SACRIFICIUM (THE UNDERGROUND Book 1)

by Allie Doherty

  My hand flies out and connects with his jaw before I’ve had a chance to think about it. He winces, and a part of me squirms to apologize.

  Instead I say, “don’t ever mention my dad again, or anyone in my family, especially not around here… Not to Theo.”

  “Right, because obviously you don’t want her to know who you are… the real you. You think she wouldn’t be able to handle it?”

  “Stop talking!” I shriek, my voice shaking. I try to pull it back, and my breath quivers. “You don’t know anything.”

  “I know enough to know you were on that bus looking for Theo on the day that you met. You think she’d forgive you for the things you’ve done –”

  One sentence and I feel my control crumble. My body straddles his and I pull my fist back. Throwing it full force, I land a harsh blow on his face before pulling it back and letting it go again.

  “You know nothing about me!” I holler, feeling his bones break at my hand. There’s a voice in my head telling me to stop, but the brutal part of my genetics won’t let me. “Do you hear me? You know nothing!”

  He’s trying to say something, but I scream at him to shut up because I know screaming loud is the only way to get attention, and someone to stop me.

  “Maeve, stop!” I hear, but I keep landing blows on his quickly swelling, and blood ridden face. It’s not until I feel strong arms wrap around my waist and propel me back does my fist leave his skin.

  But I’m too wild! Too hyped to calm down… I turn and attack my saviour like a rabid dog. I barely see who he is as I claw and kick at his body.

  “Theo! Someone, go and get Theo!”

  Theo. She’ll never accept me. She’ll throw me out on my ass… I don’t blame her.

  Finally, I feel my anger lessening. It’s like I’m being sedated, but I didn’t feel the familiar pinch of a needle in me. The violence melts away, and a floating stillness invades me. I turn my head to find Theo, my friend, holding a hand out towards me with a look on her face that shows me compassion, concern, and confusion.

  My eyes finally focus on the person in front of me.

  Tavis.

  His face is scratched up, but still, he’s looks at me with worry… not one hint of anger rests behind his forgiving eyes. I don’t deserve these good people in my life, not after –

  I feel my bottom lip start to quake and a strangled sob battles its way out of my throat. I force it back. There are so many members of their coven in the main room, and they’re all staring at me.

  “I can’t do this…”

  I turn on the pads of my feet and take off in a run towards the dorms, ready to pack my shit and get gone.

  Theo waits less than three minutes before she’s hot on my heels – the time it takes to check on Tavis and make sure Mendez is still breathing.

  I’m midway through packing when I see the curtain pulled back, and her eyes land on the bag.

  “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  “Trust me, Theo… you’ll be better off without me here. You saw what I just did to Mendez. I don’t even know if he’s alive. I’m a loose cannon, and I’m not staying to blow this damn ship apart.”

  I throw my last sweater in my bag, zip it up and throw it over my shoulder.

  “Get out of the way!” I demand, but Theo stands still, blocking my exit.

  There’s a fire in her eyes that I’ve only seen when she’s been fighting, or worse. I wonder if we’re about to get into it right here and now, and then, I wonder who would win hand-to-hand.

  When we first arrived at the underground, without magic I’d have been the obvious winner, but at this point it could go either way. There’s a flaw in her stance – the fact that her left leg is resting a step back from her right – that tells me she’s dubious of me, and she’s sizing up our fight in her mind, too.

  I see it in her features; she thinks if it came down to it, I’d kick her ass. It’s a very real possibility, but she doesn’t see what I’ve been seeing in her lately. Her muscles are more defined, her core is stronger, her coordination skills are off the charts, and she can go like a cage fighter when she needs to.

  “You’ve come a long way, T,” I tell her. “You could probably kick my ass if you wanted to, but the question is, are we going to let it get far enough to find out?”

  “If that’s what it takes to keep you here...” She folds her arms across her chest, and she shifts until her left leg steps in front of the right one and takes a step forward.

  Interesting.

  “Or you could tell me what the hell that was about, instead…” She doesn’t want to fight me, and I don’t want to fight her, but I can’t tell her what Mendez knows.

  “He said some things that got me riled up, is all…”

  “Riled up enough that it made you want to pack a bag?” She scoffs. “I’m not buying it. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “A lot,” I answer truthfully.

  She’s not going to let me go without some kind of explanation, and so I go with the closest version of the honest story. Dropping my bag to the ground, I peel my jacket off my shoulders and lift my T-shirt above my head, discarding it to the ground.

  She watches me with her eyes squinted, and then she sees them – The scars. They’re all across my chest, around my navel area, and up-and-down my sides. I turn, to show her the burns, cuts, and stab marks on my back.

  When I turn back, her mouth is covered by her hand.

  “My dad,” I start, clearing my throat. “He – um – he’s a mean drunk. It’s a family trait, actually. We lived with a lot of his side of the family in this huge compound thing-y, and sometimes things got out of control when the drinks were poured…”

  I take a deep breath, the memories of my childhood overwhelming me.

  “Kiddie-fight-club, I guess you could call it… and I’m not talking hyping kids up to kick the crap out of each other, either. I mean, they surrounded us, created this makeshift ring, and gave us whatever was lying around at the time to use as a weapon; knives, iron rods, lighters... anything they could find.”

  Theo takes a seat on the edge of the bed, and lets me speak without interruption. “Then as we got older, my cousins and I weren’t put against each other anymore. Instead, we were put against aunts, uncles, moms, dads, siblings… and it wasn’t just on weekend drunk nights anymore either. It was nightly...”

  My voice cracks and the sobs finally win their battle. I feel my cheeks get wet before I realize I’m crying.

  “Every single night, there was a fight… and if you refused to fight, then you were tied up, drugged and beaten; because if you didn’t want to fight your way to victory, then you were accepting the defeat and had to pay the consequences.”

  I stop talking, and sit down to face her. There’re questions in her eyes, and I can read them like I’m reading a book.

  “There were a few of my aunts and uncles in the compound who had a little medical training – enough to patch up flesh wounds, and burns… but not enough for when the knife slipped too deep, and it did, often. Eventually, I learned not to get attached to family. Family didn’t mean anything in the ring. The adults called it ‘weeding out the weak.’ At any point, my own family could’ve killed me, and I couldn’t blame them… It was them or me.”

  I breathe out, steadying my cries. “But it’s okay, right? Because I’m still here, still fighting, still breathing… Not like my brother.”

  It’s the most vulnerable I’ve ever been with anyone before, and all Theo can do is stare. She doesn’t have the words to deal with my crap. I should have kept my mouth closed. It’s unfair of me to unload all of that onto someone who’s as equally traumatised by the death of her sister and has her own shit to deal with, what with being hunted and all…

  Mitch’s eyes in my mind make my heart sink. He was better than I am! A better fighter, a better person, and the best big brother anyone could ever ask for. He never judged me for the other half of my parentage. Not like the rest…
<
br />   “My brother took the hit for me. The family never loved me because I was different than they were. My mom, she was a nurse… She died giving birth to me, but she lived on through the lives of the people she had helped save – I always felt a connection to that, so I was… I don’t know, less brutal, I guess? Out of all the kids, I was the one who had to fight most, and just when I thought life couldn’t get any crueller, my father decided my fifteenth birthday was the perfect time for my brother and I to go toe-to-toe, and a new rule was constituted… only one would survive.”

  I let out a cold laugh as a stray tear rolls down my already messed up face.

  “Mitch’s mom was a family friend that my father grew up with. She was this badass bounty hunter-slash-assassin kind of bitch, and she was around a lot longer than my mom was. She moved into the compound when I was a baby, and even though I was only a year older than Mitch, she refused to acknowledge me in any kind of motherly way. She spent her time there training her son to be a killer. So when it came down to it; there was me, the nurse’s daughter, in the ring with my brother, the assassin’s son… He had the edge for two reasons: his parentage, and the fact that I wanted out. We were fighting, and my heart wasn’t in it. I was sick of the fighting and I didn’t want to be an only child. I couldn’t take it anymore… I was ready to die. We both had knives, and I feigned trying to win, but Mitch knew me too well. He knew I’d given up. He swung out at me and I hit the floor, my knife clattering away from me, and blood spraying from my arm. I just lay there, ready for it to be done. He jumped on top of me, pinning me to the ground… but instead of slitting my throat, he whispered in my ear, ‘go and never look back.’ Then, he took his knife, put it in my hand, raised it to his throat and dropped, impaling himself. He died so that I could escape and live a new life…”

  “That’s why you’re leaving?” She asks, confused, her eyebrows pulled together and her nose wrinkled. “I mean, it’s a lot to deal with, and there’s stuff I haven’t told you either, but none of it explains why you’re so eager to run off…”

  I was hoping she wouldn’t focus on that, but alas, once again, the universe has screwed me.

  “I…” I suck my bottom lip between my teeth and wipe off some of my tears. “I grew up in Denver, just a few miles away from here, and I’ve done my best to ignore it, but Mendez brought up my family and I lost it… Is he alive, by the way?”

  She nods and relief swells in my chest.

  “If you want to skip town, we’ll go,” she tells me, and I’m floored. “Just give me time to pack, and we’re out of here…”

  “Are you serious?” I ask, and again she nods. “What about the underground? Theo, you’re needed here!”

  “All I’ve done here is get people killed,” she says and holds up a hand when sees that I’m about to argue with her. “Whatever, I’m not getting back into all of that! Maeve, all I know is that we’re a team, and wherever you go, I go… I’ve never had a best friend before, but that’s how it works, right?”

  “I wouldn’t know… I’ve never had a best friend before, either,” I wipe my eyes. “But I do know that you’re a pivotal cog in this machine. I can’t ask you to leave.”

  “Then I guess you’re staying.” She nudges me with her shoulder. “Just take a breather, ok? I’ll give you a while to yourself, and if you need me, just shout my name. I’ll come running…”

  I laugh, and nod. She gets up and makes her way back through the curtain. Before she’s gone, she turns back, a worried frown on her face.

  “Is that everything I need to know? I feel like there’s something else…”

  There’s something etched into her features that tells me she knows more than she’s saying. The words are on the tip of my tongue and I wrestle with the idea of saying them out loud, but in the end, my fear wins out and I shake my head.

  “That’s everything, I swear…”

  ***

  It’s going on midnight, and I’m the only one still awake. Katia fixed Mendez up, but I still feel the hollow wriggling of guilt eating at me. I toss and I turn, but it won’t go away. Nobody mentioned anything when I walked out of the dorms for dinner. They all just glanced at me warily, as though I might go crazy and claw at them like I did Tavis.

  I throw the thin blanket off my already cold body and shiver. Swinging my legs around the side of the cot, I wait a second for my head to stop spinning from sitting up too fast, and then I stand up.

  It’s dark in the main room, but there’s a small nightlight set up for Mendez. As I approach, I see his bruised, puffy eyes and my guilt intensifies. I chew on my lip and move close to him. I feel the urge to touch his face – to see how damaged his bones are.

  My hand reaches out of its own accord, and I caress the bones in his cheek. His eyes fly open and I jump back.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  “Yeah, you should be.” His words make me feel worse, but he’s not shouting or spitting at me, so I guess he’s going easy.

  “I shouldn’t have attacked you,” I say, taking a seat on the floor in front of him. “It’s not right, and I’m sorry.”

  “Whatever,” he says, coldly. “It’s not like I’m going to remember it, right?”

  “Not the point… Nobody deserves what I did to you. I was like a possessed animal, and not that it matters, but I just want you to know that despite the people I was raised by, I’m not like that – not deep down.”

  He nods slowly, taking in the information, and then his face takes on a look of hesitancy.

  “At the risk of being attacked again… don’t you think it’ll be better that you tell them the truth before they find it out by themselves?”

  “I’m hoping that doesn’t happen until I’m finished what I need to do and everything is said and done.” I cross my arms. “Out of curiosity, how did you find out about me?”

  He gives a singular laugh. “You’d be surprised by how easy it was. Which is why I know you’re not going to get away with it for much longer...”

  “Are you going to tell them before they wipe your memory?” He can see the desperation in my eyes, and I can see the enjoyment in his. He gnaws on his bottom lip in deliberation.

  “…Let me ask you something, do you think what they’re going to do to my mind is right?”

  I keep my mouth shut.

  “No, seriously, I’m asking you… Is wiping someone’s memory, and possibly some important details if they aren’t careful enough, morally correct, in your opinion?”

  “Dude, I just beat the crap out of you… and I’m lying to everyone. What makes you think I can say what’s right and wrong?”

  “Come on, you know it’s messed up.”

  I sigh. “Okay, Fine… I think it’s jacked what they’re going to do, but all’s fair in love and war, right?”

  A smirk pulls at the side of his mouth.

  “That’s too bad, because I know things that could help you guys against the Jacobian’s. Having spent hours with that jack-off as a partner, I’ve picked up some stuff along that way that could come in very useful.” My intrigue instantly spikes. “…Oh well, I guess that’ll die with Theo’s magic.”

  “What do you know?” I ask, and his smirk turns to a grin.

  “A lot,” is his response. “Not just about the Jacobian’s either. A good detective finds out the surface stuff, Miss Jessop, but a great detective digs further. I’ve always prided myself on being great, and when I read up on you…” He whistles. “Let’s just say I found things out about you that I’m betting even you don’t know.”

  “Oh, yeah? Like what?”

  “Like who your mother was.”

  I feel the earth stop moving beneath my feet, and my entire body freezes on the spot as my blood runs cold.

  “My mother is dead!”

  “That’s true… now at least. But when your father told you that she’d died during labour, not so much… She lived a good six years after that.”

  “Why are you telling me this? Is
it some kind of payback for today? Are you trying to torture me, is that it?”

  “No,” he says. “I’m just saying, I found all of this out in the past week, right around the time I found out about your buddies and their powers. They wipe my memory, and all of it goes away. I think that’s what they call leverage...”

  ***

  “What do you mean you don’t think we should wipe his memory?” Tavis scoffs. “Why the hell not?”

  Theo, Knox, Kat, Z, River, Penelope, Max, Amalie and I are all sitting on the floor in the boss’ room, going over the plan of what to do with Mendez.

  “Just that,” I tell him. “I snuck down to the main room to apologize last night and he sat there with a smirk on his face and told me that he knows things about the hunters that could help us.”

  “Did he give you any hints?” Theo crosses her legs, tucking them under her. “Or do you think this could be a ploy? Maybe he’s trying to bide his time…”

  The thought had occurred to me, but considering the length of the list of things he knows about me, I’m not willing to put money on him lying.

  “I just think that we should keep him here, untied, but bound to this place until he trusts us enough to tell us what the hell he knows,” I say. “I mean, can one of you do that?”

  “I probably can,” Theo says, raising her hand.

  “I’m with Maeve,” Zhavia adds. “He is a detective, after all. Maybe he does have valuable information.”

  “Yeah, well I’m not with Maeve.” Amalie glares at me across the circle. “No offence, mortal, but I came here for protection against the hunters, the witches, and whatever else decides to join this war. I understood what I was getting into when I signed up for the underground, but since you and Theo decided that we were your only option, six people have died and I got so badly wounded that I’m still not fully recovered… “

  “As if you’re the only one who’s nearly died…” I scoff.

  “…And now you guys want us to live with another mortal that could expose us to the press and any creature that wants us dead. I’m sorry, but I don’t accept that as a good plan. Like most of their plans, this is going to bite us in the ass, and if you ask me, we shouldn’t be living with any mortal in the first place.”