by R. J. Blain
“I won’t be long,” he promised, and with his most playful smirk on his lips, he headed for the door, grabbing his bathrobe on the way.
I used the time to catch my breath, wiggling my way under the blanket. Rob hadn’t changed much about my apartment since he had invaded several months ago, but the soft blanket was a welcomed addition.
With the drug still coursing through me, its plush texture was divine. I heard the murmur of voices in the other room, and Rob’s deepened with his annoyance. While Rob undoubtedly wanted to put an end to Kenneth sooner rather than later, we couldn’t kill my boss. Not yet. First, we had to ruin him and make him so despised by the other elite they wouldn’t care if he disappeared or was found floating in the river.
I stretched, making a pleased noise in my throat at the way the fabric caressed me. The drug’s intensity had waned enough I was no longer completely at its mercy and slave to the faintest stimulation.
Without the burning ache and desire for pleasure driving me, a pleasant numbness settled over me, keeping me relaxed despite my awareness Rob was in the other room with Kenneth and possibly his dae, too.
I should have been afraid and worried.
The door in the main room slammed, and Rob laughed before strutting his way back into the bedroom. He held his slender cell phone in his hand. “I come bearing a gift of photographs, my dearest Alexa.”
He dropped the bathrobe to the floor and slithered into bed, sliding his hand over the curves of my leg. While the blanket separated us, the rub of the plush fabric and the pressure of his touch conspired to steal my breath. After sliding under the blanket beside me, he presented his phone, and I grabbed it, conscious of the way his body pressed to mine.
Both Kenneth and his dae were featured in the photograph, and both of them had dressed in fine suits. Fury lit Jacob’s eyes a fire red, and Kenneth’s frown promised someone’s death. “Those are two very unhappy men,” I commented. There were only three images, but Rob had managed to capture Kenneth’s rage perfectly.
“I think it’s safe to say Mr. Smith’s attention is now focused on me, since I have what he wants. Now that I have a better idea of how far he’ll go to have his way, I think I’ll be better prepared to deal with him. They won’t be back today, not if they value their lives. That leaves us with the rest of the afternoon. Colby probably won’t be back until after dark.”
“What is Colby doing, anyway?”
“A little bit of this and a little bit of that,” Rob evaded, pressing a finger to my lips. “I have a plan. If you don’t know the details, no one can try to force it out of you.”
“I want to help.”
“Conveniently, my plan involves you, although at a later stage. Humor me, Alexa. You’ll like what I have in mind, and I saved one of the best parts for you.”
“Fine, I’ll humor you, but only this once. I want to help.”
“I’ll need it when the time is right. I want to limit your exposure to Mr. Smith as much as possible, especially after this morning. Please make sure you take either me or Colby with you whenever you’re forced to see him. I don’t think he’ll give up without a fight.”
Rob was right, and I knew it. Instead of fighting a pointless battle, I nodded. “I should have known better.”
“Lesson learned. If he wasn’t in such high favor with so many elite right now, I’d get rid of him. Still, there are other issues we need to address, including Dean Lewis and Arthur Hasling. Lewis will be our biggest problem. Kenneth Smith is repulsive enough, but he has limits and plays by certain rules. If those videos we found are any indication, the dean doesn’t play by any rules, and proving his crimes will be difficult at best. He’s simply too far up the ladder to disgrace without a great deal of work.” Rob grunted and stretched out, draping his arm over his eyes.
I considered my concern only a few pieces of paper indicated the dean was a conspirator.
Anyone could type a name on an invoice. Until I had more substantial concerns, I would investigate the situation, but I wouldn’t pose the question of the man’s potential innocence.
Innocent until proven guilty meant the guilty might walk free, and I refused to eliminate him as a suspect solely on my concern the invoices weren’t what they appeared.
For the moment, I would accept the story the invoices told.
“No luck finding Hasling?” The dae who had kidnapped me had vanished without a trace, along with the children he had taken from the college. Arthur’s willingness to torture me to strengthen his powers sickened me—and made me worry for those still trapped with him.
“No luck,” Rob confirmed with a heavy sigh. “He probably left the city. With all of the other problems right now, the police are more worried about restoring order than chasing after stale leads. Until the government finishes implementing their new registration system, they don’t have the resources to chase after one dae.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I know it, you know it, and just about everyone else who knows anything about his attack on the college knows it, but there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s not a priority right now. So, if we want anything done, we’ll have to do it ourselves—without getting caught. The government wants him, and they’ll react positively if they find his body in a dark alley somewhere.”
I sighed, wondering if I’d ever get the chance to get back at Arthur Hasling for what he had done. “Which leaves us with Kenneth and the dean to deal with.”
“Exactly. We’ll figure something out. My top priority is to make sure Kenneth stays away from you. Then we ruin him, dispose of him, and move on. The dean will be a more challenging target, and if we can make Kenneth work for us while we’re working against him, even better.” The way Rob smiled chilled me to the bone, and my eyes widened as I stared at him, my mouth open, although I couldn’t force out a single word.
I often forgot how dangerous Rob was until he reminded me, and all I saw in the dae’s expression was a promise of death.
“Why are you going so far?” I whispered, afraid of the answer but compelled to ask the question all the same.
“Those women deserve justice, and so do you.”
Before I could say another word, Rob rolled on top of me, pinning me beneath him while pressing his lips to mine. I recognized his ploy to avoid further discussion, but decided I didn’t care and met his desire with my own.
His answer had been enough.
3
I had changed.
Fourteen hours after Kenneth and his dae drugged me, I crashed and burned. Pleasure twisted to pain, and while I could function, all I wanted was for the misery to end.
Rob worked while I paced, hissing at the way my clothes scratched my skin and left me raw. Sitting still only worked for so long before a blend of relentless itching and restless energy drove me back to my feet.
I needed something—anything—to do.
Logically, I recognized what the drugs were doing to me, but I craved the euphoria of the high. The need for another hit seared through me, and I shuddered, biting my lower lip so I wouldn’t beg Rob for what I knew he didn’t have.
He had taken away the sample of Terry Moore’s drug months ago to study it.
The only person who could give me what I needed was Kenneth Smith. My breaths came hard and fast. For a brief moment, I considered pleading for another hit. Balling my hands into fists sent stabbing pain up my arms.
“I’m not giving you anything, so don’t ask.” Rob’s gaze was fixed on his laptop screen. “I know it hurts, but if I tried to sedate you, I have no idea how the drugs would interact. I could do a lot more harm than good.”
“I know.”
So many from the fringe had lost their lives over the years due to overdosing on drugs. I had almost numbered among them. I wanted to scream, rant, and rave over the injustice of it all.
I thought I had won the war, but the cravings were back and stronger than ever. Slumping on the couch beside Rob, I stifled a groan and bent fo
rward, burying my face in my hands.
It hurt.
“You might claim it’s the perfect drug—if you’re the dealer,” Rob said, leaning back from his work with a heavy sigh. “It has a roughly twelve hour duration, it’s invisible to current tests, and the side effects are invisible. You’re in pain, but you’re able to function. If you had another dose, you’d just be back to hunting down another round to bring back the high.”
“Shut up,” I hissed.
“It explains Kenneth’s decision to come visit. Not only was he going to have his way with you, he’d be able to manipulate you with the promise of another hit. It’s a brilliant tactic, really. Too bad he didn’t count on me being here.”
Yelling at Rob wouldn’t help anything. It wasn’t his fault I had been stupid. It wasn’t his fault he was right, either.
If Kenneth Smith walked through the door, I would beg for more of the drug, and I knew it. Worse, I’d be willing to do anything to get it. I took a deep breath and held it until my lungs burned. When I exhaled, it was slow and long.
Even the gentle flow of air slipping between my lips hurt.
It wasn’t Rob’s fault. I reminded myself of that fact until the urge to snap at him faded. “No sane man of your rank would stay in a dive like this.”
“My advantage. Mr. Smith doesn’t know how to be anything other than an elite. I, on the other hand, prefer having a varied set of skills. However, I think it’s time you had a change of scenery. I have an apartment not too far away, and it’s far easier to secure than this place. While he’ll probably be able to find you, getting to you will be a challenge. It would benefit my other plans, too.”
While I understood Rob had a flop somewhere in town, he’d never invited me to it before. He hadn’t needed to—and I’d done a good enough job of establishing I had territory issues and had always been the one who issued the invitations.
Before, I wouldn’t have trusted him enough to venture into his turf.
I had changed, and it dismayed me to discover it hadn’t taken all that long for change to happen.
“What do you mean?”
“Mr. Smith and I have overlapping goals. We both want information on the dean. We have the advantage in that neither Mr. Smith nor Mr. Lewis are aware we know the nature of the invoices, and Mr. Lewis doesn’t know we are aware the invoices and videos exist. However, in my limited investigations, I don’t know if Mr. Lewis even knows those invoices exist, which adds complexity to the problem. We have proof Mr. Smith is behind the drugs through his direct actions. While Mr. Smith knows about the invoices, it’s a useless lead for him without the murder videos. For all I know, he could have been the one to make the invoices. He seems to be that stupid.” Rob propped his feet up on the coffee table and stretched. “Unless I’m mistaken, Mr. Smith will want to keep his history with Terry Moore a secret, which casts doubt onto the invoice issue. I struggle to believe he is that stupid.”
Kenneth, at least the Kenneth from before the dawn, had not been that stupid. Everyone had changed that awful morning, where at least a quarter of the world’s population had vanished, replaced with the dae.
I wondered if we would ever learn how many people had been lost with the arrival of the dae.
Forcing my attention to the problem of the drugs and murders helped distract me from the withdrawal, and I scowled as I considered Rob’s words. While drug abusers would often concoct elaborate schemes to avoid paying Kenneth, most of them weren’t really bad people. Like the women in Terry Moore’s videos, they were victims of a system designed to drive reasonable people to the edge and push them over.
The elite benefited from a society of addicts, as long as the addictions didn’t impair the workers’ ability to do their jobs. To buy drugs, the addicts needed money. To get money, they needed to work. In turn, the elite didn’t have to police the population as much; many in the fringe were too busy chasing after the next best high to cause trouble.
The new drug could keep workers high without affecting their work performance. Until a test was developed to detect the drug, anyone from any caste could use it without fear of consequence.
I sat back and stared at my hands. They stung and burned, but there was no visible sign of the drug’s influence. My pain was in my head, strong enough to make me want another hit, but not so strong I couldn’t work through it.
Kenneth Smith truly had developed the perfect drug, and with one unwilling dose of it, I desired another. The memory of the way it made my body sing with the lightest caress against my skin haunted me.
“I’m not going to let you get hooked.”
Why was speaking the truth so hard? I already was, and there was nothing he could do about it. I sighed and shook my head. “It’s not your fault.”
I hated myself for my inability to confess how much I wanted to get high again and spend it with him. I had talked the talk so much, but it had only taken one hit to destroy all of my hard work.
“I’m up for an energetic argument about who is to blame for what Kenneth Smith did to you. That said, there’s a difference between craving something and choosing to satisfy your craving. You’re not hooked unless you take it again. Maybe right now you want it, but unless you actually go to Mr. Smith, get the drug, and take it, you’re clean as far as I’m concerned. You getting hooked again is a choice, and it’s one I have no intention of letting you make. If I have to stay by your side for days until those urges fade, so be it.”
The crash lasted as long as the high. When it finally wore off, exhaustion weighed me down, but I was wide awake. Without the pain distracting me, my determination to get a healthy dose of revenge and free myself from Kenneth Smith surged. My personal laptop was at least as old as I was, but it did what I needed when I couldn’t risk using my newer tablet or the college’s laptop.
I booted it up, cracking my knuckles one by one.
If sleep was going to evade me, I’d make the most of the time.
“If you go to sleep, that means I can go to sleep,” Rob grumbled. I glanced at him, where he’d sprawled over the other half of the couch several hours ago. “Do you have an off switch?”
Despite everything, he made me laugh. “Maybe.”
“What are you doing that can’t wait until after we’ve gotten some sleep?”
“This is bothering me.”
Rob lurched upright and stretched with a groan. “What’s bothering you?”
While waiting for my antique computer to boot, I drummed my fingers on the coffee table. “I’m talking about the relationship between Kenneth Smith, Dean Lewis, and Terry Moore. Terry Moore was a key player, but I don’t understand the relationship between Kenneth and the dean. Kenneth wants me to sniff out information on the dean. Why would he do that to one of his partners? When I saw them together in the dean’s office, it was pretty obvious they had arrangements for working together. But I also got the vibe the dean does not like Kenneth much. Kenneth kept bothering him.”
While the dean had a heavy hand and expected quality work, he’d been one of the better elites. I had trouble imagining the man would be so stupid as to have invoices for drugs issued to him. Worse, with Kenneth’s behaviors having changed so much following the arrival of the dae, I couldn’t discount sheer stupidity as a cause of so many problems.
Rob leaned forward and turned on his laptop, which was ready for his use in a couple of seconds. “They’re elite. Most of the elite have some form of relationship with each other, Alexa. It’s how the system works. They may not like each other, but they work together to prevent the lower castes from overthrowing the system. If the lower castes manage to coordinate themselves in a rebellion, they’ll win by numbers alone.”
The thought had already crossed my mind, and I had spent many a sleepless night wondering why the lower castes didn’t turn against the elite and take back the rights they had allowed the government to take away from them.
Then again, many people weren’t aware of America’s history and the ri
ghts they had lost. Those who did kept quiet in fear of disappearing one night, never to be seen or heard from again.
“I know. Do you think Kenneth knows the dean was paying Terry Moore to kill women?” I hesitated. “Or that there are invoices that Terry Moore allegedly created to implicate Dean Lewis?”
There. Speaking my doubt over the subject wouldn’t change much of anything, but Rob liked being thorough in all things.
“I am of the opinion even if Smith knows, he simply doesn’t care. They’re the same breed. So long as their wealth, power, and rank grow, they don’t care. And for all we know, Smith could have created the invoices to implicate both of them. That’s something we’ll need to investigate.”
Huh. That hadn’t occurred to me. Pleased there were more possibilities than what I’d come up with, and that Rob was considering all angles, I dove into the next thing bothering me. “What makes you different, then? Why do you care?”
The question would haunt me forever if I didn’t learn the truth. What made Rob so different? If it wasn’t for his suit, his contacts, and the way other elite tiptoed around him, I wouldn’t have believed he was just another elite.
If it wasn’t for the way the other dae cowered from Rob when he scowled, I wouldn’t have believed him a dae, either. He fed from me and basked in the strength of my emotions for his sustenance, but that was the only real difference between us.
In all other ways, Rob seemed just like me, an unawakened human. I wanted to know what set Rob apart as a dae, but I lacked the courage to ask.
For a long time, Rob stared at me, his eyes narrowing. The subtle way his gaze unfocused warned me he was lost in thought, probably trying to find a way to explain the unexplainable.
“Do I need a reason to care?”
I straightened, and my puzzlement turned into dismay.
I had spent so long fighting for survival and climbing the social ladder for a better life. All my focus had been on advancing myself. Did anyone need a reason to help someone?