The Connection (The Claudia Belle Series Book 3)

by C. S Luis

  “I can't explain now, but trust me,” Dr. Black said to me, and then he turned away. Moving forward, he began to fire, hitting Quentin twice directly on the shoulder.

  “Let her go!” He demanded, stopping at a distance, still pointing the gun directly at Quentin.

  Quentin dropped Alex; she fell to the ground on her knees but didn’t move fast enough as Quentin grabbed her again, wrapping his arm around her neck and holding her in front of him as a shield from Dr. Black, and then he laughed back him.

  “Stop!” Alex cried, and I wondered what she was doing.

  “You can’t kill him like that Venator!” She scolded. “You’re only pissing him off!”

  Did they know each other outside of school? And what was a Venator?

  “Get Claudia out of here, and forget me! Get her away from him!” Alex again yelled. “She’s the only thing that matters now!”

  27

  Dr. John Black

  I came through the ceiling hard and onto my back, realizing we were on the second floor. I struggled to my feet and wondered why I wasn’t dead, but before I could answer that question, someone grabbed me and tossed me against the wall. A boy’s marble black eyes stared back at me, and I collapsed against the wall and then dropped onto my knees.

  “What the fuck are you?” I sneered through my teeth, spitting out blood from my gash on the side of my lip.

  He tossed me back as the others appeared beside him, materializing from the floor and popping out of the ground to confront me. I reached for my pistol, but it was no longer there.

  “Shit!” The teenage girl among them came forward and swung a fist at me. I stopped it and swung back and struck her right square on the face repeatedly and as quickly as I could. Normally I wouldn’t hit a woman or lady, but goddamn, this was no lady. She didn’t even look human.

  But my punches didn’t have an effect on her. “What the fuck are you?” I sneered.

  She kicked me back, and I hit the wall dropped like a rock, struggling up again, but one of the other males grabbed me and tossed me across the hallway where I landed against the sidewall so hard I dented it.

  I felt like a fucking rag doll. How was this possible? I was usually the one causing the damage. I was fast, and I was strong, but for all my strength and training I couldn’t get hold of them. It was as if they didn’t feel pain or couldn’t be hurt by anything I did to them. An ordinary person would have already begged me for death.

  I’m faster than ordinary men, stronger, and fucking better trained too. But no matter my speed and strength, they grabbed me quickly, launching me against the side of the wall and then across the hallway. I recovered quickly, but this was getting ridiculous. Now they were just having fun with me, and I was getting irritated.

  I struggled to my feet; I was on my hands and knees when I saw the girl of the group flipping over in my direction. It looked like she was doing cartwheels in John’s direction.

  Get it! The Man in Blue said. I see it a few steps from us. Get the gun!

  I looked across the hall. Near the wall was the pistol I had dropped. I reached for it and lifted it, but before I could fire, a dark figure darted across the room and grabbed one of the males from behind, and she drove what looked like a blade into his eyes. At once the figure dissolved into black vapor. Now, why didn’t I think of that?

  The other turned only too late to catch her, and he fell victim to her quick assault. The girl was still coming towards me, and I pointed my pistol right at her. A headshot always did the trick. And I never missed. I fired, and she froze, her head flung back, and I knew I had gotten my target.

  I lowered my weapon, the smile on my face one of the victory until her head came back up, and she stared back at me with a wide, hideous smile.

  “Shit!” I hadn’t missed. I could clearly see the bullet on the center of her head. I lifted the gun again, ready to fire a closer target, hoping that would do the trick. But before I could do so, the figure in black emerged again. I could see now that it was a girl in all black with long hair, dressed in a miniskirt, fishnet stockings, and wearing a corset and a long-sleeved shirt beneath.

  She grabbed the girl by hair, pulling her head back, and driving the blade into each of her eyes. With that the girl dissolved instantly. I only stood there as she now was looking back at me with a slightly curved lip and a frown upon her pale face. I knew her, I thought. I mean, I had seen her before. But I couldn’t recall from where.

  She placed the blade of the knife in the slit mounted on her thigh. It seemed the blade’s sharp side had ripped it slightly, leaving an impression upon the slit each time she pulled it out or placed it back in.

  “Hey, eyes up here!” She snapped over at me. I blinked up at her. She wasn’t exactly the most charming person I’d ever met, but she had saved my ass.

  “Who the hell are you?” I blurted out, my gun warm in my grip.

  “I should be asking you the same question. I don’t recall those being issued in any school or district,” she snapped, pointing to the pistol in my hand. She had quite a little mouth on her, quick and short.

  “Hey, I’ll ask the questions around here,” I growled

  John, you’re always a control freak.

  She wasn’t threatened, and she rolled her eyes at me. She sure seemed strangely dressed herself, all in black. She looked out of place like those things. She had on dark eyeliner and dark mascara.

  “What the hell were those things anyways? And how did you know how to kill them?” I asked, not pleased when she smiled over at me, knowing that she knew more than John Slater did. But this was something I had never encountered, and that was hard to believe since I had seen strange things.

  “You sure ask a lot of questions,” she snapped, taking a deep breath. “They’re puppets…servants here to do his dirty work,” she answered as if it were common knowledge. “Besides, you can’t kill them with that,” she again said, frowning back at me and pointing at the gun in my hand. “Don’t you know anything? What kind of Venator are you?”

  I blinked back at her. I think I blushed. “Who the hell are you? And how do you know who I am?”

  She glared over at me. I hated the idea that she knew more than I did. The way she looked at me was the same way The Man in White looked at me, and I hated it.

  “Are we going to stand around here all day and ask stupid questions?” She again snapped.

  “Hey, I didn’t ask for your help,” I darted back. She smiled wide, playing with her hair like she was bored and rolling her eyes back at me. Now that was irritating. Did teenage girls all do this? I bet my girl didn’t.

  “Well, you looked like you were getting the shit kicked out of you,” the Goth girl said to me, and I wrinkled my eyes back at her.

  “I had it under control,” I merely said, cocking my pistol.

  “Right,” she spit out. “Cute, but arrogant.”

  “Excuse me?” I said, catching part of that.

  “Look, I know what those things are, and I know what’s about to happen. So let’s just not stand here all day asking stupid questions. Claudia’s in danger, and we need to stop him before he takes her,” the girl said to me. She began to move, leaving me wondering how she knew so much, but I refused to ask. I couldn’t believe a teenage girl knew more than me. I had been doing this for longer than she was alive.

  “Him?” I uttered, unable to keep the word from spilling from my lips.

  “Yeah him, you know who I’m speaking of Venator,” she snapped. “He calls himself Quentin. I know him as Q,” she said while turning back, and then she continued walking. I tried to stay beside her as she kept talking.

  “What were those things? They didn’t look real,” I asked her, trying not to sound like I didn’t know what was happening. But this was new to me, all of it, Project X and even the source.

  She looked back at me with a shocked expression. “Oh, they were real, just not like you or me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  She stopped a
nd stared back at me and took a big sigh and rolled her eyes and then again said, “You really don’t know what’s going on here, do you? I thought you were just fucking with me. This is a first. I thought you Venators knew everything. Weren’t you trained for shit like this?” She examined me carefully, like she could see through my thoughts, but it would have been impossible for her when the mind manipulator was on my wrist.

  “Nothing like this,” I simply said, walking past her. I stopped only to wait for her.

  She took a deep breath and began to move again.

  “Besides, how many Venators do you know?” I again asked.

  She smiled and nodded as we entered another hallway. We were coming up to the auditorium. “Good point. Not a lot, actually you’re the first. But you have a purpose, even if you haven’t realized it yet.”

  Purpose? What did she know of my purpose? What did she think that my purpose was?

  She gazed over at me and caught the expression of dismay or plain confusion on my face. Sure, I was a little lost in thought, wondering what her words meant or what I had missed all these years. “Forget it. We have to hurry; we don’t have much time,” she suddenly said, and she hurried down the hall to the very end to enter the stairwell. She knew exactly what to do, what I wanted to do: come from around.

  “Wait, what’s going on?” I said, referring to her previous words. Although it was a mere lie, I couldn’t help but think about what she had said. She blinked back over at me. “You haven’t told me who you are,” I again said.

  “You care for her, don’t you? I can tell. You’re a good person even if you doubt your own goodness. You’ve become her protector,” she softly said, smiling back at me as she entered the stairwell. She stopped and looked up at me.

  “The name is Alex,” she said, and then she began to descend down the steps slowly. I spun my head back and started after her. Had she read my thought? I mean I had the mind scrambler, or was it just so fucking obvious that I cared for Claudia?

  “Hey, wait a minute!” I tried to say. Her words had left me twisted up inside. I knew who I was. I was the Venator, the dangerous one. Claudia had to stay away from me because I was dangerous and bad for her. I couldn’t protect her.

  “Who the hell are you? How do you know all of this?” I blurted out, rushing after her.

  She looked over at me, darting into the stairwell. She said, “I’m her great grandmother.” There was a long pause as I blinked over at her. Was she pulling my leg? “I’m here to stop him,” she merely said.

  I wrinkled my eyes over at her. Was that some kind of joke? But she looked serious, hurrying away, and I just about choked on that.

  What the fuck was going on here? But I didn’t say a word as I hurried after her, losing her down the steps of the stairwell, and as I came down, she darted out almost immediately, not knowing why or what she was doing.

  I came to the bottom of the steps and stopped short, catching sight of Alex rushing into the open hallway and then soon realized why. Before I could dart out, she lifted a crystal clutched in her hand and planted it against the alien’s pale face; she called this creature Quentin. He screamed, swinging an arm back and knocking the crystal out of Alex’s hand. At a distance I caught sight of Claudia and Michael as the alien screamed, and Michael dropped, and I caught sight of Claudia grabbing his hand and lifting him to his feet, pulling him away with her.

  “Run, Claudia!” I heard Alex scream.

  I only moved when I caught sight of Claudia and Michael approaching the end of the hallway towards me and knew they were safe. I realized the alien had his hand around Alex’s pale throat, and I came out immediately. I only caught a few of Michael’s confused words when he and Claudia were standing but a distance from the stairwell.

  “What’s going on?” Michael asked, slightly disoriented.

  “What is that thing?” Michael again asked, and he grabbed hold of Claudia as she tried to dart away, realizing Alex was in danger. Neither one had noticed me coming from behind them.

  “Claudia, no!”

  Slowly I lifted the pistol. I loaded it with the last remaining bullets, the special bullets I had just for this very occasion.

  “But she needs us!” I heard Claudia scream as I came from behind. At the far end of the hallway I could see the alien lifting Alex by the throat.

  Michael saw me first as I walked past them, and the gun pulled far in front of me, trying to get a clear shot of the alien. Michael pulled Claudia back beside him when he saw me holding a large handgun in my hands.

  They both blinked over at me in disbelief as I now found their eyes moving with me down the hall. I stopped briefly. Their stares were hurtful, especially Claudia’s look of shock.

  “Who are you?” Michael suddenly questioned. I swallowed my guilty heart, my pain. I was now The Man in Blue. Finding Claudia’s eyes staring right at me, The Man in Blue became the gentleman who vowed to protect her.

  “Dr. Black?” Claudia uttered in disbelief. What could she be thinking? I was covered in bruises like I had been in a battle, and now I had a gun pointed in front of me. What did I intend to do and whom was I pointing this gun at? Who was I?

  It’s me sweetheart, I wanted to say. I’m the same man you know; I’m John…the man who cares about you.

  Claudia blinked, and her mouth dropped slightly. I think she knew I wasn’t whom I had been pretending to be all this time. Claudia knew, and it hurt more than I thought it would, just looking at her eyes and realizing it. Had I lost her?

  “Oh sweetheart, don't look at me like that,” The Man in Blue said for the both of us; she looked surprised and lost in thought.

  “I can't explain now but trust me,” I again said to her, and then I turned away. Moving forward, I fired, hitting the alien a few times directly on the shoulder.

  “Let her go!” I demanded, stopping at a distance with the gun still pointed in front of me.

  The alien lost a grip on Alex, and she dropped to the floor, but she didn’t move fast enough, and he grabbed her again, this time wrapping his arm around her neck and holding her in front of him as he laughed over at me.

  “Stop!” Alex cried. I froze, pointing the gun directly at his head now. I never missed.

  “You can’t kill him like that Venator!” Alex scolded from the other end.

  I know baby, I thought, but you haven’t seen the best part of this.

  “You’re only pissing him off!” She again said. “Get Claudia out of here and forget me! Get her away from him!” Alex again yelled. “She’s the only thing that matters now!” She again yelled.

  I moved forward towards the center where he held Alex and said, “I said let her go!” I pointed the gun at him.

  “First give me what I want!” He growled through clutched teeth.

  “Venator, get the crystal; it’s the only thing that—” Alex cried as the alien’s arm tightened around her throat, and I took the opportunity and darted forward.

  “Stop!” I hadn’t realized Claudia was right behind me. I held her fast from moving forward.

  “My pet!” the alien sneered, and his eyes gleamed. It frightened me, realizing how hungry he appeared when he saw her beside me. It only made me more jealous and determined.

  “She's not going anywhere with you!” I growled, darting the gun forward.

  “Stupid human; your weapons don't work on me!” the alien snarled in response.

  “Perhaps not, but the crystal do.” I smirked, and only then did he begin to realize that my shots had hit their targets. He looked down at the hole on his shoulder; crystal shards pierced the leather of his dressings.

  Alex pushed herself back against the locker, knocking back onto him, and he lost his grip on her momentarily, but it was enough time for her to escape. He stumbled back in disbelief, and a panic came over his face, fear perhaps more than anything, that he had lost and would never get Claudia because I would never let him have her.

  “My pet, only you can save me now; please help me.�
��

  Claudia sadly watched from beside me, too frightened to move, but when she did, I stopped her. She was still under his control. She sobbed, and it bothered me when she did, but it was no fault of her own. She was still very much under his power.

  I grabbed her and put my hands on her shoulder and faced her to me. “Claudia, snap out of it! Look at me!” I scolded, and she barely blinked, her eyes still very much looking toward him.

  I roughly grabbed hold of her face; those weren’t my intentions, but I wanted her to snap out of it. Claudia blinked at me as I held her face towards mine, and her eyes very slowly moved and found me gazing back at her.

  “Dr. Black?” She whispered very slowly, I gazed at her like a prince to the rescue. Wasn’t that what the princes usually did?

  You’re not a prince, John. You’re a killer, a fucking murderer, and a villain. You’ll never be the hero John.

  This time I would be.

  I smiled back at her as she dropped into my arms. I tightly held her.

  “Come to me!” the alien angrily hissed and darted forward; it was then another figure emerged from out of the other end of the hallway, knocking himself into Quentin and collapsing the whirlpool so suddenly it expanded and then exploded.

  I heard Alex yell, “Quinn!”

  At first I didn’t know what was happening; the explosion flung me back into the side hallway, so when the fall out came, I didn’t realize immediately that the whirlpool was now a giant suction, and everything in front of it was being sucked into it.

  “Claudia!” I cried. I found Alex on the ground beside the sidewall; it was like a wind tunnel around the corner, and I noticed Michael. He was at the opposite end of the hall, separated by a tunnel of wind.

  “Claudia!” I cried, looking about in sheer panic as I felt a hand reach over to me and grab me by the tie and pull me down. The gothic girl’s eyes were mocking me from beneath all the mascara; I could barely hear her with all the noise around us. And then I realized what she was signaling to.