V Games_Fresh From The Grave

by Caroline Peckham

  “A foolish miscalculation on my part,” Ulvic said, his brows dropping.

  Realisation hit me like a shot to the chest. “If you had, I would have asked you to make sure Varick was still alive!”

  Ulvic sighed, nodding. “He is. Ignus told me so.”

  My world shattered. I tried to hide my reaction from the three strangers in the room, but any attempt was useless against Reason and the other two I had no choice about. I cupped my hand to my mouth, letting the news flood over me like a wave crashing against my heart.

  I hadn't realised how truly afraid I was that Varick had been killed, so determined to believe he wasn't. And in the midst of all my hunger for revenge, my anger, I found myself crumbling inwards like a child over someone I barely knew. But who had saved me more than once, had gotten me through the game. Without him, I wouldn't still be standing here. And that's why I had to go back, at the very least, to repay the favour.

  Ulvic's expression was stony when I gathered my senses, finding Reason hovering near me like she was listening to my very heartbeat. Mekiah's deep, brown eyes were pinned on me, too, full of contempt.

  My heart sank like a pebble in an icy pool. I was the outsider here and if I wanted their help, I needed to cooperate.

  Ulvic turned to Mekiah and Reason with hopeful eyes. “I'd like you both to help us.”

  Mekiah barked at him forcefully, his fur raising threateningly in a line down his back. Reason flapped a hand at him. “Of course we'll help you, Ulvic.” Her eyes were round and full of light as she gazed at him, but Ulvic didn't seem to notice, moving to the bar to pour himself another drink.

  Mekiah padded after him, disappearing behind the bar and standing, fully naked as a man a moment later. Ulvic's grip tightened on his glass as he firmly fixed his gaze on Mekiah - nowhere lower than his veiny neck or muscular torso. He was easily the size of two men melded together, and I had no doubt he could rip apart everyone in this room. Wolf or not.

  “I'm not going anywhere. And neither is Reason.”

  “You don't speak for me,” Reason chimed in, folding her arms. “I've made my decision.”

  “I won't have it!” Mekiah roared, slamming his hand down flat on the tiled bar and sending a crack splintering across it. Ulvic seemed less than pleased, glaring at Mekiah with persisting calm.

  “You will come, or I'll promote Emerico to Beta status and you can stay here to run around as our new Omega. How does that sound?”

  I shifted awkwardly, surprised at the power Ulvic seemed to hold over the Werewolves. How did he manage it?

  “It sounds like I'm about to rip out your throat, Hunter.” Mekiah glared down at Ulvic, moving into his personal space like a predator, primed to attack. Ulvic seemed no more fazed by him than he would if a child was pointing a wooden sword in his direction.

  “Don't. Test. Me,” Ulvic said in a low tone. It was the first time I'd seen him even come close to losing his temper since I'd arrived. “You know I can make you come, all I need to do is say the word.”

  Mekiah shifted like an animal, swaying back and forth on his feet. “Reason stays. I'll go,” he said eventually.

  Reason tsked, moving to my side. “You don't control me Mekiah. I'm a Beta just like you.”

  Mekiah's eyes swivelled to hers, his shoulders so rigid I was sure he was about to turn into a wolf again. After several tense seconds, he submitted. “Fine. A day, no longer. We retrieve Jameson and return here by sundown.”

  “You aren't making the rules,” Ulvic said, waving him away. “Now go put some damn clothes on.”

  Mekiah stomped across the room and I diverted my eyes from his naked behind as he disappeared into Reason's bedroom. It struck me as odd that their clothes were in the same place, considering they were clearly in no way a couple.

  I moved toward the range of weapons on the wall, brushing my fingers over a handgun. I felt someone move up behind me and glanced back to see Ulvic there, his expression soft.

  “How do I kill a Hunter?” I asked, biting my lip.

  Ulvic picked up the gun I'd been touching, weighing it in his palm. “A shot to the head will do it. Or removing the heart,” Ulvic added. “If you're into that kind of thing.”

  “So you're immortal? Like the Vs?” I inquired.

  “Not quite,” Ulvic answered. “We live longer...we're stronger, essentially human in many ways. But we can't be killed as easily.”

  I nodded, making a mental note for the next time I crossed paths with a Helsing. “And you?” I turned to Reason.

  Her eyes softened. “Immortal...yes.” She seemed to read the next question in my eyes. “We can be turned by bites or scratches from other Werewolves, or else mate and produce wolf offspring. The wolf-borns are stronger, their blood pure. But if someone is turned, it depends on the one who did so. If they were strong, you will be too.”

  “And are you a 'wolf-born'?” I asked, trying out the new words on my tongue.

  She dipped her head modestly. “No...wolf-borns are often Alphas.”

  Mekiah re-entered the room in a similar outfit to the one he'd torn to shreds earlier. My curiosity got the better of me as I asked Mekiah, “Are you a wolf-born?” I had no doubt of his strength from the looks of him.

  He scowled, a low growl escaping his throat. “Yes, but Ulvic chose our Alpha. Even though he was turned.” He stormed from the cabin, letting the bitingly cold air into the room. Howls caught my ear from beyond the door and Mekiah joined them in human form, sounding like a lunatic calling to the moon.

  Ulvic tutted. “Ignore him.”

  “How do you have so much control over their pack?” I asked, not understanding.

  Reason bowed her head. “He's our master.”

  Ulvic sipped from his drink and I was certain he was hiding a smile. “Yes, I saved them. Each of these wolves owe me their loyalty and obedience. Something they cannot break without disowning the entire pack.”

  I nodded, moving away from the doorway. At least I had warm clothes on now. I was done with ball gowns. The next time a Helsing saw me, I wouldn't be dressed as one of their little props.

  “So what's the plan?” I questioned.

  Ulvic pursed his lips before replying, “I'll hand you over. Then Reason and Mekiah will find a way into the castle whilst we distract the Helsings.”

  I chewed my lip, doubt running through me like a stream. Our plan wasn't yet solid, and relied on me offering myself up as a prisoner again. But I'd do it for Varick. I'd place my life in the hands of the Helsings for him.

  “Okay,” I breathed. “I'll do it.”

  Cass

  Fire had always been my foe. And now it seemed to possess every part of my body, my very blood was alight with its cruel flames. I writhed like a mad thing on my back, unable to see anything but darkness. I pressed my hands to the walls that confined me, scraping my nails against my wooden surroundings. I denied for too long what I knew to be true. But I let the truth settle over me at last as I lay in the fiery heat of my body, my pulse sometimes fast and sometimes so slow I was sure it would stop.

  I was in a coffin.

  How far under ground, I couldn't be sure. But enough air must have been reaching me to enable me to keep breathing. And so much time had passed that, the little I knew about being buried alive, made me certain I should have suffocated by now.

  Perhaps this was my own personal hell. To burn for all eternity in a space where time blurred into the endless darkness; the only way to feel it to count my breaths. But even they were unsteady. One, then two. Then none at all. And yet the compress of my lungs didn't come, the aching desperation for air didn't seem present.

  I was dead, I had to be.

  My last memory before this nightmare was watching Selena land in the helicopter after a desperate leap for freedom. I'd felt alive. I'd felt happy, even. To know that one of us had made it. The best one of us. The girl who was a survivor, not a killer like me or Kite. I deserved to be buried this deep, my flesh aflame with the fire that
had scorched my own victims. How they'd be laughing now. Taunting, teasing me whilst I was flayed alive, just like they had been. Because of my vengeance. Against someone who had nothing to do with them.

  3 Years Earlier

  Early morning was my favourite time of day. The way the sun lifted into the sky, rising above the horizon like burnt amber. Every day I woke to meet it, climbing to the top of Tumbledown Hill where a small wood clung to its steep slope, hugging the lush grass as if it were afraid it would be blown away.

  Cresting the hill always felt the same. A release; a breath of fresh, clean air. Away from London, just on the outskirts but close enough to still see over the urban maze. The blinking light atop the grand Canary Wharf tower flashed in time with my heartbeat. It was a pillar of financial success, reminding all within its sight of the power held there.

  I had never been drawn to money, my motivations were rooted in two things: love and family. Those may have seemed like the same things to some people. But those people didn't know my family, who had never been easy to love and much easier to hate. Loyalty ran deep in my veins, however. And I would always stand by them. Even now when I was torn down the middle like a piece of paper, my edges jagged and not quite meeting.

  I'd been surrounded by men ever since my mother had died from a heroin overdose when I was three. It was strange how I still felt her with me. Sometimes the brush of the wind reminded me of the way her crimson hair had tickled my cheeks as she snuggled me in her arms. My small fingers would creep across the red marks on the inside of her elbows. But I'd always come second to the drugs; at least, that's how it seemed now.

  The tick of a lighter beneath a spoon was such a common sound in my home, it was akin to the tick of a clock in other people's. But father had no time for clocks. Not one was mounted in our little town house.

  “Time makes you a slave,” he'd say as he tightened a belt around his arm. He always made a lot of sense just before he got doped up. And that kind of took away the strength of his words. Excuses, that's what they were. Heroin lengthened time, according to him. But what use was time if you spent it off your head?

  I was the only one in my family who hadn't taken a hit of the stuff. My twin brother, Curt, had refused to let me participate the few times I'd been drawn to it. Teenage years weren't easy to go through even for the wealthy, and the sweet escape my brother and father were privy to seemed tempting at times. But I'd held firm, painfully aware that my mother had been killed by the stuff.

  It was easy to be reminded of her considering I looked just the same, especially now I'd reached eighteen. My father had a photograph of her I glimpsed from time to time in his wallet. When I'd take it to the shops to buy groceries (my family would hardly eat if I didn't) and I'd gaze at her face for a while, smiling at me with bright eyes that weren't veiled by drugs. She was present in that picture, probably more so than my father was on a daily basis. Perhaps that's why she felt so close now.

  I'd tried to help them this morning. Eighteen years of watching my family pushing needles into their arms hadn't passed without a certain niggling guilt that I should be doing more to stop them. Today I'd realised something, rising early and snatching the syringe from my father's hand as he sat in his worn leather armchair. Heroin wasn't just a drug, it was a god. It demanded to be fed, sacrificed to, and in return it offered them bliss. If only I'd realised that before I'd challenged him. I was taking on a deity. A thing loved by my father much more than he could ever love me.

  It took me three seconds to register the harsh crack of knuckles against my cheek. I'd hit the floor, dizzy, my fingers clawing into the aged carpet, thick with ash and dirt. It burrowed under my nails, marking me as one of them. My father stood above me, all six and a half feet of him – he was young, having gotten my mother pregnant when she was just seventeen, but his hair was thinning already and his skin was sallow and grey. He jammed the needle into his arm, his eyes full of a passionate fury that made him seem possessed. The heroin invaded him and he let it in, asked it to take away the aggressive monster that tore at his insides when he didn't have it.

  I rubbed my cheek, branding it with the grime from the floor. He slurred an apology, but the drug was already taking effect. Evil was walking willingly into his body and carrying his soul far, far away.

  My brother was next. I'd been rattled from the punch I'd received from my father, my hands trembling as I made my way into my twin's bedroom, winding through the dark maze of old pizza boxes and festering Chinese takeaways in the lounge. I pushed the door to his room – it had a clean hole through the middle where Curt had once put his foot through it in a rage.

  I rubbed my aching cheek again. It wasn't the first time my father had hit me, but it was a rare occurrence and had shaken me to the core. I knew it wasn't like him, not really. Who he really was was only glimpsed from time to time. Occasionally, I'd wake up to find the house cleaned – or at least the week-old food would be disposed of. And he'd mutter apologies all morning whilst he took my brother and I to breakfast in the local cafe. We'd receive stares while we ate, but it didn't matter to me. My dirty clothes and lank hair meant nothing; those moments were deeply precious due to their rarity. Like digging through coal for years and eventually stumbling across a diamond. I locked those memories safely away for the times when things became their most grave. Like now.

  My brother was passed out in his bed, a girl curled up beneath his arm. She looked diseased, her bony shoulders and the sharp angles of her body told of how little she ever ate. Because why eat when she could get high instead?

  I closed the door, sparing only the briefest of glances at my half-conscious father before pulling on my coat and boots, heading out the front door, longing for the sunrise.

  And there I stood, on the hill, gazing toward the rising grey fingers of the London skyline, reaching toward the low-hanging clouds. How many people worked in those buildings, day in day out, sacrificing their lives for wealth? It was all the same to me. Money, drugs. The same monster with a different face.

  Out of the trees appeared a man, winding up the path I'd just taken. Something about him drew me to him immediately. Like a will-o-the-wisp floating from the woodland, speaking directly to my soul. He wasn't beautiful, but he wasn't ugly either. His face was taut with the kind of pain I was feeling right then. So perhaps that's why I felt such a connection to the total stranger. And for the first time in a very long time, I felt self-conscious of my clothes, of my unwashed hair and dirty fingernails. I curled my hands into fists to hide them as he approached.

  He didn't seem to see me at first, his gaze fixed on the towers ahead of us. But his attention soon slid to me and a v formed between his eyes. I actually would have preferred to be naked rather than wrapped in grimy, torn jeans and a coat that had been passed down to me from my father, heavy with the stench of smoke and metal.

  “Are you alright?” He moved closer, assessing my cheek.

  “Yes,” I said immediately, though I wasn't. I cupped my hand over the bruise that was forming there, heating my skin with its persistent throbbing.

  “What's your name?” he asked, seeming formal.

  “I- it doesn't matter,” I insisted, but remained in place, my eyes focused on the soft blue of his. There was something so comforting about him, a peacefulness that drew me in.

  “It does.” He slid a hand into his dark suede jacket, extracting a lanyard. He flipped it around, offering me a view of the insignia that marked him as a doctor. I took in the name listed on it: Blake Phillips.

  “I'm fine,” I insisted, stepping away, but his fingers brushed my arm. Electricity crackled through my veins: the dangerous kind, warning me of something both exciting and perilous. The air was pregnant with it.

  I remained stock still, fixing my eyes on his.

  “Let me help you,” he implored and I found myself nodding, moving closer. “You need ice,” he said, gesturing to the bruise. “My place is just down the hill.”

  If he hadn't have b
een a doctor, perhaps I would have refused, but the way the dappled light flickered across his face, lighting him like an angel sent to help me, melted the last of my resolve.

  I followed him home and he moved at my side like a warrior, keeping close, warding off the darkness that lived in me. We arrived at a block of flats and I craned my neck up to see the top of the white, stone building.

  Inside, he planted a cup of tea in my hands – something I'd not drank in so many years it tasted bitter on my tongue. After a decent helping of sugar piled into it, I sipped it down and it warmed me to the bone.

  Blake stood by the window behind a simple suite of grey furniture. The only thing in the room that seemed particularly used was a large hifi system surrounded by racks and racks of CDs.

  He muttered into the phone in his hand, sparing me brief glances from time to time. And when he was done, he returned to me, took the empty Rolling Stones mug from my hands and pointed across the room. “If you'd like a shower, feel free to take one. I have to pop out for an hour.”

  I stiffened, getting to my feet. “I should really go home.”

  “Please.” Lines formed on his brow as he gazed at me and I felt something that I hadn't felt in a long time. That this person truly cared for my well-being. “Stay. I won't be long. You can clean up...make yourself some food.”

  My mouth salivated at his words and I was agreeing before I could help myself. He spared me one last glance before he left and there was so much concern in it that I soaked it up, comforted by the fact that I actually seemed to matter to this angelic man.

  The taut skin on my cheek suddenly didn't hurt so much. Because if my father hadn't hit me, I wouldn't be here, about to bathe and fill my tummy which had only seen the contents of tins for months. Everyone had a price. And I'd have taken another punch any day for this.

  The fire stuttered out. All at once, I was free from the torture. But my relief was quickly replaced by panic as my heart stopped. Literally stopped. I reached for my chest, desperate to feel the comforting beat of it, but there was nothing but silence. A rapid pain grew at the base of my throat, pushing and climbing upwards until I was sure I would choke.