The OtherWorlders

Chapter 26

I awoke to the light of afternoon, and a cold breeze blowing through the open wall that had once been windows.  The carnage remained, we hadn't done any cleaning last night, and I was alone in the big room.  I rolled to my stomach, and with the power gone, and the adrenaline spent, the uncomfortable memories slunk back.  It had been years since I had thought of that night, it was as though it had been blocked entirely, but Justin had opened it and I doubted I could put it back.  I suppose it was a small price to pay, for teaching me to defend myself against these attacks; I wondered if it would be easier with someone else, someone I had no desire to let in.  With Justin, it was... complicated.  I wanted to let him in, but a part of me was afraid of what he would do with what he found there.

The door opened and he entered, and I put those thoughts away for the time being.  I felt the bed dip and his nose ran from the dimples at my lower back, all the way up my spine, his lips pressing into the nape of my neck as he lay himself on top of me.  I smiled as he pressed a kiss into my hair, rollng us so that my back was to his chest and we were on our sides.

We lay like that, not speaking for a while, but I knew there was only so long that would last.  "Rebeccah.  Why didn't you tell me?"

I sighed, chewing my response around in my mouth.  "It wasn't as though I consciously decided not to, I haven't thought about that night in years; I doubt anyone could have unlocked it but you.  And anyways, I know you, you would have done something... violent."

He ran his hand along my stomach, trailing fingertips over my hip bone and up my ribcage.  "My love, I'm still going to do something violent.  There is no amount of time that would change that.  Come with me."

He tugged me up, leading me to the closet where I changed quickly into my go to leggings and a t-shirt, throwing on my ankle boots and following him from the room.  We stepped out from the elevator in the great room just as one of Justins guards stepped in with a dirty woman stumbling with wrists and ankle cuffs; they clearly hadn't been expecting to see Justin, and so we stood face to face as a deer might in the headlights of an oncoming car.

Justins eyes had gone thoughtful, and he held out a hand for them to halt.  The woman stood, rooted to the spot and unable to move, the guard staring at the floor, as Justin spoke to me.  "Rebeccah, we're going to try another lesson.  One thing that is unanimous in demons is their ability to bend others to their will; it's a question of strength and age which determines how effective it is, and while you don't yet have the age, the strength is there.  I must assume that you have inherited that useful trait, so we're going to test it.  This woman was caught collecting human children where they waited for their parents return from a supply dump in the wastelands and selling them to the highest bidder for profit.  As the humans were there in the service of the vampyres, they were protected under the treaty, so what Cassandra did is a punishable offense."

Cassandra had begun to sweat, I could smell it on the air, thick and sour, and it intensified as Justin stepped forward, walking around her in a tight circle as he thought.  He stopped, leaning in to her ear, and she whimpered.  "Cassandra.  Run."

On a sob, she did as she was told, stumbling away as soon as the guard unlocked her shackles and stepped back.  He was behind me in a flash, watching her disappear across the wide marble floor and up the staircase.  "Whenever you're ready, Rebeccah.  Let your powers guide you, they know what to do.  In this, you'll need to embrace the demon side of yourself, it's the only way to take control of the abilities lying dormant within you-this woman deserves it, and nobody knows better than you what those human children must have endured at her hands."

I could feel her fear, skittering like a cornered mouse before a snake; she was clearly aware that I wasn't human, but she had no idea what I was.  I held out my arms, and my powers leapt to attention faster than they ever had before, as though they knew who we were after and they didn't like her either.