Chapter Four
For Her … Anything
Lethe
I can feel the desire rippling through the insurgent’s body a moment before I tear him from hers, slamming the back of his head into the brickwork behind me, and dropping his unmoving form to the floor. Is he dead? I tip my head to one side. Do I care?
As I stare at the stunning girl in the skintight black dress, I decide I don’t. Mana won’t, either, from the way I watched him rip a man to pieces with strength no human should possess.
I know my talents are wrong, just as his are. Perhaps we’re alike, him and me, and that’s why I am drawn to this place with its torture and echoing screams I can still faintly hear when the music stops and silence holds. The sounds are etched into the very stones of this house of literal horrors. It’s obscene that underage teens and a few legal and tempting pieces like the one before me party here. A disgrace, really.
A single tear trails her cheek, and my groin tightens in the black leather pants Mana insisted I wear as part of my staff costume.
Not that I’ve seen anyone else dressed like a fucking gimp. All that’s missing is the helmet. My chest is encased in a tight leather vest with boning that tightens around my waist, and there are cut out holes for my nipples. Maybe I’m the disgrace, not her.
This should be a place of reverence where the souls trapped in the thick walls and the hard-packed dirt beneath our feet have a hope of freedom. We should pray for their eternal existence before we become another of their legion.
A whimper escapes her throat, while mine dries. My first night on the fucking job and here I am, lusting after a girl who must be at least half this body’s age, ripping men off her. It won’t be the last, I am certain of it. Not with the grateful way she watches me like I’m some golden boy, some heroic savior.
Not like the identical sister who trailed her fingers over my nipples on her way to the bar earlier. The little slut stank of overuse. I half expected her to drop to her knees in the middle of the dance floor.
Moss green eyes stare at me unwaveringly. Even though I just killed a man before her—he’s not moving and darkness slinks from his body as if trying to make its final escape—she isn’t running or screaming.
No, this girl is different, and some innate part of me recognizes she’s mine to protect. Not that I remember anything of my past life, so that last could be utter bullshit. It probably is.
“I see you’ve started the night well already.” Mana leans against the end of the hallway, his bulk blocking out most of the light. His gaze fixes on me and I know he hates that I’m taller than him, my rigid stature I can’t seem to rid myself of more imposing than his. “Shall I call for a clean-up crew?”
“I got it.”
“Fuck me.” The bartender I met earlier in the night during the pre-party staff meeting—Kaleb—barrels past Mana without so much as a by your leave , and the boss man doesn’t acknowledge him. “Already? We’re gonna have a talk.” Kaleb fixes me with a hard, unyielding stare, and I see why Mana keeps him.
“He was assaulting the lady, got a little handsy. I pulled him off.” I shrug, but the motion turns into a twitch, and I roll my shoulder painfully to still the unconscious urge.
If I can’t control my past, I’ll fucking well tie knots around every damn hour of my future.
“Perhaps a little less force next time,” Kaleb murmurs. “Boss likes to torture assholes like this. You’ve ruined his playtime.” His gaze slides sideways. “Hello again, sweetheart. Addi, was it?” The man’s demeanor changes subtly. He rests one hand on his belt, sliding his thumb across the tooled leather.
The girl watches the digit’s progress, her lips parted just enough to make a sweet “O” shape, the perfect place for a man to shove his—
“Pheromones. Clean it up,” Mana barks, jerking us all out of our reverie.
The girl jumps, quickly righting her dress. Shit, we all do, and I drop to my knees.
“I said I got it.” I heave the body over my shoulder, ignoring the still-dripping blood warming the backs of my thighs, and stride away.
“Thank you,” the girl whispers.
At this distance I shouldn’t be able to hear her, but I do. I glance back over my shoulder to where Kaleb leans one arm over her head, his dipped to whisper in her ear. His fingers brush across a darkened patch at her shoulder, inked fingers lingering on her skin.
Smarmy bastard.
Green eyes watch me, not him, as I carry my burden away from her. But those eyes don’t stay locked on me forever. The moment she turns away, pain rips through me, a searing pressure that builds outward.
I force myself to face forward, almost running along the never fucking ending corridor, and burst through the doors at the other end, but the empty hallway doesn’t offer the freedom I crave. My fingers burn, every nerve ending screaming. I know what’s coming.
Corridor after corridor I run in an eternal nightmare, the screams of those long-departed heralding my wake at one who will soon join them.
I must get outside.
I sprint the last dozen paces, bursting shoulder first through a locked door, and ignoring the bruise that will doubtless form there tomorrow. If I don’t get away from the building, something much worse will consume those within.
Maybe it will free the souls.
Maybe new ones will be added to their number.
I make it as far as a small hillock beyond the main building, the crisp night air assailing my searing skin. That fluctuation in temperature is all my body needs before it does the only thing I know, the first thing I remember. I hunker down, the asshole’s body still draped across my shoulders, weighing on the back of my neck, but the pressure doesn’t last long.
Not now.
The pain intensifies, like hellfire or something so much worse violating every cell in my body. My world goes white, then—
Nothing.
A weightlessness, floating above everything, or below. Up is down, and down is…
I slam face-first into the ground. My hands smoke before my eyes, and those eyes water with the returned sense of mortality that clearly isn’t mine. Ash drips from my shoulders. I hope the man was dead before I exploded, or whatever the fuck just happened. Not a pretty way to go, otherwise.
That’s twice it’s happened, now. I have no idea what set off my first round. But killing clearly lit the ember within me this time. Or maybe it was the spike of protective lust I experienced at helping the girl. Maybe I could do something else wrong today, and make it a hat trick.
“What a pretty display.”
I can fucking well feel Mana’s smirk.
Swallowing, I straighten and dust the ashed man’s cinders from my shoulders. “I’ll clean up and be right back.”
“You’ll work exactly as you are.” Mana’s eyes narrow in the darkness where he loiters in a doorway, not a single toe over the threshold like he can’t bear to tread the ground outside Harken Asylum.
I growl, the sound ripping at my still searing teeth as my body cools. Our eyes lock in a battle of twisted wills, though neither of us manage to be the victor in our combined, merging anger.
And while we fight it out in silence, the sister—a poor facade of my obsession—emerges from the building beside Mana, dressed in a pink piece of candy floss and looking far less edible. Her chirpy voice screws with my zen, or maybe my anger where it filters into the night over the souls trapped within Mana’s home.
“Oooh, fireworks!”
She claps her hands and squeals like a child. Finally, Mana looks down and takes her hand in his, drawing her back into the bowels of the impromptu club no doubt to pump her full of alcohol and drugs and other bodily fluids.
I dust the remaining ash from my exposed nipples and follow them, the taste of a ruined soul bitter on the back of my tongue.
That won’t wash out anytime soon.
The door to the asylum slams at my back, locking me in with the other tortured souls.
****
“What a fucked-up night.” I lean into the cold water that won’t wash off the taint of the man who threatened the girl no matter what I do. How hard I scrub, how hot the water.
I resort to turning it as cold as it will go in the hope of dousing the ember still lit somewhere so deep inside me that I wouldn’t be able to find the wretched thing, even if I let Mana carve me open and dig through my flesh with his bare fingers.
“For a first night, it wasn’t bad. You killed someone and disposed of the body neatly, from what I heard. Made a lot of people happy, I’m sure.” Kaleb steps under the spray beside me in the cavernous, communal showers the asylum afforded its prior occupants.
How many souls were tortured here? How many inmates were physically assaulted? I swallow back bile, the acid rupturing my throat until iron coats my tongue.
Good . Anything is fucking better than ash.
“Toughen up, princess.” A hand—an unwelcome one—slaps my ass.
Kaleb gives me a hard sideways look and walks away, leaving his shower running.
I flick his faucet off. Thanks for the support, my man. But not paying attention to the asshole at my back is my mistake, if only for a moment.
His body slams mine into the cold tiles, courtesy of the icy water I’ve been drowning myself in for half an hour.
“Fuck off,” I grouse, placing my hands on the tiles. The faintest hint of bleach lifts to my nostrils, burning my nose hairs.
My ember ignites, and I close my eyes, already wary. We’ve been here before tonight. I have no idea what will happen if I explode inside a building, and I doubt Mana wants to find out, either. That he was witness to my uncontrollable shame darkens the room for a moment. My vision flickers, or maybe the lights do.
“Such a pretty boy. Maybe you should kneel for Mommy,” my assaulter’s voice hisses in my ear. Alonzo, Alonsi? I can’t remember the asshole’s name. They’re running together.
One hand reaches around me to grip my cock hard. An unwelcome and disgusting touch. I grit my teeth, willing my control back before I swallow ash again. Once a night is enough for me.
“Hands off, you withering penile stain,” I murmur. Breath flows in, and my ember settles.
I smile against the bleached tiles. Now we get to play.
Alonzo’s cock presses to my ass, his balls giving mine a love tap. I have no idea if I’m into men, but this sort of approach does nothing for me. The vision of the girl with green eyes flitters through my mind, and I know one thing above all else. I want her. To touch her, bathe her, protect her. Love her.
Another thing out of my control, but this time I find I don’t mind.
“Did you say you want my cock to rip your pretty asshole apart?” he hisses into my ear. For a single, frozen moment I know just how the girl felt tonight with that man on her.
Addi.
I step out of Alonzo’s hold like he weighs nothing, his presence stripped away as I twist his wrist and slam him face-first into the wall right where I stood a second before. “Is this how you play with your food, you pathetic excuse for a man? Is it fun?”
I slide a searing finger along his spine. Fine fissures of smoke and the scent of burning flesh sears the oxygen between us in their wake. My burning finger, the only part of me I let heat to the point I scar him with every touch, rests over his hairy asshole. My heart is joyous as I press forward, pushing my poker-hot finger into his puckered hole.
“Stop!” he screams, his body convulsing against mine. “No! The fuck!” His hands claw, scrabbling at the slicked tiles, and the scent of bleach joins melting flesh.
I press harder, and the ring of muscle pops around my finger. His screams intensify and before I can kill the man, burning him from the inside out, I withdraw and wash my hands fastidiously beneath the showerhead with an excessive amount of soap. I hate getting shit beneath my nails.
Flicking off the faucet, I step over Alonzo’s whimpering body where he lies on the white tile and stare at Kaleb who watches me with curious but not frightened eyes. Perhaps I fit into this place better than I expected.
“Some of that bleach would come in handy.” I grab a towel and rub myself dry.
“I’ll mention it to the cleaners. Should I make sure I don’t drop the soap near you, homie?” Kaleb flicks my ass with his towel.
A bold move, considering what he just saw.
“Only if you intend to damage me the way that fuckwit did to the girl. Addi?” I frown. “Is there more to her name?”
“Addi is the only bit I know. Cute as fuck, and not as much a slut as her sister.” Kaleb rolls his neck and something pops. “That one will fuck anything.”
“Who’s the slut?” I throw my towel over the door of the locker I was assigned. Three. I trace the curly digit engraved into the flaking metal door, adding a few extra loops to the pattern, though I don’t understand why.
There are so many parts of myself I don’t recognize, parts that expose themselves every day. Like the explosions or the burning finger. Shit. Someone should write a comic book.
“ Her .” Kaleb’s muted whisper draws my attention to a girl on her knees at the far end of the showers that, in my haze of death and ash, I failed to notice.
Her mouth is wrapped around—tries to wrap around—a cock that would be better suited to a horse than our boss. She’s still dressed in that hideous pink confection I saw her in at the door with Mana after my … disgrace. But while his face is watchful as he gazes dominatingly down at her, not a hint of pleasure flickers across his visage, and hers is…
Blank. In its entirety. Like who she is ceases to exist. He presses his cock deeper and her throat bulges in a disgusting display of power. Neither look like they want the pleasure the act should bring them, in this casual encounter of body parts, over the bliss one gifts their partner for the pure joy of knowing that other person enjoys their touch.
One more thing I’ve learned about myself today: I can be a fighter and a lover.
The green-eyed girl, the pink fluffy one’s sister, flickers through my mind. There is a female I could lavish attention on. Then I recall the loathing look Mana bestowed upon her, the way Kaleb leaned over her body, claiming her. How she reacted to him.
Didn’t she? I run the encounter through my head, but it’s not clear in any version I replay if she wanted the bartender’s attention or not.
Mana finishes in an unnerving silence, creamy liquid tinted green pouring from the girl’s mouth. He drags his cock away and she sits still on her knees, her mouth open, and waits.
Nothing. Not a thought, or a sound, or even a retch.
“ForgetMeKnot,” Kaleb murmurs, turning away too, looking sickened. If his face didn’t tell me what he thought, his voice would.
I face my locker, wishing I could erase the secondhand experience from my mind. Mana is all kinds of fucked up. Mind, he must have seen what I did to his friend, and yet he did nothing to intervene. Who is the more disturbed in this hotel of mad fuckery? There’s a song in that, somewhere.
“What do flowers have to do with this level of bullshit?” I whisper and rest my head against the cold locker door. The coolness helps, and I’ve overheated. Again.
Fuck, this is getting dangerous. Maybe I can’t have the green-eyed girl after all. I certainly don’t want to hurt her and I’m clearly unstable.
Kaleb laughs openly at me. “It’s a drug. ForgetMeKnot. Like the dog thing where they get stuck together.” He makes a lewd hand gesture, demonstrating the process.
My stomach turns. “Yeah, I got it. A drug, huh? What, it makes them submissive or some shit?”
“It makes them forget.”
I rotate slowly toward him, grabbing my jeans and sliding them on. “Forget?”
“Everything. Before, after, during. Everything.”
I stare at him, but Kaleb’s attention is drawn to the door where a vision of auburn curls and eyes the color of the forest at dusk stops everything in the room. Even Alonzo’s pathetic whimpers.
There’s a drug I could use.
“Oh, God. Again?” She glares at Mana, stalking forward and completely ignores the fact she and her drowned rat of a drugged-up sister are the only ones clothed within a sea of naked, predatory men.
And every single one of us want her. I scent their need in the air, even my own. Kaleb, drooling like that dog he mentioned. Mana. Especially Mana. His cock rises unashamedly as she approaches. “I can go again,” he offers softly, and for the first time since I noticed him, he looks interested. Far more than when he shoved his horse cock down her sister’s throat. “I can make it good.” He reaches out, almost tenderly, to touch her face.
Like a professional boxer, Addi ducks and weaves, managing to avoid Mana’s touch and extricate her sister with no small display of skill. She doesn’t lose her footing once, and her glare fixed on Mana never wavers. Girl’s got balls. I like that. Another thing I know about myself.
“Not for all the demons in hell, Mana. Keep your dick to yourself.” She smiles sweetly through her snark and drags her sister away, muttering in an undertone. Addi pauses at the open doorway, and looks back. “And keep your drugs out of her too, you freak. If she wants to fuck, at least let her remember the experience, if she chooses. And if she doesn’t…” The woodland sprite of a perfect spirit flicks her fingers between her eyes and Mana.
Without another word she leaves us all staring after the pair of them, the slut and the princess, and a different sound fills the room in their absence. Mana’s laughter, akin to shattered glass shredding newborn flesh. After a moment, Kaleb reluctantly joins in, then me.
How much more fucked up can any of us be?
The funny thing is, we haven’t even started.