Dead Awakenings

by Rebekah R. Ganiere

  “Come to think of it,” Jeff said, “I don’t remember getting paid either.”

  “Evaine. Jeff. I didn’t know. I only give out the flyers. I never meant—”

  “To make them like us? Of course you did. That’s what you get paid for, isn’t it?” Nate narrowed his eyes.

  “No…I—”

  “Well, well, this is a party.” A sour male voice came from the banister to the third floor. It was the Feeder from the alley who had tried to grab Evaine, followed closely by four other Feeders. The smell that they emanated was almost overpowering. She wondered how she had missed it. Aron stood between the two groups, slowly inching his way toward Mac’s apartment.

  The four behind the leader were filthy. The mere sight of them would make a normal person run in fear. Caked in blood and gore, they looked and smelled as if they hadn’t bathed in months.

  “Damien heard that you might be in town again, little miss, and he so wants to have a chat with you.”

  “I’m not feeling very chatty right now.”

  Victor and Luca managed to push Jeff and Aron into Mac’s apartment.

  Nate stepped forward in an effort at diplomacy. “Please let Damien know that any time he would like to come up to see us at Haven House, he is more than welcome.”

  “Damien doesn’t get out much, Nate,” the leader said.

  “I feel at a disadvantage. You seem to know my name, friend, but I don’t know yours,” Nate said.

  “I’m Julius, Damien’s second in command, and unfortunately my orders were to come back with the girl and Mac or not to come back. I quite like where I live, so I am afraid they’ll need to come with me.”

  “Then you’ll have to go through us to get them,” Victor growled. Nate ducked into the apartment as Victor hit the Feeders with a kinetic blast. Luca took Evaine by the arm and pulled her backward into the apartment. The men hit the ground, Victor and Luca made it through the door just before Evaine shoved it closed. Yells and banging ensued outside.

  Nate turned to Mac who had backed as far into the room as he could get. “Come with us and we’ll offer you sanctuary in Haven House. Stay, and you face them alone.”

  Wide-eyed, Mac stuttered incoherently. The hinges on the crumbling door began to bend. He pointed to the window. “Fire escape.”

  Aron, Mac, and Jeff made it out before the door exploded inward. The Feeders descended on the group in a frenzy.

  “Kill them all, and grab the girl!” Julius shouted. Three Feeders charged. In the confusion Victor was unable to get off a blast. Grabbing his boot knife he sliced into the first Feeder he came in contact with. Evaine threw a second Feeder across the room, knocking him out. Luca rushed the third and had him down in a split second, but the Feeder was strong with human feeding, so he and Luca grappled for control. Grabbing the Feeder by the head Luca bashed it into the floor over and over until the Feeder stopped struggling and fell limp. Evaine watched with rapt interest. Luca’s expression was lethal. He snapped the Feeder’s neck.

  Evaine picked up the last remaining Feeder and threw him out the closest window. His cries came to an abrupt end with a thud.

  Julius stood in the middle of the room facing Nate, ready to attack.

  “Stop.” The room swam with Nate’s word echoing around them.

  Julius froze, and his eyes glazed over.

  “You will go to Damien. You will tell him that he has caused war with the Haven Houses. From now on there will be no more food. There will be no more Isis. Our dealings are done. If we hear of Feeders causing deaths, we will not call first, we will act. You will tell him that Evaine is a member of our family and we will protect her with everything we have. You’ll go now and not stop until you have reached him.”

  Julius ran straight out of the apartment. The group stood listening to him run out of the building.

  “This will not bode well for any of us.” Nate planted a fist at his hip. “We need to get word out immediately to the other Haven Houses. I don’t expect that they’ll want a war any more than we do, but we can’t let this go. If Damien’s so brazen as to come to try to take Evaine by force twice, what’s to stop him from trying to get anyone?”

  Evaine’s mind whirled. Why was she so special? “Why does he want me so badly?”

  Luca took her in his arms. Fear crawled over her limbs. He pulled her in tighter.

  “I have no idea,” Nate said. “I’ve never known Damien to be interested in anyone.”

  The Feeder Evaine had thrown to the wall roused, moaning. He got to his feet sluggishly. Evaine pinned him to the wall.

  “What about this one?” Victor looked ready to slice him.

  “Let him go,” Nate said.

  “Wait.” Aron stuck his head through the window. “We need to take him with us. Mac said his contact for the drug trials is Damien. That one might have more information for us.”

  “Victor, bring him.” Nate motioned toward the Feeder.

  Victor grabbed the Feeder by the neck. When he struggled, Victor flicked the knife to his throat. “I want to use this.” Victor held the knife steady. The Feeder stopped. One by one the group went out the window and down to the car. Jeff was shaken, but calm. Mac looked like he was going to puke, and the Feeder scanned back and forth constantly. When they hit the street the body of the Feeder Evaine had throw out the window lay on the front steps of Mac’s building. Nate and Luca walked over to the broken form, picked it up and carried it to the car.

  Aron tranquilized the remaining Feeder, and Victor threw him in with the dead body. The smell of the Feeders overpowered the car, and they were forced to roll down the windows to keep the stench at bay.

  Nate and Luca were deep in conversation in the front seat. Everyone had been quiet for much of the drive when someone leaned over Evaine’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Evaine.” Mac spoke in a quiet voice. “I had to do it. I couldn’t stand being like this anymore, and they promised me that if I brought in more people that they would find a cure and I’d be the first to receive it.”

  She glanced back, incredulous. “And you believed them?”

  “Well, yes.” He creased his brow.

  “So you traded my life for yours? Traded Jeff’s life, for yours?”

  Mac didn’t answer. Evaine stared, the cracks in his facade became more apparent. His makeup had smeared, showing his pale skin beneath. His hair needed to be colored, tufts of white sprouted from his scalp. He was pathetic, but worse, he was a coward.

  Evaine turned on him, giving him a telepathic shove. He flew back into his seat. Holding him there she squeezed.

  “Never. Speak. To me. Again.”

  She let him go and whipped around in her seat. She wanted nothing more than to crack Mac’s neck with her grip. Evaine wrapped her arms around herself trying to hold in the building rage. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, the lump in her throat big enough to choke her. Evaine opened her eyes and glanced into the rearview mirror. Luca winked and then looked back at the road.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “What do you mean she’s gone?” Nate asked for the third time. Bobby Lee, John Casey, and Ronan continued to stare at him.

  “Karen told me Abbey needed some help on her PC in the upper house, so I went up. When I realized that Abbey didn’t ask for me I ran back down here. There was nothing out of place so I thought maybe Karen was joking. When I went down with Cami to feed the Forgotten, Simone was gone. I immediately called Bobby and John and they said that Karen had taken the Explorer and left.”

  “We didn’t know, boss.” Bobby Lee shoved his hands in his pockets. “She said she was just goin’ out for a ride and she’d be back later. We didn’t know she had someone in there with her. No one ever told us not to let people out without permission.”

  “No.” Nate sighed and rubbed his head. “No, Bobby, it’s fine. No one knew. She’d been with us for so long. How could we possibly have known that she would sell us out?”

  “Karen Stimson?” M
ac asked timidly. Every eye in the room turned to him.

  “You know her?” Nate growled.

  Mac swallowed hard. “She was Damien’s girl before she left the Feeders. Said she couldn’t take the filth anymore.”

  “Did Damien send her here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you know about her?” Luca asked.

  “Not much. She’s power hungry and tried to latch onto whomever she felt would benefit her the most. For a while it was Julius, but she just used him to get to Damien. There was a meeting while I was there a while ago; they were discussing the Haven Houses. She seemed intrigued with the fact that you guys had done so well in the real world. She left a week later.”

  “I always said it was weird how we found her,” Luca said.

  “Where did you find her?” Mac asked.

  “We found her in an alley way. We’d heard of a newborn who was killing people, and we went to investigate. We were getting the newborn into the van when she walked up, crying and acting all freaked out, begging us to take her too.”

  “Why would Karen turn against us though?” Ronan asked.

  “Because of me.” Luca shook his head. “I’d been ignoring her advances for years. Then Evaine showed up and it really set her off. Evaine said Karen sent her up to the computer room when you and Abbey were talking. She wanted Evaine out of here. A couple of days ago I found Evaine almost ready to kill Karen in the kitchen.”

  “Luca, man, you have all the fun. What is it with you and the crazy chicks?” Victor laughed.

  Nate’s cell buzzed. He looked at the text. “The Feeder’s awake. We should speak to him. Ronan, Bobby Lee, John Casey, you stay here. I need you three to start figuring out a way to secure this place even more than it already is. If Damien decides to come here and pick a fight, we need to have security measures in place that he won’t already know about from Karen.”

  Luca, Nate, Aron, and Victor all turned to leave.

  “What…what about me?” Mac asked weakly.

  “You?” Luca seized him by the collar and pulled him to his feet. “You come with us. When we are done with this Feeder, you’re up next.”

  * * *

  Evaine stood watching the Feeder pace back and forth. He roared at her, spraying the glass with spit. His bloodshot eyes and filthy appearance made him look crazed. His hair was greasy and matted; his skin scabby from being picked at. He looked exactly like the zombies she had seen in horror movies. There was a wound on his arm that had been there a while. The flesh inside had begun to rot, and she wondered if Aron would be able to fix it.

  Empathy overtook her. This used to be somebody. He probably had a family once. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Maybe a little brother that he used to play ball with. Or a dog he used to walk—Kale! Where was her dog? Suddenly she needed to talk to Tristan. She was about to run to the upper house to find him when she remembered he’d gone home.

  Luca, Nate, Victor, and Mac came down the hall. Luca jogged up to her, feeling her distress.

  “What’s wrong, did he do something?”

  “No, it’s nothing. I just…it’s nothing.”

  He smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead.

  Mac stood a little off, watching her.

  “Has he said anything?” Luca motioned to the Feeder.

  “No, not unless you consider wailing a form of communication.”

  “Well, we need him to talk.” Nate’s mouth formed a grim line.

  “What if he can’t?” she asked.

  “He can.” Mac cleared his throat. “His name is Adam. He has no humanity, but he can talk. And he can be reasoned with, well, bargained with, I should say. That’s how Damien does it. They do what he wants; he gives them what they want most.”

  “And what’s that?” Luca asked.

  “Sport…and food.”

  They eyed the Feeder in disgust. “What do you mean sport?”

  “Damien had an arena built. Humans fight and then they die.”

  Evaine thought she was going to be sick. She had to steady herself on Luca’s arm to keep from falling over. What kind of crazed madman was this Damien?

  “Well, we have human.” Luca’s tone was matter-of-fact. “It won’t be very sporting to eat it out of a bowl, but we could get some.”

  “Let’s try to talk first. Then if we have to, we will.” Nate gave a single nod.

  The group faced the cell glass. The Feeder stopped pacing and yelled at them.

  Nate leaned toward the com and pressed a button. “What’s your name?”

  There was no reply.

  “What is your name?”

  Still no reply.

  “We want to help you. If you tell us what we need to know, we can get you what you want. Clean you up, get your arm taken care of, and get you food.”

  “Foooooood!” Adam bellowed.

  “Not until you answer my questions. Now again, what is your name?”

  “Adam.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Adam. I am Nate, and this is my house. I want to know what Damien is doing and why he wants this girl so badly.”

  Adam looked at Evaine. He licked his lips. It made Evaine step closer to Luca, who put his arm around her.

  “The girl is special. She’s better. Damien wants her for himself. He wants to see why she is the way she is. He wants to take her apart and make more like her.”

  Aron stepped up to the com. “So Damien is in charge of the experiments?”

  “Noooo. The lady doctor.”

  “What lady doctor?” Aron shot Nate a glance.

  “She fooled you and got away, and now she will do one more test. She will try one more time to fix it, and then she will disappear.”

  “Fix it? Fix what?” Nate’s tone carried an edge of urgency.

  “The man. She already started. Another batch of humans are ready. They will wake soon and then she will know if she has finally found the way to fix him.”

  Aron drilled his stare into the Feeder. “There are more newborns getting ready to awaken?”

  Adam laughed. “You can’t find these ones. They’re at Damien’s house.”

  “When will they wake up?” Nate asked.

  Adam snorted and laughed again.

  “When?” Aron hit the glass.

  Adam’s laughter grew hysterical, and he rushed the glass pointing at Evaine. A shiver skittered over her. “You will help the lady doctor fix the man.”

  “The doctor from the raid,” Evaine said quietly.

  “What?” Luca looked at her, cocking his head.

  “The woman doctor, the one from the raid. The one who stuck me in the arm with the syringe; she’s the one who’s behind all this. She slipped out when Tristan shot me. We had her, right in our hands, and I let her get away when my ability slipped.”

  “You can’t blame yourself. You got shot. That would happen to anyone with a hole in their chest,” Aron said.

  “If I’d done what you said, if I had fed first I wouldn’t have been that bad and I could have held on to her. Then all of this would be over.”

  “Don’t.” Luca looked into her eyes. “This isn’t your fault. If it’s anyone’s, it’s Tristan’s for shooting you.”

  She didn’t speak. Yes, Tristan did shoot her, and if he hadn’t then maybe they would have caught the doctor. Maybe if she had never even gone to that drug trial…maybe if what? If she had never been born? It couldn’t all be her fault.

  “Food.” Adam rubbed his temples with closed fists.

  “We’ll see that you get some. After you wash and change and clean up. Not first,” Nate said.

  Adam howled at the ceiling.

  “You’re up!” Victor pulled on Mac’s collar.

  Mac let out a yelp like a kicked puppy.

  Aron, Luca, Nate, and Victor spoke to Mac. They said it might be better if Evaine stayed out of the room for the time being. She decided to stay right outside. Talking to him was not an option, but she did want to hear what he
had to stay.

  When they emerged Mac looked a little worse for wear. Victor escorted Mac down to his new cell. Luca and Nate continued talking in low voices for a few more minutes. Finally, Nate noticed Evaine and ended their conversation.

  “What happened?” she asked Luca as he exited the room.

  “He didn’t tell us much more than we already knew. Apparently after he left here he went to Damien’s for a short while before deciding to pick up his old life. He’s so obsessed with going back to the way things were before that he made a deal with Damien. Mac would supply more people for the experiments and in return when they found a cure he would be the first to get it.”

  “But why would they want to cure us?”

  “I don’t think they do. They’re using him as much as anyone else; he just wanted to believe them so badly.”

  “You feel sorry for him,” Evaine said.

  “No, not sorry, but I do understand. He doesn’t want to be like this. Do you want to be like this? Honestly?”

  Evaine couldn’t deny it—she didn’t. It wasn’t that was so necessarily bad as much as it was harder than she wanted it to be. She shook her head.

  “So I understand that. He did tell us a few things that are a little confusing. It seems that Mac got the impression that Damien isn’t necessarily the one in charge of the Feeders.”

  “The doctor?”

  “Possibly. After all she is the one doing the experiments.”

  “She seemed familiar when I saw her.”

  “Someone from your old life?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You should think about that. If we could find out who she is, we might be able to find out why she’s doing this.”

  “What did Adam mean by ‘She’s trying to fix the man’?”

  “No clue.”

  “So you weren’t lying when you said you didn’t really find out anything new.”

  “The only thing we found out is where we think the last batch of newborns are.”

  “At Damien’s house, right? Where is his house?”

  “That’s the thing. Damien doesn’t live in a house. He lives in Manhattan in the underground. They live in the tunnels under the city. Sewers, abandoned subways, and other tunnels. We’ve sent a few people there before, working on diplomacy, but they’ve always been blindfolded. We asked Shandy if she has any idea where exactly she was taken, and she doesn’t. She has the location of where she met Julius and then she knows where they took her down into the tunnels, but nothing exact. Even Mac and Cami can’t remember the specifics. They say it’s a labyrinth down there.”