by Martha Woods
“Let me get this straight…” Christian clenched his fist, looming over him. “Not only did you fail to catch her when she first escaped this compound, sending two men to the infirmary and another one into a hole, now that she is also wounded you see fit to let her slip through your fingers?”
“I’m sorry Sir, we underestimated how good she was.”
“You underestimated?” Christian scoffed. “Of course you underestimated, and that is profoundly insulting. Do you think some garden variety amateur could do this to my office? Do you think any regular piece of ass could take my eye from me and just walk away? Is that what you think of me you little shit?”
The messenger put his arms out, trying to placate him. “No sir! Not at all we just… We thought that she would be less of a challenge once she was wounded.”
“You fucking imbeciles...” Christian turned around, placing his hands on his desk again and trying to regain his composure. It was not working. “If I had twenty soldiers like her then I wouldn’t have to worry about anything ever again, if I could secure their loyalty then nothing would ever stand in my way.”
His fingers brushed against the half empty bottle of scotch on his desk, hand winding around the glass and clutching it tightly. “Instead I get you!”
He turned around in the blink of an eye, slamming the bottom of the bottle into the messenger’s jaw, teeth splintering and shattering underneath the heavy glass. He went down to the ground in a fit of coughing and sputtering, spitting blood onto the carpet and groaning. Christian slammed his foot into his stomach, teeth falling onto the ground with a click while he tried to curl up into a ball.
“I try! So hard! To train you!” He stomped down over and over again, stitches in his face starting to tear from the strain on the skin from his shouting. “All I get! From you! In return! Is nothing!”
The man groaned and whined pathetically, hands trying desperately to protect his head to no avail. “Please Sir,” He tried to say, his ruined jaw slurring every word, “Please! I’m sorry!”
“You’re sorry?” Christian paused his onslaught, looking down at him in disbelief. “You’re sorry? Sorry doesn’t bring your comrades back, sorry doesn’t give me back my eye! Sorry,” His head snapped back from Christian’s boot. “Doesn’t bring Claire to me on her knees, begging for my forgiveness!”
The man had stopped moving, only the shallow movements of his chest giving any indication that he was still alive. Christian fell back against his desk, the moment finally over and his temper starting to uncloud his vision. “Jesus,” He said, “I lost it there. Hey,” He nudged the man with his boot, scowling at the lack of a reaction. “No wonder she got away, look at what she was up against.”
Slowly, he started to drag the man out of his office, not paying any mind to the glass he was dragging him through or the cuts that he was getting in its wake. Callously, he tossed him out the door, whistling to the nearest guard to come collect him. “Get this piece of shit out of here will you? I don’t want to be disturbed until I say you can, you got that?”
She looked down at the messenger, nodding nervously. “Yes Sir, I’ll pass on the message.”
“Good, you’re already smarter than he was.” He walked back into his office, slamming the door behind him and pausing in the doorway. His fist started shaking, roaring at the top of his lungs and slamming it back into the door with as much fore as he could muster.
Stomping over to the desk, he snatched up the picture of his wife and sister-in-law once more, hurling it into the wall and watching satisfied as it shattered to pieces, glass slicing apart the photograph and the frame collapsing in on itself. Stomping on it for good measure, he looked upwards and breathed deeply, only just aware of the blood starting to fall down his skin.
“Shit...” He said, fingers coming away damp with scarlet. “One thing after a-fucking-nother isn’t it?” Peeling off the edge of the bandage slowly, he looked back into the mirror, watching with grim anticipation as his face was slowly revealed to himself. Each inch that was revealed only made him want to look away, but he forced himself to keep his eyes glued to the mirror, knowing that if he couldn’t stomach the sight then he had no right to call himself a leader.
Dropping the dressing to the floor, he took in his appearance properly, looking from side to side and touching the stitches that had torn. “Why should I have to hide myself away?” He said, gently touching one of the new valleys carved into his cheek. “Why should I have to cover this up just to be taken seriously by those lower than me?” He stood back up, knocking the mirror out of his way and walking towards the door, popping the top off the bottle of scotch as he went.
“Hey, you!” He shouted out, the guard from before turning and gasping at his appearance.
“Oh my god, Sir are you ok?”
He waved his hand in dismissal. “Yeah, I fine. What I want you to do is gather everyone in the courtyard. We need to have a very serious talk about training and organization, and I want it to be done sooner than later. Can you do that?”
She snapped to attention, nodding her assent. “Yes Sir, I should have everyone gathered within the next five minutes.”
“Good. Finally, someone competent. What’s your name?”
“April, Sir.”
“April, good. Congratulations on being smarter than the others.” He walked off towards the courtyard, taking his time and sipping generously from the bottle every few steps. In no time at all the bottle was empty, the alcohol burning the inside of his cheek, seeping into the countless cuts and gouges that had been scored into the skin both recently and in the past. Even after a half bottle of whisky he didn’t feel anything more than slightly tipsy, only the faintest of buzzes giving him a slight bounce to his step.
By the time he made it to the courtyard everyone was gathered, lined up in a perfectly disciplined grid waiting for his arrival. “If they’ve managed to get this down then how have they managed to slip so badly?” He shook his head while he approached them, raising his voice to boom across them all. “Listen up!”
Everyone snapped to attention, their eyebrows still raising when they saw his uncovered and bleeding face. “I was delivered a message by one of you regarding the traitor Claire. In this message they informed me that the teams sent off to apprehend her have not only been unsuccessful, they have also not been able to report back. In fact, I have been told that it would be best to assume that they are dead, and that Claire is still on the run.” He stomped his foot into the ground, hurling the bottle away and shattering it. “I want you to tell me how you have allowed yourselves to get this lazy and stupid!”
“Sir, if I may…” One of the men in the front row stepped forward, pivoting on his foot to face him. “I would like to speak up for the men.”
Christian looked him up and down, “And who are you?”
“I’m James, the man in charge of training these men.” He put his arm out, sweeping over everyone gathered. “These men are well trained, and they work hard every single day of their lives. It has been a long time since they came up against an opponent who has gotten the upper hand on them.”
“Well James, who has been in charge of training these men, it is your job to make sure that they are not just prepared for the run of the mill paranormals that we can kill in our sleep, but opponents that will actually put up a fight against us.” Christian grabbed him by the collar, pulling him in to snarl in his face. “So why is it at the first sign of trouble that they crumble and fall like they’re made from paper? Isn’t it your job to make sure that doesn’t happen?”
“We can’t prepare for anything! We can only prepare as best we can to try and not be overwhelmed.”
“That’s bullshit, no wonder they’re losing at every turn.” Christian tossed him back, looking towards the back where April was standing. “April! Come over here.”
“Yes Sir?” She said, coming to a stop in front of him. His face was still hard to look at, but she was getting used to it rather quickly.
/>
“Have you been paying attention in these lessons? You know how to control the men and what I want from them?”
She nodded. “Yes Sir, I do.”
“Repeat it to me.”
“You want a force of men that can face off against any opponent and still have the upper hand, who don’t get complacent and find themselves overwhelmed by a single opponent.” She cleared her throat, “Sir.”
He nodded, impressed. “Good, I think you’ll do really well.” Drawing his handgun, he pressed it to James’ forehead and squeezed the trigger before anyone could so much as breathe, the deafening crack of the gunshot making them all jump before they saw his body collapse lifelessly to the ground.
Christian holstered the gun, wiping the flecks of blood of his hand onto his pants. “I hope that’s a good example to everyone here. I won’t tolerate anyone slacking anymore, no more letting the man next to you pick up your slack while you focus on which companion of yours you are going to sleep with that night.” He pointed down to James’ body, blood rapidly pooling around his head. “Anyone I catch doing that, end up like this. Are we clear?”
“Yes Sir!” The response was instant and unanimous, his extreme example drilling into them the important of their cooperation and the danger of their disobedience. Christian smirked at the display, clapping April on the shoulder as he passed her by.
“Good luck with all this, you have your work cut out for you.” He stopped in his tracks. “Oh! I’m giving you that authority as well. If anyone slacks off or they just don’t seem like they’re going to improve, just shoot them and save us all the trouble.”
“Y-Yes Sir.” He walked off, her eyes watching him the whole way. “I’ll… Do that.”
Chapter 6
Darkness. Light. When you’re unconscious for long enough the two start to blend together until you can’t tell which is which anymore. Claire had spent the last two days like that, fading in and out and getting only brief glimpses of the room where she was being kept, a makeshift IV in her arm and an angry looking young man watching over her every minute of every day.
“If I’m going to die already, can we just get it over with?” She didn’t have much in the way of conversational partners, so she had to settle for yelling questions into the void and hoping that the echo sounded like an answer. It never did, but she couldn’t fault herself for trying.
The periods where she could see the outside world were increasing in frequency, sometimes able to spend minutes at a time looking around and comforting herself by seeing something that wasn’t complete darkness. Even if it was a garish yellow wallpaper or… “Oh,” She thought, “He’s really cute.”
* * *
“You can see why I’m having a tough time believing I should let you do this right?” Cayden looked at Iggy critically, arms crossed and a frown on his face. For his part the vampire only shrugged.
“You need someone to watch over her in case she wakes up, who better than someone who doesn’t need sleep?”
“You don’t need sleep?” Michael said, pointing at the kitchen. “Then why’d you tell me to make lunch while you rested up?”
“I don’t need sleep, that doesn’t mean I’m not lazy.” He turned back to Cayden, his eyes lingering on Claire’s resting form for a second. “Come on, what you were saying really hit me. She was a friend of yours, I know I haven’t known you very long but for you to defend her so much must mean she’s the real deal. I want a chance to show you that I can be trusted.”
“And you think that to do that I should put you in charge of the safety of the person that you obviously hate, no matter what you say?”
“Exactly! What better way to find out, right?”
“Kid, just be honest.”
Iggy sighed, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Alright fine, if she turns out to be trouble I want first go at trying to kill her.”
“She’ll probably wipe the floor with you but… You know what? Fine. If it means that you stop talking about it and let me eat my sandwich in peace you can knock yourself out.”
“Great!” Iggy started to take a seat at the table before Cayden held his hand out.
“Uh-uh, you need to go eat over there.” He pointed over to the bed, a seat placed at Claire’s side. “You wanted to keep watch on her right? I want you to be thorough, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week if you need to.”
Iggy opened his mouth to protest, closing it quickly when Cayden looked as though he had another condition on the tip of his tongue. “Fine, just let me grab my sandwich…”
Which was how Iggy came to be sitting here, elbows on his knees and leaning towards Claire, watching her face for any sign of movement or life, anything that was a chance for something to break the monotony.
Cayden for his part seemed to be having the time of his life, sometimes throwing little pieces of paper at Iggy’s back before turning and pretending he hadn’t done anything. “Why are you being such an idiot?” Farah had asked him once, both of them forgetting that Iggy could hear an animal’s heartbeat from half a mile away, a whispered conversation was no challenge at all for him to listen in on.
“It’s fun,” Cayden had replied, “It’s like having a brother, I’ve never really had anyone that I could just annoy with nothing bad happening.”
Liam had snorted from his seat, not looking up from his book. “I can tell you right now that is not true.”
“The not having anyone to annoy part or the nothing bad happening part?”
“Pick one.”
It wasn’t all bad however, Cayden or one of the others occasionally stopped by with a pack of cards, eager to pass the time themselves while they waited for Claire to wake up. Cayden was surprisingly easy to predict, so was Leah, but the more he played with the others the more he was surprised by their tells.
In the case of Skylar and Leila they didn’t have any, which made any victory he gained against them more a matter of luck than anything else. He could see why Sky had such a dedicated group of friends around her, speaking to her was one of the easiest things he could do. He wouldn’t say that he had a crush on her but…
Something was wrong, and he couldn’t figure out what. It wasn’t anything major, like a glass of water crashing to the ground, or the ground starting to vibrate, or a truckload of hunters thundering down the road towards them. This just felt like… He was being watched.
“Oh.” He said, finally looking at Claire’s face for the first time in hours. The same face that had its eyes wide open and staring into his own, dried lips working fruitlessly until they managed to croak out one word.
“Water.”
“Uh, hey!” He shouted over his shoulder, getting Farah’s attention. “She’s awake!”
* * *
“Hey mom? Can I talk to you about something?” Skylar stared at her mother’s back, Leila framed by the setting sun and looking out at the wilderness. She turned around with a small smile, nodding at Skylar.
“Of course, what did you want to talk about?”
Skylar tapped her toes against the dirt, the topic suddenly a lot harder to bring up than she thought it would be. “Actually… I wanted to talk to you about the night that you were being controlled.”
The smile faded slightly, but didn’t fully disappear, Leila actually looked like she’d been expecting to have this conversation sooner or later. Not exactly looking forward to it but expecting it nonetheless.
“Alright,” She said, “Let’s go take a seat somewhere more private, I don’t exactly want to announce all of this to the entire world.”
Nodding, Skylar followed her along towards the set of seats in the motel courtyard, the two of them taking a seat and waiting for the other to start talking. “So, do you want me to just start talking about everything? Or did you have some more specific questions you wanted to ask me?”
“I was wondering about what it felt like, being controlled by someone else.” She shuddered, “I can’t imagine what it’s like for somethi
ng like that to happen to you.”
“No,” Leila replied simply, “No you can’t. No one can, not until it happens to them. I’ll spend the rest of my life hoping and fighting to make sure that it doesn’t happen to any of you, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
“Are you alright?” Skylar reached across the table, taking Leila’s hands in her own. “We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to, I was just being curious. It’s stupid…”
“No, it’s not.” Leila smiled, running her thumb along Skylar’s knuckles. “You’re my daughter, it makes sense that you need to find out answers even if the timing isn’t the best.”
Leila wrung her hands together, trying to calm the sudden trembling that had taken them over. She chuckled, somewhat shakily, “I’m sorry I… It’s not something that I’ve thought about in a very long time.”
“Take your time…” Skylar laid her hand on her shoulder, looking at her with all the earnestness that she could gather. “I mean it, however long it takes, I can wait.”
She took a slow breath, closing her eyes as tight as she could and forcing herself to be calm. She counted to twenty, and when she was still shaking she counted to it again, until the tremor in her voice was gone and the fear in her gaze vanished. She let the memory back in, feeling waves of despair and anguish wash over her that had long gone suppressed in the deepest part of her mind.
“It was like… A dream that I couldn’t wake up from, no matter how hard I tried. I saw and felt everything, but I was locked into my body, and I tried to scream and scream but nothing happened. They all… They all died, and I felt every single one of them.” She swallowed the lump in her throat, massaging the skin to try and relieve some of her nausea. “Right until the end I thought that there was no way it was actually real, that it was just a nightmare that was long overdue from the things I’ve done in my life.”
