by B. E. Larkin
“Figured I'd drop by and talk to Natalie's mother first, see if she says something that triggers a thought.” He looks relieved. He should, I meant it to sound harmless. His conscience is a huge pain in the ass, so I keep our work relationship deep in mushroom mode. I keep him safely in the dark and feed him nice, safe soothing bits of the truth. What with the lousy coffee and guilt, his stomach doesn't need any more stress.
According to his hulking paper file, Mrs. Silvers lives in Sellwood, a nice, family oriented, yuppie type part of town where residents build planter boxes of untreated wood in which to grow their organic cucumbers and close down entire blocks for summer parties. Earnest, over educated people live there. They raise Muscovy ducks and kids and Golden Retrievers in their nice little fenced backyards. What I'm saying is that it's the total opposite setting from the falling down, dark monstrosity sandwiched between the freeway and the railroad tracks, where I currently live.
If Natalie grew up there in happy land, her mother may have done something really vicious to screw her up, but I know the odds are that she's just another over committed woman who never had a relationship with her daughter and won't have any clue what happened.
Chapter Three - NATALIE
So, I've been wrong before. The little wall of photos Mrs. Silvers leads me past kills any idea of her as a Mommy Dearest type. Talk about stalker parents though, someone must have followed Natalie around with a camera every day of her life to snag that many images of a happy human being. It's creepy. “I took those,” her mother murmurs, hurrying past.
This woman's a wreck and a half. I don't think she understood my explanation for why I am there, but she's willing to let me go through Natalie's room, willing to talk to anyone about Natalie as if merely repeating her name enough times will somehow keep her kid alive. When she got to the part about her daughter...”having troubles,” she slowed down as if she were still searching her mind for something she might have done differently or done better which would have prevented whatever it was that corrupted and stole her child. “Did she go by any other name?” “Sometimes I called her by her whole name, Natalie Marie.” Give the lady ten points on the not helpful scale.
“Any close friends?” Somewhere I needed to get a sense of where this girl started out. “She did.” Whatever Mom was choking on here hurt so I waited. “Then, after he came around....” The moments of waiting for her to fill in the blank stretched on until I interceded to avoid dying of old age in Yuppie town. “Something changed?” “Yes,” she looked so relieved at this cosmic deduction I couldn't decide whether to feel sorry for her or splatter her brains across the wall. Did I mention that patience is not my strong point?
“It wasn't the clothes or the piercings...” This woman was a terrible liar. “You already think I'm an idiot so this won't help.” Okay, she was more observant than I gave her credit for. “It was the way he stood outside with the others, waiting for her. They all just stood there, watching. I went out once to talk to them.” I winced at that image. But she had some guts. She had tried. “They laughed. He didn't say a word to me, the rest of them just laughed as if they were on something. I tried to talk to her about them the next day. I wasn't trying to run her life.” She looked at me, hoping to sell that lie. It didn't work but I didn't care. She'd been right about the alarm, just not strong enough to counteract the allure. “She stopped seeing me.” “You mean she left?” “No. She stayed here for a few more days, but...she was lost.” Bullseye. I thought about Natalie's eyes. Girl lost.
I asked some more useless questions about the boy – was it Dorian? - and his friends that she couldn't answer. They had unnerved her. She couldn't explain it any better. The shame at her inability to understand them and to keep Natalie away from them made me uncomfortable. I stood up. “You're going to look for her?” She was past hope but she hadn't give up, so I didn't offer the truth, that the odds were no one would ever find her well loved child, or worse, maybe someday a hiker might find some bit of Natalie, far off the beaten path, and break her mother's heart again in a whole new way. I wondered what made one mother run away while another papered her walls with pictures of a kid she saw everyday. “I'm going to look around some places the police may have missed.” “If you find anything....” I nodded and edged toward the door. This maternal overflow of emotion stirred up feelings that I didn't want to deal with.
The truth was my own thoughts were beginning to alarm me.
What if it was Dorian who'd lured Natalie away? He might even be responsible for her death. So, if I found him would I turn him in?
Whose side was I on?
Chapter Four - BAIT
If you want to find someone who doesn't want to be found, the best place to start is somewhere that people who do lead normal lives will avoid at all costs. Find any gathering place of the homeless and displaced and you will not find Mr. and Mrs. Citizen anywhere in the vicinity. Near the river bend, there's an overpass which provides shelter against the rain for some and cover for others who lie in wait for out of town joggers or disoriented frat boys. After listening to Natalie's mom, there was nothing I wanted more than to run into somebody out hunting for an easy target.
I seriously needed to inflict violence on someone.
I parked the Valkyrie out of sight of the plaza and locked my ID under the seat. I had a knife clipped to the back of my belt under the jacket, my cell in my pocket, so I wasn't out there totally exposed. I'd ridden without a helmet again, this time to tangle my hair as genuinely as possible. Borrowed a little grease from the bike, added some dirt, not much, just enough to look like I'd spent a couple nights out and hadn't figured out how to make it work all by my poor, helpless little self.
The overpass was a bust. No one attacked me and the three drunks I did find were only sharing a bottle. They volunteered to split it with me, but other than that they didn't have much to offer. I showed them Natalie's picture and the soberest of them said maybe he might have seen her near the plaza or maybe it was just someone who looked like her, wait, she could have been on the bus from the shelter. No, no, not there, but, yeah, there were always kids around the plaza. He nodded wisely and smiled, maybe thinking I'd finance the next bottle. At least his monologue inspired one of his buddies to mutter something about “that river, kids there are mean, don't you go there, little lady.” I tried to get more out of him before he passed out, but he didn't respond to questions and even I knew it would have been rude to torture him in front of his buddies.
So, here I am. This area is quiet. I huddle in the doorway of a hair salon, a business being an obvious place to be rousted, hoping to be discovered before the cops come. With any luck, someone will try to kill me so I can return the favor.
Figures, Portland PD cruises by and slows down before they move on. I know they'll be back around. Yep, there go the blue lights. “Over here!” The voice hisses from the shadows between buildings and I follow it into the darkness.
Jax is fourteen. He says. On the street, the truth is conveniently fluid. He drops the ends of his words like he left home in a hurry and most of his consonants are still back in Texas. We're close to the river when he stops and sizes me up, rubbing some kind of infected bite on his neck. I'm fully aware that the only reason he's brought me this far is I'm young and female. Clean me up and I could be useful in all sorts of ways. Young flesh is always a hot commodity. Rescuing me is a trap and he's still trying to decide if he should spring it. He's been warned to look for trouble. That's why I've made my story solid, boring, predictable. Just another seventeen year old running from a lech step dad in So Cal. I've been on the road six weeks now. Long enough to have gotten an understanding of the real world but not so long that I can't still be conned, lured, trained or beaten into submission.
“Where you stayin?” Another test. “Just got here. I hear shelters will let you in, won't call your folks,” I tell him, raising my voice enough he thinks I'm asking if it's true.
The smile crawls across his face. Jax could
be twelve, he might even be fourteen like he claims, but his years don't matter – this boy is a serpent. “Less you want your soul saved, you don't want to get in with them.” He turns and plows down toward the river bank, his voice vibrating behind him.
“Come on, I know a safe place. Lot of us stayin' there.”
So I follow him. I can see in the darkness well enough to be sure that so far there's
nothing lurking in the bushes. And I'll see whoever is waiting long before they see me. No reason not to smile and follow and listen to the satisfaction in his tone as he hurries forward to deliver me to whoever pulls his strings. His hands twitch. A quiver runs under his voice like an ungrounded electrical wire. Could be drugs or adrenaline or hormones. Whatever it is, he hasn't quite figured out how to mask it yet. Right now, he doesn't care about any of that. He's too busy anticipating his reward.
This kid has a lot to learn.
Chapter Five – PREY
They were waiting for me in the shadows.
Five of them, four eager and twitchy as untrained hounds at their first smell of blood. Three amped up, scrawny guys and one hungry, edgy girl. They all had the same red inflamed marks on their neck, the same nervous energy as Jax. Maybe they injected whatever poison they took through their necks to get it to the bloodstream faster, they certainly looked crazed enough. It wouldn't matter for long. If they didn't get some antibiotics really soon, this whole lot would be feeding crows. It wasn't that I actually cared about them, but I sensed they weren't nearly as dangerous as they thought they were. Not worth wasting my time on.
Dorian was the fifth. And he was way beyond dangerous. He stood motionless, his dark eyes fastened on me as the others fanned out, the better to get their chance at me.
Jax paid no attention to the other four. In this pack, he was clearly the runt. Most likely he spent his time fighting for scraps and trying not to get bit. But he'd chosen his allegiance, so he sure as hell wasn't getting any sympathy from me. His eyes were fastened on Dorian so eagerly I almost expected him to roll over and wriggle for a belly rub. He scratched at his neck and waited for his master's praise.
The pack leader ignored the little suck up and finally moved closer, circling me thoughtfully.”I found her. She's a good one, idn't she?” Jax whined, his voice as insubstantial as his frame. Dorian's backhand knocked Jax three feet back. He hit the ground hard and silent. And the kid didn't even look surprised. Must be used to it.
He just sat up quietly and wiped the blood from his face.
Dorian circled, silent and oddly scentless. No cheap cologne, no sweat, no male musk. I tried to focus on those anomalies as my nervous system went into five alarm meltdown.
Way back, in the fifth grade of yet another completely forgettable school, three older boys decided to teach me the role of victim. Who better to pick on than some quiet new girl, they reasoned. It didn't work out like they planned at all. In fact, I'm fairly certain that one of them still has nightmares about a little girl with dark eyes. Micheal and T'Jean had trained me well. I wasn't scared then, and I hadn't been since.
Until now.
I tried to ignore the impact of his proximity. It definitely wasn't just adrenaline this guy triggered, but it seemed like an unnecessarily suicidal idea to focus on lust over a guy who'd been waiting for me with his pack in the darkness. Not to mention this guy was fast, at least as fast as me, and from the look of those muscles, Dorian was definitely a lot stronger. There's nothing like a cold rush of fear to dilute the more pleasurable hormones. When I followed Jax down that path, I strutted in like the predator I'd always thought of myself as. Suddenly I was the prey and that role didn't suit me at all. I was afraid and that pissed me off. I don't do fear.
I grabbed Dorian's arm, forcing him to pause. “Enough with the circling, they already know you're the big dog.” As I made contact, the others froze expectantly, tensing ecstatically for the impending violence, but he just leaned forward, his breath scalding my neck. “Where did he find you?” he murmured. Every cell in my body screamed for an immediate, violent connection to release the surge of wanting he sent through them. I forced my fingers tighter around his arm so they wouldn't betray me and wander, maybe migrate up those hard shoulders to touch his neck with that vein pulsing slowly, steadily. And if my fingers kept moving, they might wind themselves in that dark hair and pull him closer....
I yanked my brain and my hand free and he smirked. So now I was the transparent one. I covered the way my hands shook by fishing out the photo of Natalie. “The runt didn't find me. I came out here looking for her.” I shoved the picture at him, he barely glanced at it, evidently too stuck in his self satisfied gloating. I reminded myself that it's probably harder to get information from a dead guy and so I didn't stab him repeatedly, which would have been my first choice. I even tried to be reasonable. “That mean you haven't seen her?” “Do you see her here?” As far as responses go, that was singularly unhelpful but obtaining information wasn't the most important priority any longer.
It was time to pay attention to his creatures.
Jax had joined the other four and the pack was getting restless. Whatever that girl was hooked on was wearing off fast. She licked her lips and they were still dry. Her hands shook, her eyes burned as they watched me. She'd be the one to break first.
I jammed Natalie's picture in my back pocket, palming the knife from my belt. “If she's not here, I might as well take off.” Edgy girl lunged. Predictable. I took two steps back as she came forward and had my knife halfway to her throat when Dorian seized her mid-leap, spun her around and pinned her against his side – hard. I heard her ribs crack and she let out a smothered animal yelp.
He didn't say a word, didn't change his expression. She whimpered once and slumped against him, trapped, her lips moving silently. Sweat formed and dripped down her face. She just looked up at him like a starving dog, desperate for a bite of food even as it braces for the inevitable blow. All my adrenaline and lust sluiced away like cold water. I felt sick.
I glared at him, hoping it might distract him from punishing her any further, at least while I was around. “I didn't need your help.”
He shrugged and pushed her away so hard she fell face down in the grass. As she struggled to sit up, I caught the words on the back of her tattered jacket, THE BLOOD LORDS, and made a mental note to ask Jimmy what he knew about these freaks.
I turned away, fingers tight around the knife, tensed to any movement behind, but I no longer wanted a fight. The thirst for violence had drained away, all I wanted was to leave this place.
I heard him laugh. “You'll be back,” he murmured.
I focused on walking, refusing to break and run as fast as I could. “Hey, I'm Dorian,” he yelled after me.
When I went out there I knew exactly who he was.
Now I wasn't even sure what he was.
Chapter Six - LIES
Out of their sight, I broke and ran. The threat of tripping over uneven ground and breaking an ankle, leaving me vulnerable to Dorian's pack, was less unbearable than the tears that burned against the back of my eyes. I ran through the darkness as hard as I'd ever run, and it wasn't fast enough. I told myself that if I'd had to fight him, there was a better than even chance I wouldn't be alive to run away so I was doing the sensible thing.
I tried to keep that in mind as I reached my bike and fired it up, but it didn't help. As a mood changer, logic sucks.
Worse than the fear and humiliation was the realization that crept along behind them. Dorian's dark eyes and flawless body weren't the sole reason for my over reaction. What he'd unleashed was more than just lust, it was loneliness, the full on loneliness that I'd been fleeing my entire life. For that alone, I hated him and even the hate wasn't enough to dry my eyes.
Blurry vision at 85 miles an hour is not an asset so I pinched myself back to reality. Just because he didn't react to Natalie's photo didn't mean he'd never seen her. And even if he hadn't, the guy was way past the red line for
danger. I let my body meld with the machine while my mind analyzed the injured girl's crazed devotion, the total subservience Jax exhibited and Dorian's scary fast reflexes. Whatever drug he was on was more than the usual sensory enhancer. No jitters, no twitches or missing teeth, and that body certainly wasn't dying around him, the guy had remained cool and in control until he needed to move. This was law enforcement's worse nightmare. I would ask Jimmy about the Blood Lords, tip him off to the enslaved group of kids who blindly served Dorian. Even though I didn't think anyone could bring them back to a normal life, I knew Jimmy would take whatever steps he could to save them. And he would alert
his brethren to the danger.
As for Dorian, there was only one way to deal with something that dangerous, and I no longer believed I was strong enough to see that through. Just the thought of fighting him scared me enough that I almost lost control of the bike.
By the time I cut the engine and coasted down our driveway, I felt like vomiting.
When I'd ridden out of there, hours ago, I had a handle on life. While I wouldn't have claimed to know everything, I would have laughed at the idea I couldn't handle myself against one guy. Now that confidence was shredded. The only thing I knew for sure was that I did not want my father to know what had happened.
There were no lights on inside, but then again, there rarely were. It's not difficult to conserve electricity when you can see in the dark. I pulled off my shoes and crept down the hall. T'Jean's voice came from somewhere in the living room.
