by Naomi Martin
Zane sits up. “I may be able to help,” he offers. “I mean, my practical knowledge is limited, but if we all put our heads together, we may be able to figure this out.”
Raven smiles. “I hope so. I really do.”
“Okay, good.” I nod. “Well, I guess we’ve got some work to do.”
Chapter Thirty
Raven
Beads of sweat roll down my forehead as I try to focus on the different threads of energy coursing through me. I try to separate out the different elements - red for fire, blue for water, green for earth, and yellow for air. I see them in my mind’s eye. For the first time, I can picture them, see them as they rotate around one another.
“I can see them,” I gasp. “Elliot, I can see them!”
A rush of excitement surges through me and I feel genuinely excited. I’m able to manipulate the threads of energy inside of me, pulling each one separately to channel the individual elements.
“I’m doing it, El,” I say. “I’m doing it!”
I feel something tickling my ear and I try to shrug it off. When that doesn’t work, I ignore it and focus on manipulating the white thread of spirit, trying to pour my energy into that thread alone. But then I feel a sharp pain in my ear and I lose control; the threads all collapse into each other again, trying themselves into a twisted ball of knots once more. The energy I’d been channeling slips into the collar, where it zaps me. It’s not hard, but it’s enough to sting.
“Shit!”
I open my eyes and see Elliot smiling at me. He tries to hold back his laughter but can’t and it bursts out. He brays and slaps his knee like it’s the funniest thing ever. I punch him in the arm.
“You asshole,” I say. “I had it.”
“Did you, though? I mean, really?”
“Yes, it was right there!”
He laughs softly. “I was just teasing you. But it was with a purpose,” he says. “When the time comes, you’re going to have to be able to do that with distractions all around you.”
I sigh and slump back against the wall, pulling my pillow onto my lap. It all seems so overwhelming, and I don’t know if I can do it. I know I can’t give up; the lives of the three men I care most about in the world are riding on me. But it’s starting to feel too big for me. Way too big.
“We’ve been at this for days now,” I point out. “I’m starting to think I can’t do it. It’s just so hard.”
“You can do it, though,” Zane assures me from his spot on the chair. “You just need to focus. Concentrate. And don’t let anything break your concentration.”
“I am concentrating, though!” I shout as I punch the pillow. “I am focusing, goddammit!”
“Okay, I think we should all probably take a break,” Gray suggests. “We’ve been at this for a while. It’s almost lunchtime, anyway. Let’s go grab some food.”
“And maybe I should practice alone after lunch.”
The boys grumble their agreement, but I know they don’t like the idea of leaving me alone. But until I get the concept of untangling the threads of the elemental energy down pat, distractions like flicking my ear aren’t going to help. They’re only going to frustrate and piss me off.
We all file out and walk into the common area. As usual, the voices around us fall to whispers and I can feel the eyes all turn our way. I’ve gotten better about ignoring them, but I’d be lying if I said they didn’t still irritate me.
I follow the boys into the cafeteria, and we pick up our trays and grab our food before walking back out and grabbing a table in the corner of the common area. We make light conversation over lunch and I do my best to brush it off. But a girl named Kirsten, in particular, has been going at me hard for weeks now. I guess she was one of Clint’s girlfriends, and ever since he died, she’s been ten times worse. She has been picking at me relentlessly, and it’s getting harder to ignore her shrill voice talking shit about me. The fact that I’m so tight with Zane, Gray, and Elliot has become her newest obsession and she can’t seem to stop running her mouth.
I’ve tried to be reasonable with her. I’ve tried talking to her, tried letting her know that we don’t have to be enemies. I’ve tried doing everything I can think of to get her off my back, but she’s not having any of it and just seems to be getting more and more vicious by the day. There is no being reasonable with unreasonable people. And I am so fucking stressed out right now, she’s pushing me to a dangerous place.
“Let it go,” Zane says, putting his hand over mine. “She’s not worth it.”
“Seriously, Raven,” Gray adds. “Don’t sweat her. The vamp’s right, she’s not worth it.”
“Honestly, just let it go,” Elliot replies. “It’s more trouble than you want or need.”
“It’s harder than hell, but sometimes it’s best to take the high road.” Zane states.
I stare down at my tray as I pick at my food, trying to shut out her voice. But everybody has a breaking point, and when I hear the words “fucking whore” come out of her mouth, I know I’ve hit mine. I’m on my feet in the blink of an eye, rushing headlong at her before anybody can stop me. When I grab her by the hair, her eyes grow wide and I see an expression of surprise on her face a moment before my fist slams into it with a meaty thud. And then it’s on.
Chaos erupts all around me as the boys rush in and are set upon by some of Clint’s guys. Punches and kicks are being thrown everywhere as people who’ve long held grudges against each other battle it out in what can only be described as a melee. I punch the girl I’m tangled up with in the face again and see blood spatter fly to the side, along with a tooth or two.
I lash out with my foot and kick her in the shin, and she howls in pain. When she doubles over, I drive my knee up into her face and hear a loud crunch. She topples to the ground, her face a bloody ruin, and I’m just about to kick her again when I catch a fist to the side of my head. I stagger to the side, dizzy and disoriented for a minute. And when I whip my head around, another fist slams into my face. I stagger backward and fall onto my back, my mouth filling with blood from my nose.
The dark-haired girl who’d clocked me pounces, but I get my feet up and drive them into her face at the last minute. Her head is whipped back and she staggers, tripping over a chair as she goes down hard. I jump up and run to her, straddling her chest before I start to wail on her, delivering blow after blow, venting all of my rage and all of my frustration on her. Truthfully, I have no idea who she is, but it feels so good to be punching her that I keep it up.
At least, until I feel a sharp pain in my back and what feels like fifty thousand volts of electricity running through me. I flop to the ground and twitch like a fish that’s been pulled onto a dock. A low gurgling noise comes from my throat and every inch of my body feels like it’s on fire as I spasm hard.
I’m able to look around and see that most of the others are in the same position. Sherman and his goons are standing around us, firing tasers into our bodies and laughing as they pump electricity through us.
“That’s enough, goddammit!”
The deep, gruff voice echoes throughout the hall and, though only barely aware of what’s going on around me and tenuously clinging to consciousness, I recognize the voice immediately. Villa.
I lay where I am, my body still twitching for long moments after. Eventually, I’m able to breathe again, and I pluck the probes out of my body. I ache in every joint and muscle and I spit to get the blood out of my mouth. Looking around, I see that everybody else is in equally beat up. Most everybody is bruised and bloody—and moving very slowly as we recover from the massive doses of electricity they just pumped into us.
“Everybody on your fucking feet,” Villa bellows. “Now! Get up and find a fucking chair. Do it now!”
Moving as quickly as we can—which is slower than residents of a geriatric ward, with all of the shuffling and plodding along—--everybody moves toward their chairs. While everybody else is busy taking a seat, I find my way back to the boys and we s
it down at a table together. I glance at Elliot and wince when I see the dark purple around an eye that’s nearly swollen shut. Gray isn’t in much better shape. Blood streams from a broken nose and his lips look like he took several injections of Botox.
But when my eyes fall onto Zane, they widen in surprise and he gives me a sheepish smile. He’s the only one in perhaps the entire common area who is completely unmarked. Not even his vampire abilities would allow him to heal that quickly. He shrugs innocently.
“Nobody wanted to fight me,” he says.
My laughter quickly turns into a groan of pain. Everything single part of me hurts. I watch as Villa paces in front of us all, the look of absolute disgust on his face more than clear. His eyes fall on me and then on the ground.
“You people—if I can even really call you that—disgust me,” he yells. “If it were up to me, I’d incinerate the lot of you and be done with it.”
The common area is as silent as I’ve ever heard it. It’s not even this quiet at night after lockdown; there’s usually still people screaming at each other through the doors at all hours of the night. Though silent, I can feel the hostility radiating from every single supernatural being in the place. We may have been beating each other senseless a moment ago, but nothing will bond us together faster than a common enemy who wants to murder us.
“Good thing for you, it’s not up to me,” Villa continues. “So, your wretched lives will continue. But there are some changes coming.”
We all exchange looks, and I feel a flutter of worry in my belly. I look over at Zane, who shrugs again.
“Dr. Keene died in a car accident a few days ago,” Villa informs us. “Dr. Fry is now in charge of this facility.”
The announcement sends a cold wave washing through me. I look at each of the boys in turn and see the same stark fear in their eyes. For all of his faults, Keene was the only thing standing between us and an incinerator. With Fry in charge, life is about to get a whole lot more draconian in here.
There is a muted buzz of conversation among all of us that echoes around the common room and, to my ears, it sounds like most everybody is as worried as I am about this change.
“Shut up!” Villa roars. “I did not give you permission to speak!”
His voice is loud and intimidating. This is a man well used to people obeying orders when he gives them. But Ken, one of Clint’s buddies, says something. It’s too low for me to hear, but it catches Villa’s attention. The burly colonel walks over to Ken and glowers down at him.
“Did I not just tell you to shut up?” he demands, his voice low and gruff.
Ken leans back in his chair casually, giving Villa a look of utter contempt. He opens his mouth to say something snide, more than likely, but never gets to utter the statement—in the blink of an eye, Villa’s sidearm is out and is jammed in Ken’s fat mouth.
The sound is muffled but still echoes around the common area like a cannon shot. Ken’s head snaps back as brain and tissue blow out the back of his skull, splattering on the ground in a wet, red heap behind him. I hear stifled cries and gasps but when Villa turns around, wisps of smoke trailing out of the barrel, and looks at the crowd, it’s as silent as a church during prayer.
“Is there anybody else who has something to say?” Villa asks. “Anybody who wants to pop off?”
He holds for a moment and looks around, but the hall is silent.
“No?” he asks one last time. “Anybody?
Nobody is willing to meet his eyes or draw his attention, so the colonel holsters his sidearm.
“Didn’t think so.”
Villa looks into Ken’s wide and lifeless eyes before putting his boot on the edge of the chair and pushing it backwards. With a wet splatter, Ken lands unceremoniously on the ground and rolls onto his side. His eyes, glazed over in death, are staring straight at me and it sends the coldest chill I’ve ever felt sliding through my body, freezing me to the very core.
“Okay, here’s the deal, people,” Villa begins. “Captain Sherman will still be in charge of security, but his powers of discretion have been expanded. He is now authorized to use deadly force to keep you animals in line.”
He looks around for a moment to make sure his words are sinking in. They are. He’s basically saying that Sherman has the right to murder us for no reason whatsoever. Where he used to be able to do whatever he wanted, there was a line he couldn’t cross—and Villa has essentially just erased the line. I look around the room to see everybody’s face pale and I hear their murmured voices filled with fear as the implications for us fully set in.
It makes me more determined than ever to get everybody out of here. Nobody deserves to live like this. To be subjected to that pig, Sherman. He was a predator before, but with Villa letting him off the leash Keene had kept him on, I shudder to think what he’ll become. And they have the gall to call us monsters. No, when I get out of here, the rest of the prisoners need to be set free, as well.
“From now on, you will comply with Dr. Fry’s orders. As I said, she is in charge of this facility,” Villa said, and his eyes pick me out of the crowd. “Fail to follow her every command to the letter, and she is empowered to have you killed. Is that in any way unclear?”
I shake my head because it is the expected response. But I know Fry is going to kill me just as soon as she makes time in her schedule for it. Which, if I know her anywhere as well as I think I do, will be very, very soon. She hates me and wants me dead because she doesn’t understand what I am. And it’s better to eliminate that which you don’t understand, right?
“If you have any complaints, concerns, or grievances, please let Captain Sherman know,” Villa goes on. “He will pass them on to me and I will promptly ignore them, because I do not give a shit what happens to you animals. Am I clear?”
Crystal. We’re in worse shape today than we were the day before. With Keene dead, we have no buffer and we are going to be killed—all of us—one by one. Hell, it may even be in groups for all I know. The only thing I’m relatively certain of is that Fry is going to ramp up her testing to find ways to kill us more efficiently.
I know she wants to create a virus or a serum that will kill all flavors of supernaturals. But barring that, she’ll work on one that will eliminate each different type of supernatural being. And that means there are going to be a lot of dead bodies in this place very, very soon. The incinerator will be working overtime.
“Okay, good talk, people,” Villa says. “Consider yourselves on lockdown for the rest of the night. Go to your cells right now or end up like fat boy there.”
I cast a look at Ken’s body and shudder. He was an asshole, no doubt about it, but he didn’t deserve to be murdered in cold blood like that. None of us do.
But the Grim Reaper will be knocking on all of our doors soon enough. And I have to hope I can master my abilities soon enough that the boys and I aren’t home when he comes calling.
Chapter Thirty-One
Raven
“She and Sherman murdered him,” I say. “He was going to have them reassigned and shipped out of here, so they conspired to kill him.”
Zane sits on his bed, his back against the wall, watching me pace the room. After lockdown, I traveled to Zane’s cell because I needed to talk to somebody rational. Gray would have been too riled up; Elliot would have been too academic. So, taking the Goldilocks route, I figured that Zane would be the best option.
The problem is, he’s too chill about everything and right now, it’s driving me up the wall. I want him to be half as upset as I am. Half as worried. Half as… something. I don’t want him flying into a blind rage like Gray would, and I don’t want him analyzing the minutiae of what it all means. But I’d like to see some kind of emotion from him.
“How do you know this?” he asks.
“I was in the room when it happened,” I explain. “The last time Fry had Sherman wail on me, Keene came in and stopped Sherman from raping me. They all argued, and after that, Keene told Fry he was s
ending her packing.”
“Which means that there is now nobody between you and Sherman,” Zane says.
“Exactamundo. Give the man a prize,” I say. “But more than that, Fry is going to start slaughtering us en masse.”
“Perhaps,” he says. “Though, it would defeat her ultimate purpose, which is to develop a biological weapon that targets people like us.”
“But as long as she’s killing us, she’s happy,” I counter. “The woman is a fucking sociopath.”
“I heard a shifter killed her son,” Zane says. “That’s why she hates us so much.”
“Well, boo fucking hoo,” I snap. “Her buddy Villa murdered my parents, but that doesn’t make me hate all humans. I’m getting really fucking close, though.”
“No need to be a speciesist,” he jokes.
I stop pacing and sit down on his chair. I lean forward, my knees on my elbows, and look at him.
“How can you be so calm about this?” I ask.
“What good is getting upset going to do me?”
“Because it shows you care?”
He shrugs. “Whether I care changes nothing,” he says. “It’s what I intend to do that matters.”
“And what is it you intend to do?”
“I’m not certain yet,” he admits. “But it will involve killing people like Sherman and Villa.”
I flash him a grin. “There’s my boy,” I say. “Now, how do we make this happen?”
He picks at some imaginary lint on his pants and I can see that he’s troubled—a frown creases his lips, and he looks frustrated. It’s the first trace of emotion I’ve seen from him, which I take to be a good thing.
“I hate to put pressure on you, Raven,” he says, “but a lot of this will depend on you. You need to be able to master your abilities.”
“Wonderful,” I groan. “No pressure at all.”
