Deacon

by Rebecca Royce

  “Oh.” She darted backward. “Right this very second. Okay. I’ll get my parents.”

  Maybe it wasn’t how either of us would have planned this moment. As Micah would have said, these were the cards dealt to us, we had to play the hand. I didn’t know if there would ever be a time when Lydia and I would be able to just breathe and wait for the future. So far, our relationship was all about the here and now. I gripped my coat closer to myself. We’d have time. I had to believe that someday we would.

  Our wedding ended up being in front of one of Chad’s SUVs. Lydia and I said our vows to each other with her family, Micah, Chad, Rachel, Darren, and Glen with us. I wasn’t even sure how anyone outside of Lydia and her family knew about it, but I was happy to have them there.

  It wasn’t a long ceremony. I didn’t really focus on what Patrick said. I was sure he had a lot of insight, having been happily married with five children. But all I could think was that Lydia was standing there, saying yes. I’d never imagined this, couldn’t have. People didn’t really get married in the Vampire habitats. They’d call themselves married, make a commitment, but there was no official anything.

  I’d expected to die a long time ago and certainly hadn’t wanted to get married back then. How had this happened?

  I interrupted Patrick, I just had to. “Lydia, are you sure you’re not making a huge mistake?”

  She took my hands in hers. “Deacon, I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it, okay? I love you. I always will. No mistakes here.”

  “Okay, I had to check.” I looked at Patrick. “Go ahead.”

  He raised both his eyebrows. “Thanks, Deacon.”

  The talking started again, and so did the snow. And then it was over. I leaned over to kiss her. She was my wife. My wife.

  There wasn’t time for a lot of romance. The cars had to start back up again. Lydia’s mother kissed me on both cheeks, and her father shook my hand. I still didn’t know what to say to them, but the tears in both of their eyes seemed like what Lydia called happy tears. Or at least I hoped they were.

  I sent her off with her parents despite her objection. We’d have time together, and her mother didn’t have much. It wasn’t like we could be alone. I had to walk another however long a distance until they stopped the cars. Then I’d get to sleep inside one of the SUVs with who knew how many other Warriors before I woke up to let other Warriors sleep so someone could be up the entire night.

  She could fight with us except I thought, and she ultimately agreed, we were better off with her spending as much time with her mom as possible.

  And that was how I ended up, two hours after I got married, with Glen and Micah in the back of a truck. I stared at the top of the vehicle, trying to ignore the fact that Glen snored.

  Micah had his arm over his eyes, blocking out the sunlight. Glen must not have trouble with light. I just couldn’t sleep in general.

  “My poor sister. How does she endure this?” Micah spoke low.

  I smiled. “She loves him?”

  “They’re having another baby. She announced the day before I got back.”

  Babies? I just gotten married, but actually reproducing was such a foreign concept I couldn’t fathom it. “Amazing any of us can consider having a baby at all. How do we keep it alive?”

  “You’ll let me know.” Micah switched arms. “Since you’ll be having a baby in about a year.”

  I snorted, and Glen rolled over. “Still using the condoms you gave me. Not going to have a baby.”

  Micah was silent for a second, and I wondered if he’d fallen asleep. “Look, I’m not some sort of prophet. I can’t see the future. I just read people. You two… it was instant. She didn’t notice me at all. Her gaze zoomed in on you and I could practically feel the cord form, even if you didn’t know it. And the way this works, for you and Lydia, for my sister and Glen, for Rachel and Chad, is that you will very soon feel the pull to make something that is part you and part her. You’ll decide you can manage despite the danger. And you’ll be right. We aren’t going to have a future if good people like you don’t make babies. Now, go to sleep so you can kick ass and not die tonight.”

  I closed my eyes. I wouldn’t think of babies. That was just too much.

  What felt like years of exhaustion hit me, and I let sleep sweep me under. I woke up when the pain hit. Panting, I looked over at the other two. Glen and Micah had both been hit by the signal and were up.

  The Werewolves were here.

  I jumped up with my two friends, and we were out of the truck. The Warriors stood in a circle, looking around.

  “Hey,” some non-Warrior called out to us. I didn’t know who. “What’s going on?”

  Chad stood slightly to the side by his wife. I grabbed his arm. “Get the cars moved. Get the people inside a circle. Us around it.”

  “Good idea.” He nodded at me. “Deacon’s right. Everyone, come on. Put the non-Warriors in the center.”

  I’d had to figure out how to make do recently. Without Genesis behind me, things were more complicated. The others didn’t know how to do that.

  Or they’d forgotten.

  I had a feeling we were all about to remember a lot of things we shouldn’t have forgotten. I looked for Lydia. It would be great to see her one more time since I was going to get killed on our wedding day.

  Most likely.

  Twelve

  The Wolves came at us slowly, moving with practiced motions that spoke of tempered choices and not rushed battle. What in the hell was going on? I shivered. There were fifteen Warriors and two of my newbies in a circle, but I could have sworn the Wolves had all of their attention focused on me.

  That couldn’t be. I’d slept an hour. Exhaustion must be making me too wired and paranoid. There was no way all of those Wolves were looking at me.

  Then they jumped straight at me. Micah reacted, taking one down before the second—or maybe it was the third—grabbed onto my leg and yanked. I cried out when the monster’s teeth made contact, breaking through my skin down to my bone. He dragged me, running at top speed. I hit my head on a snow-buried rock. Once. Twice. As I started to lose consciousness I heard Lydia scream.

  My heart exploded into a million pieces. All I could do was hope someone would protect my wife.

  I woke up strapped to a table. Blinding light made it impossible for me to see, and I cried out. Someone was touching my leg. Why wasn’t I dead? I should be long gone. The monster had had me in his teeth.

  “Let him go. This is not the answer,” a woman called from across the room. “This is pointless.”

  “Keep this up, Margot, and I’ll do more than keep you in that cage.” Another woman answered from right above me. They were talking to each other and didn’t know I was coherent yet. She poked my leg again, and I nearly came off the table, even with the straps holding me down.

  The older woman had cruel brown eyes. It was a strange thought but there it was… She nodded. “I see you’re awake, Mr. Evans.”

  She knew my name. I cleared my throat. “You have me at a disadvantage. I don’t know your name.”

  “You can call me Dr. Mooring. I’m fixing your leg. The stupid Wolves did a bad job on you. Then we’re going to have a talk, you and me, about what you saw and what she said to you.”

  I didn’t have the slightest idea what this woman was going on about, but I’d damned well not be telling her jack shit. She had me strapped to a table and a woman in a cage. We weren’t going to be chatting. I was a lot of things but not a coward.

  And I wasn’t an idiot. If someone strapped me to a table, they weren’t to be trusted. Period. Besides, I legitimately didn’t know what woman she was talking about. It had better not have been Lydia.

  “Who is that woman in the cage?”

  She briefly looked over her shoulder. “My niece. She’s in that cage because she’s responsible for this mess. She let Brynna go. You can blame this mess you’re in on her.”

  The woman in the cage sucked in a
breath. “I’m so sorry, Deacon. I had no idea this would happen. You can’t trust her. She’s evil.”

  I hadn’t planned on it anyway. I knew a few things for sure. One was that if Margot was in a cage, she wasn’t the problem here. Her Aunt was probably an Icahn-type scientist. That meant she was dangerous beyond belief.

  I had to get off this table. She was fixing my leg so she could keep me alive to get information from me. I’d let her do that. And then I was getting the fuck out of here.

  It took hours, and she wasn’t gentle with me. I lost consciousness twice. I should have been grateful. This was the kind of injury that would have otherwise killed me. As it was, I probably wouldn’t survive the recovery. Infection killed as much as anything else, and we were grossly limited on antibiotics. Hell, the one reason we had them at all was because we’d found a stash in Icahn’s old hidden lab.

  When I figured out how to get out of my circumstances, I was going to raid this place, too. I bet the bitch poking at me had some really good drugs at her disposal.

  Finally, she propped me up on pillows, my arms still strapped, which made the whole thing really uncomfortable. I wondered why she bothered until she put on a video screen. I watched myself talking to the strange girl I’d met in the Vampire holding. There was no volume but we interacted, and then she escaped up the ladder. Even knowing she was going to do it, the strange girl was hard to watch because of how fast she moved.

  She wasn’t human, that much was clear, yet she’d not felt like a monster either. This was a strange, bizarre situation I’d landed myself in simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  At least I knew who Brynna was now. Margot had gone quiet hours earlier. I could see her slightly better. She had dark brown eyes and dark hair to match that fell past her shoulders. Like the strange Brynna, I supposed she was pretty. I really didn’t care. There was only Lydia in the universe.

  But maybe we could somehow be useful to each other. Keys dangled on the wall. If she stretched a bit, I bet she’d be able to reach them. But first, her aunt had to be dealt with. Maybe I could bite her. I hated to do it, but I’d done so before. Teeth worked. They were a weapon. When she was down, I’d direct Margot to the keys, and then she could free both of us.

  Yes, that was going to have to be the plan. I just needed to get Dr. Auntie, which was how I was going to think of her now, to make her way close enough that I could bite her face.

  My jaw hurt thinking about it.

  “What did she say to you?”

  I blinked. My days of annoying the Vamps were going to come in handy. I knew how to be really, really unhelpful. “What did who say?”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Brynna.”

  “Who?” I could do this dance for a good long while if need be.

  The doctor pointed at the screen. “The woman you spoke to.”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.” I might even whistle if this kept up. I didn’t know Brynna, I’d likely never encounter her again in my life. She had run from something, and I bet it was the woman who caged her own daughter. I’d lived too long in this world to not want someone who had managed an escape to get away. Considering my odds of living were slim to none, it didn’t seem wrong to risk it all for a stranger.

  The bad doctor was never going to let me go anyway.

  “Are you blind?” She pointed at the screen. “It hasn’t been so long that your memory of her should have faded. You have twenty four hours more at least.” I remembered that was what Brynna had said to me, that my memory of her would fade. Another weird thing in this whole bizarre experience. Then again, I was good with odd… I dealt with strange shit every day.

  “I might be. Do you want to test my eyes? I could be blind because I don’t see anything up there except a blank screen. Are you sure you’re not crazy?”

  “Deacon, don’t do that,” Margot said from the cage. “She’s a very powerful person. Trust me, you don’t want to be at her mercy. I’m only in this cage because I’m family. Otherwise I’d be dead.”

  That was a funny thing for her to say, and it illustrated to me how completely different Margot’s life must be from my own. The doctor was fiddling with some tools. If she wanted me to shut up, she could stop me. Otherwise, I had something to say. “Nobody ever has power over you unless you give it to them. I didn’t know that when I was younger. I learned it later in life. The truth is, I’m not afraid to die, never have been. Death was always part of my day-to-day existence. Now that I’ve experienced love? I’m even less afraid. The only thing that ever bothered me was the idea I’d never really get to live. I have now. So if your crazy aunt wants to torture me, she can have at it. I’m sure I’ll scream, cry, beg. I’ll never tell her what she wants to know. If she wants to kill me, that’s fine, too. I’m not ever going to tell her. Period.”

  Margot sighed and shook her head. “I appreciate what you’ve said, and I could use some more gumption myself. That’s not what I meant, unfortunately.”

  “No.” Auntie sighed. “If you won’t give me the information I want, I’ll take it. You see, I’m going to find out where Brynna went. I need to know what you know.”

  She threw my own words back at me which made me laugh. The doctor clearly didn’t appreciate my sense of humor. She grabbed a syringe. That was great. When she got close I would…

  I never got to try out my plan. She took a needle and jammed it in my leg. I flinched but it was nothing compared to a Wolf bite.

  “Deacon, listen to me closely.” Margot jumped to her feet in the cage. “It’s not real. The things you’re going to see, they’re all fake. Every second of it. The drugs screw with your mind until you’re susceptible to her questioning. Resist. Your own brain turns on itself.”

  What did she…

  The room turned on its axis, spinning out of control until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Everything went black.

  I woke up on a bus, staring at my hands. What had happened? Where was I? Next to me on the uncomfortable seats sat Lydia, ear buds playing something she must like. She bopped up and down to the music, one hand on my leg. I took her hand in mine, and she smiled, touching her tablet until the music turned off. “Hey, sleepyhead. You’ve been out for hours.”

  The diamond stud she wore in her nose gleamed in the sunlight. Was that new? Had she just gotten that? I couldn’t help but smile back at her warmth. This was one of the reasons why I loved her. She was always happy to see me. “Sorry.” I shook my head. “Maybe I had weird dreams. Something seems off.”

  The way the light hit her nose-ring made my eyes burn. A slight headache formed between my eyes. She pouted before she reached out to stroke the side of my face. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, sweetie.”

  Sweetie? Did she call me sweetie? Or was this a new thing? It sounded funny coming from her lips.

  “That’s okay. I’m sure it’ll pass.” I looked out of the bus window. The countryside whirled past us. Where were we going? I rubbed at my head. The knowledge was there, I just had to find it.

  She sighed. “It’s your mom’s fault. Everything is your mom’s fault. She hates me. We wouldn’t be running away in the middle of the night if she’d let us have a life back home.”

  I pointed at the window. “It’s daytime.”

  Lydia groaned. “Hence the sleeping, crazy boy. Keep up.”

  No, she definitely didn’t call me crazy boy. I’d never have put up with that. Not for half-a-second.

  “Um…”

  She shook her head then put her head down on my shoulder. She smelled like springtime. “I hate your mom.”

  I wasn’t a real fan, either. That much I was clear about. It seemed kind of off to hear Lydia say it. She was usually so loving, so easy going, so willing to accept people. Where had her dislike of my mom come from? And once again, where were we going?

  The seat on the bus was lumpy. I wasn’t comfortable sitting on it, and claustrophobia instantly became my wors
t enemy. I had to get off this vehicle. I stood and banged my head, hard, on the overhead compartment. My ears rang.

  “Deacon.” Lydia pulled me back down. “Where are you going? What do you think you’re doing?”

  I wasn’t exactly sure. “Something’s wrong, Lydia. Something is wrong with me. Where are we going?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You don’t know where we’re going?”

  “Something is wrong with you.”

  Deacon. Can you hear me, bro?

  I knew that voice. Who was it?

  Lydia grabbed my chin, turning me to face her. “You need to concentrate on me. Okay? That’s all that matters here.”

  I pushed myself against the window. “Who are you?”

  What’s wrong with him? Had Lydia spoken again? I knew that voice…

  Don’t panic. Another female and familiar, too. Deacon’s tough. Aren’t you? Wake up and show your wife she doesn’t have to be scared.

  What in the hell was going on? Lydia slapped me, hard. I reared back. No, this wasn’t right. Goosebumps broke out on my body.

  I opened my eyes. I hadn’t known they’d been closed. The lights were bright. People were shouting. I didn’t know where I was.

  “Deacon.” Lydia touched me, and I reared back. I really didn’t want her to hit me again. That hadn’t been at all okay.

  Her eyes were huge and her gaze wounded when she moved her hand away. “Are you okay?”

  I wasn’t strapped down anymore. Wait… had I been?

  “I can help him. I am not the enemy. I am in this cage. She put me in this cage because I fought her.” A woman was speaking. I wasn’t sure who, and I couldn’t see around Micah, Chad, and Rachel, who blocked my view.

  On the other side of me, Glen tugged on a line, pulling it out of my skin. I hissed. That hurt. What was going on? “I got it out.”

  “He’s going to have to detox. There’s no way around it. He was on it maybe half an hour. That’s not a huge amount of time. Granted, two minutes are too many. They have had years of experimenting. They know what they’re doing. She didn’t care if he lived. Once he told her what she wanted to know, which remarkably he hadn’t yet done, she would have let him die. You want to save him? I’m your only hope.”