Serpentine

by J. Kearston

  Trying not to cry right along with him, I strive for the right thing to say. I know what false hope can do to a person, though; shatter them worse than anything in the end. And ultimately, if I fill them in, there’s a chance they’ll tip off Zane. Of the two of us, their loyalties would lie first with him, and I can’t take that risk when it’s our only chance at getting out of here.

  “Rome wasn’t built in a day. Just because Zane won’t turn you now, doesn’t mean he won’t when you’re older. He can’t protect you forever, can he? He’ll need to pass the torch to the only person he can trust sooner or later.

  “Be subtle. Ask him what his plan is in case something happens to him on a supply run and we’re locked down here so we don’t starve to death. Plant the seed in his head that he needs a fallback plan in case of an emergency and he’ll come around eventually. Either he’ll tip you off where he’s hidden a spare key down here, or he’ll turn you so that you can pick up where he left off if he’s killed.”

  Nodding to himself as he processes, Hunter takes over on the dishes. “I’ve got this, why don’t you two go play a game or something?”

  Lips pressed into a flat line, my stomach twists. “You know, you’re allowed to have an identity beyond your sister’s guardian. That’s a hell of a lot of pressure to put on yourself.”

  Haunted, blue eyes bore into mine. “I didn’t choose to, the people that killed our parents did that for me.” His voice drops to barely more than a whisper. “They’re not ever going to stop looking for you, you know; Addie either. It’s either live a long, depressing life, or a short one.”

  Looking over his shoulder, I follow his gaze, watching his sister set up the board game as he croaks, “So yeah, my only purpose is taking care of her, but that’s still better than not having one.” His shoulders sag in defeat as he turns back to the dishes. “At least leave a note when you make a break for it, because it’s going to wreck her when you ditch us.”

  I startle. “Why do you think I’m going to leave?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t you if you found a chance to escape this hellhole? I’ve been here for five years, Risa. It doesn’t get any better, you just delude yourself into pretending you aren’t buried alive.”

  Chapter 26

  Risa

  A faint thump startles me awake and I strain my hearing, barely breathing. Three heartbeats on the stairwell outside of the door have mine sprinting in response, and I gently ease away from Adelaide, careful not to wake her up. My shoes still have Bennet’s bloodstains on them despite how hard I scrubbed, but I slip them on happily, not wanting a repeat of being hunted through the woods because of a cut foot. A muffled curse has me pausing with a frown, and I push my senses farther before, blanching.

  It’s not them. This so-called safe haven may as well be a tomb, trapping us like rats.

  Hastily, I cover Addie’s mouth, shaking her awake. Her eyes fly open and I gesture for her to remain silent, grabbing her hand and pulling her from the bed. As quietly as I’m able, I crack our door open, rushing across the hall into Hunter’s room and leaving the door open behind us. We’re trapped no matter how I slice it, but better together than apart. Zane may be our warden, but he’s our best hope right now.

  Scribbling a note so that I don’t need to speak, I hold it up for him to see as he gets out of bed with a frown, rubbing at his eyes. Swallowing, he nods, grabbing a pocket knife from beneath his pillow before snagging Addie’s hand in a vice grip, the three of us flying down the hall as soon as the door to the outside world opens.

  Rushing into Zane’s room, we slam the door shut behind us, not bothering with discretion at this point. Whoever’s breaking in is likely a shifter, so they’ll still be able to sense where we are either way.

  The three of us shove Zane’s dresser in front of the door as he gets out of bed half-naked, brow furrowed before he picks up on the sounds in the living room. His nails lengthen into claws, but he doesn’t go tearing out of the room, instead gesturing for me to grab the other side of his desk so we can use it as an additional barricade.

  The best I have going for me is some basic self-defense, but I’ve only been practicing for a few weeks. I might be able to hold my own against a human on the streets long enough to escape, but against a shifter? I’m fucked. My only real plan if Zane can’t pull this off on his own will be to sacrifice myself to protect the kids, to hope that the strangers won’t know about the sire bond so that the guys can find me relatively quickly.

  “I like to imagine I raised you to be smarter than this,” my mother chides on the other side of the door, sending my heart into overdrive. “You clearly know by now what you are, what I am. You think a heap of wood will do, what, exactly? Really, Risa, you’re not that stupid.”

  Hunter tucks Addie behind his back as my mom clucks her tongue. No, not Mom. A woman that likely killed my mother, that kidnapped me, used me. She doesn’t deserve the title.

  Swallowing, I make sure that my voice doesn’t waver. “How’d you find me?” Zane wraps a hand around my wrist, pulling me back a step and jutting his chin towards the other side of the room.

  She scoffs, and I use the moment to stretch my senses to their limit. Two other people in the living room, two in the basement above us. “I’ll always find you; you’re mine. Now let’s not make this harder than necessary. You know damn well you’re cornered, and I can either wait you out until you’re starving and desperate, or bust through the door. You’ve managed to hide damn well until recently, I’ll give you that, but I’m sick of dealing with your little tantrum. It’s time to come home.”

  Tongue in cheek, I try to stall however I can, giving Zane some time to come up with a plan. “My real parents... you killed them?”

  Her voice turns hostile, far quicker to temper than the woman in my memories. “We are your parents. We took you in when you had no one else; fed you, raised you, and look where it fucking got us!” Her voice cracks. “They killed Jake because of you.”

  My heart skips a beat. “Dad’s dead?”

  There’s a heavy pause before she replies on a croak, “You left, and when we missed the next shipment, we were able to buy a little time, but the withdrawals were... they were worse than we could have expected people to react. These last years have been hell, Risa. Constantly running, searching for you. Daniel claimed to find you, but when he never showed up at the rendezvous point, we all thought he ran off with you, decided to keep you for himself. And by the time we tracked down the accident, you were nowhere to be found.”

  Zane gestures for me to keep talking, running a hand through his hair and pulling at the strands, starting to pace the room. Swallowing, I mentally psyche myself up for when they bust in here, trying to figure out a way I can get both of the kids and myself past five people that won’t hesitate to drug or chain us up, to bleed us dry without remorse. Hunter might stand a chance, but there’s no way in hell that boy is making a break for it and leaving his sister behind.

  “Yet here you are,” I prompt.

  I can feel her cold smirk through the door, a small shiver trailing down my spine as she brags, “You had to stop running some time. Put me within five miles of an incorruptible, and I’ll be able to track them down.”

  Five miles like that’s something to boast about, so most people don’t have that finely honed sense. Facts; I can work with those, can find a solution if I get enough pieces of the puzzle.

  “And the ‘us’; I take it you don’t mean you and Dad, but the people you work with? A special few that you trust not to steal me away from you to make a quick buck?”

  She scoffs. “This works much smoother without one person having to manage everything. You’re already trouble enough; why would someone put their head on the chopping block for you when they can take an easy payout and leave me to have to deal with the hard parts?”

  One of the men cuts in, “Until you put a number on her dowry.”

  There’s a lengthy pause before my mother hasten
s to correct herself. “Until I find someone that would make a good husband, and then the vultures will be his problem.”

  Rubbing my thumb over the underside of my ring as a comfort, I remind myself that the hand chain looks like normal jewelry instead of a traditional wedding band to anyone else. Most shifters don’t even bother with the human custom, so they wouldn’t think twice, so I could use this to my advantage if it comes down to it.

  The guys would want me to stay alive far more than have me pandering to their egos by shouting that I’m mated from the rooftops to people that don’t even matter.

  Still, it’s hard to curb the venom in my tone. “And my par-“ I correct myself, trying to keep the conversation amicably flowing, “the people that you rescued me from. Were they incorruptible, too? Beating me? What did you even save me from?”

  One of the men barks at my mother to hurry this up and she snaps at him before addressing me with less patience than before, but continuing the conversation out of spite at this point, trying to flex her control over the people with her. “Enough of this, Risa. It’s time to go.”

  Zane looks at me, and the manic glint in his eyes has me taking a step back. He mouths, I’m sorry, before darting forward, grabbing my wrists and forcing them behind my back. He shifts his grip to hold them with one hand, using his other to brush my hair out of the way, holding my chin hostage while he strikes.

  I jerk against him, not giving a damn if he tears a chunk of my throat out in the process so long as I can get him off of me. It’s not that I don’t understand his logic; an energy boost might be the only shot we have when it’s pretty much five against one, but it’s the violation of it all. Desperation doesn’t give someone the right to do whatever they want, to give them blanket immunity because they think they’re doing the right thing.

  The scared person that decides to kill off a chunk of the population to save resources thinks that he’s right. The man that thinks he’s ‘saving’ someone by hurting them because of his beliefs, thinks that his actions are justified. As soon as you have to defend yourself over stripping away someone’s rights, claiming that it’s for the greater good, it’s a sure sign that you’re on the wrong side of a losing battle.

  I let the guys feed from me because I want to. I would have offered Zane a wrist if I could, because I want to get out of here alive, too. But by taking the choice away from me, I wasn’t able to warn him that my blood’s more potent than he’s used to being around with Addie, that it would be nearly impossible to stop.

  That by taking my blood, it would turn him feral, and he’d become a bigger threat to us than the people waiting outside of this room.

  His hands tighten with bruising force on my wrists and jaw, ignoring my pitiful attempts to pull away and my pained shout. Adrenaline floods my system, drawing my skin tight and sending painful prickles across it. My thundering heartbeat slows, the sounds of Addie’s muffled sob fading away until I can think clearly, can focus.

  Taking a deep breath to center myself, I draw my knee up as hard as I can. Zane releases my face with a grunt, clutching between his legs. Before he can recover, I slam my head to the side into his, ignoring the explosion of pain in my skull and neck as he tears back from my throat with a snarl.

  I only make it a step back before he’s shifting, eyes wild and breathing heavily. Anticipating his next move, I have just enough time to lunge to the side, farther away from Hunter and Addie before Zane pounces. Blood covers the muzzle of the tawny puma, and taking a lesson out of Mason’s playbook, I fling my arm out to save my throat. Teeth tear into my forearm with a savage snarl, but this time, no amount of screaming will help, so I don’t bother wasting the energy.

  The massive feline yowls as Hunter stabs into its shoulder, and with a curse, I try to roll to the side, keeping him out of swiping distance so he doesn’t get mauled to death. As long as my heart is still beating, I’ll heal. Eventually. But he’s human, and the only person in this room that could turn him in a bid to save his life, has lost his damn mind and would sooner bite his face off.

  Zane’s heartbeat falters, and after another small eternity, he stumbles back, falling to his side in a heap. His breathing grows increasingly labored until rattling in his chest, and then there’s simply... nothing. No breaths, no heartbeats, and no feral glint to his dull, lifeless eyes.

  “What in the actual fuck?”

  Muffled yelling starts funneling in through my ears, pulling me out of the tunnel vision state I was in. There’s heavy thumping at the door, Hunter bracing it as best as he can, and Addie is softly crying in the corner, curled in on herself. My mind is both racing a mile a minute, and seemingly not at all, like there’s a disconnect from reality despite my subconscious desperately trying to keep me alive.

  On shaky legs, eyes flitting around the room as I process, things start to click. Pulling a plan together on the fly, I hurry towards Hunter, taking the bloody knife away from him and leaving him to bar the door just a little longer.

  “Addie, close your eyes, okay?” I murmur.

  She nods frantically, burying her face in her knees as she wraps her arms tightly around her legs. Turning back to the dead Puma, I take a deep breath to brace myself before quickly slashing across his throat.

  The only way to kill a shifter is by taking their head or heart. Anything else, they can eventually heal from.

  Unless they’re bitten by something like the guys, with a venom that even supernaturals can’t recover from.

  The only thing working in our favor right now is that the people outside of that door want to take me alive. If they realize that my blood is tainted, poisonous? All bets are off.

  Knowing I don’t possess the strength to drive a knife through his skull, I aim for his heart instead. Twisting the knife, I try not to throw up, and I almost lose the battle as I struggle to wrench the blade free again.

  The door crashes open, furniture slid out of the way as my mother shoves her way into the room. Hunter scrambles off of the ground, wrapping his arms around his sister and murmuring false promises, lying to himself as much as her. Tears streak down my face that I hastily swipe away, looking at the woman that raised me that may as well be a stranger.

  Blonde hair is pulled back into a loose braid, a black mask covering the lower half of her face like Zane had the day he grabbed me. The relief of realizing that I won’t have to try and fight off five feral shifters slams into me like a freight train, though I grip the handle of the blood-slicked knife tighter. Frenzied, knowing they’re targeting my blood, I can predict their moves. But lucid? It’s all guesswork and hope, which is far more terrifying.

  “You killed him?” she asks, surprised.

  Swallowing, I nod, the trembling of my hand giving away my fear and anxiety, so I spin it to my favor. “I may not want to go back, but that doesn’t mean I ever wanted to be here, either. And-“ I take a shaky breath, letting the tears flow freely again as I croak, “-you’re still my mom. And he was going to kill you.”

  Smug satisfaction illuminates her bright, blue eyes instead of anything that shows she actually has a heart. Control; not motherly concern, though her anger earlier seemed genuine.

  Because she wants credit for all of her hard work, the time and effort she’s put in. Not because she actually cares about me.

  “If you had simply talked about things with us before running off, all of this could have been avoided. We could have found a compromise that we all could live with, but instead, you’ve gotten countless people killed, Risa. You’re too dangerous to let roam free.” She may as well have slapped me, but I bite down my pride as she finishes, “So it’s time to come home. I’ll handle dealing with the children, and we can put this whole mess behind us and move on.”

  “What do you mean, deal with them?”

  She gives me a withering look. “I’ve no use for them. Gods know I have my hands full with you.”

  Panic nearly makes me reckless, but I hold on to the small remnants of logic that have su
rvived fear attempting to drown it. Within five miles of an incorruptible; yet she attributes it solely to me, my presence masking Adelaide’s.

  “It isn’t their fault that their dad was a paranoid psycho. They’re no use to you, sure, but that doesn’t mean you have to kill them. We can just leave them behind. They can start over, too. Isn’t that what you wanted when you found me? To save me? You don’t need to do anything else; you already rescued these kids by showing up here, opening the door. They can take it from here without burdening you.”

  The seconds that slowly tick by feel like years as I wait with baited breath for her to respond. Subtly, I extend my senses, nearly choking on the scent of mine and Zane’s blood permeating the air. The two men that were down here before have retreated upstairs with the others, likely my mother sending them away from the scent of my blood so she wouldn’t lose control of them, thinking one might think to steal me away from her for himself. I’ve no doubt they all have similar masks on, otherwise they’d be down here chewing on my good arm, so I readjust the direction of my plan.

  “Fine. See?” She shrugs. “Compromise. You work with me, I work with you. Things don’t have to be hard, Risa, so long as you’re reasonable and stop causing me so many problems.”

  Hiding my relief, I turn towards the kids to say a quick goodbye, giving my mother my back, even though it sends a chill down my spine to do so. “I’m sorry about your dad. But you’re going to be okay, because you have each other. Take care of yourselves.” Praying that they can read lips, I silently mouth for them to wait fifteen minutes, and then run.

  “Let’s patch you up before taking you upstairs. Don’t want to get blood all over the car, after all,” she declares, reaching for my hand.

  Taking it, I follow her to the bathroom, grabbing a new shirt on the way from my room. Rinsing off my arm and neck, I smother the wounds in ointment and bandage them before slipping on the new t-shirt. She has me walk in front of her up the staircase out of the safe house, like she assumes I’m stupid enough to try and lock her out.