“Jamie!” I bellowed but he didn’t seem to hear me as his head tilted downwards exposing an eerily toothy grin. It was the kind you’d expect to see on a total psycho, someone who was more beast than man.
He ripped the shirt from his back as if the fabric were a hindrance, exposing muscles that seemed even bigger than Jamie had when I’d seen him naked in the lake.
He then eyed the beast as it continued its ritual dance. His grin widening in glee. Was he actually excited to see the chimera? No, it was more than that. He licked his lips hungrily as he eyed the beast.
Alexandros drew me close to him, preparing for the chimera’s imminent assault. The chimera, seeming to finish his ritual dance, kicked at the floor once with its two back paws. Then at warp speed it charged towards where Alexandros and I stood.
But before it could clear more than a few feet, something shot up and grabbed the beast by the arm halting it in its tracks. Was that Jamie?
I gasped. You’d have to have unimaginable strength to hold a beast that large in place. Jamie was powerful but this was another level of power. This was the infamous Zero.
I thought Zero meant to punch the chimera, maybe even kick his underside but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw next.
Zero swung his head back, casting his mouth wide like a net to catch a fish. Then without warning he sank his teeth deep into the chimera’s arm and began… began… devouring the beast as if it were a rib-eye steak.
It was psychotic, it was disgusting, it was unlike anything I had ever seen. And all the horror was being committed by my Jamie, my sweet Jamie? I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Jessica. Listen to me.” Alexandros grasped me by the cheeks and turned me to face him.
“Do not look at that, Jessica. Never look at that.” Alexandros held me close to him.
A tear slid down my cheek. It was unbearably sad to see Jamie reduced to this monstrous behavior. But more than anything, I mourned the death of his innocence. He’s had to suffer so much, and I had no idea this whole time just how bad it truly was. All this time he had to deal with his darkness all alone. Even now he was alone, with Zero manipulating his body and here I was warm in the protection of Alexandros’s arms.
Alexandros’s eyes met mine and I saw a deep sorrow hidden there. Even he seemed on the brink of tears, but something told me it had nothing to do with Jamie.
“Are you okay?” I asked him gently patting a palm over his cheek and he held me closer in his arms.
“Listen, Jessica. I know you may not understand what I am about to tell you. But I… I won’t let us die without confessing the truth to you.”
“The truth?”
The truth about why I felt such a strange connection with him from the moment we met, the reason it felt like I knew him in deep and profound ways, even though that was impossible? I’d been dying to know for so long. But right now, it terrified me to find out. Right now Jamie was fighting to the death with a chimera, by actually eating the thing alive.
My brother was nowhere to be found and it felt like the world was coming to an end. One more blow right now might be all it took to end me worse than any game with Blackwater ever could.
“Vampy-I,” I tilted my head down and he pulled it up to his.
“Please, Jessica. I cannot live with this guilt anymore. I must come clean.”
I pressed two fingers over his lips and gave a nod. He then took my hand in his.
“I have roamed this earth for centuries, cursing my unending life. I knew no love, no joy, no laughter. I only knew the duty and responsibility to my people. But everything changed the day I met you, Jessica.”
“The day you met me?”
“Yes, you from a previous life. You were Ashley then, and you looked up at me with the same beautiful eyes as you do now. Not a hair on your head has changed and neither has my love for you.”
Ashley? Reincarnation? This couldn’t be real. But in my heart, I felt like I already knew this. As if a part of her still lived inside me, memories and all. Maybe that’s why fear exploded in my chest at what I knew was coming next.
“If I was your mate what happened to me? Doesn’t a vampire’s mate live as long as the vampire does?”
His eyes fell from mine and shame twinkled within them. Seeming to gather his courage he stiffened, holding me even tighter.
“You were born human back then and I turned you into a vampire. We lived happily for a hundred years or so before that scoundrel Broderick came.” He clenched his fist as if imagining strangling Broderick. “That vile demon stole our future from us. He tricked me with one of his demonic mirages. He fooled me into believing you had poisoned my blood, intending to kill me. In my grief, my power set loose in proportions I couldn’t control.”
He paused, studying my face for rage, sadness, anything but I kept my expression blank. My every thought stalled by shock.
“An older vampire could easily have withstood my blast. But not a baby vampire. You died in my arms and since then I have roamed Dominion in darkness, madness, and sorrow. I would never dare ask your forgiveness for what is unforgivable. But please, will you tell me what you think of me now that I have told you the truth?”
His request was a simple one or at least it should have been. But it wasn’t, because now the oldest part of me, the part of me that was Ashley, had been stirred awake, brought to full consciousness by his confession.
And while I might have had it within me to forgive him, her sense of betrayal was everlasting, her heartbreak unending. For what could be worse than death by the hands of your one true love?
And Broderick, how could he do something so unimaginably cruel? Demon or not, I’d seen such goodness in him. Was it all one of his tricks?
I broke Alexandros’s gaze, unable to bear the pain I saw increasing in his eyes the longer I stayed silent.
With a final roar the chimera bellowed before a dominion shattering thud scarred the air. My eyes whipped back over to Zero who stood over the defeated chimera. The beast laid dead on the floor, or at least what was left of it.
Zero was covered in blood, his eyes wild with triumph and delight at what he’d done. Who was this man and how could he have turned a man so gentle and good into this?
For a moment I felt safe with the chimera dead but that went to hell the moment Zero caught me in his bloody sights. He shot me a deranged grin before stalking towards us.
He continued towards us, his eyes hard on me. He licked his lips with fervor and just as he was close enough for me to smell the blood on his breath, he gave out a howl of pain and fell to the floor.
“Jamie!” My eyes search for his attacker.
Behind him a prison guard stood, thunder baton in hand. The tip was alight in bright lighting. He’d come along with four other guards, each equipped with a baton of their own. All four of the guards looked mean and angry. They parted to allow Blackwater to merrily stroll up between them. She came right up to us and I groaned in frustration at the sight of her look of utter triumph.
She’d found us. This was a disaster!
The snakes on her head slithered and danced with delight. Their joy however was nothing compared to that of their owner. Blackwater smiled from ear to ear before raising her hands and giving us a hearty applause.
“Excellent job, Sixty-Six! You’ve come all this way and slayed the big bad chimera.” She folded her arms, tilting her head back proudly. “So then, are you ready for your grand reunion?”
Reunion? Wait. Did she know I came all this way to find Michael? If this crazy bitch hurt just one hair on his head, I’d….
“Where the hell is he? What have you done with my brother?”
She giggled an evil little laugh while holding her sides.
“I knew you were a reckless and even pig-headed brat, but I didn’t think you were blind too. Your precious brother is right over there,” she said pointing a scrawny finger in the direction of the large water filled tank on the other end of the room.
/> The air stalled in my chest as my eyes fixed on the tank. My body swayed slightly as horror swallowed my energy. Michael was in that thing?
I ran to the tank with Alexandros right behind me.
I vigorously rubbed as much dust as I could from the glass. I cupped my hands up to the glass to look inside and there he was. Michael. He was naked with all sorts of wires connecting him to the machines. He had a breather over his mouth as well.
What in Dominion was going on?
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Jessy
“L isten, Blackwater, I want some real simple answers and I want them right the fuck now. What’s my brother doing in this thing?” I said behind gritted teeth.
“My, my, aren’t we all high and mighty these days.” She and her men narrowed the distance between us while shooting me a grin that said she was anything but afraid. She really should have been though, without the poison there was nothing stopping me from plucking those snakes from her head, one yank at a time. “I didn’t think it was possible, but I think I liked you better when you were little. At least then you did what you were told.”
“When I was little? What are you talking about? Do you know me from before?” The four male guards on either side of Blackwater glanced over at one another and began chuckling amongst themselves.
“Sixty-Six, why don’t you just cut the crap already. Aren’t you supposed to be some big bad gang leader, heist extraordinaire?” she mocked twinkling her fingers for effect. “Don’t tell me all the time you’ve been at Pembroke you haven’t noticed anything familiar about this place? The chandeliers? The paintings in Cell Block One and the fancy furniture? Come on, Sixty-Six, I know you saw them. I’ve been keeping a very close eye on you.”
Bitterness crawled up the back of my throat, almost making me nauseous. She was right, from the moment I’dcome here I’d seen things that sparked memories from before. From back when I was a child. But I sure as hell never knew any Gorgons back then.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.
“Oh, for the love of God!” She rolled her eyes and just then Jamie began to stir. The guard closest to him jabbed him in the ribs with the thunder baton and once again he was out like a light.
“Hey, you’ll hurt him!” I screamed, lunging at the guard before being pulled back by Alexandros.
“Calm yourself, Jessica. He will recover.” Alexandros leered at Blackwater.
“That’s right, listen to your vampire. Besides, you want to know why your brother is here, don’t you?”
“Quit the games, Blackwater,” I said and she scowled at me, her snakes wiggling about vigorously in annoyance.
“You know what, Sixty-Six? That’s your problem, you were weak then and you're still weak now. This is why you will never save your brother and why you will never leave this place.” She pressed two fingers to her head, jabbing them up and down. “Now think. What was the address of your childhood home?”
“The address?” Anxiety exploded in my chest as memories from my past came back to the surface and with it, pain of old wounds bursting open.
“I- I don’t remember it!” My eyes fell to the ground far from her reach. I refused to let her see my unease.
She gave a deep exhale and narrowed the distance between us. She then cupped my chin in her hand and tugged my gaze up to hers, but I kept my gaze to the skin between her eyes. She was still a Gorgon and could still turn me to stone.
In a flat monotone voice, she declared, “The address was 66 Pembroke Drive.”
Just then the world seemed to go silent as time seemed to stop.
“What?”
“This prison was built over the mansion, the one you abandoned, stealing your precious brother away all those years ago.”
“That’s not possible.” I shook my head struggling to come to terms with what she was saying.
You mean all this time I had gone back to the mansion? Panic raced through me. I’d promised never to return to this place and here I was the entire time?
“Yup,” she said with a shrug, releasing my chin. A lot can change in two hundred years, believe me. Funny how you can go from wealth to waste, slaving away in a dingy old motherfucking prison,” She spat, her left eye twisting in annoyance.
“But!” she exclaimed, the cheer returning to her face as she clasped her hands hopefully over her legs. “Everything will be right as rain again now that he’s back.”
Her eyes fell on to Michael’s tank with light in her eyes.
I cringed at the sight of this strange woman eying my bother with such a twinkle in her eyes. How dare she after what she’d done to him.
“Who the hell are you to talk about my brother? You don’t even know him!”
“Know him?” She laughed. “I knew him better than you ever will! I’m his mother.”
“Liar! You look nothing like our mother, she has long blond hair, I think I would have noticed twelve slimy snakes wriggling about on her head.” I waved a dismissing hand, my brows drawn into a scowl.
“Oh, don’t remember that either? The night you ruined my life?” she said matter of factly but her eyes told a different story as they bulged with rage. “The night you worked your brother into a hissy fit and made him break my reptile tanks?”
Her voice grew deep and shrill as if she were in a great deal of anguish. “Those mangy snakes bit my ankle and cursed me for all eternity. I lost my hair and my son that day. All because of you!”
My mother? This woman? Realty struck deep and hard as I scanned her face for the truth. How could I not have seen it before? She had aged a bit, but I knew that nose, and those icy cold eyes. My mother was pure evil, a vile pestilence in the flesh. The same type that stood before me now.
“But that wasn’t the end of it. You didn’t stop there,” she continued throwing her arms in the air. “You stole my son from me. He was the chosen sacrifice! He was sent by the Gods to keep our family in wealth and power.” Tears spilled from her eyes, draining her mascara to run down her cheeks like black streams.
“It is the duty of the eldest Gilchrest son of every generation and you took him. You damned us to poverty and suffering. And the worst part is I could have prevented it. I should have killed you from the cursed day you crawled out of my womb!”
So many things to process. My head was spinning. Did she say Michael was a sacrifice? Is that why she had him in that tank?
“Sacrifice? Like hell if I’ll let you hurt Michael. I knew you were evil, you vile bitch. And all this time I thought your one redeeming quality was at least you loved Michael, but even that was a lie. You just wanted to use him for your own selfish gain!”
She stilled, her tears drying up like a puddle under heat, and her expression went cold and unreadable. “Call it what you want, sweetheart. I call it the restoration of the proud Gilchrest family. Michael will fulfill his duty and this time there isn’t a damn thing you can do to stop it.”
She turned her head to the guards on her left and snapped her fingers. “Throw them all in solitary and don’t so much as crack the speaking hatch open for two months,” the words spilled from her lips like a toxin.
The guards made their move, charging towards me and Alexandros. I raised my palms, readying to douse them in my flame, and Alexandros raised his arms ready to give them a taste of his super strength.
Horror erupted in my core when despite my every effort, not even the tiniest spark would come from my palm. Alexandros’s punch did little more than toss one of the guards to his ass, having little superhuman power behind it.
“Oh, did I forget to mention?” Blackwater chirped, shooting me a shark-like grin, her snakes popping their little heads up triumphantly. “We’ve rerouted the poison to reach down here as well. So, I guess that means no magic, you naughty little wanna-be escapees.”
“Well, boys, chop, chop,” she clapped three times. “Capture the prisoners.”
Without our powers Alexandros and I were helpless against four t
hunder batons. After two painful shocks to my gut and five to Alexandros’s back, we were down for the count.
They dragged me by my hair all the way to solitary. All the way there I begged them to let my brother go, but it was in vain. I cried like a child who’d just had her candy taken.
The once-proud warrior, the champion of every battle reduced to a teary-eyed mess. The demons of my past had come back with a vengeance, and I felt every bit as helpless as I did when I was a child.
In the end my parents were the only foes I had never defeated. Instead I ran like a coward, too afraid to face my own inadequacies. Too terrified to accept the fact that no matter how much time had passed, no matter how many jerk-offs I gave the beatdown to, no matter how much I thought I’d changed, I never really had.
They flung me into a cold dark cell and slammed the door behind me. I fell to the ground and stayed there, too distraught to even move.
Darkness caught me in its jaw, grinding me up and swallowing me whole. The truth had been there all along buried in my memories. But I was too stubborn to admit it. I didn’t save Michael the night we left the mansion because I couldn’t have. He saved me because he was always the strong one.
I was no champion and I sure as hell was no hero. Deep down I was still that same scared little girl I’d always been. I was still just a punching bag for my parents. Still a failure and despite my every effort, at the end of the day that’s all I’d ever be.
To be continued.
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OTHER BOOKS BY TAYLOR SPRATT
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