If I was free...?
I hate myself for feeling like this towards one of you Cains. I’m a bleeding wanker for wanting you to love me back — just a little bit — when all I am to you is something to be owned and touched.
No one’s having you but me. No one’s touching you but…
It’s all right. I get the message.
How could you ever love me?
31
JUNE 18
The look on your face when you stormed out of my room this evening, brandishing my journal like a bloody grenade, I reckoned that you were about to rip out my throat with your bared teeth. “You want to be with your family? Not me?”
I backed into the kitchen, bumping into the counter and scrabbling for purchase. “Hold your horses—”
“Ya huh!” You slammed your hands down either side of me; one still clutched the journal. “You get the message?”
I swallowed. “Don’t I?”
You lowered your lips close to mine; your hair was a soft veil across my cheeks. “What do you reckon?”
“I don’t know.” My eyes fluttered closed. Our lips moth-touched.
Then suddenly, you were gone.
My eyes snapped open. I met your frustrated ice gaze. You stood rigid, with your hands on your hips.
My burgundy journal had been abandoned on the counter; its spine was dented. I don’t know why that hurt so much.
Your voice was low and sharp, “I don’t care if you are centuries old, you’re still a chowderhead.”
“Fair enough.”
“Because I guess what you’re missing,” you continued (your stare so intense that I pulled my leather jacket tighter around me), “is that you may not be free to love on account of being a slave, but I’m free to love whoever I fricking like. Don’t you dare say that’s not loving you back.”
I gawked at you. It’s not often that I’m stunned into silence, so I’ve got to give you credit.
Before my overloaded brain rebooted, however, you were back to business again, as if you hadn’t just used the ‘L’ word for the first time.
You pulled out your mobile, flicking through screens. “I’ve been thinking about how to bring down that sick website. I had this tutorial about ways the Internet can be used to compel companies to behave better—”
“Hang on,” at last, my dazed mind cleared, “we’re not only talking about taking down a website. If we do this, I’m going for the jugular: the whole slavery Empire.”
“I know.” You sounded quiet but determined. “This is the twenty-first century though. Everything doesn’t need to be…fangs and fists.”
I smiled. “Does this mean that I’m doing the whole Spartacus thing with or without you?”
“With.” You grasped my hand. “Landmines were banned because of an Internet campaign, you know.”
“I’m not sure we have the same sympathy factor.” I arched my eyebrow. “Plus, the Internet’s not such a bastion of good, when the most searched for three letter word is sex, not god. I’m not throwing stones here, but it’s both why and how M.C. used it to whore us.”
“How about,” you pulled me away from the counter, closer to you, “we see if we can’t simply get the info democratized? Let the world know—”
“What? Turn the Lost into a protected species? Like endangered Bengal tigers? Because that worked out so well for the other apex predators on this planet besides you First Lifers.”
Your brow furrowed. “We wouldn’t—”
“Because the first use you found for us wasn’t as a nifty sex toy? What’s next? Eternal organ donors, whose organs always grow back? You can bet someone’ll justify that. The military’s controllable super soldier? Zoo exhibit? Safari trophy?” I’d wrenched free from you and was pacing the kitchen. “Or then there’s the expendable worker wherever jobs are deemed too dangerous to risk breakable humans: on sea-beds, oilrigs, or down mines…” I waved my hands above my head, as if a rocket shooting into space. “The perfect astronaut because we won’t die before the end of the space flight.” I jabbed a finger at you. “That’s if you don’t exterminate us in a single mass genocide or in some terror-stricken kneejerk reaction.” I stopped, leaning against the marble counter. “Yeah, let’s go with your option.”
You pouted…actually bloody pouted. “So, we don’t tell the world. Only the site on the Dark Web.”
“You’re saying that the only ones we’d tell would already be Blood Club members?”
You nodded. “We could redirect consumers to the conditions behind the trade.” You grasped my hand, playing with my fingers. ‘No one’ll be blind to it….or pretend to be.”
“Or think that we’re pretty vacant toys who were born to be slaves?” I grinned. Your smile was shyer than I’d expected; it caught at something deep inside me. Then my grin faded. “I don’t want to be the one to throw a spanner in the works but I’m no hacker. How about you?”
You shook your head.
Disappointed, I deflated. “That’s that, then.”
You gaze slid from mine. “There’s Fernando.”
Of course there was. Mr Alpha Geek himself: he probably hacked into the US Government and Space Command to search for evidence of extra-terrestrials on his evenings off.
I stiffened but bit back my pride. “King of the Hackers, is he?”
I hope someday other Blood Lifers appreciate how much saving them has cost me.
You drew your hands away from mine, and instantly I missed your touch. “He calls it ethical hacking.”
“I couldn’t care less what label he sticks all pretty on it, if it works.”
You brandished your mobile, holding it between us. Then you touched the screen and after a moment a check shirted Fernando — chirpy in some kind of tech lab, which was flooded with enough sunlight to make me automatically recoil — pinged up.
Fernando sprawled in his chair. His white-toothed grin was so wide that it looked painful. “Hey Grayse Cain, my favorite Manx, ’sup?” Then I sidled sheepishly closer to you, and Fernando caught sight of me. His smile narrowed. “What the frak is he doing there? You told me—”
“I lied.”
When Fernando tensed, I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“Are you two…?” Fernando twisted away to face a wall that was tacked with posters issuing safety warnings in urgent red, whilst stick men acted out scenes of biological terror, before he muttered, “Is he forcing you to...?”
“Naw,” you quickly reassured, “he’s not... That’s not what this is.”
Bloody hell, but did the bloke look betrayed. “So, you two, you’re...?”
Good question.
You glanced at me, and I studied you. Your call.
The silence was dragging on uncomfortably.
At last, you smiled at me. “It’s complicated. But yah, we are.” I could’ve run laps around the bleeding kitchen. I contented myself, however, with grinning back. The Professor might’ve been able to give you the family, Harvard, and the day, but you’d still chosen me. “Look, there’s a secret nightmare going on here. We haven’t told anyone else. We’re trusting you.”
Fernando nodded. Yet I recognized the pain in his dark eyes. I don’t reckon you have an inkling how in love the Professor is with you. “Is that all? It sounds like it’s your business and not mine. Because I’ve got work…”
“You’re this important Professor of Evolutionary Biology and whatnot then?” I asked.
Fernando leant back in his chair. “I specialize in Mathematical and Computational Biology, primarily evolution…”
“That so?” Alpha Geek might’ve lost in love but he’d think he’d won the lottery when he hacked into the site on the Dark Web and discovered an entire evolutionary branch of biology lost to humanity.
Fernando swung back to his lab, panning his phone, so that we could see the ranks of high-tech gadgets and humming screens. “Plus, I get to play with computers all day, so I’m happy. Talking of which, this rat has to get back to
his race, so—”
“Fernando, we need you,” you hissed. “This is serious.”
“Whoa, what’s going on?” Fernando glanced between us, gnawing at his lip, the picture of concern: the perfect wanker.
“You hack, don’t you?” You demanded.
“You want to say that a bit louder — unencrypted — just in case the FBI aren’t monitoring?” The screen blurred, as Fernando waved the phone in his agitation.
“Paranoid much?”
“Come on, Grayse, you’re killing me here. I can’t risk anything now that I’ve got my research.”
Frustrated, I snatched the phone. “Wink, wink, ethical hacking; we got it. Will you help us?”
Fernando only wavered for a moment. “I’m sorry but I can’t.”
“Open your eyes and do something about the world around you for once in your life,” I snarled.
“Goodbye.”
“No, wait,” Grayse grabbed the phone back, “ignore Light. He’s…” Exasperated, I scuffed my heels against the kitchen units but stopped at a glare from you. “Don’t do it for Light, do it for me.”
Fernando’s look was hard. “You always were good at twisting the knife.”
“I was wrong. Don’t do it for me.” Your glare was as steely as Fernando’s. “I’m going to send you the links to a website on the Tor Network…”
“What the frak are you doing messing with that?”
You sighed. “Just look at it and know what you’re refusing to bring down before you pussy out on account of your Professorship.”
Fernando flushed. “It’s not like that.”
Mr Perfect wasn’t looking so bleeding perfect anymore.
In fact, neither of you could meet each other’s eye.
“You’ll see,” you were quiet and thoughtful; it took me by surprise, “something wondrous, which you’d never imagined possible. But also in such danger that I promise, when you do — like Light said — you won’t be able to simply do nothing on account of I know you’re a better man than that.”
Shocked, I glanced at you. We were leeches and parasites. But now we were wondrous...?
Moreover, I was right about something…?
Fernando swallowed. Then he nodded, before he blinked to black as he cut the connection.
You breathed out, still staring at the blank square. “What if he goes public? Fernando’s all into info belonging to everyone, you know? It’s what hackers do.”
I shrugged. “Then he goes public. Look, it’s pointless taking down Cain Company, if the trade’s still out there with eager consumers. All we’re doing is creating a vacuum for the next slave trader to step into your dad’s shoes. Then who knows, they could be sodding worse. We can’t get the genie back into the bottle but we can smash the bottle.” I’d known since the long nights squatting with my family, when I’d been psyching myself up to return to you, that I’d only completed part of what I’d sworn that day in Abona: to rescue Ashanti’s girl and every other enslaved Blood Lifer. To save my race itself. That was the promise, which I’d secretly made to myself. To keep it, however, meant facing my greatest fear: Master and the Estate. Of course, I hadn’t yet told you; I reckoned that was a drink and sitting down type of conversation. “I’d kill for a coffee right about now.”
You smirked. “Shame I’m not your slave then, isn’t it?”
Right, figures.
You and I settled on the sofa with your head resting on my shoulder, which felt like it fitted. I sipped my coffee in silence, building up my nerve. Tentatively, I stroked your hair, and you allowed it.
I could get used to this.
Except, I couldn’t allow myself that luxury.
What you’d said: complicated? Wasn’t that the understatement of my second life? Still, you’d told Fernando that we were…something. As far as we went, that was the clearest that it’d been stated. Yet now I had to persuade you…
“You’ve got to send me to the Estate,” I murmured.
You shoved yourself off me with comic speed. “Is that a joke?”
“Dead serious.”
“Na-ah, not happening. You’ve only just come back.” You didn’t add to me, but I heard it; I’m sure I did.
I struggled not to let my voice waver. “The website. It’s not enough.”
“What will be for you, huh?” You snatched my mug, slamming it down onto the coffee table with an ominous crack; black seeped down the edges, pooling at its base in a dark sea. “What is it with you and this…hero complex?”
I laughed but I knew how bitter I sounded. “I’m not a bloody hero, just a bloke with a promise to keep.”
You stared at the puddle of coffee, rather than turn to me; you traced patterns in it with the pad of your finger. “You’re soft if you reckon that you can survive…as you are…if I send you to the Estate.”
“But that’s the belly of it, don’t you see?” I wasn’t certain who I was convincing: you or myself. “The Estate is the true blood and guts of the operation.”
“Why do you think I don’t want...?” You twisted back to me. “I’ll go down Mann and see what daddy’s—”
“No good. They’re only letting you in on the sanitized face of the company. If I go, then I’ll see the worst.” I shivered. “I’ll be there undercover. I can remember things: human camera here. Trust me, it’ll be alright.”
“Naw, it won’t be.” Your voice was dead small. “What if daddy…breaks you?”
It was hard to shake the memory of Master behind me on that inspection line with his calloused fingers tracing the small of my back… A hundred lashes of the bullwhip… I forced you to meet my steady gaze. “Not going to happen, darling.”
“You don’t know my daddy.”
“You don’t know me.”
We stared at each other for a long moment, before I started backwards, as you launched yourself at me. Then you were hugging me, like my death sentence had just been announced.
Maybe it had.
Gently, I patted your back. If I allowed myself to wrap my arms around you, I might not be able to let go. The feel of your warmth melting into me, made it even harder. “Ring your sister; it’ll look better to make it non-direct. Tell her the training of your leech is going well but it needs something more.”
You gazed at me through wet eyes. “What? Now?” Your arms tightened around my middle.
I nodded, even though my hands shook. “Are you going to be OK with the acting?”
You sniffed. “Trust me, I can act.”
Yeah, that’s what I’d figured. Still, you didn’t move.
“Any time now, sweetheart.”
“Light, please…”
“I’ll just take a look, plan the caper, and then come back to you, the same daft Blood Lifer as I ever was. I promise.”
Reluctantly, you rang M.C., never taking your gaze off me, nor letting go with your other arm; it felt like you were telling me that you’d be with me, no matter what happened next.
That meant the bloody world to me.
“’Sup, Marlane?” You still didn’t look away from me, stroking my side. “Sorry, M.C., I get you. What’s doing? Well, I’ve been training my leech on account of that’s what daddy wants, and you were right…they need strict discipline.” I was unable to hold back the shudder, when I heard M.C’s tirade on the other end about the bastard tracker. You held the mobile pointedly away from your ear, however, before leaning in and kissing me softly down my neck. Then I shivered for a whole different reason. Finally, you held the iPhone back again. “I’m wicked busy with my course and… You think that’d help? But a whole month?” My stomach cramped. A month...? I’d reckoned on a week, maybe a fortnight if I was unlucky. I didn’t know whether I could hold out under Master’s loving care for a whole month. You were looking uncertain, however, so I forced myself to smile and nod: this was our only chance. “Don’t take his fangs though.” Why hadn’t I thought of that? “Leave it until after, then I can watch. It’ll be, like, informative…�
�� I heard M.C. snort with laughter. When your gaze met mine, I saw the apology in it. “Just remember that it’s still mine M.C.; I want the promise that after a month, it’ll be my toy again.”
When you finally ended the call, we sat for a long time in the dark of the mango scented lounge. The candles were sharp pricks of light amidst the black. The spilled coffee was now nothing but a congealed stain, sticking the cracked mug to the glass; its bitter aroma soured the mango.
We didn’t say anything because what more was left to say?
All right then, I guess it’s time for me to be learned by Master.
32
AUGUST 27
Well, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Bloody longer than the four weeks that your sister promised. A long time since I’ve been myself enough to write in these buttery cream pages or even to know my true name.
My name is Light. Light. Light. Sodding Light…
I must’ve given you a right fright. For that, I’m sorry. Sorry that I lost myself in the dark, letting myself sink into its safety and hide the last kernel of my Soul so deep that no one could hurt me anymore. I’m sorry that I couldn’t fight my way back to you sooner. Most of all, I’m sorry that you were right: cocky wanker that I am, I didn’t know Master.
And Christ in heaven did he break me.
Yet I still came back to you because only you were real to me.
There are things that I’ll never tell you — or anyone — about that month on the Estate. But I still owe you an explanation for why I returned to you marionette-like: learned, as Master said.
We got into this together. You deserve to know what went wrong.
I underestimated both Master and M.C.: their creativity and cruelty. You never truly submit until your mind’s in bondage. That’s where they succeeded, and Sir failed.
So, Cain reputation well deserved.
Maybe one day soon I’ll feel strong enough to give you that explanation. Then you’ll understand why I broke.
33
SEPTEMBER 2
Rebel Vampires: The Complete Series Page 47
