The Recluse

by D A Rice

  “Then we better find our hacker, Jackson, because, whatever that was, it wasn’t normal.”

  Jackson nodded, “I agree. There’s something bigger going on here than we could’ve thought, and considering what we knew to begin with…” He trailed off, his face hardening. “Let’s go.”

  …

  The power in the room flickered, causing Damion to pause. The surge meant Fenris likely knew about the watch, which meant Eli had, hopefully, called for help. He glanced back at Nikki, who stood where she had been, unmoving. She faced him with a start. “He says you should stay where you are, that he needs to talk to you.”

  Damion raised in eyebrow. He bet Fenris wanted to talk to him. He stood and stretched, his hand skimming a syringe and tucking it out of Nikki’s sight. “Fenris always wants to talk to me,” he said nonchalantly, “nothing new there. Is he done with the Recluse yet?”

  Nikki’s eyes glassed over, before refocusing on him, “no, but he is about to take a break. Stay here.”

  Damion nodded, glancing at his computer screen. “I bet we could hack into the feed, see what he’s doing.” He smirked back at Nikki who just stared at him. Damion laughed, slinging his arm around her shoulders, “come on, Nicole, live a little.” Nikki blinked once, but otherwise didn’t move.

  Damion smiled, his eyes narrowing. “Just as well,” he said, flicking the needle up and shoving it into her neck in one smooth movement. Nikki’s eyes widened, then rolled back into her head before her knees buckled. Damion caught her, tossing the needle aside, and swept her up before setting her into his chair. “Sorry, Niks, but I won’t be waiting here for Fenris.”

  He pulled something out of the desk drawer, tossing his and Rei’s phones into his pocket. Then, turning to his computer, he launched the program he’d been working on for the last hour. His computer began to hum as the virus he’d made eroded its way through Arachnid’s system. He watched it for a moment, watched as his life’s work was eaten away. Finally, Damion left, locking the door behind him. He was done playing by the Wolf’s rules.

  23

  Rei sniffed, then jolted awake, eyes wide. Hands caught her shoulders, steadying her. “Smelling salts,” came a quiet voice next to her as Damion shifted on the bed, setting a small package on the nightstand before pulling something around her shoulders in an almost intimate manner. “They knocked you out to put the IV in without you knowing; to pump you full of drugs, but don’t worry. I unhooked it after they left.” It was a zip-up hoodie he had pulled around her, Damion’s, she guessed. Was that what he’d set at her feet earlier?

  Rei blinked, her mind catching up to her body. “Damion? What’s going on? Where am I?” Her mind still felt groggy, and even that she found hard to remember. Memories skimmed the surface, but she couldn’t quite grasp them.

  “I don’t have a lot of time to explain, Rei. We need to get out of here, now,” Damion pulled her arms, gently helping her rise, “can you stand?”

  “I think so... I can’t... Damion, what is going on? Why can’t I remember? I feel like a whole side of my brain is missing,” she stammered.

  Damion nodded, “yeah, that would be the drugs. I’ll explain when I can, but right now, we need to get Eli and you out of here. I think I know where he is. Come on.” He pulled her beside him, moving on light feet to the door. “You’re in an Arachnid safehouse. Trust me, we don’t want to stay here.” She glanced around, noting the unfamiliar room from before, the four-poster bed with its black sheets, and the almost pressing darkness from every side. Damion hadn’t bothered to turn on the light. Then she felt it, the familiar weight of knowing.

  Rei jerked back as the memories slammed into her, “wait, did you...?”

  Damion turned to her, his hands coming up to cup her cheeks, “yes.” His forehead met hers and his eyes closed in a cringe. “I’m sorry, Rei, but yes, this is all my fault.”

  His sorrow seeped into her, her own eyes closing with its weight. “I still don’t quite remember everything,” she whispered.

  Damion’s eyes fluttered open. “You will,” he said, “I didn’t give you enough to take your personality away from you. Just...” he paused, his fingers flexing on her face, “please try not to hate me when you remember.”

  Rei met his gaze, “I’m not sure I could ever hate you, Damion, even with everything you’ve done. You’re here now and you’re helping me.” Damion’s eyes flickered with emotion, but he only nodded, turning back to the closed door.

  “We need to move, now. I’ll get you to Eli, then I have to come back. There’s a girl here, someone who’s been taking Titus in huge doses. She needs to get back to her parents. I need to make amends.” He pulled the door open and glanced outside of it. “Eli is in the lower levels of this place. Let’s go, Fenris is bound to figure out some things aren’t going the way he planned and soon.”

  Rei’s eyebrow raised, a grin forming, “things?”

  Damion met her gaze with a grin of his own, “let’s just say that I’m taking a page out of your Recluse’s book.” Rei laughed softly, then she was following him out of the room in a quiet, quick pace. She didn’t know Damion’s whole story. She knew he’d lied and there was more to him than she’d thought she’d known.

  But he was here for her now, when she needed him the most. He’d come back for her, chosen her over everything else. She took comfort in that, trusting him to take the lead.

  …

  Fenris looked up, his attention fixed on the concrete ceiling above him, and his eyes narrowed. “Damion,” he said quietly as the pressure in Eli’s mind began to fall away. The hacker sagged in his chair, his eyes glassed over. Fenris growled low in his throat, straightening from where he’d been hunched over Eli, his focus solely on him.

  Eli knew the connection to Jackson had broken. Fenris had somehow done that while inside Eli’s mind. Eli didn’t doubt he may need a new watch. It’d looked like a normal watch, a facade he’d created himself, but inside was a phone. He had stolen Jackson’s personal number, then programmed it into that phone. It was Eli’s emergency go-to. He’d always known Arachnid would find him, so he’d created the watch just in case. Jackson’s was the only number he’d trusted to put in there.

  Fenris had missed the watch entirely, but judging by the look Fenris was giving the ceiling, Eli could guess that Damion hadn’t. Clearly, that was what Fenris thought.

  The Wolf looked over Eli and smiled, his eyes dark, “stay put, would you?”

  Eli forced his eyes up; it took more effort than it should have. “Having problems with your newest protégé?”

  Fenris’s smile turned feral. “Nothing I can’t handle. In the meantime, how about some hydration?” His voice was acidic as his hand snapped out, adjusting the dial on Eli’s poisonous IV. The pain began again, riding his already swollen veins, then Fenris was gone.

  Eli closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing. His lip was bloody and swollen with how many times he’d bitten it. His mind couldn’t focus on anything other than the burn. He wouldn’t die, Fenris wouldn’t let him, but part of him was beginning to want to. Fenris inside his mind had been like a monster clawing to get out. The Wolf had raked every part of him, laying him bare, then ripping those pieces of him apart. Eli had known the Wolf was capable of evil, but this was on a whole other level of his imaginings. Time passed slowly, every second inching by.

  “Oh God, Eli,” came a soft voice, as hands gently touched his own, “what have they done to you?”

  “IV has to have something in it,” said a different voice, equally familiar, then the burn was subsiding. Eli opened his eyes slowly, and with some effort, met the blue eyes of his savior.

  “Rei,” he whispered. Something moved at his side, then the IV was out of his arm, a cotton ball in its place. He followed the hand up to its owner, “Damion?”

  Damion nodded a greeting, as Rei worked at Eil’s bindings, keeping his eyes on the door behind them. Once she got Eli free, Damion wrapped his arm as Rei’s hands moved
up Eli’s shoulders. She cupped his face as if to verify he was real. “Eli,” she said again. Her voice choked, full of pain. Eli noted the sweatshirt, too big for her shoulders. His mind was always catching the smallest of details and storing them for later.

  Eli looked down, catching the sight of his bulging and blackened veins, then smirked slowly, his head lolling forward. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he whispered.

  Damion cocked an eyebrow down at him sardonically, “oh yeah? Can you stand?”

  Eli swerved his head to meet Damion’s gaze, his eyes squinting with the effort it took. “Good question. I have another. What the hell did you do to piss the Wolf off so bad?” He huffed out a laugh at the thought and Damion smiled, holding out both of his hands in response. Rei stepped out of the way, making room, eyes shifting toward the door in a nervous twitch. They needed to move, and they all knew it.

  “I took a page out of a book written by one of the best hackers I know.” Damion clasped Eli’s wrists and pulled, bringing Eli up with him, who swayed until Rei snuck up under one of his arms. He winked at her. Damion steadied Eli before continuing. “I set off a virus, and the malware is eating its way through Arachnid’s systems as we speak, starting with my network access.”

  Eli started, both of his eyebrows raising, impressed. “You knew about the self-destruct coding sequence?”

  Damion smirked, crossing his arms over his chest, “who do you think found it? I could never figure out how to separate it from the original programming though. I’m surprised you never set it off. I didn’t destroy your program, you know I can’t, but this one we all created together using yours as a blueprint. I had a little chat with the group while Fenris was down here having his fun with you. We decided to do it together, then created the code to hit him on all sides.”

  Eli nodded, understanding the tough decision Damion had had to make. He was obviously very respected within Arachnid for them to listen to him as they had. He wondered briefly what’d led Damion to make the decisions he had. A discussion for another time. He answered Damion’s unspoken question though, Rei shifting beneath him. “I wanted to take Arachnid down. It’d become corrupted, but I couldn’t just set off the code in the program. You guys had too many other programs that I could potentially set off early. I needed to work my way through your web. It sounds like you guys just took that web down yourselves, though.”

  Damion nodded, before glancing back, “I get it now. I get why you did what you did. Fenris...” he paused before meeting Eli’s gaze again, “I thought I knew what I was getting into-- but Fenris turned Arachnid into something else entirely, didn’t he?”

  Eli nodded, “something corrupt and evil. I don’t think he’s done yet, either.”

  Damion shook his head. “No, which is why you two need to get out of here.” He pushed them to the other side of the room, glancing back behind them again, before kneeling down onto the floor and pressing something there. The wall slid open with a rumble. “Take this. It’ll lead you outside.” It was a small lift. Eli grinned, always have more than one way out, he thought.

  Rei watched Damion, “what about you?” She asked him gently as she maneuvered Eli through the open doorway and into the metal cage.

  Her friend met her gaze. “I already told you,” Damion said back, gently closing the metal gate in front of them. “Get going. I’ll draw Fenris off, but I’ve got to make sure Nikki gets out of here too.”

  Then the door was closing, a small wave from Damion the last thing they saw before they were thrown into complete darkness. The cage rattled after a moment, and then shot up. “Rei, he’s a good guy, he’ll be ok,” Eli whispered. He wasn’t sure how much of that was his sixth sense, and how much of that was his hope for the other man.

  “I know,” was all Rei replied, before she sat back beside him, waiting for the lift to stop.

  …

  Fenris was waiting for him in the computer room. The Wolf sat in the chair with his fingers steepled in front of his mouth, gold hair dripping into dangerous eyes. He said nothing as Damion entered, slowly closing the door behind him. Damion took stock of the situation; Nikki was slumped against the wall on the far side of the room, near where Fenris sat. The computer behind the Wolf kept freezing up, in the process of crashing completely. Fenris met his gaze, “what have you done?” his tone was disappointed, and full of something akin to sadness, but Damion knew better. Fenris was furious.

  “I took a step up from being a coward,” Damion said, his hands fisting by his sides.

  “Oh, Damion, if only it were that easy,” Fenris replied, rising slowly from his chair, his eyes flashing silver. The temperature began to drop, and Damion found himself taking a step back. “No program will be able to stop what’s coming. Didn’t the Recluse teach you anything?” Damion said nothing and Fenris sighed, “try as he might, Ezekiel only slowed me down. You’ve only slowed me down. I’ll always find replacements. Ezekiel and Rei will always come back to me. I’m unstoppable.”

  “You’re delusional,” Damion supplied, even as he felt Fenris in his mind, as if stroking it with an invisible claw, claiming it for his own.

  “You know I’m not,” Fenris replied simply, a grin forming as he stepped closer to Damion. Damion crumbled as Fenris unleashed the Wolf into his psyche. Pulling the darkness around him, the Wolf’s mask formed over his face. “You had a few things going for you, but I was a fool to think you could ever live up to Ezekiel’s name.” The pain in Damion’s mind increased and he cowered, as Fenris continued.

  “Luckily for you, I know they’ll be back for you. We have been way too thorough with Rei for her to leave you behind.” Fenris knelt before him, a cool, thin hand coming to rest on his cheek. His wolf-covered head tilted, his blue eyes shining. “It looks as if I will get some use out of you yet, my little spider.”

  24

  Rei shuffled down a hall with Eli. She had pulled him from the lift when it stopped, opening up into the hall they walked now. It was made with metal and crumbling concrete, causing their shoes to crunch with every step. There were doors on either side. Rei didn’t want to know what was beyond them.

  Eli’s weight was manageable, but it made them far slower than she wanted. Her memories were slowly coming back, but she had no time or energy to deal with them right now. She glanced behind her. Damion had come for her in the end, she would keep holding onto that. She only hoped he would get to the girl and get out, that he would stay safe. She huffed and Eli straightened beside her, putting some of his weight on the wall beside him. “I’m sorry, Rei,” he said so softly that, if not for the echo, Rei would never have heard him.

  She shook her head, shifting his arm around her shoulders and tugging him along. “I’m going back for him, Eli, you have nothing to be sorry for. In the end, Damion made his own decisions.”

  “And you must make yours. I get it,” he huffed out as they stopped in front of a door. A broken exit sign hung above it, tilting precariously. Rei placed the palm of her hand on the door, pushing gently, testing it. It moved, smooth and silent. She breathed out a sigh of relief.

  “I just need to get you somewhere safe,” she said as they came out the door into a narrow alley, if she had to guess by their surroundings, they were on the outskirts of the city. Somewhere in the warehouse district.

  “Here’s fine, Rei. Leave me by the wall here,” Eli nodded across the alley, towards a dumpster there. He was missing his coat, but the cool night air didn’t seem to affect him. She looked at the dumpster in disgust and then back at Eli, who shrugged with a lopsided grin, “I’ve been in, and next to worse, believe me. I’ll be fine. Remember what I told you? About my own gifts?” he glanced at her here, his lips twitching.

  “Your ability to know the future? Can you tell me everything is going to be alright, Eli?” She asked him, moving him to the wall before looking back towards the door, nerves shot. She ran a hand through her hair as Eli lowered himself gently down the wall, he caught her hand, making her look at h
im.

  “Help is coming, Rei. Believe that, and follow your heart,” he squeezed her hand with a cringe as he hit the ground below him. She could see the pain in his eyes that he was trying valiantly to hide. “If you feel the need to see in there, don’t hold back,” he let her go, then smiled, “oh, and leave me your phone, if you could.”

  Rei looked at him in confusion, then ran her hands over the zip up hoodie she still wore. She pulled out her phone, looking at it without seeing it, “Damion,” she whispered.

  Eli nodded, “yes. Damion. He left you yours, and his,” he nodded to the other pocket and she pulled out the other phone in surprise.

  “Why would he do that?” she glanced back to the still-propped-open door, stuck that way by the debris around them.

  Eli smirked, his eyes studying her like she was the greatest puzzle he couldn’t wait to find all the pieces for. “Maybe he just decided that he didn’t want any more lies between you.”

  Rei’s jaw set, and she clutched both phones harder. “I’m going back for him.”

  “I know,” Eli said, his head falling back against the wall lightly. “Damion’s phone?”

  Without looking at him, Rei tossed the phone, hearing him catch it as she walked quickly back towards the door. She half turned to him. He was watching her with a look of pride. “Don’t do anything too stupid,” she said.

  Eli chuckled, “and don’t forget what you know, who you are.” His voice was soft and full of sincerity.

  “I know I’ll kick your butt if you’re not there when I get back with Damion,” Rei whispered from beside the door.

  Eli’s smirk twitched again, and he saluted her with Damion’s phone, “I’ll provide air support. Go. And close that door tight behind you.”

  Rei nodded, before plunging back into the den of the Wolf.