by Mason Sabre
Despite Stephen’s best efforts to ask him, and the strain in his voice, Joey still didn’t answer. It would help him a lot if he would. If he would just say why he was following them around and tugging at him now. It made Stephen have no choice but to carry on. Steps were leading down behind the wall, steps that entwined their way around the cliff face they were at. Just the sight of them was enough to send Stephen’s brain into vertigo dizziness.
The steps weren’t as hard as he’d imagined. Well, he hadn’t imagined them being hard. What he’d thought would happen was that he’d buckle and hurtle to some odd ghostly death. Joey had stopped tugging and was ahead of him. Xander was in the distance. There was a house near the bottom … a farmhouse perhaps.
Maybe Eden had stopped taking his blood. By the time he reached the bottom, Stephen found it a little easier to move. He limped and jogged at the same time … a deformed creature hurrying along. Joey kept glancing back at Stephen, making sure he was following, but he carried on still, following his father. The house he walked toward had a fence around the outside with big locked gates. It was also raised on a deck of sorts.
It wasn’t Joey standing by the gate that made Stephen stop. No.
“You?”
“Me.” Freya smiled and then pursed her lips. She moved in a dancing kind of way, swaying, her dress swishing around her legs.
The ground was solid. Stephen finally gave in and let himself drop. Xander would be fine. He was at the house. Probably getting the witches demands. "I thought you get old before you die, not die and then feel old," Stephen said, leaning back on his feet and stretching his back. "What are you doing here? And don't say out for a stroll.”
Freya shrugged. “Just passing through.”
“Passing through. You do not pass through anything.”
That was what she wanted him to believe. He had known her enough to know that Freya always had a reason. There was still a trick up her sleeve. She gave him another smile, one that he supposed was meant to be sweet and innocent, but it made her look even more suspicious. “Have you found the answers you sought yet?”
“I haven’t found anything.”
Nodding, she raised her head so she could look down at him. "Of course." Then she started walking away from him.
“Seriously?” Part of him considered letting her go … again. It was that defiant nip in his brain that wanted to say, ‘Fuck you, Freya,’ and leave her to it. But then there was the other side of him that was too curious for his own good, and just like the last time, he swore to himself and then got up and walked. “It might be easier if you just tell me what this game is,” he said, as he got himself to her.
Oddly, he found he could keep pace and the more he walked, the more it got easier. Instead of the gate and the house, though, she veered around it and walked in a semi-circle. "Does a child learn if you show them the answers first?"
“I am not a child.”
“No?” She raised a brow, and the corner of her mouth twitched. “Then why do you act like one. Spoilt little heir.”
"Did you come here just to piss me off, or did you plan on helping me and telling me things."
She stopped. “What is it you want to know?”
“What does Joey want with me?”
It was almost like Freya regarded herself as royalty, the way she walked, the way she put her head back and held her arms clasped behind her back. “He is helping you.”
“Helping me? How? He just brings me more riddles than you do. I don’t understand what is going on. What all of this is.”
“Of course, you don’t. You are too blind. Too foolish.” When he frowned, she walked back to him. He was sure she had grown since the last time he had seen her, or she was making herself look older. Not that she was young. She was centuries old, but she always appeared as a teenage girl. Now, the girl was still there, but if he had to guess her age, he would have put her closer to twenty. “You have to let go of what you know. You are not Stephen Davies anymore.”
“I am Nick ….”
She shook her head. "No. See? This is what you don't understand and why you can't find your answers. You were never Stephen. Not really. He is just a character you played … a false facade by your father who gave you this mould and you slotted yourself into it. Stephen the heir, Stephen the brother, the son, the soldier … you are selfish.”
Rage flushed his cheek at that word. “Selfish? How am I selfish. Everything I do. Everything … I …”
“They’re all for you.” A pause. “Tell me. When your sister had her son, and he was taken from her, you could have taken him from your father. You're bigger than him, fitter. It would have been a mess, but you could have done it."
“Fight my father?”
“Yes. You could have taken the baby back and given him to your sister and relieved her pain and that of your friend, but you didn’t. You lied to them too. You watched them suffer the loss they didn’t need to feel. You watched it break them.”
“And you think that is selfish?”
She folded her arms over her chest. “Yes. Why did you do that?”
He sucked in a breath. He could still hear his sister’s cries. He could still see the sights of his best friend as he crumbled at the news of his son’s death. He could feel their pain, their sorrow. He felt every ounce of it like a hot sword to his chest. "They would have died. All of them. If they'd have got their baby." They'd have been slaughtered, executed. That was the truth of it. Trevor, Cade's father, would have found them.
“So, you didn’t want them to die?”
“Of course, I didn’t.”
“See?” she said, holding her hands out in gesture. “Selfish.”
“That’s not selfish. That’s love for my sister, my family.”
She shook her head and then it was her turn to breathe deeply. "It wasn't love. If you were to ask your sister or your friend … if I was to put them before you and tell them you knew their son was alive, what do you think they would say? What do you think they would do?”
Oh, he knew what they would say and do. It haunted him every day. It would haunt him forever.
“You took away their choice and excused it with your love for them. You let their hearts be broken when you could have eased it. Even how you got here … that was because you saved your father. You saved him because you loved him. Helena, the bus, the children. This here now … all of it is because of what you want. You label it with love, and then you act." She glared at him, and it was the first time he had ever seen anything close to emotion in her eyes. "You are blinded by what you feel, and it is your weakness."
He had no words to say, no thoughts … only anger … anger and pain. Inside, his tiger wielded claws and teeth, yet he was still barred and bound by the constraints of the situation.
“You want to tell me I am wrong, but you don’t because you know it is the truth.”
“Actually, I want to tell you to fuck off.”
“Then why don’t you?” She was teasing him, jabbing him.
“Because I need …” he was going to say you, but she widened both her eyes, and he realised he had fallen into her wordy trap. If he said it was because he needed her, he was exactly what she said. Selfish.
She walked back toward the house. Joey and Xander hadn’t come out yet. “Friendship,” she said when Stephen came beside her. “We find it in the oddest of places with people we would never imagine.” She looked up at him. “Sometimes those we think are our enemies are our friends, and sometimes those who are friends, are the ones who betray us the most.”
“You are talking in riddles again.”
“You are blinded by your own heart. That’s the problem. You let it lead you, and you will never find yourself. Nick, Stephen … they’re all just roles you play, characters. But you are so much more than that.” She placed a hand on his left arm, right at the centre of the scars hidden by his tattoo. “There is more power in you than you know, but it will remain caged until you let go.”
/> Heat flooded into his arm where she held him, but he had no desire to push her away, even when it started pulsing, and it hadn’t done that in so long … it calmed him. It silenced the voices that whispered in the corners of his mind. “I don’t understand.”
“It is better to make decisions when calm. If you base your actions on what your heart says, you will do things you may never repair.”
She let go then and started to walk backwards away from him. She didn't fade as she sometimes did, but she merely stood, and then gestured with her hands for him to go to the house. He didn't want to. Her words were a pressure in his mind, but despite what his gut was telling him, he moved.
There were voices in the house. They were in one direction. If Stephen had been at his full potential, he could have honed in on them and found them quickly, but he had to use the skills of a man.
He found them in a room at the back. A room that was probably once a kitchen. Three men stood together talking. Three men who were a sight Stephen’s brain couldn’t quite put into place. His heart stopped, and the pounding filled his head.
There was a Human, and Lee. They were standing, casually, thinking they were important. But that wasn’t Stephen’s problem. Standing with them, in all his glory, not afraid, not captive … just talking. It was a sight worse than death.
His friend.
Someone he trusted with everything that was dear to him.
Xander.
Chapter 26
The air scorched the back of his throat as it slithered down into his gut like someone had concocted a mixture of lava and acid and forced him to swallow it until his body was full and the only place for it to go was to settle into his stomach. It passed through his body in a rush of blistering heat and was met at the base of his spine by the icy rod of betrayal Xander had stabbed him with.
He clenched his fists and let out a breath. “You arsehole.”
Friend.
He shook his head at the mere thought of the word. Friend. It was a joke. Xander was no friend, not anymore, not the man standing in this room with the very person who had done all the wrong in the world. Blood pumped and surged through Stephen’s body in short, fierce bursts and made him dizzy.
But more than anything, he wanted to look away. He tried to turn his back so he could pretend what was in front of him wasn't true. He wanted to cover his ears, or his eyes and hide behind a shield of denial so he wouldn't have to face this.
The sight took him to his knees, and he choked out another breath, this one sharper, fuller, threaded with the realisation he had trusted someone with every jewel in his life, and he’d crushed them, turned them back to sand.
He was a fool, a stark raving fool who had known from his father’s teachings that trust was being vulnerable, being open.
“I trusted you.”
Stephen’s mind kept throwing random memories at him, letters, promises … a tick box of things he had believed and believed in, but every single one, Xander had been at the heart.
“Is this for money? Is that it?” There was no other reason Stephen could fathom Xander would do this. He was a money hunter after all. He’d earnt his money in the past by catching Others and pitching them in fights to their death. A man who did that was … God. Stephen couldn’t even find the right word in his mind to describe him.
Stephen wasn't mad at Xander. No. he was furious with himself. Mad with himself because he had believed. He had blinked for a second and thought perhaps something in the world could be good, but even then, it had been hidden like a sweet apple with rot at the core.
Each moment passed with disturbing darkness, and there was nothing he could do about it. Xander nodded at Lee, and although the smiling face was weak, it was there still. Lee handed something to Xander. It was a small bottle, with a bright white label on the front and the Norton logo on the back. It was small enough that when Xander held it, it was covered in his palm.
“The witch says he is dying.” His voice never faltered when he said it, never quivered with the emotions of a friend realising the truth.
“How could you?” It was one thing for an enemy to do something wrong, but it was worse when it was someone trusted … someone he had trusted with his wife, his children.
“If I give him more, he might actually die?”
Stephen picked himself up. The blow was still bitter in his gut, and the bruising would last for a long time, but Stephen Davies did not stay down. Fuck no. He rose and stood in the centre and glared at the face of this stranger. “What are you doing?”
“No.” Lee shook his head and stared at Xander, staring through Stephen and not even realising it. “It won’t kill him, but it will make sure he stays out of it all. If he wakes up, all of this is over.”
Over? All of this … the words didn’t want to process in Stephen’s mind, because if they did … not only did this mean his friend had betrayed him, betrayed them all, but that he was actively helping Lee to keep him in his current unconscious state. He couldn’t help but run his hands down his face. “You’re doing this?”
Xander put the bottle into the front left pocket of his jeans, but he kept his hand over the top and patted it. “What if I give him too much?”
Stephen shook his head. "It's a little too late for that. Don't you think? Do you even know what is in the bottle?" Stephen was sure Lee had told him some tale. In all of this, the lesson Stephen realised, was that he knew Lee far better than he ever dreamt he would know Xander. At least Lee was honest. At least he had morals even if his actions were fucked up. “Helena saved you,” Stephen said from behind them now. “She saved your fucking life, and this is how you repay her?”
“Maybe you need to stop asking questions and just give it to him as we have discussed.” Lee paused, then he backed away from the two men and went across to a cabinet. Maybe it had been neat once, crisp with fresh paint; now it was rotten. Age and nature had come in and broken away parts of it all. He opened the door on the bottom, and in the back was a scattering of nests. A small animal squealed at Lee, hissing her defence at him. He smirked, reached in and lifted her out. He didn't even flinch as she nipped at his skin and brought small welts of blood to his hands. He clenched his fists and crushed the life from her. And when he opened his hand again, her eyes bulged, red and broken, and her ribs were indented into her body where he had squeezed her, but her right leg twitched and then her mouth moved. She gave off a quiet squawk, and he tossed her onto the countertop. "If I wanted him dead, he would be.” He wiped his hands together and closed the cabinet. “This will keep him under. Is there a problem with that?”
Xander shook his head and looked down at his feet.
“Is that guilt?” Stephen asked. “I fucking hope so.”
“No,” Xander said. Then he raised his eyes and met Lee’s again with a little strength back in them, but his shoulders were slumped. He was a lamb trained by the wolf, only he wasn’t a lamb, and Lee wasn’t a wolf. This was worse. “There is no problem.”
“I hope Lee doesn’t kill you when this is all over," Stephen said from across the room. "I hope he leaves you alive." He wanted to do it, Stephen. He'd feel that fucker’s blood running between his fingers, and he would enjoy it.
That would be his gift. He would take his time.
On the other side of the room, nearest to the main door, there was a small lock box. Lee went to it and opened it. It rested on a small table that had probably once housed a lamp or someone's decorative vase. There was another bottle inside it. This one was encased in foam. The label was plain, but it was different. It was smaller than the other, too. "This one is for Helena when she goes into labour. Put it in her food, her blood, her cup of tea. It doesn't matter. Just make sure she gets it."
Xander took it, but he didn’t slip it as easily into his pocket. “What will it do?”
Lee closed the case. “It isn’t your place to ask questions.”
Maybe Xander thought he had one over on the Humans. Stephen didn’t know what t
he plan was, or even what the motivation was. Probably like everyone else, it was greed, pure and simple. It was an infectious virus that spread from the Humans and infected everyone around them. Now it had spread to Xander … his friend … a person he would have walked through fire for.
If he wanted to act like them, he would die like them too. Stephen promised himself that, and he didn’t give a damn how it was as long as they screamed. That was all that mattered. He could hear the echoes in his head even as he thought it. Like imagining a treat before actually eating it. It was delicious.
The door opened near Stephen, and it made him move. "You?" The first was back inside Stephen, crushing him. It nudged at his ever-growing fury as Benjamin Norton, Lee's uncle, joined the party. "I should have known." Xander's deception and betrayal ran deeper. The three of them greeted Councillor Norton. He was another piece-of-shit Human in a suit. He was tall and slim … smug. He would die with them. Hell, they could all hold hands together while Stephen ended their lives.
The Stephen Davies Death group.
“I trust everything is in order with the children?” Benjamin said, addressing Xander over everyone else. He had a case with him too, and he handed it to Lee, who then put it on the counter and took out an envelope. This was passed to Xander. “For your trouble.”
Xander caught it and opened it; then he thumbed the contents. There was money inside. It was no surprise. What price was there on Stephen's head? Or his children's? Or his wife? Whatever it was, it would never be enough. He would be in debt to Stephen until his last rasping breath left his pitiful body.
“And?”
Norton's nostrils flared at Xander's question, and Stephen thought he heard a faint gasp. Xander didn't say what it was exactly, but by the look of things, he didn’t need to. There was an unspoken conversation going on between those two, and everyone seemed in on it, except Stephen. “The exchange.”
