man by anyone’s stretch of the definition. That his already pale skin had turned the color of plumbing putty and the frail expanse of his chest now appeared sunken around a single, blood-soaked depression near the breast pocket of his suit coat boded anything but good.

  Yeah. Aaron managed a brief nod, letting his hand slip away from his father’s neck. He remained on his knees for a long moment beside him.

  Are you okay? Brandon asked, even though again, the answer seemed pretty obvious.

  “I’ve been better,” Aaron said with a ragged laugh. Then he looked up at Brandon with a nearly pleading expression. “He was inside my mind. Everything he’s ever done to me…every part he’s ever hurt or scarred…” He forked his fingers through his hair and uttered a long, shuddering sigh. “I think that’s the closest I ever came to breaking.”

  How’d you know where he was to shoot him? Brandon asked.

  “I didn’t,” Aaron admitted. “But when you mentioned finding me down here years ago, I recognized you. I remembered your eyes…everything. And I knew he was here somewhere, making me see things, think things…fucking with my head.”

  You saw me that night, Brandon said. When I was a kid. You knew I was there. You knew we were alike. But you never said anything. You never told your father about me—or anyone else—even though it could’ve saved you.

  Aaron smiled. “Yeah, well, I had to be able to live with myself when it was all said and done. Just like you.” Reaching up, he caught Brandon by the hand again, letting the younger man help him stand. “Come on, kid. Let’s get you home.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Lina woke with a start. She sucked in a startled breath as she sat up, smacking nose-first into Augustus’s cheek, close enough to the angle of his jaw to catch a sudden whiff of Serge Lutens’ Borneo 1874.

  With a happy little groan, she breathed in deeply, closing her eyes as she stretched her limbs, cat-like and sleepy. For some strange reason she couldn’t quite remember, she felt like her body had turned into taffy, all warm and gooey. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, not by a mile, and she allowed herself to sink back into it—and the scent of Augustus’s cologne—rather comfortably.

  “You smell really good,” she murmured. “Have I ever mentioned that?”

  “You have not, no,” he replied, the tone of his voice lending itself to a smile. “And thank you.”

  She opened her eyes again, blinking sleepily. At first, all she could focus on was him—his face, the measure of his mouth, the upturned corners of his lips as he regarded her. Or, more specifically…

  “You’re glowing.” Her hand felt strange as she lifted it, as if her muscles had all been replaced by helium balloons, and it now rose almost effortlessly, weightlessly from the nest of her lap. As her fingertips brushed his cheek, she giggled. “You’re all sparkly…like that movie vampire.”

  “Your eyes are still light sensitive from the bloodlust,” he told her, catching her wayward hand—from her perspective before it floated off toward the ceiling, untethered—and lightly kissing her knuckles. “That’s all.”

  The bloodlust.

  Up until that moment, she’d had only hazy, distant, dream-like awareness of anything or anyone around her except for Augustus, and none whatsoever about their circumstances or surroundings, or how they’d come to be in either. But all at once, it came back to her, crashing into her brain with all of the force of a runaway freight train, and she sat bolt upright, her eyes flying wide.

  Oh, shit! She swept her gaze around and saw Tejano sitting across from them on a nearby sofa. The blonde from the hot tub, Peaches, sat beside him, all smiles as she sucked on an orange wedge.

  Lina had come to be reclined across Augustus’s lap, with his arm around her shoulders and his other hand rubbing almost idly up and down the length of one of her legs. His suit coat had been draped over her from shoulders to mid-thigh. A quick peek beneath confirmed what she vaguely recalled and had clearly dreaded—she was naked.

  Oh, shit.

  Her hand fluttered up to the side of her neck. She felt the ragged, tender edges of two small wounds. Bite marks.

  Oh, shit.

  “How…long was I out?” Lina said through her teeth to Augustus as she forced an awkward smile.

  “Not long,” Peaches said brightly. Leaning forward, she traded the now-desiccated orange slice for a fresh one from the fruit tray on the table. “I guess maybe a half an hour or so.”

  At first, Lina saw no sign of Mercedes, but then caught a glimpse of her just beyond Tejano’s shoulder, on the far side of the room. She had her back to the couch and was on her knees in front of one of Tejano’s henchmen, obviously sucking on something that was not an orange wedge. Judging by the big, shit-eating grin Peaches awarded Lina as she wriggled closer to Tejano, she was delighted with this fortuitous turn of events.

  “How are you feeling, belleza?” Tejano asked Lina with a knowing sort of smile that suggested he knew exactly how she felt, and found it funny as hell.

  “I’m fine.” Lina hunched her shoulders, trying to hide better beneath Augustus’s coat. “But I hope you got the license plate of that Mack truck that ran me over.”

  Tejano tipped his head back and laughed. “The juice—it’s powerful stuff,” he said. With a wink, he added, “And as with so many things, the first time’s always the roughest.”

  Lina faked a smile again. “Yeah. No kidding.” She glanced at Augustus and was grateful to see that the illusion of him glowing had diminished considerably. Everything still looked a lot brighter than normal, but nowhere near as dazzling as when she’d first come to. She noticed a pretty good sized damp patch on the front of his shirt near her cheek and winced. Great, she thought. I drooled, too.

  And, if memory served, that wasn’t all she’d done, at least as far as Augustus was concerned. She found herself hunkering down all the more, trying to burrow beneath his jacket and hide.

  “Getting back to matters of business, Augustus,” Tejano said, adding with another leering sort of smile at Lina. “Although the distraction wasn’t entirely unwelcome or unpleasant…”

  “Of course.” Augustus tipped his head in a nod. He continued speaking aloud, and kept his gaze directed at Tejano, but his telepathic voice in Lina’s mind made her jump. Are you alright? I didn’t hurt you, did I?

  He sounded worried.

  No, she replied. I mean, I’m alright. You didn’t hurt me. My pride’s a little bruised up, maybe…

  Why? he asked. Because of what happened?

  You mean me giving you a drug-induced lap dance? Lina asked, and God, she felt her cheeks blaze with humiliated color just to admit it. Yeah. That.

  It wasn’t a drug. He chuckled in her mind. It was the bloodlust, ma chéri, he said. I told you before, its effects are very powerful, virtually impossible to ignore. It would seem Tejano’s juice has given you a modest taste of what it is like to be of the Brethren…and what we must struggle against every day.

  Lina frowned. Spare me the bullshit, Augustus, and tell me if you see my clothes anywhere close.

  He cut her a glance. You felt it for yourself, he said, seeming genuinely surprised. You still don’t believe there are portions of our nature that are incontrovertible? His brow arched and as she started to grumble in reply, he added, Because if you don’t, then what I’m left to believe is that what happened earlier between us was by choice—our free wills. That our behavior was well within our power to control or prevent…and we both chose not to.

  She glared at him because goddammit, he had her there. Shut up, Augustus.

  He laughed out loud.

  “Something strikes you as amusing?” Tejano asked.

  “I beg your pardon,” Augustus said. �
��Of course not, no. Another…distraction.”

  As he spoke, Augustus stroked Lina’s leg along her calf, and if it hadn’t felt so goddamn nice, she would have slapped his hand away. Catching on that she’d been Augustus’s distraction, Tejano smiled and nodded.

  “While we’re on the subject again, let me tell you one thing that has kept distracting me tonight,” he remarked, leaning forward and pouring the last of the tequila into a shot glass for himself. “And that is the coincidence of you finding me, our paths crossing as they have.” Raising the glass, he downed the liquor in a single swallow, no salt or lime chaser needed. Smacking his lips together appreciatively, he regarded Augustus, his brow raised. “Tell me again, amigo, how it is you came to contact me.”

  His tone was amicable enough, his mouth spread in a charming sort of smile, but there was something in his eyes, a hardened glint of icy light, that made Lina shiver, despite the warmth of Augustus’s hand against her leg, his jacket over her body.

  “Of course.” If Augustus took notice of this shift in Tejano’s eyes, he gave no outward indication. He was either oblivious as hell, or had a terrific poker face. “I’ve been in town for the past week visiting my paramour…” With this, he draped his hand against Lina’s left thigh. “Her mother lives here in Bayshore. She has been ill of late.”

  “Ah.” Tejano nodded once, cutting his gaze briefly to Lina. “My sympathies.”

  “Thanks,” Lina murmured.

  “I heard mention of your name on the news,” Augustus continued. “I recognized it right away…as I’m sure there are few who did not.”

  Tejano seemed to visibly relax a bit at this. His smile grew a bit broader, and some of the subtle tension that had tightened his shoulders eased. “You’re too kind,” he said—but it was obvious his ego had been stoked, which Lina suspected had been Augustus’s very intention.