Tall, Dark & Heartless

by R. L. Mathewson

Page 13

 

  "You son of a bitch," she said, looking pissed enough to ring his neck, but he didn't care. Let her hate him. It would make what he had to do so much easier.

  "Enjoy your shower," he said, reaching out and turning the cold water on at full blast before he flashed away from her. He ignored her little surprised scream and focused his attention on the cooler.

  He wiped the water off his face with his hand as he sat down in front of the cooler. His hands actually shook as he grabbed the first bag of blood. He was so f**king close to going back over to her and ripping her throat open.

  Maybe he should do just that and put himself out of his misery, he thought, but just as quickly shoved the thought away again. He didn't want to take the chance on being stuck in here for years without blood and he sure as hell didn't want to deal with whatever annoying female they threw in here after her. For now, he'd tolerate her, but from here on out she was completely on her own. He wouldn't allow her to be a weapon used against him.

  "I hope you choke on it," she bit out as she stormed past him.

  This was going to be so much fun, he thought dryly as he tore into the bag.

  ********

  Four days, four days without food, anyone to talk to or anything to do besides pace the room and ignore the jerk who sat in the corner. He acted like nothing was wrong. Then again, he wasn't the one starving and a few days to someone like him, who would live forever was barely even a drop in the bucket, but she felt every single minute of it.

  It was hard not to, with desperation crawling up her spine while fighting against constant nausea and hunger. She did not want to die here, not like this. She'd fought too hard for too long to let it all end like this. When her time came she wanted to be doing what she loved, fighting.

  Spending her remaining days with a man who couldn't stand her was not the way she wanted to go. This was unacceptable and she sure as hell wasn't going to take it lying down. Slowly, she sat up, trying not to wince as sharp pain shot through her head, but she ignored it. It wasn't the worst pain she'd ever felt and it sure as hell wasn't going to keep her down.

  She hadn't eaten in four days and she was weakening every hour. If she didn't do something now she wouldn't have any energy to do anything later, if an opportunity arose. It was now or never, she decided, getting to her feet as she fought back a surge of dizziness as nausea decided to make an appearance that sent her back down on her butt.

  If this didn't work then maybe they could just knock her out. At least if she was out she could pretend she wasn't starving or sick to her stomach and give her body a chance to rest. Taking a deep breath she tried to stand up again. When her head didn't spin and threaten to knock her back on her ass she took that as a good sign and started walking towards the shower.

  As she walked past Caine she did her best to ignore the bastard. Not once since he'd broken the shower had he spoken to her, which wasn't really a shock since he'd been ignoring her for years. It didn't stop it from hurting. The part of her that hoped he still cared for her, if even a little over the years, died a slow painful death over the past couple of days.

  He didn't care about her. She'd love to say that he'd never cared about her and just allowed her to hang around him when she was a little girl out of boredom, but she couldn't. There was no doubt in her mind that he cared about her when she was younger, but somehow, somewhere along the line she'd done something to ruin that and she had absolutely no idea what the hell that could be.

  Right now she didn't care. Right now she wished she was alone, because she sure as hell didn't find his presence comforting. Actually, it was even more painful having the one person who used to mean everything to her treat her like she was nothing. He used to be her entire world, the one person she could go to for absolutely anything.

  Her parents were kind people, but they'd taken their jobs very seriously. While most Sentinels craved having a family to take their minds off work, to have a little peace in their lives her parents hadn't. She'd been a mistake. After a hundred and twenty years her parents had an accident and she was the result.

  In the beginning they tried to make her the center of their world, but they couldn't. They couldn't pretend their duty wasn't the most important thing in their lives and even as a child she'd understood they helped people. That didn't mean that it didn't hurt when her parents left at a moment's notice, gone for days, weeks and sometimes months at time. She tried not to let it bother her, but sometimes it hurt knowing that she didn't rate very high in their lives.

  Sometimes they just simply forgot about her and forgot to ask one of the other Sentinel couples living in the compound to watch over her. That's what happened when Caine came into her life. The night before Caine came into her life, her parents answered a distress call in Massachusetts and simply took off, forgetting to make arrangements for their three year old child.

  She remembered waking up in the morning alone and hungry. After several failed attempts to reach food she'd left their suite of rooms in search of someone tall enough to reach her favorite cereal. When she found Caine stalking the halls with glowing red menacing eyes and fangs she knew he was the one to help her.

  When he decided to stick around he somehow turned into her closest friend and ally. If she needed to talk to someone she'd gone to him. Instead of crawling into her parent's bed, whether they were home or not, she grabbed her teddy bear, Mr. Tubby and simply yelled for Caine. No matter what he was doing or where he was in the compound he came to her. He'd scoop her up into his arms and take her downstairs to his subbasement suite where she'd sit on his lap, eat the cereal he kept for her and watched Disney DVDs until they both passed out. As much as she loved her parents, which she did, Caine was the one she could go to for anything and everything and he never turned her away. He kept his duties restricted to New York to makes sure that she was safe.

  Until the day she felt her world crumble beneath her feet. Instead of getting schooled at the compound she'd been allowed to attend public school with other humans. Some parents coddled their human children and wouldn't allow them to take part in the human world, but a few others, like hers, felt that since she was human she should live like one, and at least socialize among them. For the most part she'd enjoyed attending school with other humans. It wasn't until her senior year that everything changed.

  When she needed Caine the most he started to back away from her until one day he didn't even acknowledge her, leaving her all alone in the world. Her parents were barely home. At that point she'd barely had anything in common with her human friends and found herself leading a solitary existence while she was at school.

  At the compound she had friends, Sentinels her own age, but even they started to treat her like she was different, weak, because she was only human. No one cared what she did or where she went, so for a while she stopped coming home to the compound to see if anyone cared or even noticed. They didn't and soon she stopped caring whether anyone else cared. They didn't so she decided to do whatever the hell she wanted. She moved out of her parent's compound suite and took a set of rooms in the basement with the rest of the single adults. She quit school, had Roger in IT create fake IDs for her.

  While most teenagers probably would have rebelled by acting up, drinking, doing drugs and having sex, she spent most of her time learning new fighting techniques. She may have been born human, but she'd always known working along the Sentinels would be her destiny and duty. The fact that she was human made her push herself harder and when her parents were murdered she pushed everything else out of her life and focused solely on the job. When she got the news that changed everything less than six months ago she stepped up her game, knowing she couldn't go out without making a difference.