31. Something hungry and terrible.
Chapter thirty-one
Something hungry and terrible...
Nick
J ingle.
The sound of metal on metal, and everything blurred.
Hewasin Gianmarco’s penthouse, but somethingwaswrong. Gianmarco stood over him, straight razor gleaming in the lamplight, but his beautiful facewastwistedwith something that looked like anguish and fear.
“I’m sorry, kitten,”Gianmarco said, his voice hollow in a way Nickhadnever heard before.“I have to do this. He’s making me. I can’t fight him anymore.”
The wordsweredifferent now. Not the casual cruelty Nick remembered from two years of systematic torture, not the twisted love thatshapedevery broken piece of him.
“No, please,”Nick heard himself begging from where he knelt on the marble floor.“I’ll be better, I promise. I love you, I’ll do anything—”
Gianmarco’s hand trembled as he raised the razor, his eyes filling with something that looked like genuine terror.“I’m sorry, kitten. I can’t fight his voice in my head. He’s too strong.”
Tears streamed down Gianmarco’s face—tears Nick had never seen before.
“But I love you,”Nick sobbed, and the words felt true, felt real, felt like the only truth in a world thathadgonesuddenly mad.
“I love you too,”Gianmarco whispered, and then the razor bit deep.
Blood. Choking. The box closing over him as darkness rushed in from all sides.
Jingle.
Blur.
Light. Harsh fluorescent light burning his eyes as the box opened. A woman with brown hair looking down at him in shock, her face pale with disbelief.
“He’s alive,”Owen said from somewhere above, his voice carrying pity but no surprise. No fanfare. Just a statement of fact.
They knew. They knew we might survive.
Jingle.
Blur.
White walls. A hospital bed. The smell of iodine and the sound of machines beeping. Shaw entering the room like he owned it, like he owned everything.
“Welcome to the Daylight Society, Nicholas,”Shaw said, settling into the chair beside the bed with the casual authority of someone who never doubted his welcome.“We’re going to help you become something better than what that monster made you.”
But Nick could hear other voices, whispered conversations when they thought hewasasleep or too medicated to understand.
“He’s too broken,”Owenwassaying somewhere in the hallway.“The vampire taught him things, conditioned him in ways we can’t undo.”
“The vampire taught him some things we can use,”Shaw replied, and therewassomething hungry in his voice.“We just need to redirect that conditioning. Channel it properly.”
Jingle.
Blur.
Pain. Henderson’s fists connecting with his ribs, his face, his stomach. Shaw watching from the corner, clipboard in hand, making notes like Nickwasa lab rat.
“Your fighting technique is sloppy,”Henderson said, stepping back to let Nick gasp for air through what felt like broken ribs.“Your stance is defensive, reactive. You’re still thinking like prey.”
Nick tried to get up, and Owen’s boot caught him in the kidney. He went down hard, bile rising in his throat.
“You need to push down everything you learned before,”Shaw added, his voice gentle in a way that made Nick’s skin crawl.“We’re going to build you into something new. Something strong.”
Henderson grabbed a fistful of Nick’s hair and slammed his face into the concrete floor. Nick felt his nose break with a wet crunch, blood streaming down his face.
“The vampire made you weak,”Henderson snarled.“Made you want to please. We’re going to make you want to destroy.”
Nick spat blood and tried to speak, but Owen’s boot connected with his stomach, doubling him over.
“Good boys don’t talk back,”Owen whispered.
Jingle.
Blur.
Kindness. Shaw bringing him medication for the nightmares that left him screaming and clawing at his throat. Pills for the chronic pain that lived in his bones, even when Nick said he didn’t want them, didn’t trust them.
“This will help,”Shaw said, pressing the pills into Nick’s palm with gentle insistence.“Trust me. I’m trying to take care of you.”
And Nick did trust him. Wanted to trust him. Needed to believe that someone, somewhere, cared if he lived or died.
Fragments of overheard conversations.“The new asset is responding well to conditioning.”“Our insider says the operation is moving forward.”“Sometimes you have to deal with a demon to get at the devil.”
What insider? What demon?
Jingle.
The soundwassharper now, more insistent, and when everything blurred this time, it felt different. Like someone rifling through files, searching for something specific.
Hewaspressedagainst a wall, his forehead grinding into the concrete hard enough to scrape skin, Shaw’s weight pinning him in place.
His face throbbed where Owenhithim for the crime of wanting to rest instead of train, for the crime of flinching when Owen called him“Gianmarco’s blowup doll.
”Blood from his split lipwasdrying on his chin.
“You need to overcome the bad memories,”Shawwassaying, his breath hot against Nick’s ear, one hand twisted in his hair to keep his face pressed to the wall.“Clear them from your mind. And to do that, you need to relive them. Over and over until they have no meaning.”
Shaw’s other hand moved lower, and Nick’s breathing hitched with panic.
“Tell me about the first time you let the monster fuck you.”
“I didn’t let—”Nick started, trying to turn his head, trying to get away.
Shaw slammed his face into the wall hard enough to split his lip wider and make his vision blur.“If you didn’t let him fuck you, if youhadfoughthard enough to deny him,you’dbe dead. Don’t lie to me. Now tell me.”
So Nick told him. Told him about the first time, about the fear and pain and the way Gianmarcowhisperedsweet things afterward,cleanedthe blood away and called him brave and beautiful and good. Shaw’s hand never stopped moving, never stopped taking liberties that made Nick’s skin crawl.
By the end of it, hewassobbing against the concrete.
“Again,”Shaw said, his belt buckle jingling as he moved.
So he told it again. And again. And again. Each time, Shaw’s hands became bolder, more invasive, until Nick couldn’t tell where the memory ended and the present began.
The fifth time, Nick’s voicewasbarely a whisper, his throat raw from crying.“Please don’t make me say it again.”
Shaw’s voice seemed to blend with another, older voice, honey-sweet and poisonous.“You’re going to be a good boy and tell me again.”
The sound of a belt buckle unfastening.
And as Nick repeated the story one more time, he could feel it—the phantom sensations of Gianmarco’s hands overlaying Shaw’s very real ones. Shaw’s voice drifted in and out of the memory like smoke, his hands mapping territory thathadalready been claimed and broken.
“Where did his hands go? Here? What about here?”Shaw whispered, and Nick couldn’t tell anymore if itwasmemory or reality, past violation or present abuse.
Nick’s consciousness, observing but not separate, couldn’t make sense of whatwashappening. The memorieswerebleeding together, past and present and pain all mixing into a litany of hurt that made no sense.
Jingle .
Flash. Still frame. Memory cards being shuffled rapidly.
Gianmarco above him, but the sheets felt wrong—too scratchy, too rough.
Gianmarco never used rough sheets. And his face hurt, swollen and throbbing, but Gianmarcohadalways been careful with his face, that itwastoo pretty to damage.
Why could he taste blood? Why did his jaw feel like it might be dislocated?
“It hurts,”he heard himself saying, but the voice hewasaddressing seemed to shift mid-word.“Shaw, it hurts, please—”
But that didn’t make sense because hewaslooking at Gianmarco,wasn’the? Except the hands on him felt different, rougher, and therewaslaughter that Gianmarco never made—cruel and mocking instead of pleased.
Flash.
Different hands completely. Different laughter. A boot grinding into his skull, pressing his face into gravel that cut his cheek. Blood filling his mouth from where his teethhadgonethrough his tongue.
Owen’s voice from above, breathless with exertion,“Nicholas, be a good boy and stop being such a fucking menace.”
Nick could taste dirt and blood and shame, could feel zip ties cutting into his wrists behind his back as Owen’s weight settled on him.
”—should have let me die, it’d be better than—”
Flash.
Owen and Shaw arguing while Nick sat on the ground, his nose bleeding steadily, one eye swollen shut, naked and shivering despite the heat. Bruises covered his ribs, his back, his thighs. Shame burned in his chest like acid.
“Why are you doing this?”Nick heard himself ask.“Iwasgood. I followed all the orders. I killed who you told me to kill.”
Shaw knelt down, and therewassomething that might have been sadness in his eyes. But behind it, something else. Something hungry and terrible that made Nick want to crawl away.
“This isn’t punishment, my sweet boy,”Shaw said, reaching out to touch Nick’s battered face with mock tenderness.“You’re helping us. It’s so hard to find time to date when you’re saving humanity. This is a public service.”
His thumb pressed into the bruise around Nick’s eye, and Nick couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped.
More jingling. More hands holding him down.
More pain that blended together until he couldn’t tell one assault from another.
Owen whispering poison in his ear while his weight pressed Nick into the concrete,“I always knew youwerepathetic. I just never imaginedyou’dend up being such a good little whore. ”
Nick tried to fight, scratched and clawed and bit, but there were always more hands, always more weight, always the sound of belt buckles and mocking laughter and the phrase that made his resistance crumble:“Be a good boy.”
Flash. Flash. Flash.
“Focus,”a new voice said in his head, gentle but urgent.“Focus. Too far back. No.”
The memories shifted again, and this time Nick saw something thathadalways seemed out of reach, locked away behind walls hehadn’tknownexisted.
A different room. Not Gianmarco’s penthouse, not a Society facility. Somewhere neutral, businesslike. Shawwasthere, but sowassomeone else—a man in an expensive suit with kind eyes and a predator’s smile.
“I think we can find a mutually beneficial situation, Mr. Shaw,”the strangerwassaying, his voice carrying a thick Southern accent.“One that gets me what I want and gets you yours.”
Shaw wasn’t attacking. Why wasn’t Shaw attacking a vampire?
“I can get my children in place all over the region,”the man continued.
“They’re good kids, mind you. Them neutral hunters take in everyone, pervert the natural order of things.
They can play nice and get close and help you get rid of the competition.
All I ask is that you leave one of us beasties alone, because I got a score to settle. ”
Shaw and the stranger shook hands like old friends making a business deal.
The man turned his attention to Nick then, and his smile widened to show fangs.“Pretty thing you got there. From Nicoletti? Squishy mind on that old one. Mind if I have some time with him? Or is he private collection only?”
Shaw laughed—actually laughed.“He’s the best fighter we have, a fucking weapon. But yeah, have all the time you want. Just make sure to tell him he’s a good boy.”
Shaw left the room, and the stranger approached with that terrible smile.
“Nice to meet you, properly,”he said, fangs gleaming.“I’m Richard. I hear you know how to be a good boy...”
“No,”the voice in Nick’s head said.“Too far. Come back. Focus.”
Nick fell down a well of blackness, consciousness fracturing into pieces. Somewhere in the dark, he heard the hunter, soft, uncertain, ashamed: I did what it took to survive. I don’t know if itwasworth it. I just wanted to survive.
Gianmarco never wore a belt. Not once. You remember his tailor—everything bespoke, perfectly fitted. He didn’t need a belt.
Society issue. Always need a belt to be prepared. Tactical. Smart. Strong. Good.
The jingling. The metal sound thathauntedhis dreams, that pulled him into remembering the worst things.
It wasn’t Gianmarco’s belt buckle at all.
It was Shaw’s. Owen’s. Henderson’s.
Society issue.
“Focus,”the voice in his head said again, more urgently now.“Almost there. Focus.”
And then, cutting through the darkness like a silver thread, he heard something else. Music. A melody he recognized, beautiful and familiar and safe.
Jupiter. Luka’s Jupiter.
But the whistlingwasbroken, interrupted by sounds that might have been sobbing.
The music pulled him up through layers of memory and pain and conditioning, pulled him back toward consciousness, toward the surface, toward—
Light. Real light. The harsh fluorescents of Club Euphoria, not the warm lamps of Gianmarco’s penthouse or the sterile brightness of Society safe houses.
Nick’s eyes snapped open, and he was filled with rage.
Pure, clean, righteous rage that burned away the last of the confusion and the conditioning and the liesthey’dall told him.
The Societyworkedwith vampires andmadedeals with the very monsters they claimed to hunt. Theyusedhim, broken him, shaped him into a weapon while telling him itwasfor the greater good.
Nick sat up slowly, his body aching, his throat raw, and looked around at the concerned faces surrounding him.
Matoskah, the pale vampire with white braids Nick only vaguely remembered from weeks ago, held eye contact with him for a moment before swaying, his cheeks wet and red with tears.
The Asian nurse from the hospital caught Matoskah as he collapsed with gloved hands. They both looked exhausted.
But Nick wasn’t exhausted. Nick was furious.
And for the first time in years, his anger felt clean.