by A. F. Henley
Oh, shit. Oh, goddamn. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Doren yanked the door open and raced to the front of the car where a small form was struggling to her feet. He grabbed her arm and spun her, certain beyond belief that he would see a bloodied and ripped face, but she was, surprisingly, unharmed. "Medea?"
She looked up, eyes as large as saucers, and opened her mouth in surprise. "Doren!"
He felt down her arms, keeping his eyes on her face. "Are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?"
"No, I'm fine." She giggled, catching his hand and holding it to her chest. "That tickles!"
The music from the car thrummed in the background. Her chest felt wild under his hand: tiny, bony, almost bird-like in its fragility. "Good. I can't believe it was you. Thank God it was you. What are you doing all the way downtown?"
Medea pouted, and breathed a heavy sigh. "Everyone else was busy. They're always busy. Run, run, run and I sit and do nothing. It's soooo boring. So I thought I would go shopping and then when I got here I realized it was too late and everything was closed."
He didn't even know what her last two sentences had been. He'd stopped listening, watching her sway to the sound from the car, her eyes lit and her smile wild. "Oh, I like that. Who is it?"
Doren spread his hand, still clasped and held to her chest, and laid it flat on her breastbone. It felt like a twig under his hand, like he could snap it without resistance.
He could feel her watching him, lifted his eyes to catch and hold, her tongue darting between glossy lips like a snake's. Keeping his gaze, Medea slipped his hand to the right so it rested on her breast. They were barely breasts, nipples really, and hard under his palm. "New band," he grinned. "Maybe mine. Why don't you come in the car and listen for a while?"
"Ooh," she breathed seductively, her voice soft and high. "I'd like that. Can I?"
He took her hand and opened the car door. "I would like nothing better."
She slid past, brushing against Doren the entire way, and he helped her step into the low seat. He shut the door behind her, his body already racing, while electric guitar wailed through his head.
August
"Why are we here?" August eyed the massive house through the limo window and then turned to watch the iron gates close slowly behind, shutting him away from the rest of the world.
"This is where he asked me to bring you, mister."
"He didn't want me to go to the office?"
"No mister, he said the house."
August caught the inside of his cheek with his teeth, unsure as to why his heart was racing but taking it as a pretty trustworthy sign that he shouldn't be there. "Have you seen Doren arrive at all?"
"Not before I left to get you, mister. Of course, he may have arrived since. Please, let me get the door for you. I'll be around in just one second."
August shook his head. "No, it's okay. I'm a big boy. I got it."
The driver turned in his seat and smiled sadly as August stepped out. "I don't know, mister. You seem like a very small boy to me. Be careful."
He stood and watched the driver pull away, frowning, suddenly more afraid than seconds prior. Heavy trees hung close to the house, hiding it within their shadows. It was set way back from the road and miles away from the core of the city. But with the car gone, and the gates closed, August didn't have many choices at his disposal. With a sigh that sounded too much like a whine, and steps that seemed to drag, August walked up to the door. It was answered before he knocked by a small Asian woman that did not speak, motioning with her hands. She waved August into a foyer of black marble, through a parlor lined with thick, dark drapes and towards an elaborate staircase of wrought iron.
"Actually," August paused at the stairs. "I think I'll just wait down here if you don't mind."
The house-girl shook her head in an exaggerated no, waving insistently. Frowning in annoyance, August followed. He was led down yet another hall embellished with the photos of beautiful women, all in black and white, all fabulous. August recognized all three of the secretaries as he passed their photos and it gave him a shiver up his spine. What was that anyway? Some kind of disgusting trophy of the women in Anton's life? The man brought creepy to a whole new level.
He would have believed the room he was brought to was an office but for the intricately carved bed in the middle of the room. A fire burned cheerily in the grate, two wine glasses sparkled on the desk, and August relaxed a little. Okay, if all he was going to have to do was fight off the advances of some disturbing self-important sleaze, he could handle that. Or maybe, just maybe, he'd let Anton do it. After all, that ought to teach that jerk Doren a lesson. Who knows? Maybe if he played his cards right he might end up more important than Doren in a year. Maybe he'd be the one calling all the shots.
"Ah, August." Anton's voice raked over August's skin like nails on a chalkboard.
Yeah, right, August corrected himself. Like he'd let this guy get anywhere near him. Not for a million dollars. Not a billion.
Anton shut the door behind him and walked into the room, all cock and swagger, as August's grandmother would have said. He helped himself to a glass of wine and took a long drink without offering one back. "Thank you so much for coming over, August. Are you well? You really didn't sound yourself on the phone."
August lifted his chin; that was not a conversation he was going to have with Anton. "I'm actually a little busy tonight so if we can get right down to business, that would be great."
"Your choice," Anton waved, his voice suddenly cold. "Morana?"
She seemed to appear from nowhere but had obviously been hiding in the shadows of the room. At least, August hoped that was the truth. That was the truth he was going to believe anyway.
"You remember our mutual friend, don't you, August?" August looked into the woman's shining black eyes and everything from the night at the club flooded back to him: her rough hands, the dank bathroom, her warning. August spun on his heel, his mind already summoning a "fuck this, I'm out of here", and stepped directly into Anton's arms before he had a chance to spill the words. August bit his tongue to hold back his reaction, and Anton laughed despite the recovery. As though he'd heard August shriek anyway. As though he knew.
"Oh, my." Anton leaned in and glared. "You're right, Morana. So very tasty."
The cold smile on Morana's face made August's knees weak. "Yes, but such a shame he gave it away to your boy. It would have been so much more fun to take it from him, don't you think?"
He almost told them they were wrong. He almost said it hadn't happened. Not really, not the way they were thinking anyway. He didn't. And he immediately shut the thought from his mind as well. Just in case.
Anton tossed him towards Morana who caught him easily, holding him tight, crushing his chest against her hard body.
"That's all right," Anton said, reaching for the poker and resting it in the fire. "I'm sure we can make him scream regardless."
Doren
They hadn't driven two blocks before Medea's hands started to explore him, rubbing him, teasing him; making it too hard to think of driving. He pulled into an alley and pushed on the emergency brake, clicking on the interior lights as an afterthought. "I want to see you," he growled. "I want to see all of you."
Grinning, Medea pulled back and yanked off her sweater. Bare white skin shone in the light, tiny hard nipples and that body—so slim he could count rib bones if he cared to.
Cherub lips pouted, her big eyes glinted like the Devil's own. "That's not fair. I don't get to see you."
Doren opened his jeans and released himself. "Yeah well, life's not fair."
Anton
August struggled against him, and the more August did, the more excited Anton grew. "Oh, August," Anton growled against his neck, egging the boy's reaction, winding the little prick up. "So sad, so heartbroken. How is our Doren doing these days? Has he started to finally develop into the talent that he really is? Come on now, gorgeous, let's share. All up close and personal-like, hmm? Be honest, August, I'll l
isten. Did Doren break your heart, darling?"
August's refusal to answer his question annoyed him. He picked August up and threw him on the messy bed. He laughed as August gagged on the scent wafting up from the sheets. "Do you like that, pretty boy?" He leaned over the foot of the bed, grabbing August's ankle before he could scramble away. He took a deep breath and waved the air with his free hand. "So lovely, no? Do you know what that wonderful odor is, August? Do you recognize it?"
He watched the panic grow in August's eyes, smirking, enjoying August's fear. It made him hard. He couldn't wait to hear August screaming. Begging. Promising anything if Anton would only stop. A hundred prayers spoken, wept, and every one of them as sweet as the last had been. Futile … but sweet. He grabbed August's shirt and pulled August forward until August knelt in front of him, face to face. He pulled his lips back over his teeth and snarled, "It's death."
Doren
Though his body was responsive his mind was barely on the mass of red hair in his lap. Seventh track, final verse—hear the lyrics, feel the music—remember it all, know it all, let it pound, pound, pound. His fingers itched to break something, to feel it crumble in his palm, to tug something apart and spill its insides out. Teeth bared, he reached into the tumble of hair and snagged Medea up to look at him. Her lips were plumped from her efforts, her cheeks flushed with exertion, but it was her eyes that drew him. The music raged inside his mind, tearing through his senses and flying along his nerves like angry wasps. Somewhere, someone whispered to him, in words he could barely hear, "It's death."
August
Oh God, it couldn't end like this. Not like this, with some sick freak and his even sicker mistress. His parents would never even know what happened to him. They would probably never even find him. He would just become another number, another missing body. Another lost soul in the midst of millions.
August closed his eyes, shutting the sight of Anton out. They were too strong. Morana was right, he should have just left. If only Doren was there. He'd tossed Anton like the man had been a feather. August remembered how the air had seemed to surge when Doren did it. How angry Doren had been. August had been furious too. The exchange between them, between Doren and him, had been almost electrical. "Don't let him fucking touch me," August had screamed at Doren even though the words had never left his mouth. And just like that Doren had … summoned would be the closest word … this power. Like Doren had been possessed or something. Hadn't he? Or had he? Doren hadn't been looking at Anton; he didn't think Doren had even been thinking about Anton at the time. No, he'd been the one who'd seen Anton reach. He'd been the one who had hated the thought of Anton's touch. He'd been the one who wanted to shove Anton away. And yes, he was the one who had pushed the thought into Doren's mind. He just hadn't admitted it to himself.
It wasn't the first time either. He'd seen it before. The right person, with the right skill, and August would be drawn to them in a moment of need, and things would just … work out.
He'd used whatever it was that tracked into Doren's mind, whatever it was that Doren picked up and transferred into the energy and power that had made Doren the star he was, and August had twisted it into a physical force that had been strong enough to throw a man across the room. Knowing that, however, didn't do him a damn bit of good if Doren was nowhere to be found.
He watched Morana approach the bed, fear gripping his throat, compressing the pleas that should have been tumbling from his throat. A slap, strong enough to send him reeling against the filthy sheets, shook August's face.
"God damn you, you ignorant little cur," Anton hissed. "You fucking look at me when I'm talking to you!"
Doren
Doren couldn't say why he did it. Only that the feeling was so powerful, so intense, it alone could have finished the job that Medea had started in his lap. She turned back to him, the blood dripping from her split lip, and grinned. "So," she smirked. "You like it rough then?"
His knuckles smarted where they'd met her teeth and Doren brought them to his mouth, tasting her blood. She watched his every move, lips parted, leaning close, and when she looked up with a grin and a mock in those devilish eyes of hers, he hit her again.
Medea fell back into the passenger seat and he grabbed her face with both hands, dragging his thumbs over her jaw, through the blood that spilled from her nose and lip. With painted hands Doren reached for her throat, his body hard and tense.
"Yes," she moaned, resting her head back and exposing the full expanse of her neck to him. "Yes!"
Doren gritted his teeth and tightened his hold.
August
The old woman was on him before August could squirm out of the way. Bright red drops fell from his broken lip, further staining the already filthy linen. Morana grabbed him by the hair, twisting his body and pulling him so that he faced Anton with his back against Morana's heaving breast and torso. Anton slapped him again, his head snapping to the right, and a fresh gush ran freely from his nose.
"That's better," Anton whispered, crawling over the end of the bed towards him. "That's a good boy."
August closed his eyes tight and bit his tongue as hard as he could. For although his mind was screaming, howling, August refused to give this man the satisfaction of hearing him cry. Not for as long as he could hold out anyway.
Doren
The CD skipped, bouncing lightly, and it pulled Doren's attention. What was that? Something faint, in the distance—an animal, a child? The CD whined and began to spin, once again filling the car with sound and Doren turned confused eyes on the girl in front of him. She pulled his hands back towards her. "Don't stop, Doren, please ..."
That sound … Doren's slippery mind tried to grasp it but it was so hard to hold anything. The CD skipped again, bubbling over several notes, distorting the insistent vocals. For a second there was silence, and then the CD warbled and wiggled in a desperate attempt to re-seat itself. But he had heard it ... Yes. Yes, something was wrong with the music. No, not with the music, something was under the music—layered below it, hidden in it. It scratched and mewled beneath the surface, grating and crunching against reality, and once he had found it, once he recognized it, it became a singular entity, screaming and clawing at his soul.
"Doren," Medea panted, urging him back to her with pleading eyes and pouting mouth, "Doren, please." His eyes fell to her neck—were those his finger marks on her throat? Had he done that? Was that blood?
He looked at his trembling hands, turning them over again and again, and his body began to shake. Again the CD found its foothold and spun to life and Doren turned towards it in a fury, smashing the player, hammering it with his fist, until the player gave up and slowly detached the CD. It sat, shining mystically, on the plate of the machine, a seemingly innocent disc between a gasping man and a shocked girl. Doren grabbed it and tossed it in the back seat, snapping the handle of the car door in a desperate attempt to get it open, stumbling over the automatic seatbelt when it finally came free. He fell to his knees beside the car, gripping his head as the emptiness that had been, mere seconds before, coursing with evil sound became bone-gripping pain. He cried out, trading confusion and distortion for agony. Yet even as it slipped away, and he sat against the car dragging breath into overworked lungs, the feeling of apprehension did not pass.
He felt the first scream, then another and another, and with nothing else within his power to do, Doren laid his head against the car and wept.
August
He screamed without sound as Anton approached again, crawling over the bed, teasing August's sanity. His arms were held so tight that he felt they would snap under the pressure.
Do it! Do it now! Do it!
The words came at him from nowhere. They filled his mind and he opened his mouth, screaming with an animalistic fury, pulling from everything around him.
Morana stiffened behind him and it dawned on August that Doren was not the only one in this clique with power. He sought for, and held, the skill he found in the old wo
man's body. With everything he could muster August formed a picture in his mind and then let it go, flinging it mentally back to Morana. She gasped, released her arms and, in a surprisingly accurate and brutal lunge, raked her fingernails across Anton's face, ripping open his left cheek and sending him sprawling to the floor.
August didn't give either of them a chance to regroup. He scrambled from the bed and threw himself out the door, running past the pictures of the beautiful women, racing down the imposing stairway and out into the blackness of the night. He flew down the driveway and over the lawn, hurling himself at the locked gates, choking a frustrated cry at the barred exit. With tears streaming down his face August watched the magnificent limo creep down the lane and stop beside him. The window descended slowly but it was neither Anton's face nor Morana's that met his exhausted eyes. The driver that had brought him, surely come for him on Anton's command, surely bound to grab and retrieve him, reached towards the dash and pressed the release button on the remote. The iron gates began to inch open.
"Run, child," the driver whispered. "Run like the wind."2911015998
Who Will You Run
To?
Doren
It was only by the grace of a power mightier than all of them that when Doren walked into the lobby, there was no one else there but the desk clerk. His eyes were red from tears. His hands were still bloody. He was exhausted, physically and emotionally, and it was hard to force his steps to continue bringing him forward.
But the clerk looked up and smiled, and Doren could swear that there was gratitude shining in the man's eyes, maybe even pride.
"Ah! Doren, sir! What a pleasure to see you've made it back!"
Doren watched, swaying softly, unwilling to expend the energy to form words.