NIGHT 12
Have I been in any way remiss in my duties? Unclear as to the nature of this inquiry? Perhaps I should’ve kept things visual, making the adaptations you need for your particular style of learning?
Enough of that. Just spit it out.
Your statement taken from last night: we’re the Renegades.
It seems clear enough to me.
Therein lies the problem. Today, tomorrow and then comes the trial.
The flames are already warming me; I’ve made my peace with it. Why won’t you?
Because that’s not how this works! I come in here and I untangle the witness, so the guilty can be punished. It’s what I do.
Yet you hide truths and unmask lies. Confuse and manipulate, until I don’t know…who I am.
Funny thing about who we are: no one can make us anything. Only we get to choose. Sometimes we get so buried deep under the controls of this world – family, society and love – we forget that and lose ourselves. Then we no longer know who we are or once were.
We can become whoever we want because we do have a choice, and coming from a bloke who was once a slave, you have no idea how precious that is.
That’s all there is to it? I choose to act?
I tend to get booted in the goolies first, and then tortured. But…yeah.
Make the choice, lay the caper and act.
Thank you, Mr Blickle, that was a fascinating insight into terrorist mentality.
If I were you I’d make your remaining witness count. We only have one more session together after this.
Tell me a story of hidden truths and unmasked lies: of a man who chose to act.
‘It’s been ages since Hartford bolted. And you?’ Aedan’s green peepers sparked, ‘You’re a massive idiot if you reckon you can pull that on me.’
‘Kidnapped. Researched on by mad scientists. Hartford to the rescue. Kept prisoner by terrorist Renegades. New caper to save Donovan: you in?’
Aedan sprawled in his crimson looped cock of a seat, his elven mush screwed up with the effort to process the barminess of our Blood Lifer world.
The Peter Pan was dark and silent before opening; it was eerie without its music, dancers and men in suits looking to lose themselves for one night at least.
Reinvent or hide: what’s the difference?
Hartford and I sank into the brocade and damask, but it wasn’t the same – because Donovan was missing.
Out of the corner of my eye, I kept catching glimpses of Donovan’s dark mop of hair, as he danced sinuous in nothing but bowtie.
No wonder Hartford was so tense.
Aedan chewed at one braid in thought. ‘I know I said we all had our histories? Remind me what a thick tool I am for not guessing yours. You’re not exactly a choir boy, are you?’ Then he glanced significantly at Hartford. ‘Donovan wasn’t going to give me a love bite that time on the dancefloor..?’
Hartford shook his nut, before to my shock – and Aedan’s – dropping to his knees next to the First Lifer. ‘I’ll lay it on the line, mac: I’m goofy over my sheik. I’d do anything to save him; I’d suffer anything. We could’ve fed you a line, but you’re my friend. I don’t want to treat you like some sap. Please help us.’
Aedan threw himself to his knees next to Hartford, clinging around his neck.
I’d forgotten this intimacy.
Friendship.
Aedan had taken us in and given us a home. He’d accepted us, even when he’d discovered we were something other than human. I’d only known one other First Lifer like that, and now she was dead.
What else had Plantagenet’s…spell…forced me to forget?
I coughed awkwardly. ‘We’re doing this then?’ Two resolved mushes turned to me – angelic gold hair, mingled with impish red – so close they were one. I couldn’t help the chuckle. ‘Are you climbing off him anytime soon?’
‘Why?’ Aedan rested his cheek against Hartford’s. ‘Am I frightening the horses?’
I snorted. ‘Yeah, right.’ Both Aedan and Hartford goggled at me. Buggering hell… ‘It was nothing,’ I wagged a finger at them, ‘and this is a council of war, not a--’
‘Plantagenet,’ Hartford’s voice was flat and cold.
‘Look, I’m not--’
‘Says you. But from the moment you met Plantagenet, you were stuck on him. Sun was the same. Why do you think she let him…didn’t help me? See, what I can’t understand is why. A high hat, with his head up his ass.’
Aedan sniggered.
‘You don’t have to understand, because I don’t. I know Plantagenet’s not bad, he just--’
‘Tell it to the marines. Because you see how you feel about a fella after you’ve been broken on the rack by him.’
Aedan wound even closer around Hartford, and the look he threw me, should’ve staked me – with a sodding spoon.
‘Nothing’s changed,’ I said softly, ‘you’re still my family.’
‘And Donovan?’
‘Bloody hell,’ I exploded up, knocking them tumbling back in a tangle of red and gold, as I paced the dancefloor in front of the cross-shaped stage. ‘I’m not perfect. I’m falling from crisis to crisis, surviving the best I can. It’s what I do. Only before? It was just me. And now there’s you lot. These others, who I love by the way, are looking to me for decisions, and I’m getting it wrong or getting it right, but the rug’s still pulled out from under me. I’m trying, alright? To do the best for everyone. If I could take it all on me – every hurt and blow – I would but I don’t know how. I’m sorry. This is new to me. This is--’
‘Being a leader.’
Hartford fluidly rose, pulling Aedan after him. Then he sauntered to me, pausing my agitated pacing with a slight yet powerful hand on my shoulder. ‘Our leader.’
I managed to smile. ‘Sure you want to choose me?’
‘In Blood Life leaders aren’t chosen. They’re authored. You’re my leader, poor little bunny, so stop acting like it’s giving you the screaming meemies, and let’s rescue my sheik.’
Aedan patted my arse. ‘Not my leader, just so as we’re clear. I’m in though.’
Hartford’s expression clouded. ‘What I can’t work out, mac, is how you plan to get Donovan outta there. The way I see it? There are only two ways: we double-cross the fella you’re now goofy over, or I sacrifice myself.’
I wrenched back from Hartford, tremors bawling through me nancy. ‘What the buggering hell are you on about?’
Hartford smiled sadly. ‘Captain wants the leader of the Renegades. But that’s bull. He just needs the big cheese to parade in chains before the Council to show how hard-boiled he is. He doesn’t care who it really is. You hand me in: I’m a Long-lived and an ex-slave. You reckon he won’t believe it? I confess to being leader of the Renegades, and then Donovan will be free.’
‘Hey, mac, you certain you heard..? What did you hear?’
‘You know…screams, like Blake was hurting--’
‘Plantagenet?’ Hartford spun round. I’d expected him to give me that same hard look, but instead there was only the anxious compassion Hartford had worn whenever Sir had laid into me at Abona.
I flamed with guilt. ‘In that bloody playroom dungeon.’
‘Nothing play about it, fella.’ Hartford dove down the corridor so fast I couldn’t keep up with him. ‘Get a wiggle on! You want to save him or not?’
Smash – there went the dungeon door splintering.
I traced the sharp outline of the needle in my pocket; Kallis had half inched it for me, all overexcited in spy mode, from the research department.
‘Say, there’s nobody here,’ I heard Harford’s bewildered call.
Hartford was hesitating in the heart of the dungeon, his feet almost touching the cage, which I’d hidden in from the CIE bint: he was transfixed by the rack. He was making these frightened panting gasps, so like the ones Plantagenet had made when Blake had discovered Plantagenet in their bed with Sun, that I had to steady myself.
I could do this.
I had to bleeding well do this.
I tried to give a reassuring smile, as I sidled closer. ‘Don’t look at the rack. Sometimes things happen; we don’t want them to, but they do. I’m sorry, I wish I’d been better, that’s all.’
‘What’s all this baloney? And where’s..?’
I stabbed the needle into Hartford’s neck. I pushed down, letting in the venom: Plantagenet’s venom, which had been separated by Fernando in his search for an antidote.
Hartford didn’t react, as if my betrayal couldn’t be real.
Then – for the first time – he unleashed his full Long-lived force on me, scrabbling the needle out of his neck and shoving me back. I flew the length of the room, slamming against the wall.
Crack – there went half my ribs.
I coughed, as I bent over.
When I looked up? Hartford had slumped to the concrete, shuddering with cramps, and then collapsed onto his back, as the paralysis took hold.
When mixed together our venom bite isn’t toxic to another Blood Lifer. It’s that ecstasy-thrumming line between heaven and hell. Yet when it’s separated to paralysis alone..? It’s none of the heaven and all of the hell.
I sighed, trudging to kneel by Hartford.
Hartford’s glare of hate filled accusation sliced me in two.
He was trying to speak, but the paralysis was overtaking his control, trapping him in his own body.
I leaned closer to catch his whisper and then bloody wished I hadn’t, ‘Double-crosser.’
I avoided Hartford’s glower (the only thing he could now control), as I dragged him to the cage.
When I unlocked the cage’s door – clang – carefully pushing Hartford in like a doll, mindful to leave his nut facing out towards the room because I remembered the crushing boredom of having nothing but wall to stare at, I noticed the slick of sweat on his forehead.
I was a git.
Because Hartford remembered that boredom too. He’d been caged – just as I had – by Master. The only difference was that I’d been at Master’s mercy for only a month, whereas Hartford had copped it for years.
I’d never be able to understand everything Hartford had suffered. Yet here I was betraying him, entrapping him in his own body and caging him.
I was the leader though. And sometimes? Leaders have to make the tough decisions.
Wankering responsibility.
I slid my fingers through the bars and then through Hartford’s sweat dampened hair, neatening it back into his matinee idol style. ‘It’ll wear off soon. I couldn’t let you sacrifice yourself, and we both know you’re too stubborn to… I’ve got a plan, but it has to be me who… I promised to rescue Donovan and I will.’ I cradled Hartford’s lifeless hands between mine. ‘It’s not goodbye or any of that nancy bollocks. But Sun has Plantagenet now, see? And Donovan has you. So if one of us has to play at hero and go out bloody..? I’m voting for me: I’m the one who won’t be missed.’
…A black body bag in military bronze corridor... A tumble of blond curls…
Rivers of tears were leaking from Hartford’s peepers.
Tear ducts not paralysed then.
I wiped the wet away: Hartford wouldn’t be comfortable like that. Yet as fast as I tried, the tears streamed.
I gave up, pushing myself to my feet. ‘Soon as you’re together with Donovan? Take your fanboy – and don’t pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about – and go. Be wild Blood Lifers again, free in the world. Donovan can run a music business, and you’re a singer: it’s perfect. Find your talent and live it. I wish I could’ve given you that. I wish…it doesn’t bleeding matter now, does it?’
And it didn’t.
Every step I backed away from that cage and the motionless, weeping Hartford, who’d been silenced good and proper, I lost part of myself: family and home.
I was swallowed into the darkness.
Here’s the thing though: it was my choice.
Plantagenet would always be wrong: a leader mustn’t make sacrifices.
He was the sacrifice.
Plantagenet was stretched out like a panther on the bed. Except he wasn’t wild. Under the Oberon green cast by the ivy screen, the moss sheets and the steel roses..?
He was an exhibit in Blake’s zoo.
It was time to set him free.
Plantagenet studied me lazily, his arms crossed behind his nut, as I stalked. Then pounced.
Lips soft as I remembered, opening on a gasp. That scent and taste of ripened oranges. No fight, only surrender. Black curls coiling round my fingers. One hand slipping down the slash of his silk catsuit, questing onto golden skin. Stroking over one peaked nipple.
Plantagenet mewed, squirming under me, as if I was working his todger.
I had a quick shufti at the CCTV camera, which was winking at us from the corner, before tweaking Plantagenet’s nipple again. Plantagenet pouted, as his hips worked. I leaned in, allowing myself – just once – to feel closeness of blood.
Just once.
Then I twisted Plantagenet’s nipple, and as he closed his peepers caught between agony and ecstasy, I edged out the shiv from the back of my jeans.
Trinity had sworn it would do the business: small enough for a bloke to hide but deadly enough to do in a Blood Lifer. She’d bought it for Will to carry, except he’d told her that he didn’t need it. Not now he had a guardian angel.
I was no bloody angel.
As I raised the blade, I wished I could shut my own peepers, so I wouldn’t have to always remember this. The feel of it and the blood on my hands.
But my name was Light: I was cursed to remember. Even when the world forgot.
So I raised that blade, as Plantagenet shivered and purred his delight underneath me, and I brought it down over his chest. Into his heart.
Just enough…
Plantagenet’s gold-flecked peepers flew open. Then he screamed, as his back arched feline.
I rolled away from Plantagenet, staring dumbly at the shiv sticking from the wound, which was oozing thick burgundy down the white of his catsuit.
Blood. It was staining my hands. I shook.
Death. All great stories need a death. Weren’t you hoping for this?
I raised my panicked gaze to Plantagenet’s. He ripped out the shank, hurling it – clang – against the wall. He was breathing hard, as he pressed his palm over the wound to slow the bleeding.
‘We talked about this,’ I rushed to explain.
Christ, I felt like a wanker.
‘Indeed?’
‘Realistic, yeah? So when I show those Blood Lifer tossers the CCTV recording… They’d see through anything staged; we just have to edit it right. Now I can hand them me taking out the head of the Renegades; it gets me in.’
‘Was it truly needful to bed me? May you not, well-beloved, have murdered me over cake?’ Plantagenet whimpered, as he pulled himself up. I winced, knowing what it was like to have holes carved into you; when I’d been a slave, Sir had made sure of that.
‘Hartford was about to sacrifice himself like the daft – heroic – berk he is,’ I shrugged. ‘I had to stuff him in the cage downstairs. He’ll be furious when… I just wouldn’t get into any more barnies with him because I wouldn’t figure on you winning.’
‘Still,’ Plantagenet beckoned me closer. Reluctantly, I slid across the bed. You shank a Magnificoe? You’re a dim pillock if you accept an invitation to see how big his teeth are. ‘You tease and torment me, playing at my lover. You hold me down, as if you wish to do the deed of darkness. But instead, traitor? You hurt me, thus…’ He held out his bloody hands to me.
‘Put like that? It does sound bad.’
‘In faith, it makes me wonder: do you love me? Or merely Hartford and Donovan?’ Plantagenet traced a crimson trail down my cheek: a flaming brand. ‘Would you betray us – the Renegades – if thou had to choose a side? Villainy of shame! I see the answer writ upon your face.’
‘Weren’t you the one who told me there were different loves? I don’t have to choose. That’s the point.’
‘Wrong, I’m afraid.’ Blake was leaning in the doorway, his mouth set in a tight line. He was examining Plantagenet’s injured form, like he was only stopping himself from sweeping him up into his arms damsel-like by an iron will. ‘Loyalty: it’s the key skill essential to be employed at RE. No one gets in without it.’
‘Lucky I’m not applying then.’
When Sun slunk into the bedroom, I smiled. She avoided my eye, however, slicing her fangs into her wrist, before offering the snaking scarlet to Plantagenet, who eagerly suckled.
I bristled, but Sun cut me off before I could protest. ‘Ya huh! You didn’t offer to help Plantagenet, even though you hurt him. I haven’t forgotten a word you wrote in your journal. How Hartford and Donovan fed you from their wrists, when you were starving. We bleed for our frickin’ family.’
Sun was right. Plantagenet was right.
Hartford and Donovan were mine to care for: my misfit family forged through slavery. After what we’d been through together?
They’d always come first.
So what could I possibly say?
I straightened my shoulders. ‘Let’s murder you. Deliver me to the Blood Life Council. And sodding save the day.’
Let me clarify: you intended to trick us? The entire Blood Life Council?
That’s about the long and short of it.
Did you truly believe we’d be taken in by that CCTV footage? That we wouldn’t also demand a body? Habeas corpus?
Bless you. You’d be gobsmacked what folks are tricked by: smoke and mirrors. We only needed enough evidence to get me in the door long enough to free Donovan.
But instead they double-crossed you, pretending you were the Renegades’ leader..?
No need to rub it in. See what happens when you’re not a team player?
Betrayal. It seems to haunt you, Light.
Or I haunt it. Either way, I’m the one in this Red Room, whilst you scribble down my witness. What I can’t figure? Why didn’t you let Donovan go?
Come now, did you truly believe we would?
So what happens if…when I die? To Donovan?
When…if you die..?
Captain will have two pets.