by Megan Parker
“Shut up, you son of a bitch! Our parents are dead because of you, so I’m sure they’d have rather seen me hook on a fucking street corner before approving of your decisions!” She shot to her feet and glared, stepping beside Zane, “This is all your fault! Everything that’s happened—from the very beginning—has been entirely! You killed Mom and blamed it on our father to turn me against him! You’ve manipulated me every step of the way to trick me into believing you!”
Keith shrugged and let the apple fall from his palm and roll across the floor as he took a step inside, “What can I say? I’ve always been something of a trouble-maker, right? Bit of a problem-child?” he sneered at them, casually glancing about the room despite their defensive stances against him, “I’m sure your new boyfriend has said it all; parroting all the same bullshit Daddy dearest crammed into his mind. An exaggeration on an exaggeration on an exaggeration… oh yes, you should most certainly believe that sort of credibility! Leave now, Serena. The door is right there and I won’t do anything to stop you. My business is and always has been with your beasty boy-toy.” He glared at her, “But your safety relies on your abandonment of the Clan of Vail, so if you intend on rejoining them, you’re accepting their fate!”
“Do as he says, Serena! This doesn’t need to be your fight! Get out of here!” Zane growled, shaking as he said the words but never once relinquishing his death-glare on Keith.
“No fucking way am I le—”
Zane grabbed her before she could finish and shoved her towards the door. “I said get out NOW!” he fought the growing rage, holding back its efforts to take control long enough to herd Serena out, “Go! Find Zoey and Isaac; everybody! Tell them to get out of here—to abandon Vail and everything to do with it—and make new lives elsewhere!” Zane gave her another shove towards the door.
He watched as she stumbled through the door and turned to come back again, “No! I won’t leave you!”
Zane shot her a glare, his aura already shifting red and giving him the ability to slam the door in her face, lock it, and barricade it against her enraged shrieks and brutal assault to try to get through. Keith smirked at the racket and arched an eyebrow at Zane as her futile efforts resounded within the room.
“Zane! Goddam it!” She screamed through the door, “Let me in!”
Keith chuckled, “Tenacious little bitch, isn’t she?”
Zane continued to glare at him, not offering a response.
“Ah yes, straight to business, right? My father has taught you well. Alright then, if that’s how it must be…” Keith inhaled sharply as his aura extended from each wrist and his hands began to glow as he wrapped each fist in it.
Zane glared and pulled his Beretta into his hand with his own aura and took aim at Keith’s head. “I should warn you: though it’s the beast that you’ve come to recognize me for, I was recognized by your father and many others as a capable warrior on my own. Allow me to demonstrate my marksmanship.”
“Not fighting fair, I see.” Keith glared.
“I’m willing to bet you wouldn’t either.” Zane spat, letting the burning of his tattoos envelop his arms as he guided his aura towards the Beretta, “Now let’s see if there’s any merit to your sister’s methods!” as he spoke, one of his auric tendrils covered the gun and wrapped around the round already waiting in the chamber as he pulled the trigger. Keith glared and moved to dodge the shot, but Zane, anticipating this, redirected the bullet in his aura and drove it into Keith’s shoulder. Hissing in pain, Keith glared down at the wound and gaped at the sight of Zane’s auric tendril still clinging to the burning metal inside him. Zane smirked, extending another auric tendril to the next waiting round. “Oh yes! Definitely on to something here!”
He twisted the slug within the meat of Keith’s muscle, causing his shoulder to spasm violently as he hissed in pain.
“AH!” he gritted his teeth and glared at Zane, “So, you are learning to control it?” Keith growled and, focusing past the pain in his shoulder, charged at him in overdrive.
Zane frowned, caught off guard by Keith’s swiftness, and cried out as he was thrown against the wall. Appearing in front of him a moment later, Keith grabbed him by the throat and drove his aura into his chest, pushing him harder into the wall, twisting and crumpling its surface as he did.
As Zane’s aura shriveled with a loss of focus, his hold on the slug in Keith’s shoulder slipped, allowing Keith to pull it out with his own aura and let it drop to the floor.
“Now that was rude!” he hissed, extending his fangs as he drove more pressure into his assault on Zane’s body.
As the last of his breath was forced from his lungs, Zane gasped and struggled to keep his focus against Keith’s efforts to crush him.
He couldn’t let him win!
Not now!
“You knew this was coming, beast! You’ve been waiting years for it, right? Waiting for the day you wouldn’t have to suffer and grieve and feel?” he smirked and began to drain Zane’s aura with his own, taking away the rage and stifling any hope of transforming, and chuckling as his eyes began to lose focus.
Zane gargled on his words; both his intended message and its delivery a mystery to both of them as his mind grew too hazy to think. Keith began to laugh—the sound echoing and rolling irregularly in Zane’s ears—and, taking Zane’s gun from his flaccid grip, brought it to his stomach.
“I can’t kill you just yet; not if I hope to achieve what I’ve worked so hard towards. But, in case you doubt my sincerity in this issue, here’s a little souvenir.” He wrapped his own aura around the gun as Zane had and pulled back the trigger, sending the aura-laced bullet into Zane’s guts and twisting and stirring it about as emphasis. Zane whimpered and shook as Keith released his hold and allowed him to fall to the floor, smirking as he began to heave and cough up blood. “Yes, it is quite painful, isn’t it? I thought it was unfair to savor all of that on my own.” He laughed and stood up, leering down at him. “I hope I’ve made my point, Zane.” He poked the toe of his shoe into the gunshot wound and smirked at the pained grunt, “It’s better if you stay out of my way.”
With his auric barricade receding, Serena’s ongoing assault on the door finally paid off and the door flew open on shrieking hinges.
“Keith! You bastard!” she shot forward and released a wave of auric arrows at her brother.
But he was already in overdrive and gone from the room and the safe house—leaving behind the lingering echoes of his laughter—by the time they found purchase against the far wall.
As she withdrew her aura back into herself and hurried to Zane, his vision faded and the world went black.
Zoey sighed, “He’ll live through this, though we’re lucky he didn’t transform.”
“It was Keith… the bastard had nearly drained him to the point of death!” Serena bit her lip, looking down at Zane’s unconscious body, “There was nothing to fuel the change!”
“I hate to say it, but he may owe Keith his life.”
Serena glared at Zoey, “Are you serious? Look what that fuck did to him!”
“But it could have been worse!” Zoey sighed, wrapping the last of Zane’s bandages as an I.V. of enchanted synth-blood fed into his vein.
“What will we do next time if Keith appears again? What can we do?” Serena growled, “He’s too fucking strong! The next time he might not stop at just mutilating us! Can’t we just give him whatever it is he’s after?” Serena growled, “He’ll have no reason to hurt us if we’re not standing in his way!”
“It’s not that simple, Serena. Keith’s been playing with those at The Council; feeding them lies and using the influence they’ve given him so that he can acquire Vail and dismantle it from the inside.”
“Okay? So my brother’s a bitter, power-hungry, spoiled little bitch-boy!” Serena sneered, “Tell me something I don’t know, like why we have to suffer any longer to protect a clan that’s already destroyed from being taken by a prick aiming to destroy it?”
&
nbsp; “Because his efforts have labeled us as the bad guys to The Council, and that means we’re bad guys to everyone that serves them!” Zoey sighed, “But they’re organized. They have rules and regulations on how to approach these situations. That’s why Zane’s still alive! If Keith kills him now, he’s breaking protocol. If we hand Keith the clan, we hand him the only thing that’s keeping The Council from executing us on the spot!
“If we lose the title that Vail gives us—what it represents to The Council’s codes—then we’ll be deemed rogues and we’ll all be killed!”
“But there is no Clan of Vail anymore! How are we under its protection?”
“Because it’s politics, Serena! Until all the right steps are taken—all the paperwork filed and all the proper authorities notified and consenting—to classify Vail as a dead clan, then neither they nor Keith can act on it!”
Serena looked down at Zane, “So if Keith kills Zane before then…”
Zoey nodded, “Then he will be executed for breaking The Council’s protocol and killing a clan warrior without due cause.”
Serena sighed, “And killing Keith would give them due cause, wouldn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“So—what?—we’re dead if we hold on to the title of Vail and we’re dead if we hand it over, is that right?” Serena snarled.
“Pretty much…” Zoey nodded.
Isaac thought for a moment, “But what if we can get to The Council and show them what a manipulative little shit Keith is? Obviously we have no authority, but I’m sure they’d be pissed if they saw how he’s been screwing with their system, right?”
Zoey smirked, “Oh, I can’t even imagine what sort of punishment they’d have lined up for that sort of an offense. Though they do love to make examples out of the more severe—”
“No! I will kill my brother for everything he’s done!” Serena snarled. “I don’t care if The Council executes me for it! It’s better that our bloodline dies with me avenging my parents!”
Zoey glared, “And what about our lives, Serena? What about Zane’s life? If you kill Keith, you validate every claim he’s made against us and we’ll all be killed!” she sighed, seeing the pain in Serena’s eyes as this fact dawned upon her and she offered a reassuring smile, “Look, The Council will deal with him when they see what he’s done. I promise. What they will do to him will make death seem like an act of mercy. If there’s anything The Council loathes over anything else, it’s anything that might motivate an uprising against them, and a corrupt influence in their ranks is a severe threat to their authority over the Mythos community.”
Serena frowned and nodded, hoping that what Zoey said wasn’t just an empty promise to make her feel better. Looking down at Zane, she watched as his wound began to heal and let out a relieved breath.
“We need to be more careful from now on.” Serena frowned.
“Agreed.” Zoey nodded, and Isaac smiled and nodded as well.
Isaac smirked and nodded as well, gesturing towards some of his pack mates that stood with the remaining Vail warriors, “And you’ll have plenty of help, too.”
Zoey frowned, “You know you don’t have to help us, Isaac. You and your pack aren’t a part of this.”
“Like hell we aren’t!” Isaac growled, “That bastard’s vendetta dragged my pack into this shitstorm! He’s gotten our brothers and sisters killed so that he could exact some petty revenge in response to a family feud! Oh you bet your ass we are a part of this!”
Zane let out a small groan and his body was beginning to shiver as his wounds continued to knit closed. His mismatched eyes shot open then and he cried out as his tattoos began to glow.
“H-hot!” He groaned.
“He should be healing faster than this.” Zoey frowned, chewing at her lip.
“It’s okay, Zoey. I think I might be able to help him this time.” Serena smiled at them and nodded.
Zoey blinked for a moment, caught off guard by the response, but finally smiled and nodded. “Sounds good. We’ll go get some towels and ice.” She motioned for Isaac and the others to follow her.
When they were alone, Serena looked down at Zane, laying a hand on his sweat-covered forehead, “It’ll be ok,” she whispered as she pulled several strands of his hair from his face, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Before long Zoey returned with several clean towels and a bucket of ice and they began to work on relieving Zane of his burning skin. As the cool cloth touched his forehead, he let out a startled gasp and began to shiver; the glow of his tattoos starting to dim. Serena smiled at the progress and continued, leaning down to examine his wound and discovering that the synth-blood had run its course and healed him.
“Serena…” Zane smiled as his eyes focused on her.
Serena couldn’t help but smile as she found herself staring back into his eyes, and Zoey, seeing that she was no longer needed, made a quick-but-silent exit to leave them alone.
Overwhelmed by her emotions, Serena leaned back in the chair that she’d pulled up next to Zane’s bed earlier.
“I’m glad you’re ok now,” she whispered.
“Yea. All thanks to your stubbornness!” Zane sighed, “You shouldn’t have stayed!” though he fought to keep his eyes away, she could see he didn’t believe what he was saying.
“Fuck that! I wasn’t about to let you have all the fun!” she smirked at his resulting sneer, “I’m going to help one way or another! After all, he is my brother and Vail is my clan!”
“So you’re not going to kill him?” Zane gave her a skeptical stare, “Be honest.”
She sighed and nodded, “Yea, I guess if The Council can do better than I can it’s worth it to let them do their job.”
Zane smirked, “It will be impressive.”
“And I should stick around to keep you from going Hulk and spoiling it all! Guess we’re lucky your curse-beast has a hard-on for me,” she smirked.
Zane blushed and bit his lip, sitting up. “You know… he’s not the only one.” He frowned and shook his head, “Not that that’s the only thing I care abo—”
“It’s okay, I understand. I just… I need a little more time to get over Devon.” She bit her lip and turned away, feeling the tears starting to well in her eyes. “I hope you understand.”
There was no response.
Frowning at the silence, Serena turned back and frowned, realizing that Zane was gone.
“Serena! We need to do something! We can’t wait for Zane anymore!”
“How far are we going to make it without him, Zoey?” Serena glared, “I won’t reconsider this! We have to find him!”
“If we waste any more time it might be too late for any of us.” Isaac growled, slamming his fist into the walls, “He knows where we are and how to get in, and we can’t just keep sleeping in shifts and hoping we’re not attacked again! Waiting on him isn’t an option!”
“It is for me!” Serena growled at both of them, “He left because of me! I can’t just—”
“Will you stop being so goddam selfish just because you’ve suddenly realized and admitted your feelings for him! We can’t wait anymore! We have precious little time and far too many things to do in that time!” Zoey cried out, tears growing in her eyes, “I know Zane! I’ve known him far longer than you’ve known him and I can tell you with all certainty that, wherever he is, he’s doing something stupid. And with Zane, stupid gets people killed!”
Serena frowned and froze at the words. Her mind had been wracked for the last few days and she had locked herself away from the others and delaying every attempt to leave, hoping that Zane would come back. But there still had been no sign of him. In that time, however, she had come to terms over Devon’s “death” and decided that mourning wasn’t doing her any good; especially since she’d been mourning his death for years now. Just because a shadow of his personality had lingered and clung to her didn’t mean that she had to waste her life trying to find a way to reverse the irreversible. No matter w
hat they would’ve done—no matter what sort of body they could’ve obtained for him—it still wouldn’t have changed that he was dead and that she should’ve let him go—figuratively and literally—all those years ago.
Mourning and regret and doing nothing were something she had gotten very good at, and in all that time she’d been miserable and alone and achieved nothing.
It was time to stop waiting and hoping the world would fix itself around her.
It was time to take action.
She looked over at the others and nodded, “You’re right.” she sighed at the confession, “Every day we wait is another day closer to whatever Keith’s got planned, and it doesn’t do us or Zane any good to wait.”
They stared at her for a moment, startled by her revelation but nevertheless relieved to see her come to her senses.
“I just…” she shook her head and looked at Zoey with pleading eyes. Zane had left her alone, and in his absence she was the one everyone looked to for guidance. She had unwillingly become their leader despite knowing nothing of ruling. “I can’t do it alone.”
Zoey gave her nod, seeming to know exactly what was troubling her, and Serena wondered if she was reading her thoughts. “It’s okay, Serena. I know this a lot to take on, but we’re with you and able to help every step of the way.”
Serena smiled and stood up, nodding, “Right. Then I guess we’re doing this. No time like the present, right?”
“Damn straight!” Isaac smirked, slamming a fist into his palm, “I was getting a little stir-crazy in this hole!”
Zoey beamed at his excitement, obviously just as eager to be free of the lifeless, monochromatic abyss they’d condemned themselves to.
Serena smiled. Maybe she could do this. After all, she’d always refused to follow the orders of others, so why not be the one issuing the orders? She looked around, watching as everybody prepared; watching her clan prepare.
