Playing With Fire: Dragons Of The Darkblood Secret Society

by Meg Ripley

  Rayne stood in the middle of the killing floor, a secret chamber within the airplane hangars where the “resort” managers checked out their guests. Bile threatened to spill out from Rayne’s throat, but she swallowed firmly and started to breathe through her mouth.

  A large stainless steel table sat to the side of the room. Installed at regular intervals were several built-in circular power-saws sitting idly, the teeth riddled with shards of bone and strips of tissue. Beside the table stood large dripping containers filled with the putrefying meat of their fellow guests. Rayne could see a tuft of matted magenta hair poking out through one of the mounds.

  Rayne crinkled her nose as she walked around the room to see if there were any hidden holding chambers or computers. Earlier, Malcolm had stolen a biohazard suit from a wandering worker and handed it to Rayne; he pocketed a small taser found on the suit’s belt to complete their disguises as captor and captive. Since leaving the shack, they had clambered and slipped down the forest hillside following fresh tire tracks leading back to the airport. It was the only clue they had.

  They entered the hangar with the most footprint tracks leading inside, Rayne wearing the yellow biohazard suit and holding the paddle as though she confiscated it from Malcolm. The hangar concealed a suite of industrial-like office rooms and was eerily quiet. With no one to stop them, Rayne followed a small trail of blood to what she would learn was the killing floor, while Malcolm followed footsteps that led further down into the building. He had shown Rayne a flash drive which he hoped to load onto an encrypted website that would alert his friends to send help. Finding a computer was their prime goal. Lost in the horror of the bloody room, Rayne almost missed the hissing voice of Malcolm behind her.

  “I think I found the place we need, but we need to make a distraction first. Follow me.”

  Rayne stepped out of the blood and wiped her feet on a nearby cloth before running after Malcolm and back to the undergrowth. Malcolm scurried down the forest running parallel to the hangar, coming to a stop at the two-thirds mark.

  “You’re not going to like this, but I think there are surviving guests in this part of the hangar—it’s like a hospital wing. I took a quick look and saw a ton of computers, but there are medical staff working on the group. They keep using ear thermometers on them for some reason. For me to get in there, we need to make a distraction.”

  Rayne thought back to her memories of the runway; I’ve got it!

  “How much do you like your shirt?” she asked.

  ****

  An almighty explosion rocketed the side of the compound, sending sheets of metal and debris soaring through the air. Workers milled out of every building to converge on the explosion, only to be faced with smaller explosions dotted around the hangars. Malcolm, now shirtless and shielded by Rayne in her yellow suit, sprinted to the access door that led to the hospital wing.

  They watched several staff run from the room before they barged through the doorway and into a pristine white space filled with gadgets and machinery. All the remaining guests were hooked up to a bevy of monitors and pumps. At the end stood a doctor reading charts.

  “Oh, what a surprise--another one! We have just one left out there now: a female. I wonder if she’s the reason behind that kerfuffle outside.” The doctor picked up one of the strange ear thermometers and crammed it into Malcolm’s ear. When it failed to go off, he recalibrated and tried again. This time when it didn’t go off, Malcolm stuck him with the taser and let him spasm to the ground.

  Rayne ran back to the entry door and hauled some heavy gas cans into the room before bolting all the doorways.

  “It’s too late,” the doctor slurred from his collapsed position. “Doesn’t matter what you do, these hosts will be sent back into circulation tomorrow to beckon the beginning of a new world order.”

  “Hosts? Is that what you’re calling these people? What have you done to them?” Malcolm had leapt to a monitor and was feverishly tapping keys.

  The doctor was unable to control his limbs and continued to tremble on the floor, “Done? You mean improved. Ha, one by one, the elite will find their lofty heights crumbling to ruin, never realizing it came from within.”

  Around the ward were shimmering tanks. At first glance, they looked like decorative screens, but seen up close, the tanks were filled with millions of tiny clear and silvery bits. Rayne held her hand up to the glass of one tank and a cluster of silver converged on the spot, mimicking the shape. She gasped and stood back. “What is this?”

  “It’s new nanotechnology--my nano-bites.” The doctor had pulled himself up to sit, slumping against a bedpost. “These critters do amazing things when they’re inside the human brain. They love patterns, you see. You’ve already felt the effects of these nano-bites, but you two were highly resistant.”

  Rayne looked up at the doctor. Malcolm paused as he typed frantically. “What do you mean?” he ventured.

  “Remember that night with the loud music? You were all fed large amounts of nano-bites in your cocktails. The bass-driven music was chosen to allow the nano-bites to activate your most basic survival needs. We ended up with twenty-nine people having intercourse uncontrollably--all in the name of cross contamination.” He had pulled himself to his knees and was attempting to stand back up, but Rayne grabbed her paddle and smacked him hard against the ribs, sending him back to the floor.

  “Are these people still alive? Can these nano-bites be removed?” she snapped.

  The doctor sputtered and laughed, “No, they’re as good as gone. The nano-bites will have destroyed enough of the brain during the replication process. They’re on life support until the nano-bites reprogram themselves.”

  “And what about us?”

  The doctor motioned to the ear thermometers. “Find out for yourselves. They’ll beep if they make contact with nano-bites; your friend over there with the taser doesn’t have them.”

  Rayne grabbed a thermometer and crammed it into her ear. There was a painful, long wait and a quiet click. Nothing.

  “Rayne, we have to go,” Malcolm said, grabbing his flash drive.

  Rayne grabbed a gas can and started to shake its contents out over the floor and the machines. Once the doctor got a whiff of the gasoline, he started to panic and yell. Malcolm slammed a foot into the doctor’s side and hurled an open gas can across the room, smashing it into a tank of nano-bites and sending them splashing onto the ground in a gloppy mess.

  “Quick, get out! I have the suit on!” Rayne yelled.

  Malcolm threw her the taser and ran to the doorway, pausing at the threshold. Using her paddle, Rayne knocked over the closest remaining tanks and upended her gas can. The doctor gave one final scramble and grabbed for Rayne’s leg. She reacted instinctively, plunging the taser into his back which set his gasoline-soaked lab coat ablaze. Rayne slipped and ran from the room, following Malcolm’s fleeing body across the compound and out into the forest. There were several audible cracks and final a whooshing sound that preceded an almighty explosion which rocked the ground and sent Rayne airborne, landing in a hollow.

  Taking the opportunity as she lay out of sight, Rayne frantically kicked off the yellow suit and scrambled out of her hiding spot to follow the direction Malcolm had seemed to take. Hardly a few steps into her sprint, she was snatched from the ground by a pair of familiar arms—it was Malcolm.

  “To the beach?” he gasped; Rayne nodded and they took off into the growing darkness.

  ****

  It had taken only an hour for army jets to scramble and do their first set of flyovers, and another hour for the military to arrive. With the runway ruined by the explosions, none of the island staff could leave and were forced to surrender to the arriving army. Rayne and Malcolm had lit a fire on the beach and waited for the scouts to come to them.

  After the military had arrived, Rayne and Malcolm were stationed back at her huge cabin and given thorough once-overs by army medical personnel. They were both slightly singed from their earlier
pyrotechnics at the compound. Rayne explained they had stolen gas cans and poured them around the compound before laying a trail to the large fuel tank, using Malcolm’s shirt as a wick. They were sitting in fresh bathrobes when an official walked into the cabin.

  “Rayne Baker? Malcolm Derby? I can’t imagine the things you’ve seen today.” He had taken off his hat and a sadness filled his demeanor. “We found the remains you spoke of, and our team thinks it has found a site for a mass grave. It will be some time before we know for sure.”

  “Where are the workers?” asked Rayne. She had insisted that she felt the on-site staff were not directly involved in the malicious activities on the island.

  The official sucked on his teeth, “We think there are two groups of people working here: legitimate resort staff and the project operators. The resort staff were found holed up in bunkers beneath us. They have access through the atrium and a private track. They are all being questioned and detained.”

  It was Malcolm’s turn to ask a question, he had been very quiet since they’d been picked up. “Do you know what the purpose of this plan was?”

  This time the official gave a pointed look at the duo, then he shrugged, “We found documents in other areas of the hangars. It looks like the nanotechnology could be manipulated to create influence within the brain. There were drawings and samples of simple electronic transmitters. I’m not exactly sure of how they worked, but one of our teams thinks they would be inserted under the skin and a control station would send out signals.”

  “But that doesn’t explain why they would make them so contagious. You’d end up killing people and enforcing a quarantine.”

  “Exactly. We’re discovering content that shows the nanotechnology evolving so it doesn’t attack the medulla oblongata, the part of the brain that regulates respiration and heart rate. They believed that second generation nano-bites would be virtually undetectable and could be controlled through long-range communications--like how a mobile phone picks up a signal.”

  “But why invite us?”

  “You? You were accidents. You, Malcolm, were supposed to be Ben, a womanizing advertising agent. And you, Rayne, were a complete accident of fate. We saw a chart with lists of people and institutions. It looks like they were planting agents in locations that would help spread the infection or could directly affect outcomes. Imagine if you had the ear of some of the world’s most powerful financiers? Or, could encourage oil magnates to restrict sales by the flick of a switch?”

  “But, the resort get-up—why not just capture people?”

  “Now that we’re still speculating on. I side strongly with the argument that this resort was another way to spread infection to the ludicrously rich. If they felt unwell, they could blame it on the climate or being bitten by a tropical bug rather than thinking they’ve been infected with an aggressive piece of nanotechnology. It was a smoke-and-mirrors ploy.”

  Malcolm and Rayne sat in stunned silence.

  The official stood up and wished them a restful night. As he left, a nurse reappeared and said that they should get some rest, enforcing the condition they don’t go on the balcony as specified in their short-term home quarantine. Just as the door closed and locked, Rayne stood up and walked to the bedroom. With one backwards glance, she beckoned Malcolm.

  In a rush of kisses, Malcolm scooped up Rayne and held her close. They collapsed onto the king bed and started throwing off their robes.

  “Wait,” Rayne pushed Malcolm back, “what if this isn’t real, but a hangover from the other night’s drugging?”

  “I don’t know about that; this feels pretty real to me. Does this feel real to you?” he asked, placing Rayne’s hand on his swollen bulge.

  Before she could control herself, Rayne had flung off her clothes and was writhing on the bed underneath Malcolm. Malcolm’s touches were gentle, but firm and full of promise. He had unbuckled his jeans and yanked out his engorged member, which was pulsing with anticipation. Rayne let her hands wander over Malcolm’s muscled back, coming to a rest on either one of his pert buttocks. She gave a squeeze and relished the feeling of Malcolm’s cock jolting against her belly. Malcolm fed one of Rayne’s nipples into his mouth and licked hungrily. Despite his earlier injuries, he was adept at moving quickly and let his mouth wander down her body toward her freshly-waxed center. He parted Rayne’s thighs and sunk his mouth to her swelling clit, sending electrical buzzes through her body.

  Slurping and swirling his tongue hungrily, Malcolm teased her engorged slit with the tip of his tongue, slipping the tip of his fat pink tongue into the wetness. Rayne muffled her moaning and dragged Malcolm back up, her hands feverishly feeding his thickness into her throbbing core. Malcolm dropped his face, trailing his tongue alongside her neck as he drew his cock in and out of her. Every thrust widened and then tightened Rayne’s slippery hole--Malcolm was a tight fit, and his girthy cock was lapping up the firm squeeze. Grunting with effort and lust, Malcolm increased the pace of his thrusting, and Rayne dug her fingers into his buttocks. The intensity of their lovemaking was magnified by the quiet breaths they passed, until finally, in a rapturous end, the hot splash of Malcolm’s seed sent Rayne spiraling into a rhythm of toe-curling orgasms, each one milking his exhausted length.

  “I think I’m going to enjoy house detention,” Rayne gasped.

  THE END

  Taken By The Hometown Bad Boy

  Story Description

  Ten long years, and here I am back in my hometown of Riverdale.

  The plan was to swoop in, make a quick appearance at my lame high school reunion and then get out as quickly as possible.

  Fate had something else in store for me, and his name was Jace Dillinger, the hottest bad boy in town.

  In high school, I gave him the cold shoulder because of the crowd he hung out with.

  He wasn't my type back then, but now...it’s funny how time changes people.

  Here we are catching up at a townie bar having a few drinks...what trouble could we possibly get into? ;)

  The first thing Natalia Hyde noticed when her taxi drove her past the sign that said, ‘Welcome to Riverdale,’ was that everything seemed exactly as it had been the day she left. The streets were all the same, the lovely suburban arrangement of roundabouts that had been fun to ride around on bikes. The twenty-eight-year-old had expected to find some changes, maybe expansions or even a few changes on a few stores but nothing… it was as if someone had grabbed a huge remote control and pressed pause on the whole town.

  The only viable change that Natalia noticed was that people were older, and the kids now running around the parks and streets had faces she didn’t recognize.

  The taxi drove her toward the town’s only known hotel, a measly Hilton Garden Inn at the edge of the highway. She remembered seeing this same little place for years and was pleasantly surprised to note that it looked like it had been renovated. It was much bigger than she remembered.

  Paying her fare and pulling her bag out of the back of the car, Natalia strutted through the mechanical doors, feeling a cool draft yank at her clothes and long black hair as she entered. It was definitely different; maybe that pause button didn’t affect everything after all.

  When Natalia entered the lobby, she was surprised to find it rather busy; several people were talking with the concierge, a young woman with thick blonde hair styled in large ringlets. She looked rather out of her league, appearing absolutely nervous as she assisted a man with immense shoulders. The back of his head had a particularly large scar that Natalia recognized instantly.

  “Brad?” She spoke before she could hold her tongue and the broad man turned around. There was a moment when he appraised her, broad face and broad eyes that gave him a certain brutish appearance. Still, she remembered him, he had been one of Nathan’s friends throughout high school. A jock and a pretty decent football player, Brad had been the sort to follow rather than to lead, yet he had a hidden cruel side that only came out whenever Nathan had grown bored.
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  To her surprise, Brad beamed up at her brightly. “Natalia!” he exclaimed, urging her closer and glaring at all the other people waiting in line. She recognized a few other faces and instantly wished she hadn’t brought attention to herself. Most of the people there had seen some of Nathan’s bored side and remembered her for how she just stood by, doing nothing.

  “It’s been years,” Brad insisted as Natalia approached. “You’ve grown taller!”

  “My last growth spurt since high school,” Natalia replied dryly. She was only wearing platforms but leave it to Brad not to notice. “You haven’t changed much yourself.”

  “I’ve been working as an engineer,” Brad announced, puffing his chest. “Nathan helped me get the job actually.” At the mention of her brother, Natalia perked up and met Brad’s gaze curiously.

  “You’ve seen Nathan?”

  “Yeah, I bumped into him about four years ago. He kind of helped me get out of my parent’s basement before allowing me to find a spot in the city. I haven’t seen him since, though.” Deflated, Natalia felt her shoulders slump slightly. Everything had hit the fan eight years ago…tensions that could no longer be tolerated in that small house exploded so thoroughly, that it resulted in all of them going their separate ways. Once upon a time, Natalia had been exceptionally close to her twin, practically playing along to the silly stereotype that all twins were halves of the same whole.

  Four years ago was around the same time he sort of just disappeared; since then, Natalia hasn’t really stopped searching. Brad helped her check in with the concierge, giving the woman a nasty look when she tried to make Natalia wait at the back of the line. Paying for the next few nights, Natalia received her room key and prepared to walk off.