A Touch of Death

by J. J. Dean

  I keep her in my arms a little longer until her cries lessen, and only a few stray tears escape her eyes. She pushes away from me, a blush staining her cheeks. "Sorry, didn't mean to cling to you like that. You just took me by surprise. I'd assumed I was still in America for five years, hoping I wasn't too far from home, and then I find out I haven't been anywhere close."

  She looks lost and alone, and I don't much care for the helpless look in her mismatched eyes. That's not a normal reaction to have to a woman I've known for less than a day. With a raspy whisper, she repeats, "England."

  I move away from her, quickly sliding back into my seat when she drops back onto the couch, her head falling backwards. The lost look in her eyes deepens as she stares at the ceiling, and a gripping sensation tugs at my chest. This isn't right. This entire situation is fucked.

  She's blocking her mind from me. I can't see where her head is at or what she's thinking.

  Zayn's calm voice echoes in my head. That used to be annoying, and on many occasions I used to snap at him for being an intrusive little shit. Over time, I've grown used to his ability to read and speak to minds. It's a helpful ability to have, and it's something I've grown fond of. I find a certain comfort in it now. It's not like he means to be intrusive, and he was even less so when he taught us how to block our thoughts from him. Hearing his voice in my head has become as familiar as the presence of all of my brothers.

  We'll give her some time to digest it. It was a pretty large bomb to drop on her. Imagine having no idea where you've been for the last five years, only to have a stranger tell you that you're so far away from home that it's laughable.

  Zayn nods in agreement, and I know he's passing the message on to the others. They nod a second later, and we all keep quiet while Novia absorbs the giant fact that she's no longer on American soil. It can't be an easy thing to learn and accept.

  Novia is quiet for a long while, a sniffle or sigh the only signs that she's still with us. It's about a half hour later when she speaks again. "What else do you want to know?"

  My eyebrows draw down, and I look over at the others to see the same confusion on their faces. She just took all that time to think over what she's only now discovered, and she's not going to ask questions? We all look to Zayn, and he shakes his head with more confusion than the rest of us.

  When we all look back to Novia, she's already watching us. She's expressionless, her eyes holding a certain emptiness that doesn't sit well in my gut. She speaks before we can question her. "I've already processed it. There's nothing to be done about it now. If I think on it much more, I'll be a complete mess, and I'd rather not have a total breakdown in front of four strangers. So, what else do you want to know?"

  We're quiet for a moment, but Zayn decides to pick up the questioning. "You mentioned a facility. Do you know what kind of facility it was?"

  She shakes her head, the emptiness in her eyes growing until they almost look dead. I really don’t like that look. "I don't know what kind of place it was, but I know it was hell. Every single day was hell there. They experimented on us. Cut, starved, and tortured us. One thousand, nine hundred and thirty two days we were in that place. I kept track of the days through the small window in the room where we were kept, watching the sun disappear and reappear with every new day."

  Her voice is completely void of emotion. She looks like an empty shell, speaking like it's a reflex. The urge to tear her from the couch and hold her nags at me, but I brush it aside, focusing on the conversation at hand.

  With a soft voice, Zayn asks, "What happened, Novia?"

  He doesn't have to elaborate for her to understand what he means.

  "They took us in the night. Every last one of us. They snuck past our barriers, all the security we'd had in place, and not a single fae heard or sensed them. They moved like ghosts and just snatched every one of us from our homes. Not a single fae was left behind, not even the children. I don't remember much after that. My next memory is of waking up caged in a damp, scant room scattered with other cages like my own, filled with my people. My-" She cuts herself off when a sudden flare of emotion seems to choke her, but she wrangles it back and pushes through, her mask slowly slipping back in place. "My father and older sister, Dahlia. They were in the cage next to me. They put them together but left me by myself in my own cage. Everyone else was paired but me. I was always alone. You've already seen what they did to me."

  We all look at Zayn. His expression is pinched, and a murderous glint appears in his eyes. He didn't tell us what he saw earlier in the kitchen when the same look took over his face, and Novia whispered an apology, so I'm just as clueless as the rest of my brothers. Something that's taken care of pretty quickly when Novia decides to tell us anyway. "I don't know what happened to the others, but it doesn't take a genius to know it wasn't any different or less so than what they did to me. They'd take me away and strap me to a medical table. They cut my skin open while I was awake and watch me heal as I screamed and begged them to stop. Often they would conduct these experiments to see how fast I'd heal from every injury they inflicted. Beaten black and blue to time how fast the bruises would fade or when the broken bones would fuse back together, only for them to start all over again. They tore my nails away to see if they'd grow back, broke my fingers to determine the length of time they'd snap back into place and could function again. They tied me to a set of machines that would monitor my brain activity and would suffocate me, checking if I had all of the functions of my brain when I came to after passing out. There's a long list of the ways they made my life a misery. An endless stream of new ideas on how to torture me and experiment on me, all while watching me under a microscope. It was worse after my immortality hit."

  She shakes her head, and a stray tear trickles down her cheek. My heart is beginning to ache painfully. I know - just as Nix does - all too well how excruciating the change is, having suffered it myself when I was twenty-six. Not all Naturals are born immortal. Some are born the equivalent of advanced humans until the change hits, and some are born immortal, but they will age until they reach a certain age in their lives. Zayn and Ezra were both twenty-five when they’d stopped aging, while Nix was a month shy of turning twenty-five when his immortality came. It’s not a process I’d wish on anyone. The pain is agonising, and it lasts for hours.

  And this woman suffered her change in a cell away from her family and home.

  My knuckles are white, clenched tightly enough that I know I'm marking and drawing blood from my nails digging into my palm. My jaw is clenched tight enough that my teeth grind against each other, but Novia doesn't notice. She doesn't see the pure rage that's likely evident on my face. On my brothers’ faces. She's unaware of the murderous atmosphere that threatens to choke us all because she's so deep inside her own mind that she's lost to whatever memories haunt her. She carries on, blissfully unaware of the unadulterated anger that taints the air.

  "As soon as they realised there was even less of a chance they could kill me, they stepped up their game. When it wasn't my turn, though, I could hear the screams and cries of my people. I heard their pleas and begs through the door of the room I was caged in. Then one day, they didn't come for any of us. Or the next day. Or the day after that. I thought we'd been left to rot in our cages, maybe because they didn't have a use for us anymore. I counted seven days of no pain other than hunger and thirst. On the eighth day, the boss came. I was so disoriented that I didn't hear what was being said or to who. I just know the Top Psycho was there in the flesh for the first time since we'd arrived. Then they killed them." Her voice lowers until it's just above a whisper. "They killed every single fae in those cages but me. Every one of my people died in minutes. The sound of gunfire still echoes in my head, the sound of bodies dropping, and the cries and shouts just before the rest died. My father and sister’s last breaths. My father telling me to run and never look back, the very last words he'd ever say to me. It's all embedded in my brain like a virus, spreading until sometimes it�
�s all I can think about or hear."

  She's suddenly quiet while she continues to stare at the ceiling. My chest is feeling tight and uncomfortable, and taking a breath is an incredibly difficult thing at the moment. I catch Ezra wiping away a tear from my peripheral. Nix coughs a couple of times, no doubt trying to cover his emotions, while Zayn sits like a stone in his seat, eyes latched on to the woman who's just shattered each and every one of us without even knowing or trying to.

  She's suffered so much. So fucking much. More than any person should ever have to suffer. How she's still functioning the way she is after going through the very definition of hell is beyond me. The strength she must have to keep standing, to keep going, is something to truly admire. Five years of around the clock torture, and she's still here.

  Doesn't mean I don't want to fucking tear each and every bastard that ever touched her to pieces. She survived, but that’s not to say the ones that hurt her should be offered the same courtesy.

  She groans and blinks rapidly, then shakes her head before slapping her hands over her face. She mumbles something into her hands that pulls a surprised laugh out of Nix and draws a bemused smirk to Zayn's mouth.

  I'm still feeling like a homicidal maniac, but when Zayn flashes a memory in my head, I find myself calming down enough to contain the rage to a tolerable level. It's the very image of what I just saw myself, but I hear her clearly mutter, 'Way to overshare, you dumbass. Now you've scared them'. My lips twitch, but I don't give in to the smile that's waiting to be set free.

  My anger is still bubbling under the surface because not only was hearing how hard her life has been for so long incredibly difficult, we now know the facility she was trapped in is the very same lab we've been watching for three and a half years. She's been there, suffering, the entire time we watched the building. She was trapped and gathered useless intel that we can't do anything with. What the actual fuck?

  The others must catch on to the same thing because the humour dies, and the room grows tense enough that the hairs on my arms stand on end. The entire fae race was in the building we’ve been watching, and we didn’t truly know it. It was only rumoured that fae were kept there, though the numbers of fae was never spoken of. We didn’t know they were all captured and kept in the building we’d been analysing for so long. Which means they know how to cover their tracks, know how to keep shit on the down low, and know they’re being watched. How could we be so stupid?

  Novia slides her hands off her face and tilts her head to look at us. She raises an eyebrow and asks, "What am I missing? Why do you all look like that?"

  We share another look with one another, and, sure enough, each of us is wearing various expressions of disappointment, anger, and self-loathing. How could we have not known that an entire race of Naturals was inside that building? Surely we should have seen, heard, or even sensed something, right?

  We should tell her.

  Zayn is right, and the others nod in confirmation. It's the least we owe her now. She's been open and honest with us, and after failing her and her people already, it's only right we offer her the same courtesy.

  I open my mouth, the words on the tip of my tongue, but Zayn beats me to it. "Novia, before I explain who we are, you need to know we would have done all we could have to rescue you and the others if we had known."

  Novia's eyes grow wary, and she sits up in her seat, intently watching the vampire. "Explain what? What are you talking about?"

  The vampire inhales and lets the air out slowly. "After the fae were taken, the councils sent in teams of mercenaries to find and retrieve them all. For a year and a half, six different teams went in undercover but never returned. There's been no sign of them since. We've assumed they were captured and killed. Three and a half years ago, the last team disappeared, and we were called in. We're the highest ranking hired mercenaries to ever exist. The four of us have been a team for decades, creating and growing a bond that every other team never had. We've been searching for the fae for years, and the closest we've come is finding a lab that we knew to be disguised as a simple testing facility for pharmaceuticals and such. We had no idea that's where you all were. There were no traces or any indicators pointing at you all being in the very building we'd been watching for over three years. We only heard the lab was related to the disappearance of the fae. Stupid, now that I think of it. I don't understand how we didn't put everything together before now. Anyway, after the two year mark, the council decided to abandon the cause because we weren't making any progress after finding the facility. We've been working as rogues for a year and a half now. We knew something was happening inside the building, and we've just been working on trying to find out what."

  "So you were sent to find me and my people, but you had no idea we were in the building you were watching?" Novia asks. I can't get a read on her expression now, and the tone of her voice doesn't give anything away.

  "Yes, we didn't know any more than the facility was related to the disappearance. We've been working on trying to figure out the connection. And we're all feeling incredibly stupid for not realising it before now. We could have found you sooner."

  Zayn looks down with a guilty frown, and Novia tilts her head slightly to the right. The room is quiet for a moment before she breaks the silence. "Okay. I believe you. And anyway, you rescued one fae at least."

  Wait, what? My eyes snap to the woman, wide and confused. She believes him? Why isn't she angry? Why is she so calm and reacting like we didn't tell her she suffered for years because we were too incompetent to find her and her people?

  As though Nix has finally developed the ability to read minds, he asks her the same thoughts I had. "Why are you believing us so easily? And aren't you angry? We could have rescued you all sooner if we had a damn clue."

  With the softest voice I've heard from her, she says, "It wasn't your fault. I know you mean what you said, that you would have rescued us if you could, but you wouldn't have been able to. We were captured fae, remember? We have a vast range of abilities, one of those being the ability to glamour. I wouldn't be surprised if they used some of my people to hide us all. They did worse, so what's not to say that abusing our glamour isn't a possibility? As for believing you... again, I'm a fae. One of my abilities is to sense dishonesty. I know when you're lying, and there wasn't even a flicker of a lie in any of your words so far."

  Well, shit. She's a walking lie detector.

  "We're sorry nonetheless," Zayn offers, guilt still flickering in his eyes the way it's twisting my gut. "I hate to ask, but were there any survivors before you escaped?"

  Grief and agony spark in Novia's blue and green eyes, and she shakes her head, a lone tear escaping before she can stop it. With a crack in her voice, she tells us, "No. There were no survivors. Only me. I'm the last of the fae. The very last one in existence."

  Chapter 7

  Novia

  Zayn looks the most shocked out of all four of the guys after my revelation. I don't understand why, but he seems to grow paler, and his eyes widen, where as the others only raise eyebrows or look at me in shock. Zayn looks like he's seconds away from upheaving the pancakes he ate before this conversation.

  "You're the very last fae?" Ezra asks with a frown, a hint of disbelief in his voice.

  "I already told you, my people were slaughtered in front of me. They killed every single one but me. I'm the only one that lived, the only fae that got out of that facility alive." The memories of my people dying right before my eyes keep assaulting me, crashing into my already battered and bruised brain. Grief cloaks my heart, tugging tightly until I'm breathless. Tears pool in my eyes, but I don't let them fall. I've shed enough tears for now. Crying won't bring them all back. My tears won't bring the two people who loved me with their whole beings back.

  I heave out an uneven breath, falling back into the couch. I suddenly begin to feel tired again, but I force my eyes to stay open. "Do you have any more questions you want answered? I'm pretty sure I've covered the basi
cs, but do you want to know anything else?"

  Nix speaks up from beside me. "Yeah, I have one. How did you end up in the river?"

  Oh yeah, I didn't explain my escape. Suppose that would be a good thing to tell them, considering I'm the equivalent of a wanted convict now. "I was chased after I escaped. I managed to hide for the night, but just as the sun started rising, the Top Psycho's lapdog caught up to me. He didn't see me at first, so I ran. I wasn't fast enough, and he chased me down, hunted me like I was his prey. He tripped over something, and I managed to get further away, but I ended up at a dead end, stuck on the cliff of a waterfall. He caught up to me again, and there wasn't any other option to get away from him... so I jumped."

  A round of sharp inhales and incredulous expressions greets me, and I chew on my bottom lip to fight off the way their looks are making me feel. It's a bad habit I've always had when I feel tense or uncomfortable.

  "You could have died," Ezra unhelpfully points out, annoyance flashing in his dark eyes.

  My jaw tightens, and my eyes harden when I look at him. Anger suddenly rises to the surface, clawing at my skin and begging to be released. How dare he. How fucking dare he point out the obvious to me. How dare he state something I was already painfully aware of without any remorse. I rein in the bubbling rage and speak through clenched teeth. "I'm more aware than anyone here that a jump like that could have killed me. I expected to die when I jumped. I would have died a free fucking woman, instead of letting that slimy bastard get his hands on me again. It'll be over my dead body that I'm captured, tortured, and mutilated like I'm nothing more than a lump of meat to poke and prod again. I won't give them that power over me another time. If I have to choose my death over a life that's not worth living, I'll do it without a second thought."