L'aire (BoyxBoy) (Watty's 2018)

Twenty-One

'Single quote' = signing

"Double Quote"= speaking

Bold = writing/typing

Italics = native language

        

Eventually the man became so frustrated with Sky that he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Sky considered manipulating the air to wiggle the blades out of his body, but he didn't want to tip off the man that he wasn't human. So far he attributed his quick healing to being bonded to a vampire, and he wasn't about to correct him. It also occurred to Sky that the man seemed to have a grudge against those who hold a bond, and he knew at least the basics about what happened when a vampire bonded with someone. It was possible that he was scorned by someone who was a vampire, or maybe someone left him for a vampire. Either way he was angry and he seemed to have chosen Sky to take out his aggression on.

That confused him the most. Sky had been riding on the assumption that this man was most likely the serial killer everyone was looking for, but why had he taken Sky? All of the previous victims were both women and vampires. Was it because he was bonded? If that was the case then why not take another man who was bonded to a vampire? There were plenty of bonded men in the Silver clan, and a few of them were even non-vampires like himself. What was it about Sky that made him "special"? And what of the mysterious business partner the man mentioned? How did they play into everything?

Sky's arms were starting to become stiff from being held up almost entirely by the chains, so he decided to move the knife in his knee slightly so it wasn't sitting so deeply inside him. This allowed his knee to heal enough for him to put his weight on it. The others weren't so bad once he got used to them, but he did move them all slightly more towards the surface of his skin so they weren't embedded so deep into him. He tested the chains once more, and Sky thought that if he used his abilities he might be able to loosen them enough to sit down on the ground. He kept this idea in his back pocket for a later time when it might be more useful to him.

He didn't know how long he stood there in the dark room, but it felt like years. Sky had taken to counting and categorizing the tools on the board by manufacturer, style, handle and blade size and shape, and how much dried blood was left behind. He could tell that knives were weapons, and traditional torture devices such as pliers and bone crackers weren't used nearly as often. Or maybe those items were used just as much but they didn't make as much of a mess as the others. He thought back to the body he found in the Silver-Laken house. She didn't seem to have any fingernails missing and nothing looked broken save her sternum, but it was kind of impossible to rip out someone's heart without breaking the sternum and that definitely would make a mess. He saw a soldering iron hanging on one of the hooks, and he wondered if the previous victims had their fingerprints burned off to delay identification. The two bodies he'd seen both had full mouths of teeth as far as he could see, and no one had ever mentioned not being able to identify the bodies. Maybe they used it for the chains, or maybe it was simply another device used to provide some kind of sick satisfaction.

The vent in the room seemed to have no purpose. It led to the other parts of the house, but it wasn't hooked up to the air conditioning system or a heater. There did seem to be something large attached to it, but it wasn't an item Sky could identify by feeling the shape through the air. The covering was a silver lattice design, and seemed to shine in the dim room. It must be a new addition as it didn't show the typical signs of aging other iems in the room had.

The bloodstains on the floor all seemed to blend into each other, but if he concentrated he could tell the older marks from the newer. The older blood was much more oxidized and therefore had a slightly darker color. Most of the stains were splattered or circular indicating that the body that created it was dripping blood as he had, but there were some marks that were in the clear shape of one body part or another. Hand prints, ears, even some writing could be seen amongst the markings. One victim wrote "help". Another wrote a name, possibly hers or her partner's, over and over and over in her own blood. There were tally marks on the walls, and Sky thought they might have been a way for a previous victim to keep track of him. He wondered what the purpose of keeping time could be, but he figured the woman may have just needed something to do. He was analyzing bloodstains and vents so he couldn't judge her too much on what she chose to do to pass the time. Eventually he decided to try and sleep.