“What are you talking about Ren? Your soul is fine. I did everything in that prison. I’m not ashamed of any of it, but that’s on me. Not you. You are not responsible for what I did in there.”
“No, I’m not, Cat. I’m not responsible for what you did. I am absolutely responsible for what I chose to do. There’s no coming back from that. I may have had my reasons, reasons that I felt were justified, but there are consequences for those choices.”
“What choice did you make?” I almost scream at him, and then I remember. The one thing I asked him to do. The thing that he resisted until I pushed him into it. The lawyer.
He nods as he watches the understanding splash upon my face. “His family was home, Cat. Both kids. His wife. Their dog…I didn’t know before, but I suspected. And I still went through with it. I chose to do it because I believed it needed to be done. Now I have to live with that.”
“I’m so sorry, Renny,” I let the words leak out of me like air from a dying balloon. In the chaos of everything that came after, I had forgotten that one moment. That one critical moment. “I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t either, but that doesn’t really change anything, does it? It’s done. And now? Now I have a black mark on my soul. When I didn’t hear from you that night, I figured it was a sign.
“If my soul was already tainted now, then what was there to stop me from trying the experiment on myself? I couldn’t meet my maker now knowing that I had just condemned three innocent people to their deaths. Putting off that confrontation for as long as possible seemed a much more viable alternative than dying in the next few days and seeing what his opinion of me might be. And it wasn’t like I knew if you were ever coming back or not.
“My body was aching so much that night already, and I had been trying to ignore a headache for hours. It was all just so overwhelming. So I decided to see what would happen. What did I have to lose?”
“I’m so sorry, Ren.” It’s all I can think to say. I don’t know how to even begin processing what he’s telling me.
He ignores me, though, and keeps on talking. “I pulled out a couple test tubes I had with fresh samples of your blood. You’d just given them to me a couple days ago for one of the tests. I said a small prayer, asked for forgiveness, and drank both of them. Then I waited.
“But nothing happened. I sat in a chair and waited some more, but it had appeared that my hypothesis about it working on a human was wrong. In all my tests that I had run, the process was surprisingly quick. But I wasn’t noticing anything.
“Deciding this was a sign, I gave up and went to bed. I’d just have to re-examine my information in the morning and look at it with clear eyes. Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling and trying to sleep was when I noticed it. Or rather noticed the ‘lack’ of it. My pain. The constant soreness of my muscles that has been haunting me was gone. My headache that had been hounding me was also non-existent. In fact, I actually felt pretty good. A bit hungry maybe, but I was feeling better than I’d felt in months.
“It wasn’t that I was feeling superhuman like I expected. Just human. But that was something I hadn’t felt in way too long. And it was a start.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I completely understand that desire. The need to want to feel human. It’s been haunting me for almost two years now. I can’t blame Ren for wanting it, too. Or giving in to something that would let him feel it again. But still. Choosing to infect himself with the virus that has been haunting me? Destroying me and eating away at my very own ability to feel human? The irony of the thing that has destroyed my ability to feel like a human being the only way he saw to find that sensation is not lost on me.
“So,” I finally say. “You’re like me now? You’re…infected? Desire for blood and all that?” I’m not sure how I feel about it, yet. Part of me is happy to have someone else I can share this experience with. Especially someone like Ren. But something else in me is a bit jealous. This was mine before. All mine. It made me special, and now I have to share it.
Luckily that second part is a pretty small part, but it’s still there. I can feel it creeping around the edges of my mind.
“Yeah, I believe so,” he tells me. “It’s only been a couple days, but I’m starting to feel the changes. My senses are on constant hyper-alert. It’s how I knew you were here before you even opened the door. And I haven’t slept since before you left for the prison. Exhaustion isn’t even hinting at my mind, so that part has been nice. I’ve been awake and functional for almost seventy-two hours. That part has been a bonus. I’ve gotten a lot of work done.”
“Have you,” I pause and think about how I want to word my question. “Eaten, yet?”
“No,” he says with apparent relief. “I’m sure that will come at some point, but I’ve been able to ignore the urge so far. It has helped knowing what you went through. I’ve used that knowledge to pace myself. Aside from staying constantly awake and letting my senses take in as much as possible, I haven’t really pushed myself at all.
“In truth,” he says hesitantly. “I’ve been a bit scared. I know the virus will need fresh blood at some point, and it will begin to subtly coerce me in that direction. But I also know that once I feed it, the cycle will begin. I’ve been trying to delay that as long as possible. For now, I’m just enjoying the ‘not dying’ part of the experience. That part has been an absolute win.”
“You’ll know when it’s time,” I reassure him. “Your body won’t really give you a choice. It can be really…uhm…persuasive. Trust me.”
“Ok,” Ren says and then stares at me. Watching his eyes, I sense that he is trying to read something in me. I’m guessing he isn’t successful, because he finally asks, “So, are you mad?” His voice is low and quiet. It reminds me of a small child asking his mother the same question after she discovers he’s broken her favorite lamp.
I carefully consider my response before answering.
“No, I’m not, Ren,” I finally say. “I wish we could have talked about it before, but that’s my fault not yours. And I’m sorry I put you in this situation. That’s on me, too. I can’t be mad at you for trying to save your own life. Even if your methods involve the thing that has destroyed mine. At least that means that maybe something good has come from all of this.”
“Something good?” He echoes questioningly.
“Well, yes, the part about you being alive still is definitely a good part,” I tell him and shake my head.
“No,” he says. “I mean I thought we’d been ‘doing good’ for over a year now by making this city safer. My staying alive hopefully isn’t the first good thing that’s happened.”
“I agree,” I tell him. “It’s just that your part is kind of more important. It outweighs all of those other parts. You’re my best friend, Ren,” I tell him, and I can almost feel my cheeks heat up with blood. He must be able to sense my heartbeat and quickened pulse with his new hearing. “I could never be mad at you.”
“Thanks, Cat,” he tells me and smiles. “Let’s just hope that’s always going to be true.”
CHAPTER FORTY
“Wait,” I say a moment later as a realization comes to me. “Does this mean you’re going to want to start coming out and joining me when I leave the warehouse? Are you going to give up the whole ‘staying behind’ thing? You’ll be needing blood now, too, so is that how you plan on getting it?”
I’m not sure how I feel about this if he says yes. On one hand, it would be really nice to have a partner with me when I hunt. A second set of eyes, or better yet…fists, would make my life much easier. On the other hand, I’ve gotten used to relying on Ren and his verbal and technical support while I’m in the field. He’s proven himself to be invaluable many times. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, going out and hunting down thugs with my abilities has always seemed like a me thing and sharing it would kind of sting. I’m not sure I’m ready for that.
To my mild relief, Ren wrinkles up his nose at the distaste of the idea. “No, Cat.
I have absolutely no desire to follow you out there. That’s your world, not mine. I’m more than happy to stay behind and use my abilities here.”
Trying hard not to let the relief of his decision show on my face, I nod my head as he answers.
“And really,” he continues. “I was kind of hoping that as my body adjusts to all this that it will end up making me more efficient. Instead of sniffing out the bad guys to punch in the face out on the streets, I’ll be more than happy to remain behind and use my abilities with my computers. Maybe the virus will adapt my body in a different way to make me more effective here. It’ll be an interesting experiment.”
“What about blood, though? How are you going to get that if you aren’t out there with me?”
“I was thinking about that earlier, actually, when I was hoping you’d return. I have a plan to cover that…as long as you don’t mind helping me with it.”
“Sure, Renny, what is it?”
“The lampreys,” he tells me. “You’ve already been using them on occasion when you go out, but now we’ll just increase the frequency. I’ll keep more of them stored and on hand since they’ll be supplying the both of us instead of just you. Maybe not the best plan in the world, but it should work for now.”
“No, I like it,” I say. “The lampreys work. I’ll get my fill as much as I can when I’m out, and I can bring the excess back to you.”
“Good,” he says with a nod and a shrug.
“Good,” I agree, and then I let the conversation hang not knowing where to go next. He’s given me a lot to take in since my arrival.
“Well, since that went much better than I was expecting,” Ren says after we just stare at each other for a long moment. “Let’s jump into some of the bad news. Because the world hasn’t stopped being awful since you left.”
“What do you mean?” I ask as he turns from me and walks towards his computer wall.
Sitting down in his black, leather swivel chair, he begins to furiously type at his computer and brings up a number of new windows on the screens. He has always been impressively fast with his typing and computer work in the past, but now his fingers actually become a blur as they move across the keys. I watch as he blinks and takes in screens and then dismisses them before I even have time to recognize what I’m looking at.
The virus and infection may have made me scarily fast with my fists and attacks in a fight, but for Ren it seems to have altered his physiology in a completely different direction. He’s inputting information and processing words and popped up screens at a speed that has to be approaching the computer’s own natural internal language. He might as well be a cyborg interfacing with one of his own kind. I’m astounded.
“Ren,” I say quietly interrupting his process. “That’s amazing.”
“What is?” he asks distractedly without moving his head in my direction or slowing his fingers.
“What you’re doing. It’s just so…fast.” Not the best adjective to describe what I’m seeing, but I’m a bit speechless at the moment. I’ve known my own abilities must resemble this to an outside observer whenever I’m fighting, but I’ve never witnessed it myself. I’ve always been the performer and not the audience. To see another human moving at this speed is jaw-dropping.
“Thanks,” he says again with that same distraction. “I’ve noticed that I’m able to type a bit quicker now. It’s nice.”
“That’s an understatement,” I mumble, but he doesn’t respond to my words this time. He either didn’t hear me or is too consumed by his own actions to notice them.
“Here,” he finally says and the windows that have been popping into life on his screen and then blinking away their existence finally come to a standstill. He has five different windows open on the monitors and he moves them around so that we can easily see all of them at once.
From what I can tell, he’s opened a couple news articles from both a local paper and a national one. There are two paused video feeds and then what appears to be a police report from the city’s main branch. Scanning through the articles and the police report, I get a fairly comprehensive review of the public’s perception of what happened in the prison while I was there.
Officially, according to the public articles, there was a riot at the prison and over a hundred inmates died in the ensuring scuffles. Six guards were injured, but only one died in the line of duty. It’s being reported as one of the worst prison riots in the nation’s history. The articles reportedly state that the number of inmate deaths is astounding, but the low number of guard fatalities is a miracle.
It wasn’t a miracle, I think. It was deliberate. I had no intention of hurting the guards, and I worked especially hard to keep them safe. Aside from the first few guards I encountered when escaping Chadwick’s room, I managed to avoid most of the others. Any others who got injured must have just been in the chaos of the event, and not from me.
Except the fatality. That was definitely me, and I have no regrets about him. He made his decision, and I let him live with it. However short his life may have been after he made it.
Leaving the news articles and jumping to the police report, I notice most of its information contradicts what was written previously. The report clearly states that the riot occurred in reaction to another event that was going on, and was not, by itself, the cause of the problem. The inmates were not fighting each other, or the guards, they were running from an assailant. There was an unknown attacker in the prison who was systematically killing men and then moving on to another. The suspect appeared to actively avoid the guards and only interacted with them when the confrontation was unavoidable.
According to the report, they have no explanation for how the suspected attacker managed to so effectively move throughout the locked prison and efficiently kill the inmates they encountered. It is noted that the attacker did not kill every person they came into contact with. Most of the inmates that encountered the person in question escaped without incident. The attacker ignored most inmates and focused only on specific targets. There is a note that if the target had wanted to kill everybody it encountered, then the death toll would have been exponentially higher.
Most of the deceased inmates were ones wanted for violent assault, the report notes.
Who the attacker was, what they wanted and how they gained access to the prison in the first place is still under investigation.
“Ok, I’ve read them,” I tell Ren once I’ve finished.
Nodding, he then clicks a button to increase the videos’ window sizes and begins playing them. The first video is a loop of security cameras inside the prison showing the chaos as I moved from room to room. The pictures are surprisingly clearer than I would have expected. They must have spent some serious cash to upgrade their system recently. Our tax dollars at work.
I watch the little version of myself drop a large man to the ground by violently twisting his neck. His body stumbles momentarily and then drops and doesn’t move again. In a flash of movement, I disappear from the view and reappear a moment later in a large open area that must be something like a lounge. Three more men drop to the ground at my hands before the camera switches to an alternate view of the action.
I know what I did in the prison. I can remember it all, so I don’t need to watch it play out in front of me. Instead I turn my head slightly so I can watch the other video. This one is a much calmer view of the main reception area of the prison. It must be from before everything started, though, as everyone on the screen is sitting around looking bored or impatient. After a few moments, a girl wearing a long, flowing dress appears walking down one of the hallways. Recognizing myself from the odd angle, I watch as I approach the main desk and check in. After a few minutes, I’m then taken away and down the corridor that led to the visitor’s area where I encountered Chadwick.
That is not a moment of my life that I wish to experience again, so I finally speak up, “Ok, you can stop it.”
The playback mercifully pauses as I watch the view change
to the glass-walled room, and I see Chadwick sitting comfortably in his chair and watching the door that I will enter through moments later. The screen freezes with just Chadwick sitting there and leaning back in his chair and staring at the door with a smirk. It’s an image that memorializes him well. That cocky look of expected success on his face is how I’ve been picturing him for so long now. Always thinking he was going to win. Always expecting to come out on top of every situation. My knowledge that that afternoon was the last time he ever wore that expression is satisfying.
That was a good day. I accomplished quite a bit in making the world a safer place. Smiling to myself with my own smug satisfaction, I ask Ren, “Ok, so what else do I need to know?”
“Well, there’s been fallout from the events at the prison. You killed a lot of people, Cat. Some of them were just guys who’d made poor choices and were put in there, but others were connected. A number of the men that died that day were either hitters for the cartels or linked to them in some way.”
“That sounds like great news, then. I wasn’t paying attention to who they were as I went through; I was only focusing on how much evil and death I could sense around me. I sought out the greatest perpetrators of that and made them my targets. If they were working for the men selling drugs in this city, then that’s just a bonus. An unintended one for sure, but one I’m happy about.”
“That may be true, but it isn’t how it’s being perceived.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been doing my best to listen in to the chatter that’s going on, and from what I’m picking up it’s believed that what happened at Duncan was a very well-orchestrated hit. The men in charge are under the belief that their men were the original targets all along and all the other men who died were either collateral damage or done just to confuse the facts.”
Catharsis (Book 3): Catastrophe Page 21
