The Society Series Box Set 2

by Mason Sabre

  "No. I heard him." She ran her hand through his dark hair, and his skin shone from where she had cried against him, but she stared at him like he was the last thing in the world.

  “Your mind played a trick on you.”

  Helena moved away from Eden. It wouldn’t matter what Eden said and what evidence she could give her, she wasn’t going to believe anything other than Stephen had spoken to her. When she pressed her face to the side of his, she kissed the soft skin just next to his ear. “I’m waiting for you. We’re all waiting, but you have to fight, Nick, okay? You have to fight to get back to us.”

  Stephen hobbled to her, dragging his feet, shuffling so he didn’t go over again. It took everything in him not to buckle and just let himself go, but hell, he was going to do this and get to her. “I’m trying.”

  There were no other sounds in the room, no sounds to travel through the worlds, just a heavily blanketed silence that pressed down on them all. “I’m sorry,” he said in the end, his voice weaker than before, and his body … it ached in every muscle, stiff pain that wouldn’t let up on him. He knew he wasn’t going to last long fighting against whatever it was happening to his body.

  Helena wiped her face and straightened herself. She never came this undone. Not all the time Stephen had seen her. Maybe she hid it from him. Perhaps it was just the babies, but there was such a need inside him to get to her just to take that away.

  “He kept saying, take it. Take it.”

  “His blood?”

  “I don’t know. I …”

  Eden ran her other hand down Helena’s arm. “Maybe you should listen to him then.”

  If Helena was anyone else, she might have sworn at Eden and told her to get out. Stephen could see the twitch in her face and the idea that she had been backed into a corner with her own words, but she swallowed it down and ignored it. "It was him. I know it was him." She turned her back on Eden again, then ran her hand all the way down Stephen's jaw, his neck, across his shoulders and along his tattoo. She'd traced the ink a hundred times already, and he could almost feel her doing it now.

  When her fingers reached the cannula in his arm, she nipped her fingers around it. “Maybe if we take this out a moment.” It was a voiced half-thought rather than a question. She grabbed the small tap, twisted and closed it.

  “We need that.” Eden reached for Helena, but Helena was faster and gripped Eden’s hand.

  “I just want to see. I know he is here. I heard him. Maybe you don’t believe me, and that’s fine. You don’t have to. But I know what I heard. I have this.” She lifted her hand to wave the tube that went into her hand, giving her his blood. “We don’t need it right now.”

  "But the silver …" The tub was only half full of blood. Eden had layered it with the same leaves she'd had in the kitchen, and the silver was a sheen of grease across the top.

  “It’s just for a little while. Let him get some strength back, replenish what you already took. Just give him a chance. You can do that much, even if you think I’m talking rubbish.”

  They both stared at each other for a long silent moment, but Eden seemed to relax a little, and then, without a word, she capped the tub and pulled her tube out.

  As she pulled the needle out, something slid through Stephen's chest, and he gasped like a valve had been released and he could breathe. He staggered backwards and tripped over his own foot. "Shit …" He landed on his back and stayed there, but all the pain from before, the exhaustion in his body was gone. Still, he lay on his back and didn't move, waiting for it to come back as a cruel trick to laugh at him, but when no pain came, he dared to roll onto his side, and then he dared to push himself up. He made it all the way to his feet, and there wasn't a single twinge in his body. "Okay," he said, testing it out. "This is good." He took one step, then another, all the way over to himself.

  He let his eyes settle on his wife, feeling like a renewed man. “Helena …”

  She was standing in the small gap by his bed, her hand on his, her face close enough that if he were able to wake, he’d have told her to stop breathing on him. “Please come back.”

  Standing behind her, he lined himself up, so her back was to his chest. "I can't even scent you." He took a breath and came back with nothing. What an awful world it was, to give them freedom and then separate them with an invisible piece of glass. "I'll come back to you. I promise."

  Chapter 20

  When Helena was finally asleep, and night had fallen, Stephen left the room. She had spent the evening next to him, checking on him, begging him. Each whispered plea had almost torn him in two because all he could do was stand next to her and make promises he wasn’t so sure he could keep.

  Aiden was in the other room covered up and asleep on the mattress he had for a bed. They'd obviously found some decent children's bedding, as he lay under a duvet that was covered in superheroes. It almost gave the illusion of the child's room he deserved. On a small stack of books, there was a rotating lamp. It threw clouds across the bare wall.

  Stephen allowed himself to crouch next to him, and just take in that moment to enjoy the small wonder of innocence. He wished with everything he could reach out and touch him, push his hair back. “I’ll be back for you too. I promise.”

  I promise … it was like his mantra, and it grated, but if they could see inside him they would know it was more than just spoken words, it was his honour. "You and I are gonna have such a great time. You'll never want for anything."

  He rose slowly, pushing his hands onto his knees as he got up. The boy was in the corner of the room. He hadn't been there before, Stephen was sure of it. He was holding a teddy bear to his side; it hung limply. It was missing the tip of one foot, and the stuffing was coming out—a little loved to death, almost literally. "Give me a second. Okay?"

  He didn’t need to ask now, to know things. Find himself, find the boy and you’ll find yourself. Well he had found the boy, and the boy waited, but where that led to was a whole different thing, and he didn't know how he knew, or what pulled him to him, but there was something. But then he always had a soft spot for kids, even Human kids. Children were little books ready to be written. They were innocent and pure and not filled with pages of hatred that any society would give to them. It had been Evie who had first taught him that when she had wanted to play with a little boy at the park and had cried when the boy's mother had marched him away. Neither had known which side they were meant to be on or why. What a sad world it was, Stephen had realised that day, and how different it would be without the oppression lessons.

  Xander was across in another room. He had the door open a little, and there was a soft flicking light coming through it. Candles. He had his hand over one of them, and swirled the air, making the flame jump. In front of him, he had a big book … a book that was old, and encased in leather, and very important.

  "Is that a …" What was the word for it? Stephen had seen one before. Witch’s books. Books of old tales and spells and prophecies—a textbook of witchcraft. “Grimoire?”

  “Done for the day?” Xander said, casting his eyes in Stephen’s direction.

  Stephen’s heart leapt at the prospect someone could see him, but then it sank again when Eden came in.

  "No, but if I don't sit down, I'm going to pass out. I warmed up some soup." She tipped one of the two mugs she was carrying and peered inside. "Although we've been at it for days, I think it's mostly just warm beef broth."

  “Warm broth is fine by me.” He took the mug from her and closed the book, and then put it on the small table and pushed himself back onto the tatty sofa. He held his arm out to her, and Stephen arched his brow as Eden sat herself down and nestled under Xander’s arm.

  “It feels like everything is such a fight,” she said after a moment. “We get so far and think we’re going to reach the end, and boom, another wall, bigger than the last one.”

  He took a sip from his mug, winced a little and settled the cup on the arm of the sofa. “Do you think it’s go
ing to work? The babies?”

  “It has so far. I need to meet with Kirsty soon. I used almost all the silver nitrate to burn out the tiger from his blood. I’m not even sure I’m doing it right.”

  “Well, Helena hasn’t gone all furry on us, so I think you must have got it.”

  Eden nodded and pushed herself back into Xander. He twisted in response to her, and let his arm settle across her chest. She held her mug with both hands, but her eyes closed, and within a minute her mouth opened, and she was asleep.

  “Just hold on a little while longer,” Stephen said, backing up. The boy was at the door now, waiting. Stephen shot one last look around the house before he moved. “I’m ready,” he said to the kid. And then they left.

  There was no shock when they ended up at Norton Industries, god knows how many minutes later. Although Stephen had never laid eyes on the boy there, he knew without a doubt that this place had something to do with whatever was going on. It was like the place called to him; a macabre yell, beckoning him in a dark, deformed manner. It was the beating black heart that spun the world in the wrong direction, but it was also the key to unlocking all these mysteries Stephen faced.

  As they got to the main door, the boy wandered without stopping. At least he had some destination in mind. The outside of the building was as sinister as it was inside. Stephen had only seen the outside a handful of times. Lee had been too afraid to let him out, and with just cause too. It was a dark grey place where people came and probably never left. There was a car park around the outer perimeter. Cars for the Humans and Others who worked for Norton … traitors and cruel tormentors. There was a locked, armed gate at the side. Stephen didn’t need to see that again. That had been where they had loaded him and Helena onto the bus in what seemed like weeks ago now but was mere days.

  The main doors to the facility were armed too. Guards held guns across their chests, their backs stiff and their minds rigid and locked on their task. “Evening,” Stephen said to one of the men. Not that he answered or looked, or could see him for that matter, but it gave Stephen enough of a boost to at least smile. “Mind if I just go in here? See what bullshit you’re all up to? No? Okay then.” He threw a wink at the unaware Human and followed it up with a middle finger salute and put it right in the Human’s face. “God. If only …. You’d shit your pants.” He sniffed hard. “You will yet. I promise.”

  He followed the boy into a corridor, one with more metal detectors and more security than an airport after a bomb scare. The boy went through the maze easily enough. Just a load of breeze-block tunnels. Each one of them looked like the last. They reached a door, and Stephen stopped. "Lee Norton," it said on the nameplate. He hesitated to go through it, but the boy had carried on. He could go in there and lose the kid and lose whatever the answers were that awaited him, or he could follow and come back … because he would come back. That promise, he was sure he would keep.

  They went down a set of stairs and through a building that was somewhat familiar to Stephen. He hadn’t moved around a lot when they held him. Sure, Helena had, but she was Human, and there was little she could do if she had got loose … Stephen, on the other hand. He’d fantasised on the chaos he could cause. Just one slip. That was all they had needed.

  Most of the time when they transported him anywhere, they made sure to dose him with a tranquilliser. Mostly, they put that into his food and waited for him to ingest it. Pity for them, they never realised he’d got wise to it.

  At the bottom of where they were going, there was a large set of stairs and a big heavy-set metal door. The boy walked through it, but Stephen paused. Had he seen this place before? He didn’t think so. Maybe …

  No.

  "Oh, God …" There were cages. Rows and rows of cages lined the room. They were stacked in pairs too. Two layers of bars. They went all along the edges, and everything in Stephen's mind wanted to push him back because he knew … god did he know, once he stepped inside wholly, there was no going back. Not for him, the boy or anyone else.

  The boy waited in the middle of the room, patient. Stephen took the step. He was not a coward. He braced himself in front of a cage, and then slowly let himself lift his gaze, and even though he had expected something that would horrify him, his heart broke … it struck with a thousand jolts going through his body and ignited such a fire in his gut. It wasn’t animals in the cages, that would have been bad enough, cruel … it was children.

  Each cage contained one child. On the bars were bottles that hung like rodent feeders. There was a tray for food and a slot to pass it through. Each cage was lined with paper. He stepped back.

  “I …” he shook his head. Even he was speechless, but what was it he could say? It was a room filled with death and torture and sacrifice. Each cage was the same. Layer upon layer of more pain, more agony. Each child, different ages, different species, but all of them Other.

  Stephen thought back to when Norton had tried to capture Nakita and Toke and then in his mind he placed them in this room, and he knew … right then, it was a promise he made. He would live. He would get his body back, because never … never would Lee get his hands on those children or any others.

  “I swear to god, I will kill you for this.” No child should live like that. Not even Human children. Stephen had seen war. He had killed and fought and looked death in the eyes, but this …

  The child in the cage moved. He was just a small boy, a toddler. His eyes shone with purple hues, and there were scales across his face that shimmered in greens and purples. He bowed his head and dragged himself limply to the back of his cage where he rested his weary head. His plate was still full, and he leant over it, opened his mouth and released a fork like tongue to scoop out the meal. He was alive, and perhaps that was the worst part of all of this. As Stephen went to move closer, the boy slid a hand into his and pulled him backwards.

  “What?”

  The boy said nothing as usual, but he tugged Stephen into the direction of an archway. It was like a warren of doors and cages that were much bigger. These weren't stacked. Stephen dared to go to them. Inside there were more children, more innocent souls, but these were older perhaps. Not by much. The end cage held a girl. She was young like the other caged kid, maybe three at most. Her small frame was huddled in the corner, and she was alive too. She had wings, pure white feathers spanned out behind her, the tips of them, dark with dirt. She was all Stephen could see as she shivered in the cage. She wore only a thin shirt that did nothing to keep her warm, and even less to cover her dignity. Amelia, it said at the top of the cage and then a number.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  The back of her shirt was torn where her wings poked through, and her legs and arms were covered in bruises of so many shades. Some new, some old. The backs of her legs were covered with weeping lacerations too. She had been whipped, but then, hanging on the inside of her cage as a tormentor … a reminder was a leather riding crop. It was long and bloodied. It shone with fresh cruelty.

  The boy, who hadn’t let go of Stephen’s hand, tugged him again and then held his hand out to show him one of the soul balls.

  “No ….” The protest died on his lips. How could he say no and leave her there like that? He knew with every inch of his own bleeding soul that this was the best answer she had, even though it tore through him to do it. He would save her. Even if saving her meant she had to die. Anything was better than this. It was better than lying in a piss-laden cage with no meaning. She was too young, too small … her life hadn’t even begun, but he knew she had probably seen more than she ever should.

  He crouched to peer at her. She stared at nothing. Slowly, he nodded to the boy. “Do what you need to.” He realised then that the yard … that was just a demonstration, a way to show Stephen an answer he needed. The boy unlocked the cage door, and it took a microsecond for the shrill alarm to sound through the room.

  The sound of boots and thunderous running followed soon after, and the girl made no effort to get up. Maybe she
couldn't. She was so skinny there was no meat to her. One move, and perhaps she would break a bone. That opened door would crush her. He was sure.

  He was ready.

  Chapter 21

  Bangs, crashes and vile words the Humans spoke from their mouths poisoned the air as the sounds filtered in through the air vents. Seconds later, the silent room erupted into an avalanche of noise as Humans came in. They went from cage to cage, making sure to bash metal rods against the bars, peering in and driving more fear into the tiny inhabitants.

  Arseholes.

  Children cried, some screamed, some remained silent in the confines of their metal prisons. The sounds in the room rose with every passing second until it all blurred into one; the sound of all the broken children became nothing more than one long, loud noise.

  A growl crawled up from the depths of Stephen's throat, and his entire body trembled with the need to do something, to show them. It brought out a feral need for justice, and he thought he might shift. His eyes shifted—the world held a welcome, comfortable tint to it—a wash of colour in all the wrong shades as the tiger came to the forefront and almost forced its way out.

  The Humans lunged into the room like Amelia had committed a heinous crime against humanity. They were weak, cowards, and afraid of a little girl, but this was not her fault. No. The blame for this rested solely at the Human’s door … she was the victim, a prisoner. Yet, to them, evil ran through her veins in ways they could never imagine. It was thick and green and ready to get them if they didn’t find a way to end her.

  “You’re all so pathetic. All of you. Not even one of you deserves to be living in this world.”

  One Human guard reached Amelia’s cage, and he kicked the gate. “Why is this open?” Another slammed against the bars as if that might make her answer, but it only made her curl into herself even more. “Did you try to leave? Do you think you can actually get out?” His features twisted, and his eyes bulged as he gripped the edge of the metal. His rage dripped from him like poison seeping out of his pores. “Do you know what happens to people when they try to leave?”