Children of the Fallen: In Cold Blood (BOOK #2)

Chapter 15: How Do You Know What Day It Is?

Dane Brooks

17 Years Ago

Morgan makes it a point to come and visit me sporadically for a few minutes maybe even an hour or two depending on Luciens traveling and who else is in the palace. Each time I see her my heart breaks a little more. She's strayed so far from who she is but I know that Lucien is nowhere near done with her.

Ragged breathing and groaning wakes me from my already disturbed sleep. I open my eyes and then my head towards the door out of curiosity, moments later the main door to the room of these two cells opens up. Lucien's noble Jacob and a guard enter dragging in a wounded and bloodied Morgan. The guard holds out a taser just in case and she mutters a faint 'no,' as Jacob opens the cell door next to mine.

She snaps awake with a sudden burst of energy. Yanking her arms away from the two of them, her black and red eyes on full display. The guard tases her but all it does is further her rage.

Fangs bared and with nothing human in her face she grabs the guards taser and snaps it in half. She reaches for his lapel, pushing him into the cell wall that separates my cell from the one she's in. She back kicks Jacob into the far wall then punches through the guards chest. She lets go of the detached heart, letting the organ fall to the grimy floor and pulls her hand back through. Panting wildly, she stomps over to Jacob who is frozen with fear.

She grabs his throat slamming him against the cell bars. Her fingers dig into his throat, drawing blood as she snarls at him when those scars on her body begin to faintly glow.

Her free hand grips the back of her neck as she drops to the ground and her blood curdling screams pierce my ears. I drag my feet over to the set of bars separating my cell from the one she's in, as I do so every inch of my whole being is in a horrific type of pain- like sandpaper rubbing together. "What are you doing to her?!" I shout grabbing onto the cell bars, forcing the chains attached at my wrists to slam against them. Jacob says nothing only casts me a crooked smile while she writhes around in complete anguish. Lucien enters holding a less than a foot long crystal in his hands, with two other guards following closely behind holding large chains. "What are you doing?!" I shout once more.

Lucien detaches the two halves of the crystal and Morgan's screams stop replaced by breathless gasps and groans. He flashes me a look. "Open your mouth once more I'll ensure she's like that the whole time she's here."

Him and the two guards enter the cell as Morgan is still catching her breath on the floor. Lucien nods at Jacob and a guard who grab her arms, while the second guard takes the ending of the chains clamping them down tightly on her wrists. He takes the remainder of the chain and hooks it up to a notch in the ceiling, pulling them as hard as he can so that her feet are just barely on the floor. She grunts in response as the guard connects the rest of the chain to a notch on the floor, keeping her hanging there. Breathing heavily she stares Lucien down and he returns the glare. "I truly hope for your sake you get over them. I'll be back on Sunday."

It's Wednesday. It's November 22- it's her birthday.

Morgan closes her eyes and lowers her head as Lucien turns on his heels and exits the room with his lackeys behind him.

We sit in silence. I hear Luciens muffled mumblings upstairs so I'll wait for him to leave before I speak. I watch her instead. With her head now raised, she stares at the door, nostrils flared and her eyes wishing death upon whoever she's imagining looking at- I can assume Lucien and his lapdogs.

She stays that way completely unmoved for the next two hours until Lucien finally leaves. "Are you alright?" I utter in a whisper.

"Fine." She responds too quickly.

"I'm so sorry."

"It could be worse." She breaks her stare at the door and looks to me. "Could be the barbed wire." She stretches her hands in the chains, balling them back up, then she lets them go limp.

"Why are you in here? With me I mean."

"Some captured hunters took up the other cell I'm normally in. You get a cellmate for the weekend." She smiles cracking the dried blood splattered all over her face, then her face drops once more as she looks at the singular light bulb they left on illuminating the room. Something in her eyes has my heart sinking to the floor as she says. "At least this cell has a light."

"Happy Birthday." I say cutting through the brief silence.

She returns her stare to the locked door. "How do you know what day it is?"

"There's not much else to do in here."

*****

After nearing three days of either silence or one word answers, Jacob came back a day early on Saturday. He came to 'check up' on her and took it upon himself to stab her in the throat with a small knife to get back at her for digging her fingers into his.

She coughs up and spits out any blood that remained in her throat before she holds a terrifying stare on Jacob. "Your last names Caddel right?" He furrowed his brow and said nothing. "It is." A vicious smile crosses her face. "When I get the chance I'm not just going to kill you- and I will. I will drag it out until you can no longer scream for help. Then I'll drag it out a little more." She starts. "But no, not just that. I'm going to track down everyone in your vile bloodline. Everyone you're related to and everyone you've turned and I'm going to kill them as well. This earth has enough stains on it, your bloodline is a prominent one that I have no problem cleaning up." She confidently says with a nearing excited tone. That sounded a bit too much like Lucien for my liking.

Jacob tries to keep his composure but there's a glint of anxiousness in his eyes. He knows she'll do it. The fact that he knows she'd do something like that is worrying. He swallows saying nothing before he walks out of the room. She exhales lowly with a clenched jaw staring inexpressively at the door. "What was that?" I ask.

"What was what?" Her eerily cold eyes slide to me.

"All of what you just said to him." I raise my hands towards the door making my chains rattle and slide against the filthy concrete floor.

She turns her attention back to staring at the door. "That was me telling him that I'm going to kill him and everyone associated with him."

"Morgan relax."

"No. He deserves it."

"And what about his innocent distant relatives? They don't know who he is, do they deserve it?"

"I don't know and I don't care." She declares.

"Morgan."

Her head snaps to me, "I am in no mood for a lecture right now. I'm starving, I'm pissed off, and the chains are cutting into my wrists." She says through clenched teeth.

"You don't really want to kill all of those people."

"Do not tell me what I want and don't want." Her black and red eyes flash at me, visibly losing a grip on herself.

I take a few steps towards the bars dividing our cells. "You're letting him get to you. Hold onto something or someone-."

"Are you fucking kidding me!? Why do you think I'm here?" Her anger quickly surfaces. "Because I'm holding on." She raged. "Because of all of you. You, Chloe, Victoria, my- the ones I grew up with, everyone. God, do you know how easy my life would be with all of you gone? I want you all gone."

"Then why aren't we?"

"Because..." She looks away from me, "Because that's all that I have. Take that away and what's left of me?"

I shake my head. "You're not- he's forcing you to-."

"Stop," she interrupts, "I enjoy it you know? The killing, the torture, whatever else. Isn't it sick that I find it all enjoyable, thrilling even?" She widens her eyes, goading me on like she wants me to say that she's sick or a monster and confirm what she thinks or what others think of her.

"Morgan-."

"Please." With a singular glance her eyes show her apologies, not to herself, or for what Luciens forcing her to become, or for how much she's given in but to me. Apologies to me. "I'm tired Dane. I'm so tired."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"So am I."