Lake's Reign

by A. E. D

  From the shadows I watch her gorgeous body slide off her bike before flinging a duffle bag over her shoulders. I scan her arms, not seeing any reptiles coiled around tonight. I don’t even see her sexy catsuit. This is different. I almost trip over my own feet from my excitement. Slowly making my way in after her, I open the door quietly, peeking in to see the interrogation room door close behind her. Joe releases an unsteady breath as I make my way in.

  “This better not blow up in my face, literally. I want to live to see tomorrow.” He frets while quietly whispering. Rolling my eyes at the big baby I walk towards the center of the room, just in front of the two-way glass.

  There she is, my sweet little lady, my queen. Her short height has nothing against the sheer strength of her stomach. The stuff I saw last time was enough to leave me with nightmares for weeks afterwards. What that man’s body looked like last time, I couldn’t imagine ever seeing something like that. I don’t think I could stomach seeing that again.

  I watch as she sets out items from her bag. Meat hooks, chains, knuckle busters and her handy little bowie knives that both Monty and I have had the absolute pleasure of feeling.

  She turns towards the rat, known as Ricky, who thought it would be a good idea to double cross me. For an older man I’m surprised he had the balls to do it. Well, his mid-forties might not be too old for this world but still, he acts as though he’s a young thug trying to make a big name for himself.

  “As old as you are, I’m sure you know the drill. Talk while you still can.” Her voice flowed through the speakers as she walks around the room. A hint of amusement lingers in her voice and by the look on the rat's face, I know where it’s coming from. Looks like he doesn’t like to be called old.

  “I know all about you, Hun. Your man in there’s been talking about you for weeks. Ever since your little visit to his friend Monty, we know all about his little infatuation with you.” What a stupid thing to say. If there’s anything I’ve learnt about her, it’s that she hates people knowing about her. Her privacy means more to her than the air she breathes.

  She moves too fast for me to see. One minute she’s in front of him and the next, she’s behind him as her arm swings down with such swiftness making the ropes binding his arms together fall to the ground. Before any of us can process what just happened, two meat hooks that I didn’t even notice she’d picked up off the table, pierces through the flesh of his shoulders, just under the collar bones. While he’s incapacitated and screaming through the pain, she connects the hooks to a chain before hooking that chain onto another hook that’s attached to the roof, heaving him up in the air in one quick pull.

  Now hanging like a piece of meat in a slaughterhouse, his screams echo through the room. His body weight, being supported by two meat hooks through both shoulders is enough to make me flinch and rub my healed shoulder. His hands clamp around each hook trying to alleviate the pain. His screams slowly die down as she watches him, standing in front of him like a soldier taunting him with what she’s just done. After a while he starts to breath heavily, slowly managing the pain. Before she could react, he kicked his leg out, foot colliding with her face hard. Her head whips to the side as her glasses fly off, clattering on the ground beside her feet. Even from here I could tell that was a powerful kick with enough to do damage. She bends down to pick her glasses up, making me inch forward trying to get a glimpse of her face but unfortunately for me, her ponytail falls over her shoulder covering her eyes from me the way her glasses would. She dusts herself off, fixing the glasses back on before looking back at the stunned man's face.

  “I know you.” He speaks, catching the attention of both Joe and I. She tilts her head to the side, waiting for him to continue, as do we.

  “Ol’ Drakon would be proud. You’re just like him, you know.” He lets out a strangled laugh as her body goes rigid.

  “Who the fuck is Drakon?!” I say whipping my head to Joe. He looks just as confused as I do. With a shake of his head, I turn back to the events unfolding in front of me, drawing me in completely. I feel like after all my hard work, hours and days I spent looking for her or even information about her, I’m finally getting somewhere.

  “You even look just like him. The same eyes, I’ll never forget those eyes.” He sneers. Whoever this Drakon person is, clearly isn’t loved. The rat seems torn. Torn between who the person is in front of him and flashbacks of this Drakon person.

  “Does Mason know who you are yet? Maybe it’s time he found out. What do you say, L-” He doesn’t get to finish his sentence. I was too distracted by what he was saying to see her move the knife in her hands. Her hand flew out, stabbing the side of his throat, retracting before ripping it out and plunging into his chest.

  Stab after stab, I stand still. Too shocked by the display of such violence to move. She’s always been so calm and calculated. Christ, she got kicked in the fucking face and she did nothing. No reaction whatsoever. But one mention of her identity and this Drakon person and she loses it completely. By now there are more holes than skin. His shirt is shredded to pieces laying amongst the bloodied floor. The knife wound to his neck severed his ability to speak, cutting off any more information I could have learnt about her. That was a smart move, one I never would have thought to do.

  She finally stops her onslaught, turning around my mouth drops, shocking the fuck out of Joe and I. She’s covered head to toe in Ricky’s blood. Her once clean face is now painted red in the blood of her enemy, the threat to her identity. I don’t even care at this point that he was supposed to live. I learned more about her tonight then my fruitless search ever did. But I don’t have time to stand around and think. She’s in a deadly mood right now and with one look at my face I’m sure I’ll be dead in seconds.

  I escape through the door before she approaches.

  Tonight didn’t go as planned but I got more than what I wanted. I learned something new. Now I need Monty, the smartest hacker I know, besides her of course. I need to find this Drakon guy. If that rat knew him then I’m sure someone else does and by the end of this week, I’ll have my answers.

  ✧✧✧

  Driving home my thoughts were plagued by tonight's events. The sheer ruthlessness she used in killing him was something I’ve seen many times before.

  Rage.

  Aggression.

  Emotions.

  Gone was the once calm woman, the one who handled everything with tight precision and control. It was like a damn broke right before my eyes. Her composure faulted, her steels walls fell and came crashing down all from one word.

  Drakon.

  Why does this name mean so much to the usual controlled goddess? Whoever he is has enough power over her to break her down with one name. Enough to make her kill from pure rage coursing through her veins. But that type of killing wasn’t just rage, it was fear. Fear of her identity being revealed, fear of this mystery man. An ex maybe? But she doesn’t seem like the type of person to have a relationship of any kind. Ricky said something about eyes. But what does that mean?

  Joe told me about the first time he met her. How she was just like us, except she was looking for a way in, a way into this world. Whereas we were raised in it, she looked for it, seeked him out. Curious and curiouser. My queen gets more intriguing by the day.

  ✧✧✧

  Running up the front steps and practically skipping to the elevator, I eagerly wait for the doors to open. The quicker I can find this man, the closer I become to finding out who she is. Pushing through the front door Monty’s head snaps to attention from his spot on the couch.

  “Oh, Monty. You will not believe what just happened.” Closing the door, I hurry over to Monty. With his laptop up and running on his lap, I sit down beside him.

  “Why? What happened? Why do you look like a kid on Christmas?” He says with brows furrowed in confusion before squinting in suspicion.

  “Monty, I need you to find a man. A man called, Drakon.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

>   LAKE

  Stepping through my front door, my hands were still trembling from adrenaline. Stripping down to my bra and panties, I leave the blood-soaked clothes on the floor by the door. I shakily make my way towards the couch, not even bothering to turn the lights on. Darkness being my only comfort now. Everything feels as though it’s getting out of my control. All because of Mason. I know he was there tonight, I could feel his eyes on me through the glass. I don’t know how, but I just know he was there. My eyes may not have seen him but I felt the electric current on my body wherever he looked.

  But Mason being there wasn’t what had my blood pumping and body hyperventilating. It was that man whose name I never got. I never get their names because I have no need for them. I go in, I do my job and then I leave. That’s all there is to it. But not tonight. No, tonight I froze. Struck down by fear with every fiber of my being going into hyperdrive. Fear of being exposed and fear of hearing that name I never thought I’d hear again. The name that drives my demons to hurt more, to lash out and that’s what they did.

  That man didn’t know he was signing his own death certificate. One mention of my father's name and panic struck. I never expected that anyone here would know my father, let alone my identity. Who I am, who I was, but he did. He was about to say my name but before he could, my demons pushed through my mental barrier. Taking every ounce of control I had and killed him brutally, forever silencing him. The one thing I fear most in this world is people knowing who I am or who I came from and with Mason hot on my trail, I couldn’t have him knowing my name. That would be one step closer for him and one step back for me.

  Once I realized what I’d done, I had to get out of there. Not only did I kill him, but I went against my rules and the clients wishes. Joe didn’t want him dead but the darkness in me did. Now I don’t know what to do. For once in my life, I fear the unknown. This life I’ve built for myself is slowly crumbling down and it all started with Mason. His obsession with me is destroying me. Since I was born, I never had control of my own life. I was told when to eat, when to sleep, when to talk, when to walk, when to be a human being. I never felt like I was, but there were always these instincts in me.

  When I was younger, I had a faint feeling of what was right and what was wrong, but I never knew why. Things were jumbled. I thought growing up inside a four by four-meter steel cage was normal. Things were twisted. I never knew what was normal and what wasn’t. It was only the rare times my mother spoke to me that I knew that no other kid lived like that. The times when my father had to leave for a couple of days were the times when my normalcy was changed. She would talk to me. She used to apologize at first until she realized I was far too damaged to understand what she was saying or what she meant. When she was getting beaten there were times when something inside of me told me it wasn’t right. When I screamed for him to stop hurting her, only to be taught a lesson afterwards. My views on life were obstructed. I lived by my fathers every word, thinking it was normal. The older I got, the more I wished to be free. The more I realized I was a prisoner in my own home. The days he would leave I would watch the outside world from my temporary window. Our home was secluded from civilization but I longed to be free like the birds that would fly past the window. Before my mother stopped talking to me, she would tell me of the world outside, about her childhood. Then she told me the story of how they met. It was the story that made me realize my father was a monster. Even though he hurt me, taught me lessons on how to kill, punish, torture, I thought they were normal. But it wasn’t until her story that I finally started to see him for who he really was.

  A monster.

  “Lake, have I ever told you the story of how I met your father?” My mother asked me. I turned, meeting her sad eyes. Curious to know more about the man who's with me every day.

  I was eight when she told me. Realizing he would never be the man she once knew, the man that cherished her.

  “I was sixteen when I met him. He was twenty-one at the time and he was such a handsome man. I first saw him when my family threw one of their extravagant balls. My mother, your grandmother, loved to throw lavish events like that. We had the money to do it and we were a wealthy family. Hundreds of people showed up to these balls with women dressed in elegant gowns and the men in fine suits. Your grandfather used these events as a business meeting. Always looking for more wealth, anyway he could get it. Anyways, it was halfway through the night when the ballroom doors opened. It wasn’t unusual for people to arrive late because those events usually went on for hours and never finished until the early hours of the morning. But that wasn’t what caught my attention. It was the young man that walked in. I knew of him but I had never met him before.” My mother smiled sadly. Pain and longing flashed through her eyes.

  “I couldn’t help but stare. He was the most gorgeous man I had ever seen. His hair was dark as night, cut short on the sides while a bit long on the top. His hair looked like it was tussled from his hands raking through it. I could already tell he wasn’t the sort of guy that came to events like these. His tanned skin and big strong muscles trying to escape the confines of his dark suit. His angled features were mesmerizing to look at. But it was his striking blue eyes that caught my attention.” She stopped talking to look at me. Sadness evident in her eyes.

  “You look so much like him, Lake.” She smiled sadly.

  “You may have my lips and nose, but the rest is all him. Your black hair, your light blue eyes and your features will only get sharper the older you get, like his. You resemble him so much and he loves that about you.” My heart had started beating harder. Hearing that my father loved me was something I dreamt of hearing. He never said it although sometimes I saw it in his eyes but I wanted to hear him say it.

  “Anyways, it was like he could feel me staring. His eyes flashed to mine and a look I couldn’t decipher flashed across his face. Then he started walking straight towards me. Like time slowed down, the closer he got to me the more my heart beat. Once he was in front of me, he just stopped and stared, I couldn’t move. Like I was in a trance by his beautiful eyes, his hand came up and lightly cupped my cheek. With his thumb gently rubbing across my bottom lip I knew then that I fell in love with him instantly. His eyes raked down my body, already having filled out from puberty. I knew my body was more filled out than the other girls my age as I had already gotten a lot of attention from men. But I never felt anything for anyone until your father came along.” She spoke with so much love and longing in her voice that I knew she still loved him even after everything he did.

  “He pushed a fallen strand of hair behind my ear and gently kissed my lips. It was my first kiss and it was so sweet. So soft like I almost imagined it. Then he grabbed my hand and led me outside to the balcony that overlooked the frozen lake where snow was lightly falling down. The chill of the air made me shiver. He took his jacket off and hung it over my shoulders, the cold not affecting him at all. His eyes never once left mine. Like if he blinked I would disappear. We spent the rest of the night talking. Well, I did most of it. Talking about my life, my childhood, my hopes and dreams. He spoke a little about himself and how he was a soldier.”

  “After that, things moved fairly quickly. He went to my father and asked to marry me. Even though I was only sixteen it wasn’t uncommon back then. Plus, his family was very well known as well, so my father was more than happy. After a few short months I became pregnant with you. He was so happy. He desperately wanted a boy, but once you were born and he saw how much you looked like him, he loved you. He spent every waking moment with you. He never once let you out of his sight. He would get mad if I wanted to hold you but relented when I had to feed you. You became the apple of his eye.” I wished that was true.

  “He still loves you so much, Lake. That’s why he teaches you these lessons. He wants you to be strong and know how to protect yourself. It may hurt sometimes but it’s for the best. When he hurts me, it’s because I didn’t listen. That’s why you must always listen to your fath
er. Okay sweetie?”

  What my mother never realized was that he never loved her. She became an obsession for him, a possession. She spoke with so much love and affection about how they met that she never realized how wrong she was. He was a psychopath from the moment he laid eyes on her. He claimed the beautiful girl that couldn’t take her eyes off the handsome young man. If she never looked at him, she never would have become his. But she did. She couldn’t stop looking. Everything he did that night she saw as a romantic gesture, he didn't. He saw something he wanted and claimed her. He decided she was his. The next day he asked my grandfather for her hand and he said yes. My mother thought it was so romantic but it wasn’t. My father wanted to own her so no other man could claim the alluring girl in front of him.

  He married her just before they conceived me. Then he was overjoyed about the prospect of having a son. Teaching him to follow in his father's footsteps. Teach him of the darkness that he will be born with. But he didn’t have a boy, he had me. But one look at me and his plans changed. He would teach me to become a weapon. Like he wanted to do with his son, but I could become more. My womanly features and striking eyes could lure in anyone. I became his new obsession. With looking so much like him, he was excited. It was like he was teaching himself. Even though I learned that he truly was a monster from that story, at that time I didn’t think that was a bad thing.

  I shook my head of those thoughts. Nothing good comes from remembering the past. I have bigger problems to deal with now. Starting with Mason. Grabbing my newly purchased iPad, I open the surveillance app and there they sat. Both of them side by side on their couch, digging into my past. That won’t do. I knew this would happen eventually. I knew he would search for me but I never planned on him looking for my father. I don’t worry though because I’m always prepared. With my specially designed virus, I send an iMessage to Monty’s MacBook with a title I know Mason won’t be able to deny. What he doesn’t know is once he clicks the message the computer will heat up at such a rapid pace that it will self-destruct. Like a mini bomb right in their hands.