Antithesis: The Vampire Alliance Book Three - FIRST DRAFT COMPLETED

Antithesis Chapter 23: Eve Blakethorn-Sullivan August 2013

Eve Blakethorn-Sullivan, August 2013

My life begins again much the way it had ended, with a pain in my neck. Unfortunately it isn’t just a split second burn this time but a slow agony as my spine heals and the muscle, vessels and flesh around my healing vertebrae knit back together. My awareness doesn’t extend much beyond that sensation. Sightless, deaf, mute and unable to smell I have no clues as to where I am or how it is I’ve come to be alive at all.

I have no idea how much time has passed since Tess took my head. Is it hours? Is it days? Rob was dead for years. Surely not years? Where am I? A Senate facility? Why am I waking up? They wanted me dead, I should be dead, why am I waking up? Hell, it hurts.

Time passes, enough that I fear the ongoing torment of my healing body might drive me mad. When I do finally begin to feel other sensations they don’t reassure me. I’m hungry, starving enough to be weak. My limbs are lead like and heavy where they rest on the cool metal of the trolley I’m lying on. Silver restraints hold me to the chilly surface, confirming that whoever’s waking me up definitely isn’t my friend.

From the cool touch of air on my skin and the lack of the friction of fabric I assess I’m naked. That’s enough to cause some sense of panic but what truly causes the flutter of dread is what I begin to smell. While the aromas of many of those around me are unfamiliar that of Hardy Charleston causes my stomach to clench with anxiety. My sense of sight is still blurred and I don’t know which of the hazy figures around me is the monster who keeps me trapped in a living hell. Not that specifics matter, from the strength of his scent he’s close, too close.

“Mmmm,” he purrs, the fragrance of my apprehension alerting him to my awareness. “Good evening, sleepy head.” Fingertips trail up my exposed inner thigh and I shudder with revulsion. The movement causes me to cut myself on the silver blades attached the inner surface of the wrist and ankle cuffs which bind me. I can smell my own blood and my fangs drop. I’m so hungry.

“Do tell me when your connection to your husbands reasserts itself,” my tormentor prompts me as his hands explore my body, a body I’d once sold to him but which he now seems intent on toying with against my will.

Nauseated I pray that that connection doesn’t re-establish itself. The very idea terrifies me. I don’t want Rob and Tul to bear witness to whatever cruelty Charleston has planned for me. That wish goes unheeded however, and I wince as emotions belonging to Rob and Tul pour into me. First comes the confused shock, then a heartbreaking relief, a joy that I know Hardy will rip from them as easily as Tess had taken my life.

As my captor leans over me, his breath hitting my throat he laughs, “Are they back?” He asks again, reading my growing dismay.

“What do you want?” I croak, my voice barely legible. My throat is painfully dry from time without nourishment and hours or days spent healing. “I’d wondered if you’d keep me as a pet, if you were given the chance.” The venom in my raspy words is purely for show as my gut twists and my heart thunders so much faster than it should do.

“That is why I had them put your dear, exquisite body in storage. Truthfully I had intended on killing your troublesome husbands before waking you up. If only things had gone to plan. As it is, that aspect of my scheme will have to wait.”

His fingers work up to the apex of my thigh, exploring me in a way I’d never thought to be touched except by Rob or Tul. When I try to resist the restraints hold me in place, tearing my flesh and muscle. My movements are feeble, my strength sapped through need for blood. I’m weak, I’m vulnerable and that understanding turns fear into terror. When Hardy’s fingers penetrate me, probe me, violate me, tears well and I wish I could disintegrate, evaporate, escape. Disgust chokes me, shame tearing at me as he abuses my prone body.

Rage and horror spear me too, emotions whose sources are far away in an Alliance base. They come from the men who love me, from their ability to feel exactly what I feel. They’re appalled.

As my vision clears I see Hardy’s leer as he leans towards me, sucking my nipple into his mouth even as I protest. His fangs break my soft flesh and he moans at the taste of my blood.  “There’s nothing quite like sire’s blood, is there?” He moans against my skin. “You’re almost drained, but what’s left is delicious. Mmm, it’s the silver thread that ties you to me even though you wish it weren’t so.”

“You claim that you didn’t bring me back as your plaything, yet you’re still going to rape me?” My voice is still a quiet rasp as my body trembles uncontrollably. Dread grips me as my mind struggles to brush off the last of the sluggishness of death and derive a way out of this nightmare.

“Eventually,” admits Hardy before licking a line down my stomach. His mouth goes to my inner thigh, his fangs briefly opening my femoral artery. “Not yet though. Presently I’m just getting their attention. You see, Blakethorn and Sullivan have been causing me a few problems over the last few weeks. You’ve obviously been a little,” he pauses to laugh at my expense, “indisposed, but you’re husbands have been very busy. They broke into our archive, stole classified information, murdered Upton...”
Even considering my present situation I can’t restrain the burst of laughter that escapes my parched lips. Well done, boys. “He had it coming.”

“Hmmm,” murmurs Charleston, “since then Blakethorn and Sullivan have systematically raided a number of Senate facilities, murdered numerous Senate staff and generally seem intent on causing as much damn trouble as they can until we take them out. And we will take them out, sooner rather than later.”

Frowning I force myself to meet his cold gaze, “So you woke me up to goad them?”

“No, no, no,” chuckles Hardy, vindictive fire alight in his silvering eyes, “see I tried that with you, goading you, and if anything it just caused more trouble. I woke you up to incapacitate them.”

“Incapacitate?” The repeated word is tensely spoken, filled with apprehension. What had he planned? How could he use me to debilitate them except by goading them into recklessness?

“They can feel everything you feel, right?” the question chills me, but Charleston doesn’t notice and simply continues to run his hands over my exposed body. “That’s why Sullivan lost it when 1352 fucked you, isn’t it? Here’s what we’re going to do, little whore, I’m going to have my men tear you apart. We’re going to kill you, we’re going to wake you up and we’re going to kill you again. As long as no one damages your brain we can just keep doing it. We’re going to revive you and torture you and we’re going to kill you, over and over and over until all three of you have been driven out of your supernaturally connected minds.

When they slip up and I kill them, then and only then, I’ll give you your own room in my house and you’ll service me, whenever I want, until you no longer hold my interest. After that I’ll give you to one of my most deserving soldiers and when he’s done with you I’ll pass you to another, and another, until no one wants you anymore. Once you retain not one scrap of value or hope I’ll kill you one final time.”

Even swallowing is hard as his words sink in and my breath catches, my lungs burn as my heart races and my throat closes painfully around the lump of horror and guilt building there. I’m terrified by Charleston’s plans, by how he’ll make me suffer. More than that I feel shame, I’m to blame for what Rob and Tul will be forced to endure, just as I’ve been to blame for years. “We’re Strix,” I mumble desperately, “all I need to do is shut off my emotions and I’ll break the connection.”

“Can you?” Hardy asks with a knowing smile, “You tried that once and you couldn’t maintain it, or so I deduce. Clair described how you rarely smelled of any emotions while you were employed as her companion. Poor girl seemed less impressed with my variety of torture than she had been with your endeavours to dominate her. Don’t feel bad that you can’t maintain your control though, neither could Avitus Seneca according to legend; it’s a family failing, really not your fault.”

Feeling sick to my soul I insist softly, “They’ll do it, they’re strong enough, they’ll break the connection.”

“No they won’t,” Charleston grins evilly, “they won’t ever willingly disconnect from you and by the time I’ve driven them mad enough not to recognise your importance they’ll also be so lost they won’t even remember that they can break the connection. You’re done, Eve, you’ve lost and now you’ll be their downfall too.”

He steps back, signalling to one of the armband wearing Strix at the door of the room, which I can now see is a medical theatre suite. “Take the prisoner to one of the cells, Lewis. You know what to do after that.”

‘You know what to do,’ those simple words seal my fate.

Lewis wheels my trolley from the clinically sterile room into a familiar corridor. The bland white walls of the Science Facility pass by in a blur until we pass one set of double doors. Two Strix stand guard in front of the reinforced exit, ensuring that no one dares to unlock the entrance which has been chained and padlocked with steel and silver. The small glass panel of the door is smeared with blood and a face stares back at me through the tiny vision panel. Craig’s eyes are cloudy white now, his face blank and expressionless and I gag and the scent of decay permeating from the sealed off area of the facility.

The door rattles as dead hands try to open the exit. Low groans of hunger and pain sound from behind the steel and glass. I hate this place. I truly hate this place. We achieved so little by trying to disrupt this facility. What good have we ever really accomplished?

“We tried to clear them out, those creatures,” my escort tells me obviously deciding I no longer pose any threat to the Senate, “but it turns out only purebloods are immune and Charleston has other tasks for those he’s personally turned. We’re just going to let those zombies rot in there forever.”

He wheels me through the compound to a familiar cell and I shudder as the guard at the console opens up the prison where I’d previously been held captive. “Welcome home,” Lewis jeers. “You’ve caused chaos, releasing those things, blowing up the vault and part of the labs. You’ll pay for it though, Mr Charleston will make you pay for every single thing you’ve done to defy our rule and more.”

“And I suppose you’re going to help him?”

Lewis smiles broadly at my question, “Certainly, and not just me.”

As he pushes my trolley into my cell others appear, five other Strix with fangs descended and eyes coloured with their strange mix of silver and blood shot crimson. Pulling a key from his pocket Lewis undoes my wrist and ankle restraints as his colleagues circle me, waiting for their moment.

As soon as the last cuff falls away I push myself up, determined to fight. Or at least I try to. My weakened body can’t even support my weight. My arms barely manage to lift my torso and when I swing my legs from the trolley they collapse underneath me the moment my feet hit the concrete floor. It hurts as I hit the ground, my starving body bruising when usually I would barely feel the impact. Healing from a fatal injury takes a lot out of someone, apparently

Laughing, Lewis looks down at me. “Hardy drained your body after you died; it’s how we store bodies. He only gave you enough blood back to heal. You aren’t going to be fighting and you aren’t going to be fleeing. You might as well just lie there and take what’s coming to you.”

I try to get onto my knees but my attempt to crawl away from the circling vultures doesn’t earn me an inch of ground before a booted foot hits my side, shattering ribs before many hands roughly pin me to the floor. Vaguely I note that this cell still smells of my previously spilled blood and of Rob’s. The scents of the past trigger the memory of what 1352 had been made to do to me even as my captors grip my limbs and begin tugging, straining my joints, tearing flesh and muscle as they break me.

My blood spills as my skin splits, ripping open as they pull me apart. They laugh at my screams of agony. They laugh as I beg them to stop. This time I don’t have the presence of mind to resist my need to plead for mercy. Bone cracks and snaps, my chest burns as my broken ribs pierce my lungs. Oh God, please let it stop.

Lewis grins when he finally grips my head between his palms, amused as I whimper up at him. I can no longer feel my arms. I can no longer feel my legs. They’ve dismembered me alive and this is going to be my life, my existence, until there’s nothing left of my sanity.  It’s a blessed relief when the Strix hunkering over me begins to apply pressure to my head, tugging it up and I know I’m about to die for the second time. However, I know this is not the end no matter how I wish it was.

Death is not an eternal blackness. Nor is it heaven and hell. Death is true nothingness, no passing of time, no peaceful rest. Simply put, death is the lack of existence. That’s why I have no concept of how long it takes them to revive me again. All I know is that the pain of my end seems to merge seamlessly into the pain of my resuscitation.

This time it’s worse, this time it is not simply my spine which burns as it heals but also the joints Charleston’s followers had torn apart. The blindness, the deafness, my inability to form words is all the same as before until full awareness finally creeps back and I note that this time they haven’t bothered to move me to a medical facility, instead they’ve brought me back without so much as picking me off the cell floor.

Tears spring to my eyes and the flow of scarlet tears is the cue my tormentors have been waiting for. My sorrow and terror tell them I’m awake, aware, even before my vision clears fully and they don’t bother to wait for that. Why would the wait? They don’t need me to see what they are doing, all they need is for me to feel it. All they need is for me to transfer that feeling back to Rob and Tul.

Blind and mute, my world becomes a never ending torment of breaking bone and torn flesh. It becomes a constant blaze of burning pain made worse by the constant stream of fear and guilt which mingles with my own but which doesn’t originate from me.
An eternity may have passed when a familiar voice finally draws my attention. “Whore,” it hisses in my ear with more venom than anyone else bestows on me. “Now it’s my turn to make you suffer and I don’t care that he’ll suffer too.”

“Bitch,” it’s the only word I speak, the only word I am capable of speaking. The croaked word lights a fire, a burning rage that consumes me more completely than any fear or any agony or any sorrow. I hate Helen Bartholomew and she will not endanger my husbands again.

Pure, inconsolable hatred is a powerful motivator to a Strix. The emotion fuels me when blood and nourishment no longer can. Even without sight I know where Helen is. Following my slowly returning sense of smell I lunge, driven by my craving to destroy. It’s all I know, all I feel, and even blind I paint my cell red in the blood of my enemies. I tear them apart. I take what life I can from their veins, their blood barely nourishes but it keeps me on my feet. I’m frenzied by it and driven mad by my fear and my absolute hatred.

Their screams echo in my head. They throw themselves at the electrified defences as they try to escape. They beg for the guard to open the doors, to call for help, to save them from my blood drench fury. I no longer know who or what I am and all I care about is releasing my anger before it consumes me completely.