by Jaden Wilkes
Besides, with Cai just a few feet away, and a crowded tent ready for a show, but not death, I felt I was okay. I would survive.
But that didn’t calm the twitch in the back of my head, that sixth sense I was just now beginning to trust and depend on, but the thing I was ignoring deliberately right now.
Orion did his dramatic speech to the crowd, they grew hushed and quiet as he dragged me onto the table and began our show.
Alexi held my hands this time, he held them together hard, without any give. I whimpered, feeling the bones grind together as he gripped them in his huge hands.
It wasn’t of course the pain, but it was the force behind it. I didn’t like the way he wouldn’t look into my eyes, and the way Orion was rough with me, uncaring.
I rolled my eyes wildly for Cairo, but couldn’t find him in the darkness off the stage.
Orion flipped me onto my stomach and Alexi let my hands go free. I started to stretch them, to steady myself, when Orion grabbed them and jerked them behind my back.
“I don’t like this...” I said in a quiet voice, starting to struggle for real.
He was silent, the crowd had that energetic hush to it, I could imagine them all sitting on the edge of their seats.
I heard a clinking metal sound and realized Orion was going to use handcuffs. Fear alarmed through me, and adrenaline started to pump. I jerked and struggled, but couldn’t get away.
Something we had discovered echoed in my head then, that silver could be my downfall. My one weakness.
Orion wouldn’t have known this would he? Were the cuffs made of silver?
“Cai!” I screamed as Alexi pushed me down into the table. My face was squished against the hard surface and my voice muffled, but I began to scream anyways. “Cairo, help! This isn’t part of it! Orion! Alexi! What the fuck are you doing?”
There was no response from either man, and I could sense the excitement flickering over the crowd. They were completely silent, which was extremely rare. I tried to move my head to look at them, but Alexi held me down.
I felt weakened as soon as Orion got the cuffs on. I felt like my arms were gelatin and my body was melting. I felt the weight of the air oppressing me, making it difficult to catch my breath.
“Now we are going to have fun,” Orion whispered into my ear and dragged something over my face. A black hood. I was cut off from oxygen and the world.
“Stop,” I screamed, but all that came out was a mumbled protest. I heard Alexi chuckle, a deep, evil sound.
I should have known all along that this was where girl’s disappeared. I should have figured that out, that there was something odd about Alexi, and I’d known all along that Orion was quite mad.
But I hadn’t done anything about it because of my love for Cairo. My love became my weakness, and it was my greatest defeat here in the end of things.
I didn’t want to die though, but I was as weak as a newborn, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t get away, and I couldn’t even tell what Orion was doing to me.
Tears leaked from my eyes and I tried to reach out to the earth, to draw energy.
But it was my hands that did it, I needed my hands or feet and I need the mask off.
Orion’s voice came from beside me, even through the hood I could feel the heat from his breath.
“You thought you’d come in here and steal away all my power, all my control,” he muttered angrily, “You thought you’d walk around with your big eyes and pretend you didn’t know what the fuck you were doing. But you knew...you knew exactly what you were doing.”
“I didn’t,” I tried to say, unsure if he even heard me. “I know nothing!”
I was sobbing at this point, fear driving me to keep fighting, even though my logical side knew there was no use. I didn’t know where Cairo was, but either he was in on it or he was being held captive himself.
And I knew in my gut that he wasn’t in on it. I just knew.
I struggled again, weakly and ineffectually, but I struggled.
I felt Orion jabbing the hook into my back with no care this time. He was in it for real. I’m sure there was a part of him that wished I could feel it, really feel it when he stuck them in.
I struggled again, like a fish on the end of a line, out of water and slowly losing their life.
I didn’t want this though, I didn’t want it to end like this.
Orion jabbed another hook in, and another. I felt my blood leaking out, taking with it my remaining energy.
He began to lift me, pull my body farther from the earth, farther from my power, and let me hang there while he waxed poetic to the audience about the nature of pain and pleasure, and how the ultimate orgasm would be tantamount to death.
I felt myself fading as he spoke, losing consciousness, not from the loss of blood but from the loss of contact with the earth. From the silver breaking my connection with the earth, my mother. I choked on my tears, felt wave after wave of misery wash over me, and squeezed my eyes shut and tried to find it in me to keep fighting.
Orion’s hands were on me then, pressing against me, his breath coming ragged and harsh. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I could feel it. His hands, so opposite of Cai’s, soft and damp, hot to the touch.
He caressed me and drove needles into me, I could feel the way they pierced my skin.
He cupped my ass and held me steady, I screamed, a weakening mewling noise as Orion slid his hands under the thin fabric of my panties and shoved himself inside of me.
A finger, a second, and in his other hand he was holding the ropes that suspended me, dragging me back, driving me onto his slick fingers.
I cried and felt defeated at his assault on my body. I knew I had to fight him, to stop what was going to happen, but I was so weak.
I forced myself through the humiliation and draining silver on my wrists. I was more than mythology and superstition, I was Liv and nothing could stop me now that I knew who I was.
I thought of Cairo, his eyes when he looked at me, full of lust and love. The self-conscious way he brushed a stray strand of hair over his ear when it had escaped. The way he held me when we were sleeping at night, when I would wake up in his arms, his warmth enveloping me, his breathing comforting me and sending me back to sleep.
I had to do it for him, I had to fight to know what happened to Cairo. I had to know.
I took a long brittle breath and extended myself through my feet. I imagined my arms gone, so the energy in my body would bypass the silver hand cuffs.
I was grateful that Orion hadn’t thought to use silver hooks to suspend me or I would have been toast for sure.
I felt a delicate, tentative tendril of energy snake down my leg, bridge the space between my body and the table, and slither down the table leg to the stage, hitting the organic wood, a once living thing that made it easier to travel, and slide straight into the earth.
It bounded up to me, and I heard the audience gasp. I didn’t care who saw me then, I just knew I had to get free.
I drew more and more power to me, through my feet.
I felt Orion’s hands on my ankles, cold and rough, seeking to prevent the flow of what I could only imagine was that glowing blue light.
I heard crackling and smelled singed hair, heard Orion call out and felt him draw back.
It was as if I was no longer in complete control of my body, I felt as if I’d opened myself to another being. A greater force than my puny life, one that fed on love and joy, the same love and joy that had kept me from crossing over into darkness.
I screamed, filled my lungs, and snapped the handcuffs, freeing my arms.
The other being felt almost shocked at the state of things, my body, the air in my lungs, the blood and lack of pain.
She screamed too, a primal, gut wrenching shriek that I couldn’t tell if it was in my head or coming from my mouth.
She twisted my body on the hooks, reached around and heated them until they melted and released me.
I fell to the table,
my hands dragged the hood off and I saw the world through the eyes of the goddess.
It was in high definition, I could smell the fear on Orion and Alexi, felt the waves of panic sweeping through the crowd, and fed on all of it.
“How fucking dare you try to bind my child!” her voice spoke through me, my chest echoing and booming like a drum. “How dare you tear into her body like it’s your own flesh!”
“I’m...I’m...sorry!” Orion cried out, dropping to the floor on his knees, paying obeisance to her. “Forgive me, Brigid, I knew not that she was one of yours.”
“Lies!” the voice boomed out of me. “You knew as well as you knew where your own ass was the last time you wiped it.”
She had a sense of humour, I liked her. I supposed I would have to like her, being one of her creations apparently.
“Please, forgive me. I simply wanted to teach her a lesson, to show her who was in charge of the show,” Orion pleaded.
“You and your pathetic wolf magic,” Brigid roared through me. We stood and walked towards him, she flexed my muscles and looked at my hands, cracking the joints and finding them curious things. I sensed it had been centuries since she’d taken human form.
She lifted one of my feet and dropped it down, landing on Orion’s right hand. He yelped but dared not move. Brigid ground my foot into it, I could feel his bones snapping and rolling against each other, his screams filled me with immense pleasure.
“You will lose your ability to craft,” Brigid said, “be pleased you did not lose your hand entirely. Now go, be gone from me or I will change my mind.”
Orion leapt to his feet and ran, not looking back.
We turned and faced the crowd, half of them had already fled, but the remaining few were staring at us defiantly. As if expecting something more for their dollar.
“This stage is closed,” she bellowed, her voice sending sound waves strong enough to knock over the first row of chairs. “If you are found here again, depraved humans, you will be executed without cause. Now LEAVE!”
That did it, fear slid from them like sweat and tears, and they knocked each other over to get out of the tent before Brigid destroyed them.
She felt immense pleasure and satisfaction at their reaction.
She paused, thought about something bright and warm, something she wanted. We turned and moved towards the table I’d been on.
Brigid scanned the stage with my eyes, searching for something. Needing something.
It came to me what she was after.
My heart.
My Cairo.
She strode to the backstage area where I’d last seen him, accessing my memories as if she were flipping through a file folder.
She found Carl there, cowering and sniveling before her.
I’d thought he was on my side. Somewhere deep in my heart, I curled up and cried in shame at my trustworthy nature.
Brigid felt it too, inside she sent a glowing warmth to cocoon the shamed part of myself, and made the feeling disappear.
“Love and trust are never things to be ashamed of, my daughter,” she said in my head, a sound like the buzzing of bees and the songs of birds. “Never let yourself see it as a weakness, but never let it become a point for your exploitation.”
She withdrew and stared at Carl through my eyes. It was if there was a red filter on them, everything looked about to burst into flame.
“Where is her lover?” Brigid roared again. “Where is the one they call Cairo?”
Carl pointed towards a darkened corner and Brigid carried us there.
We found Cai curled in a ball, his hands and feet bound tight and his mouth stuffed with a cloth.
Not that it was necessary, he didn’t seem to be moving.
“Cairo,” I screamed in my own voice and dropped to his side. Brigid took my hand and ran it over his body, looking for the source of unconsciousness. He had a concussion, a blow to the back of the head had sent him into the dream time.
She held my hand over the spot and said in my head, “Now watch this, my daughter. This is my greatest gift of all. You must learn to lead these people, for that is your purpose on this earth.”
I watched and felt as she drew power from beneath me, going through the wood of the floor to the earth beneath.
She moved that power through my body and created a flattened disc of blue energy that she held against Cairo’s wound.
He groaned and she kept it there for a short time, until we could see the swelling recede and the blood begin to flow normally again.
“That is how you heal,” she told me in my head, “you will need this again. There are some things you cannot fix, but most things can be taken care of in this manner.”
“Thank you,” I whispered to her and felt her satisfaction at Cai’s eyelids fluttering.
“This one will be healed, daughter. It is important for you to carry his child, it will strengthen my place in the world. I will come back to you soon, to teach you more of my ways, but I must leave now.”
“But I can’t...I can’t...” I said, a tear escaping and slipping down my cheek at the thought of being empty again. Now that I had been filled by her light, I couldn’t imagine it any other way. “Don’t leave me!”
“Too much of me and you will die,” she said softly. I could feel her stroking my hair and holding me against her somewhere, in my head. “Your human heart cannot take it, but I will be back. Remember my love, my power, and my teachings. I will return.”
“When?” I asked, but she was already gone. In the time it took me to exhale, she left my body.
Cairo was looking up at me, confusion flickered across his features, and he asked, “Who was just here with you?”
“You saw her?”
“No, but I heard you talking to her.”
“That was in my head.”
“I heard her though,” he said, sitting up. “Thank her for me, I think she saved my life. You saved my life.”
I helped him to his feet and he took me in his arms, held me so tight I almost couldn’t breathe. I didn’t stop him though, I needed his warmth, his body next to mine.
I thought briefly about what Brigid had said, about needing his child.
I wondered what kind of father he would be.
I laughed then, and he looked down to ask, “What’s so funny?”
I looked up at him, into those incredible eyes, and said, “Do you still think of me as Miss Normal?”
Chapter Thirty
We made it back to my trailer and I helped Cairo out of his clothes and covered him in blankets on my bed. He seemed weak, and that terrified me. I hadn’t realized he’d been so close to death from the head wound, but Brigid had known and had saved him.
For this, I would eternally be hers.
And for this, I wondered if that had been her plan somehow. Why hadn’t she come to me earlier, when I’d needed her to give me information? Or years ago, when I’d been so disconnected from my family?
I called the name of the detective on a card I’d been given during the investigation into Cara’s disappearance. Detective Andrew Smythe. It was late, he was in Seattle, so I left him a message.
I’m sure he would think me insane, but I had to let somebody know that Carl and Alexi were apparently behind the disappearances. I didn’t mention Orion because I felt like Cairo should be the one to implicate his father.
I didn’t yet know why, but I had that gut instinct that there was more to After Dark than I’d ever imagined. I remembered that stain I’d seen a few days ago, and wondered if it was blood after all.
And more importantly, whose had it been?
I stripped off my corset and tights and climbed into bed next to Cai. I closed my eyes and let my senses expand, drew my hand over his body, over the back of his head, searching for any hurt that needed healing.
“We need to get out of here,” I told him when I found nothing alarming. His body was knitting back together with amazing speed, spurred on by Brigid and aided by his s
upernatural abilities I was sure. “We need to get to Seattle and talk to them in person. There’s no way he’ll believe that message I just left.”
I wanted us to leave in the morning, somewhere we’d be safe, until they were caught. I wouldn’t feel safe until then.
We both knew our mission to meet Detective Smythe was just a flimsy excuse to get the hell away from the danger that was building around us. I wasn’t safe here, even with Orion being chased away by Brigid, and I needed to be safe.
I heard Cairo take a deep breath and his breathing slowed. He wrapped his arms around me, and deep inside, I felt Brigid smiling.
She loved this as much as I did.
*****
“Pack light,” Cairo told me first thing in the morning after listening to my plan, “I agree that we need to see Detective Smythe in person. Besides, we can’t stay here if they’re going to come after you. I can’t go through that again, Liv. Fuck, seeing you out there like that, the look in my dad’s eyes. I tried to come to you, I really did.”
“I know,” I replied and soothed him. The beast inside was threatening to emerge, but I wanted this to be taken care of legally. I didn’t want their blood on our hands, I wanted them brought to justice.
I knew I couldn’t really do much about Orion’s assault on my body, I’d signed up for his show after all, but the deaths of the girls needed to be addressed as soon as possible.
And hopefully we’d be far away as it all went down.
I threw a couple outfits into a duffel bag, left a note for Rose telling her we’d be gone for a few days. I would texted her too, to let her know who to stay away from...all the men we suspected.
She texted back, grateful for the information and said she’d spread the news among the Cirque’s female staff. At least we could keep some of them safe too, even though we were fleeing.
We stopped off at Cairo’s RV for him to pack and to explain some things to his sisters. Milan was in rehearsal, and Paris informed us that Orion hadn’t come back that night, so we sat her down to talk to her about what we knew.
She was horrified, of course, and didn’t fully believe us. I didn’t blame her, but we needed her to keep an eye on things for a few days while we figured it all out and get the cops to believe us.
