Chapter 27 Venator
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
VENATOR
Slayers are forbidden from entering Feeding Grounds and cannot become Feeders.
— Serun’s Law
Jax is a slayer. A vampire hunter. Someone trained to kill something like me.
His eyes soften as he reaches for my hand, but I pull away in disbelief. “I’m sorry, Saya. I should have told you sooner, but I liked how you looked at me. Like I was human. Not just an engineered biohuman made to combat the nightwalker infection.”
Infection. I am a disease in his eyes.
I rest my hand on his. “It’s fine. I get it, but we will talk more if we manage to get out of here alive.”
He smiles. “When we get out of here alive.”
When we get out of here alive, I am getting as far away from you as possible before you drive a stake into my heart.
Jax shuffles ahead, and we position Cole between us.
We need to retrace our steps down the airshaft and keep moving until we reach the praised room.
As we go, I explain that there isn’t access to the airshafts in the mess —just small ventilation ducts—nothing like the ones between our rooms that let us see each other.
“The Bleeders designed the airshafts for nightwalkers,” Jax says. “But you know the stories from before the bloodbanks, right? Nightwalkers used them to slip into rooms without the Feeders noticing, taking as much as they needed for the week, only to do it all over again.”
“Why did it change?” Cole asks.
“Serun’s Law. A rumour went around that Serun didn’t like the idea that nightwalkers were sinking their teeth into Feeders’ necks without permission.
As a result, the Bleeders set up bloodbanks.
Except that not all Feeding Grounds function ethically.
Darkovish is far from ethical, but we needed solid evidence before my brother sent word to Serun. ”
I suspect this Serun sent the nightwalker I encountered in the private room.
“This Serun,” I begin. “For a nightwalker, he doesn’t—”
“We only work with it because we can’t fucking kill it,” Jax interrupts. “It never leaves the Undercity, which is good for us, as it’s as lethal as the bloodsuckers come. But it’s also a double-edged sword. If we kill Serun, we kill every nightwalker.”
“In Naylen?”
“In the whole of Kepler,” he explains.
Would killing Serun kill the nightwalker side of me?
“What does he look like?”
“It, Saya. It.” I don’t respond. Jax sighs sharply and says, “Our issue is, no one knows what Serun looks like. All we have to go off is that it conceals its identity with shadows.”
My eyes narrow, and a tingling sensation presses against my lips at the memory of kissing the nightwalker in shadows.
What a coincidence.
“So, instead, collaborating with it benefits us since we gain resources for our compound without risking lives in the open city of Mire. But other camps out there hate what we’re doing.”
“I see…”
He hesitates for a moment and then glances back at us.
“It’s rough out there, Saya. We aren’t just fending off nightwalkers, but people as well.
That said, you were never meant to live in here.
This was never a home either of you deserved.
And when we finally make it out of here and somewhere safe, you can truly experience life again.
Games, music—fucking dancing. You said you liked dancing, yeah? Ballroom?”
“Ballet,” I say.
“Right. I forgot.”
Once we are out and safe, I will leave Jax. There are no nice words that will sway me. I now know that he likes control. He likes his lies.
Not only that, but he is a fucking slayer, and slayers kill nightwalkers.
We make our way down the airshaft and towards the corridor leading to my room when Jax stops at the corner and mutters under his breath.
I crawl closer to Cole, wondering what is going on, when Jax says, “I want you both to close your eyes. I’ll guide you through this.
When I tell you to stop, you have to do it.
Saya’s vent is open, but I need you to crawl over it without falling through. ”
When he looks back at us, I say, “That’s not why you want us to close our eyes.”
“Trust me on this, okay?” he says, sincerity in his tone.
Jax crawls backwards as we move ahead. Cole rounds the bend with his eyes shut as the red light blinks on. As I reach the end, I take a deep breath, tasting rusty metal on my tongue. With my eyes closed, I shuffle forward, making smaller movements after realising just how loud we are.
My breaths are loud.
My hands and knees clank loudly against the metal.
And if we are this loud, what the fuck can the creature hear?
Cole sucks in a breath, and my eyes snap open. Thickened blood pours out from between Cole’s legs.
“Saya, close your eyes!” Jax hisses.
I scrunch my eyes shut and push on through the sticky blood. My fingers twitch as I bump into something, only to realise I’m touching a corpse.
Her corpse.
Strands of Manni’s hair knot between my fingers, and I brush against the dismembered parts of her body as I move forward, choking back a sob.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
“I’m going to throw up,” Cole cries with a gargled burp.
“That’s alright,” Jax says. “Better you do it before we reach the praised room.”
Wheezing heaves and gargles echo around us, and then Cole spits. “Sorry,” he mumbles.
“You’re all good. You didn’t throw up anything, which means your body doesn’t have anything to spare. Let’s keep going. I’ve got your hand now, and we’re heading over to the vent. Saya, hang tight until I come for you.”
My arms lock, and I remain still as I listen to their presence ahead. Jax talks Cole through it, then congratulates him once he is across. In the next moment, his breath brushes against my hair.
A bloody, sticky hand wraps around mine. Warm lips press against my forehead, uncomfortable against my skin. “Alright, baby. I’ve got you. Just follow my voice.”
He tells me to keep moving forward and guides my hand to the other side of the vent. I wince as my hands press into still more fleshy pieces of what used to be Manni.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. The words thump through my mind with the gut-wrenching guilt.
I manage the rest of the way myself. When I reach the other side, Jax says we can open our eyes, but not to look back.
A tingling pricks the back of my scalp, and I urge myself to keep going, not wanting to see Manni in a way I’d rather not remember.
It takes every bit of willpower to push on and stay focused on Jax.
“What makes you sure there will be a keycard in the mess?” Cole asks.
Jax crawls along the airshaft. “Do you remember the screams we heard? The doors to the mess must’ve been opened, and the creature went berserk.”
Cole shuffles down after Jax, and I realise we have reached the ground floor.
“Don’t freak out when we get to the mess. I suspect everyone is dead,” Jax says. “Once I’ve got a keycard, we’ll head to the kitchen and out the back door to the food delivery area.”
We climb over the vent near the praised room. I look down, then quickly look away after seeing the gore streaking the stairs. Dan’s torn body is crumpled nearby, his guts strewn everywhere.
We reach the vent in the praised room, and Jax easily breaks it. “Stay here,” he whispers as he slides down with the wooden stake in his hand. “What the fuck? Emily?”
A sharp breath slices through my lungs as I lean over Cole to catch sight of Emily creeping out from under the bed, with a few others following her lead.
Jax helps me down, Cole follows, and we retreat further into the praised room.
While we quickly wipe off the worst of the blood in the private bathroom, Emily tells us that eight of them came here when Dan instructed them to, then he went to find us.
“I know that thing killed him,” Emily says, a faint smile quivering on her lips. “I’d recognise his voice anywhere. And Manni—”
I hug Emily. We need this. A moment to fucking breathe.
Jax brushes his hand against mine as I pull away from Emily. “We’ve gotta go. Before the nightwalker returns.”
“It’s a nightwalker?” Emily asks.
He shrugs. “When I shoved this stake through its heart, the thing aged rapidly before turning to dust. I’d say that’s enough to call it a nightwalker.”
Emily gives him a strange look. With my lips pressed tight, I stay quiet. I can fill her in when we get out of here.
I grab both Emily and Cole’s hands while giving Jax a pointed look, daring him to fight me on it. His frown deepens, but he says nothing. I’m not leaving my brother or my friend behind, and if that means holding hands the entire time, I will. Jax won’t be able to stop me this time.
Instead, he walks to the entrance of the praised room and peeks outside. “I think the creature is on the third floor, but we need to move cautiously and keep quiet. No more talking once you step out of this room. Just follow my lead, alright?”
Laura retreats into the bathroom. “Fuck you all!” she hisses, closing and locking the door.
With an eye roll, Jax turns away and steps out of the room, and I trail close behind him. I fix my gaze on the back of Jax’s head rather than on Dan splattered across the staircase.
Ahead, bodies are piled high at the broken doors to the mess. Intestines and chunks of flesh squelch beneath my bare feet as I make my way over the corpses. We bypass the communal toilets. The doors open, and more Feeders join our silent group.
Ahead of us, Jax points to the body of a Bleeder in the centre of the mess.
Cole grips my hand tighter, staring back the way we came. I follow his gaze down the corridor and into the praised room, as darkness spills from the vent we entered through and settles on the ground. Wings emerge with a shudder, the sound of familiar insect noises intensifying.
More Feeders turn around to quietly gape in horror, then a woman lets out a high-pitched scream.
Fuck you, Jane!