Chapter 51 - Damn Those Dreams

“Arik?” she asked, her eyes widening and sitting up in bed.

He grinned. “Hello, babe.”

“Oh my God, have you come to save me?”

“You betcha.” He strode over and laid a hand on her shoulder.

She was roughly shaken awake by someone saying, “Wake up, dog.”

She wearily opened her eyes and saw Ty. “Oh,” she said glumly. “It’s you.”

“Glad to see you too,” he said, turning abruptly away from her. “Wake up. You’re going to see the boss today?”

“The boss?” She suddenly froze. The boss…wasn’t that Arik’s father? Oh, this was just great. Something caught her eye and she raised her hand slowly.

There was a thick piece of metal encasing her left wrist where her watch used to be.

“What,” she asked slowly, “the frack is this?”

Ty turned around casually. “Oh, yeah, that’s the thing I had to put on you. It basically stops you from using your powers. Cool gadget, huh?”

“Very cool,” she muttered, wondering how many hammers it would take to break the thing.

“Don’t bother trying to take it off,” Ty said as if reading her mind. “You can only take it off with the key, and not even the boss has it.”

“Then who has the key?”

Ty shrugged as if he couldn’t care less. “I couldn’t care less.” He threw her a black cloak. “Wear this.”

She picked up the thing disgustedly. “Where are we going? The black mass?”

“Put it on, Ree.”

“Do not call me Ree,” she hissed to him, dragging the cloak over her head. “You lost that right.”

Ty stared at her for an immeasurable length of time. “You know, I actually cared for you, maybe even loved you. But then you went and shacked up with my archrival slash ex-best friend. So yeah, the feelings kind of left me pretty quickly.”

She didn’t care if she was going to get in trouble for it or not, but she couldn’t care less, she was too angry: she threw a clock at him.

It pinged off his head, and he caught it with one hand. “That,” he said drily, “hurt.”

“It was meant to.”

He grabbed her roughly and shifted.

“Never touch me again, you blockhead,” she spat at him when out of the corner she saw someone ridiculously familiar standing there watching them. She turned.

Arik’s father looked absurdly like Arik—or should it be the other way round? They even looked the same age, but that was inevitable because of the immortality thing.

“Mr. Channing…” she trailed off.

“It’s Mr. Driscoll. Channing is my ex-wife’s last name.”

“Oh. Right.”

“I assumed the bastard cut out my last name.”

Anger flared in Kerri. “He’s not a bastard.”

Driscoll smirked. “Actually, technically, he is.”

“He was…born before you were married?”

“That’s what a bastard means.”

Kerri kept calm. Driscoll walked around her, as if examining her from all angles.

“Can you stop making me feel like a zoo exhibit?” she snapped.

“Feisty.” Driscoll chuckled. “Guess we go for the same kind of women, too.”

Kerri clenched and unclenched her fists. “What do you want?”

“You to work for me.”

She snorted. “Yeah, that’s not going to be happening any time soon.”

Driscoll leaned against the wall behind him, measuring her up and down. Finally, he pushed himself off the wall.

“Let me give you a little…motivation,” he said smoothly. “Either you work for us, or we kill Arik.”

“You’d kill your son?”

He shrugged. “He’s a bastard child. If I kill one, then I can make another one, no problem.”

This man was inhumane. He could not be called a man.

Kerri gasped. “You…”

“I’m not a father who loves his kid. I’m a man who made a drunken mistake.”

“You are…” Kerri couldn’t bring herself to finish his sentence.

He sighed. “Answer me. Are you going to work for me or not?”

“Okay,” she finally said, seeing as she didn’t have a choice. “But if I have to work for you, then shouldn’t you take this thing off me?” She held up her metal-encased wrist.

Driscoll put her hand over the metal and muttered something, and Kerri could feel a bit of her magic leaking back into her. “This will allow you to use some of your magic, but if you try anything drastic, you’ll black out.”

“Lovely,” she muttered. “Can I at least shift?”

“Yes, but not far off. You definitely wouldn’t be able to shift out of the C.E. We built blocks. Nobody shifts out of the C.E. unless they have my permission.”

“It’s like a bloody concentration camp.”

He shrugged. “As long as it keeps them in order.” He took her hand and pressed a kiss onto the back of it. “It’s nice to finally be able to meet my son’s Mate.”

She withdrew her hand in disgust and then frowned. “How did you know?”

“You don’t know anything, do you? When you register as Mates, it gets recorded down on the Record of Mates. Besides, Woodland here told me all about it.”

She scowled at Ty, who shrugged it off.

Driscoll dismissed them with a wave of his hand, and Ty grabbed her and shifted so that they were in their room again.

“Uh,” he scratched his head. “You can…do whatever you want. Explore, or something. I don’t know what to do with you.”

“Aren’t you even worried that I may escape or something?”

Ty laughed. “Even I can’t escape from this hellhole, Ree. I doubt you can.”

She opened her mouth to tell him to stop calling her Ree, but changed her mind. “Where are you going?” she asked when he pulled the hood of his cloak up over his head.

“To do some stuff.” He vanished.

Great. Fanfreakingtastic. She wandered along the halls aimlessly, checking out the place.
Everything was so boring. There wasn’t even anything that was in white. There were black and different shades of grey. It was like a loony bin. She felt as if she had walked into a black and white movie.

Talk about depressing, she thought. She sighed. She missed Arik. She had tried talking to him telepathically but he didn’t reply. They must’ve blocked that too, but she didn’t care.

Arik, please get me out of here. Or give me the strength to get out of here. I beg you. I can’t stay here forever. I can’t. Not without you.

But she could hear him. She heard him asking where she was. And she heard him totally pissed out of his mind. He was completely drunk. She couldn’t even make out what he was thinking, was that drunk or what? What killed her most was that she knew it was because of her, and she couldn’t even comfort him, tell him that she was there, and tell him that it was going to be okay. He couldn’t hear her, but she could hear him. How screwed up was that?

She had been reduced to tears a few nights before when he had asked her where she was and when she was going to come back. He also told her that he needed her and that he loved her before he fell asleep.

No answer. She sighed. She went down the fire escape stairwell. She didn’t understand why they had fire escape stairwells. If there was a fire, then everybody would simply shift out of the way, wouldn’t they? There was a wooden door at the bottom floor, and she tried the handle, thinking it was locked. It wasn’t.

She peered out. It was a garden. Of course, it wasn’t as beautiful or lavish as the one at the Sterling, but it was good enough. At least there was some colour. She had never been so grateful to see the colour green.

She was just thinking about Joshua and their little secret hiding spot—which probably wasn’t a secret now, but whatever—when she heard someone singing.

The lyrics weren’t in English, but the song was beautiful just the same. She walked subconsciously towards the singing. She found a tanned girl with long black hair sitting among the grass, her back facing her.

She was about to cough to announce her presence when the girl turned around. She was beautiful. And she was Indian.

“Uh, hi,” Kerri said awkwardly. “I heard you singing. I hope you don’t mind.”

“You’re…Kerrien?”

“Yeah, but please call me Kerri.”

The girl motioned for her to sit next to her. “It’s nice to meet you in the flesh, Kerri.”

“How do you know about me?”

“You were registered as Arik’s True Love.” She smiled. “I’m glad he finally found his True Love.”

“You’re Sitara,” Kerri said, realisation dawning on her.

She nodded, and started humming, twirling her fingers around a blade of grass, plucking it and then tearing it into shreds.

Kerri smiled. “Joshua does that too.”

Sitara looked up. “You know?”

“Yes.”

She looked worried. “Does Arik know?”

“No.”

She sighed in relief. “Good.”

“I know you came because Ty threatened to tell Arik about you and Joshua.”

Sitara smiled sadly. “I did what I thought was best.”

“Do you miss him?” Kerri found herself asking. “He misses you.”

Her smile went from sad to gentle to bitter. “I miss him too.”

“He dreams about you.”

Sitara started ripping up another blade of grass. “I do, too.”

“Haven’t you ever tried escaping from this place? Just…get out of this horrible hellhole?”

Sitara laughed bitterly. “Believe me, I’ve tried. God knows I’ve tried. They caught me every time.”

“If you had a chance to leave, would you?”

“Before, I would’ve said yes straightaway, but now…I don’t know.”

“Why not? You get to be with Joshua again, and you get to see all of your friends.”

“The thing is, Joshua and I would still have to stay a secret, and that was hard the first time. It’s going to be hard the second time, too.”

“How about if I was there?” Kerri asked gently. “Then Arik wouldn’t mind. That much.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She looked up. “I always knew Arik would end up with a gorgeous woman,” she said, smiling wryly.

“You’re gorgeous, too.”

Sitara shrugged.

“If…” Kerri trailed off uncertainly. “If I was to try to escape, would you help me?”

Sitara raised an eyebrow. “I…don’t know.”

“We could escape together,” Kerri said excitedly.

Sitara shook her head. “I would like that, but…I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“There’s a chance of it happening.” Kerri raised her left arm. “If only I could take off this damn thing, then our chances of escaping will be so much bigger.”

Sitara’s smile grew. “Driscoll is a very cunning and sly man. He’d usually hide the key where he knows nobody, and least of all you, would think to find it. I hope that would be of help.”

Kerri laughed. “I don’t think so, but thanks anyway.”

“Just keep looking.”

“Sure.” Kerri looked away. “How long have you been here?”

“Three years.”

“Must’ve been the worst three years of your life.”

“Pretty much, but my life before the Sterling wasn’t that great either. My childhood was pretty rough.”

“I can imagine.”

“No, you can’t.”

“You’re right, I can’t.”

They laughed.

Kerri, where are you? Arik’s voice sounded in her head again. He was still sounding slightly drunk, and Kerri didn’t need to see him to know that he had been crying. Kerri, I love you. Come back, please. I love you.

I love you too, she shouted out in her head. I love you, Arik. Can you hear me?

Obviously not. There was a pause. I’m coming for you, baby, he thought after a while. I’m going to find you no matter what, okay? Hang on. I’m coming for you.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

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