by J Bennett
The hum of the car seems so loud, and the passing street lamps blaze like sudden flares in the night. We leave behind the highway and then the street lamps and then the other cars. I cry, but these are silent tears, hot by the time they tip over my chin. We sail through the night for a long while, and the tears eventually dwindle. All that is left is the hunger growing louder and louder in my bones.
Eventually, the car stops. The driver gets out. The door by my head is wrenched open. He grabs my shoulders and pulls. The seatbelt digs into my hips, and I cry out.
“Damn,” he mutters. He grabs my wrists in one hand and pins them against the back of the seat while he leans over and undoes my buckle. The passenger side door opens.
“Jesus, where are we? You gotta piss?”
The driver pulls me roughly out of the car. I hit the ground and curl my legs into my chest. There is only the hunger and the pain and the shadow of Ryan lingering behind the trees that edge each side of the road.
The driver pulls a gun from his waistband, and I am not afraid. The amber glow is so bright around him that it looks like some sort of unnatural fire. Everything is fire. I stare at the scar running along his jaw and recognize him. The enforcer of Avalon levels his gun at me. The blood stains across his shirt and jeans are already turning dark. In his eyes I see a cold that I would never be cliché enough to call arctic except that I can’t think of anything else. There’s a lot of blood on him.
“Tarren, no!”
Pant legs intrude into my visual field.
“She’s infected. We have to do it now while she’s weak.”
“One shot Tarren. She only got one shot. She’s like…a hybrid or something.”
“We can’t take the chance.”
“Yes we can, because, uh, because you could use her in your research. She could be, like, the key. The hybrids are always the key in, you know, stuff.”
“We’ll take the body back to Lo’s lab.”
“Cold hearted bastard! She’s blood.”
“His blood.”
“Our blood. She’s our blood Tarren.” The elf boy’s voice has gone harsh. “She’s our family, and you can pretend that you don’t care about anything anymore, that you’re suffering the weight of the entire world on your shoulders, but you’re just afraid. Fuck you. I’m not moving.”
“You done?” The gun doesn’t move.
“Yeah.” The elf takes a shaky breath. “I mean no! She could help us. Think about it. She’ll get strong. She’ll get fast. She can fight with us. We can…”
“And the hunger?”
My protector turns and looks at me. I can hear how fast his heart is beating, the faint rush of blood as he clenches his fists. The light around him swells. So blue with sudden streaks of lavender lashing across. The song. They act as if they can’t hear the music flowing in hot torrents all around us.
“We’ll buy her rabbits,” he says finally.
“She’ll lapse and feed on humans.”
“No, she…”
“THEY ALWAYS FEED ON HUMANS.” The enforcer’s voice echoes into the trees. He pulls in a deep breath. “You know that. She is Grand’s daughter. He’ll come after her again and by then she’ll be strong. I’ll take care of it. Just get out of my way.”
“I’m on fire,” I say for no reason. I lift myself up to my elbows with difficulty. I don’t know which one I want to prevail. A bullet would be quicker than this slow burn.
“No.” The legs in front of me step a little wider. “No,” the elf says again. “We’ve crossed a lot of lines, but I’m not going to let you cross this one. She may feed on humans one day, maybe not. Until she does, she’s an innocent, and we don’t kill innocent people. Not today. Not ever. She deserves a chance; I don’t care who her parents are. If she crosses over, I’ll kill her myself, but not today.”
The enforcer keeps his gun steady. “Gabe,” he says.
“I’m not moving.” Gabe spreads his arms. “If you’ve got to kill her, then do it, but I’m sick of this shit. You kill me first, ‘cause killing innocent people is what bad guys do. I’m not a bad guy, and I’d rather be dead then see you turn into one.”
I hold my hands out in front of me and stare at the new dark slits running through my palms.
“Am I a monster?” I whisper. “Is that what this is?”
“No,” Gabe looks at me over his shoulder. “Well, kinda, but we’re going to help you. We’re family.”
Tarren lowers his gun. A slow descent.
Chapter 7
Some time passes — at least a few thousand years of us trapped in that blood-smelling car.
I try not to think, and the pain makes this easy. It crowds out Ryan’s face, and the man with his needle poised, and the enforcer with his scar and his gun and his Rorschach-splattered shirt.
“…might be cracked,” Tarren’s voice is soft.
“Dr. Lee can bind it.”
“Wouldn’t do much good anyway.”
“Come on Tarren, he’s seen…” Gabe’s voice cuts out quick. “Well,” he stutters, “just be careful with it.”
“It’s the least of our worries.”
My spines seizes up, and I bite my lip hard, but not hard enough to stifle a low moan. Gabe twists in the passenger seat. He clutches the headrest with both hands and peers at me.
“I’m sorry Maya,” he says, and then he slumps back against his seat. “Don’t look at me like that,” he mutters to Tarren.
* * *
The boys huddle outside the car, their heads ducked together in whispered argument. I lean my cheek against the window while the blinking neon light of the motel sign washes over my eyes.
If I concentrate, I can catch their words.
“..won’t make it through the night unless she feeds.”
“We have to keep moving. Grand will want her back. He’ll track us.”
“Uh, last time I checked he was minus a hand. I think he might have other things on his mind. She’s in trouble. We’ve got to hole up for the night.”
“Go get her something then. You’re better at picking locks.”
“Like hell! You’ll blow her brains out as soon as I turn my back.”
“I won’t kill her unless I have to.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“On Mom’s grave?”
“Why do you always say that?”
“Cause I know you’ll keep it.”
“On Mom’s grave.”
* * *
“I know how this looks,” Gabe, he of the backwards hat, says as he comes round the bed. “You know, with you and the bra, this less-than-stellar motel room and well, these cuffs, but they’re just a safety precaution.”
I lie on the bed, propped sideways against the headboard and squeeze my eyes shut as Gabe binds my wrists together behind my back with a plastic tie. He steps back quickly and lets out a breath. I am still holding mine. The melody of hunger is filling up my head. A thin trickle of blood runs out of my nose, and there’s nothing I can do even if I cared.
There are other people near. I can sense them, the different ebbs and flows of their energies. I hear a TV chattering in the next room. Upstairs, a woman cries beneath the spray of a shower. It all blurs together, a loud mess of noise and smells and frantic tugs in my brain that I can’t even begin to parse. Gabe is talking, offering a cup of liquid. It smells rancid.
“It’ll help,” he says.
Tarren leans against the far wall, arms folded across his chest. A gun sticks out of his waistband.
“Am I going to die?” I ask in a thin little girl voice.
“Not today. Come on now, drink this.” Gabe puts the cup to my lips.
The liquid is rusty on my tongue, but I swallow. It sits uneasily in my stomach.
“Keep it down,” Gabe says.
My stomach clenches, but the nausea passes.
“Good,” Gabe smiles. “That’s real good.”
“They all drink water,” Tarren says.
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“That was tap water. I’ve never seen any of them drink tap water,” Gabe replies. He sits on the bed next to me, tips the cup to catch some water on a cloth and then carefully cleans the blood and dried vomit off my face.
I stare at the glow as it rotates on a slow current around his body. I realize that it is made up of many different delicate, shifting shades of blue. Pale purple filaments blink in and out of existence.
Gabe looks me over for a long time, and I focus on his eyes. They are a warm brown like caramel. I dig deeper, discovering tiny gold flakes caught up in the caramel mix. There’s mischief in those sparks of gold, and through the fog of pain and the implosion of my universe, I suddenly feel like I know him. Something in his face seems so sad and so real. He said we were blood, but I don’t understand what that means.
He speaks. “Look Maya, I wish you could know how sorry I am, we both are, that this happened to you. You’re probably freaking out right now.” Gabe takes off his cap and runs his fingers through his wavy hair. “It shouldn’t be like this. We should’ve been able to protect you.”
He waits, but I am too immolated to answer. I turn my head to gaze at the headboard, at the initials scratched in the wood. BJ was here
“Look, I’m running out to get you something that’s going to help,” Gabe continues. “Something for your uh…thing. When I get back and you’re feeling a little better, we’ll explain everything. Maya…things are going to be different for you, but Tarren and I, we’re going to take care of you.”
Another pause. I’m not sure which one of us he expects to fill the gap. BJ was where? Here? Lying against a headboard with his hands cuffed behind his back? Body on fire? Boyfriend gone, gone, gone, gone?
Gabe is speaking again. “That thing before with the gun; don’t worry about that. Tarren won’t hurt you, I promise. I know that probably doesn’t mean much, but…” Gabe kneads the visor of his cap. The glow, his aura, is beautiful, and I think that I can see his pain — faint scarlet hues — reflected in the shifting colors around him. “...well, it’s the truth. God, that’s lame.” The last part is a mutter.
Gabe waits for something. He keeps waiting. Finally, he puts his hat back on. “We’ll explain everything. Soon.” He gives Tarren a long look before he leaves. Their eyes say something to each other that I cannot fathom. I feel Gabe’s weight lift off the bed. The door opens and closes.
I let out my breath and feel the skin unfold back down against my palms. My wrists are sore from straining against the handcuffs.
Chapter 8
We wait in silence. I am too busy dying to care. It’s all still happening — the blood boiling in my veins, my muscles and sinews melting and my bones glowing hot like heated iron. I lie on the bed shaking, searching for a moment of pure silence when the song is not beating inside my skull.
“I imagine it must be very painful. The hunger,” a voice says from far away. I blink and make the effort to turn my head. The words are important. If I hold onto them, they may keep me afloat.
“Someone once told me that it’s like a fire that consumes you forever. Feeding will lower the flames, but it will never extinguish them entirely.” Tarren’s voice is deep, rugged—the type of voice Hollywood would cast as the misanthropic cowboy lead in a spaghetti western.
There is a small table in the corner of the room. Tarren takes a chair and places it near the bed, though still far enough away to be out of arm’s reach. He sits and takes his time speaking so that each word is clear and resonant.
“I am sorry that you were infected, but it happened. You are one of them. An angel. There are no halves. No hybrids.”
Tarren leans over and plants his elbows on his knees. Thin scarlet threads through his energy.
“Gabe thinks you will be strong enough to control the hunger. I hope that he’s right, but I don’t think so. When you prove him wrong, I will kill you. ” His head comes up and those cold eyes guard his thoughts well. We look at each other. More accurately, my gaze moves around his body, following the flow of his energy. He doesn’t share Gabe’s brilliant aqua; Tarren’s blue aura is mixed with shades of yellow and brown, which turn it muddy.
“You don’t understand what you are, but if you did, I think you would forgive me. You see, most people choose to be infected. That makes the killing a little easier, but I never enjoy it. I know that doesn’t help, but I just…I wanted you to know.”
My eyes find his. It is a struggle to keep my gaze anchored with the energy moving around him. His left eye is swollen, and a dark bruise already shades the delicate skin beneath.
“Are you…” I swallow and concentrate on the words “…my brothers?” My hands are open and hot. Something new is happening to them.
“Half brothers,” Tarren says. “We have the same mother.”
Something vibrates. Tarren pulls a phone from his pocket.
“You here?” Pause. “Wait outside. I’ll let you know.”
Tarren frowns. “Listen closely. It’s easy to lose control when you feed. When you’re done with the animal, you’ll want more, but you must stop yourself. There’ll only be me and Gabe left, and if you try to hurt me or especially my brother, I will kill you. Understand?”
I stare at his scar. It starts under his left ear and jags along his jaw line, curving up his chin and ending just under the edge of his lips. It must have been a large knife.
“Okay,” I say, because I am sensing a new energy outside the door and though Tarren’s words hardly make sense, I think that maybe this new energy is for me.
“Alright,” Tarren says into his phone.
Gabe opens the door. He holds a small border collie puppy under one arm and clutches a plastic bag in his other hand. The dog’s tail wags from side to side.
“All I found was a pet shop. They didn’t have anything grown,” Gabe says. The dog lifts its head and licks Gabe’s chin. “Stop that,” he says sternly. “Stop being…so god damn adorable.”
“Lock the door,” Tarren tells him. He walks around the bed. “I’m going to cut the cuffs off you now,” he says to me. “Stay on the bed.” He looks up at Gabe. “Her hands are open. She’s been straining against the cuffs.”
“She’s hungry,” Gabe says. He drops the bag and fishes a gun from his waist band.
“Silencer on?” Tarren asks.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry little guy. I really am.” Gabe looks down at the puppy. “Shit,” he mutters. He moves to the end of the bed.
A blade slides between my skin and the cuffs. The plastic snaps off, and I think I understand. My mind is so fogged, the need so great that I’m not sure just how much control I wield over my own limbs. I pull my wrists free of the cuffs and concentrate only on the dog. Tarren is just behind me. I could grab him. The blood is rushing in my ears. Gabe would shoot me, but wouldn’t it be worth it? Death for even the smallest relief? Until this night, I never understood how completely hunger can dissect away a person’s soul; what viciousness lies beneath the surface of any one of us.
And there’s something even more wrong with my hands. I turn them palms up and stare at the vein-covered bulbs rising out of each bloodless wound. They pulse with heat. I let out a guttural moan that is wholly inadequate to express just how obliterated the little planet of Maya is. This is when the word monster first seizes in my mind—a seed plugged into fertile agony to germinate later.
Gabe releases the puppy, and then I forget everything.
It lands on the bed and immediately shrinks away from me. I rake it up into my arms, and the puppy gives a single fearful yelp before the orbs in my hands latch to its energy field. I feel an explosion of cooling ecstasy. There is no knowledge to this, only instinct. My body greedily soaks up the animal’s energy. The little dog trembles just as Ryan trembled earlier this night. The glow around its body dims and wavers and then vanishes like a candle snuffed. My mind is lost, drowned in the pleasure that is all too quickly vanquished.
I let the limp body fall out of my arms. The
re is more energy in the room. The hunger is already kindling inside of me, growing louder. I look up and see a boy in a ball cap. He holds a gun at his side. He is distracted. His eyes are on the dead puppy. I suddenly know that I am faster than him. I could leap off the bed and connect to his energy before he could get off a shot. My muscles tense. There is another man. He has a gun too. He is not distracted. Tarren is his name. And the other one is Gabe. I am hit by the realization of just how much I want to kill them and how little I care about the bullet I would earn for the attempt. What would Ryan think of me? Vanilla.
“The cuffs,” I moan. “Now, nownownow.” I put my arms behind my back, try to close up my hands. The skin is stubborn, peeling back again as soon as Tarren steps behind me.
“She’s got it,” Gabe says under his breath even as he lifts his gun. “She’s got it. She’s got it.”
Tarren’s fingers are deft. A new set of ties whips around my torn wrists, and he pulls them tight into the wounds. He backs away, and Gabe lets out a heavy huff of breath. I fall back against the bed, moaning as the need rises and breaks over me. The animal inside me is so much stronger than my fragile self. It lashes out, and I strain against the cuffs, groaning and writhing on the bed.
The two brothers watch me in silence. Eventually—and it probably isn’t so long, really—I am lying on my side panting. The sheets are twisted and smeared with blood from the oozing wounds on my wrists.
“It’ll get easier,” Gabe says as I tumble into an exhausted sleep.
Chapter 9
The nearness of energy breaks my sleep and sets my heart beating hard.
A face peers into mine, and for a blissful moment I don’t recognize it. I wonder at the strange glow around his features, about the swell of haunting music in my head and why my hands seem to be splitting open without any conscious effort. Then I remember.
“Hey,” Gabe says, “I know you’re tired, but I want to show you something.”
