Post by silent.lullaby on Jul 29, 2010 15:44:26 GMT -5
Dusk .::Chapter 20::. Playthings
Blood.
Hearts beating.
Pain.
Bright lights.
Voices.
“Don’t worry about it, I got this.”
“You better be careful with my granddaughter Maverick or I’ll see to it that death befalls you.”
“You’re the one who sent her down here, and for a month, she is mine. These are your rules... Elder Balisa. So deal with them.”
“Balisa,” word dry, coughing... blood? My blood? I lick it from my hand. Teeth slash though. Hungry, so much pain. “Balisa.” whispered word. Scarlet’s last name. “H-help?” bars. Reach.
“Apparently I have more work to do, so how about you get to the tribunal you’re late for Elder Balisa, and I’ll do my work here in the basement, the work you hired me, and taught me how to do.”
Ding.
Elevator?
Man.
Key.
Door... open?
***
“Is your thought process returning to you Aerabella Lithe Willams?” Maverick asked kindly, but noticed Aerabella instinctively shrunk away. “Did you really say the elder’s last name? Didn’t think you had enough blood in your system to let your brain know anything but pain. Hmm.” He hummed as he untangled more chains. “I don’t know if you know, but we don’t need air.” Maverick picked up the throat lock and held the weight in his hands. “But we crave it, our lungs still desire it despite our bodies not really needing it anymore.”
He sat down beside her body, laying on the cold floor, he thought she was a pretty little thing. Resilient, a beautiful trait. “Like, if we are drowning, we panic. We believe we’re going to die. Evolution really failed us there. We’re scared to be with out air, it pains our lungs, and yet we don’t need it.” Maverick shook his head as he fastened the heavy metal lock around her slender neck. “Or say... if we’re hanging.” He grinned as he stood, he could see it... in her eyes, she understood. Her body was quick to begin disposing of the venom, faster than the Balisa girl. Despite her only being down in the basement for a night, he found her to be a new challenge.
And he loved a challenge.
Gripping the wheel and turning it slowly the chain creaked and begun dragging the petite girl by her neck. “You’re my new favourite plaything Aerabella.” Maverick whispered with deep eyes filled with a cruel twist on childish wonder.
***
Arms.
Neck.
Choking.
Chain pulling.
Move! Move!
Arms move up, hands grab metal around neck.
Break it!
Weak.
So weak.
***
Maverick couldn’t help the delighted laugh that escaped him. “Oh you’re moving, even trying to break the lock! How wondrous.” Her body sat below the pulley that was attached to the chain and wheel. He slowly turned the wheel the chain wrapping and pulling her up another inch. Her feet tried to move, but still to weak. “Moving... your legs, with that much venom.”
He gave the wheel a good crank and she caught herself onto her feet, wobbly, her knees knocking together in their fight to stay standing while her hands desperately pried. “Trying to get away?” He asked walking around to face her. “How insulting.” He shook his head, “you’ve still got most of two days for us to play, don’t start to be a spoilt sport!”
He walked back to the wheel and turned it, her feet managing to stay on the ground, only by her tiptoes and he could hear her choking. He stared at the panic in her eyes. “Don’t worry little Bella, you don’t need air, remember.”
***
“In the basement?” Tobias was furious, and Michael himself was trying to stay calm. He could smell blood, that of his daughter, Angelique. Her teeth had slashed through, and Vivian was trying to comfort their youngest.
“Calm down Toby, two more days and she will be released.”
“I’ve heard stuff about the basement,” Angelique said, barely more than a whisper, “horrible, horrible things.”
“She didn’t do anything,” Tobias shook with his anger and went to hit a vase when Vivian’s arm caught his.
“Don’t you even think about hitting my vase, I just got it sent here from Egypt and it cost nearly as much as this house.” Vivian was a pretty woman, a graceful vampire, but god help anyone who messed with her house, or her family. “I’m just as mad about this as you Tobias, but that does not give you the right to start breaking things.”
Tobias’s teeth had slashed through the second his mother had stopped him, but after listening to her painfully calm voice he made no effort to break the vase, or rip his arm from his mother’s grasp. She stood, not letting go of him, and pulled him into a hug before he could get away. “Isn’t there something we can do?” He asked.
“We must wait. We have to wait,” she responded in a soothing voice that made him want to weep like a child.
***
“What are you doing here?” Zakia asked of Jacques who had appeared on her doorstep at three in the morning. “It’s late.”
“I’m aware,” he responded quietly, he had called her cell phone and told her to meet him at her back door. Didn’t want to wake the parents.
“Well?” she asked keeping the forest green silk house coat pulled tightly around her body. “What is it?”
He was dressed in a black form fitting t-shirt and light washed jeans. His hair was devilish and he seemed to be shaking a little. “I heard a rumour, I wanted to know if it was true.”
She raised an sculpted eyebrow at him. “Which one, there are millions going around the school right now, and why couldn’t this have waited till morning?”
“I heard Scarlet and Aerabella have both been sentenced to basement time.”
Zakia shook her head, and Jacques could clearly see fear written on her face. “The... basement? Are you sure you heard right?”
“Scarlet for her thing with Ethan, and Aerabella for...” Jacques shrugged, “I don’t know why. I thought you would have heard, you’re close with both of th-“ Zakia grabbed his arm and begun pulling him through the large home and up the stairs. “What are we doing?” She pulled him into her room and she grabbed her cell phone. “Marlowe may have heard something.” She dialled the number and watched as Jacques looked around her room.
“Marie? It’s Zakia, have you heard anything about...” Jacques sat on the bed beside Zakia and pressed the side of his head to hers the phone between them so he could hear what she was saying. All he could hear though was crying. “Marlowe, what happened?”
“They’re in the basement. I heard... heard Aerabella will be out in two days, but Scarlet will be there for a month!” they could hear Marlowe’s shaky breath, “my... my dad... he was sentenced to the basement once... when he was young... won’t speak of it, you talk about a basement... freaks right out. I’m scared for them Zakia.”
“Me too,” Zakia agreed. “Do you need me?” she asked.
“No, I’m okay...”
“Faust’s there?”
She could hear the sad smile in her voice, “yeah.”
“Call me if you need me.”
“Will do.”
Zakia hung up the phone and stared at it a minute before placing it on her night stand. “You alright?” Jacques asked.
“No,” she responded after a moment.
“It’s okay to cry you know,” he whispered gently pushing back a dark curl from her face.
She shook her head, “tears are useless.”
He put his arms gently around her and she fell with him to the bed, he held her and after a moment of silence in the darkness he felt her body shake with sobs. He held her close and whispered comforts to her while stroking her hair, “They’ll be alright.”
***
Hayden had nearly fallen asleep on the floor when he heard scratching at the back door. He stood, Harmony shifted in her sleep on the couch, both of them still in wolf form. He trotted to the back door and seen two familiar wolves, his mother and father. He got up on his hind legs and tried to open the door with his paws, and found it was more difficult than it looked. His father barked at him and he shifted back quicker this time with out having to shift with his sister.
Naked he opened the door for his parents in wolf form, and noticed the blood matting on his mother’s fur. She trotted off and laid in the livingroom by Harmony. “What the hell was all this dad?” Hayden asked.