Within a Forest Dark

I slept for a while after that, blessedly free of dreams after that one vivid memory of Louis. I don’t know how many days; whenever I woke it was dark outside. I took that as a sign that I shouldn’t be awake. In general I didn’t need a lot of sleep, but I healed faster when I slept, and unconsciousness seemed very inviting. I didn’t dream, and didn’t think, and didn’t move.

Santo came to tend to my wounds, once. He didn’t knock or speak to wake me. I was sleeping, my mind empty of fear or pain, and suddenly his hands were on me. I woke lanced with panic. I didn’t want him touching me. I didn’t want him near me. I flailed, trying to back away, even though every move hurt. My head pounded fiercely.

“Ssh,” he said, like I was a child. I spat at him, missing by a mile. He ignored it. “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s all right. Come on, there’s nowhere to go. Let me help you.” I hated it. I hated him. I was so damn frightened. I hated myself. And what I hated most of all, what really burned me up inside, was that it helped a little. I took a few long breaths. He was right. I had nowhere to go. God, I was so tired.

I lay there passively while he prodded at the cuts as though he would clean them, trying hard to keep my eyes open. Santo’s hands were very light on me, and he kept up his soothing murmur. If I wasn’t covered in evidence to the contrary, I could almost think he meant me no harm.

Yeah, right.

“I don’t need your help,” I said, my words slurring with sleep. I didn’t want him to see me like this, to touch me like this. I knew that I couldn’t stop him from doing what he wanted, especially now, when I was like this, but I wasn’t going to let it go. I wanted him away. I wanted everything away. “I can heal on my own.”

He looked at me for a moment very calmly, like I was a bug he found interesting. “There’s no risk of infection?”

I shook my head, too tired even to feel strange talking about my healing thing.

“I’ll leave you alone, then,” he said. I could hardly believe it. “I imagine you’ll want to rest. If you feel better, and would like to speak with me, tell Clara, and she will alert me.”

I nodded again, lying my head back down on the mattress, ready to go back to sleep. I didn’t want to deal with this now. Later I could plot and fight and struggle. But I was so tired, and everything hurt. Santo was still looking at me strangely. He stood up. I watched him warily, wanting him to leave so that I could sleep in peace.

He stretched his hand out to me suddenly, and I couldn’t even bring myself to bare my teeth or move away. My eyes felt so heavy. I closed them as he pushed a stray lock of hair away from my face, and when I opened them again he was gone. I slept.

I hadn’t been lying to Santo. My wounds closed in on themselves, fading first to welts and then to bruises and then to nothingness. My headache slowly melted away. I slept through most of it, waking only to see that nothing around me had changed. The sky outside was still dark, the room still empty, my body still healing. Everything around me was silent.

And then one day – or night, because the sky outside was still dark, always dark – I woke up without pain. I felt only the sluggish sleepiness that came right after I’d healed a great deal. My stomach rumbled and my throat felt dry. I smelled water. There was a pitcher and glass on the nightstand, and I helped myself. The water was cool, and I drank my fill. When my thirst had been abated, and there was only rumbling hunger to contend with, I turned on the lamp – there was a new lamp exactly the same as the old one, as though it had never been broken – and examined myself. My skin was the same as it always was, uninterrupted by any bruises, welts or scars, or even the freckles or moles or calluses everyone had somewhere on them. Nothing. It was as though that night had never existed.

“Are you awake, dear?”

“Clara?” My voice was rough with disuse, but not broken, the way it had been right after… the thing.

“I’m glad to see you up and about. You slept for quite some time, you know.”

“Where’s Santo?” I asked, even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.

“Working, I imagine. I will fetch him if you like.”

“No,” I said immediately. I would go to him when I was ready, but I needed to think a few things over first. I rolled out of bed, my limbs a little stiff from disuse. The armoire drawers held the same perfectly fitted clothes they had before, and I dressed myself. The last time I had dressed had been a relief. Now, it did nothing; I still felt naked, vulnerable. I sat down next to the drawers, trying to think. I was in deep shit, and there was only me to bail myself out.

Across the room, my reflection stared at me pityingly. I scowled. Not buying it. Clara could call me “dear” and make cow eyes at me all she liked, but she was as in on this plan as Santo was. She hadn’t helped me, and she couldn’t be trusted.

I needed time to think. I had avoided thinking about anything while I was sleeping, but I couldn’t hide from this anymore. Who knew how long I had until Santo came for me again, cruel and relentless? The thought of it made me shudder.

“Bello, dear,” Clara began, but I didn’t want to listen. I didn’t want my own reflection – my damn crazy, female, spying reflection – watching me while I figured out what to do. I went to the bathroom, and my own eyes watched me go silently.

The bathroom was pristine again. No sign that I had bled all over everywhere, and cried like a goddamn kid. I hated that Santo had seen that. I hated him. My hatred burned inside me like hunger. I wanted to hurt him. But that was as distracting as wanting to sleep. I put the lid down and sat on the toilet, stared at the immaculate white tiles of the floor, and considered what had happened so far.

Fucking Hans. He’d started all of this. It had been such an easy kill. Hans had liked pretty men, and I had fit the bill perfectly. He had been hooked as soon as he smelled me, and done for as soon as he’d bit me.

And now he’d come back to bite me again, right in the ass, because apparently the dumbest vamp there was had been friends with one of the most powerful. How had I not known about Benedict, or any of the older set? Or had I just not realized? Had they just been letting me run around all these years and not cared?

I realized I was gritting my teeth and forced myself to relax.

Benedict and Hans had been pals, and when I had offed Hans it had been at Benedict’s request that Santo had agreed to hunt me down. That meant Santo either owed Benedict something or wanted something from him, because they didn’t seem to be friends. That should have worked in my favor – enemy of my enemy and all that – but Santo wasn’t looking for any sort of team up against the blood sucking freak, because he’d found a better freak instead: me. He had some sort of weird transformation curse going on, and I was a renewable virgin sacrifice.

Well, okay, not quite virgin.

But this curse thing of Santo’s. I had no idea what it could be. As far as I had known, there were vampires and humans and that was it. My healing thing was just a thing. It had always just been something I could do, that came in handy, like a natural affinity for knives or something like that. But Santo… Santo was different. Santo wasn’t human, even when he wasn’t that monster. Christ, I knew so little about him. I didn’t even know what he was. “Call me Santo,” he had said, the memory of his voice in my ear very clear through the haziness of my memories of that night. Was that even his name? Had he done all that to me without me even knowing his damn name? When he knew my name? And it was my actual name, too, not one of my many aliases. How the hell had he learned that? Only Louis and Collins called me that. Had that lying slut talked to Santo, too?

Collins had said two big guys had come to talk to him. Santo must have hired them. I hoped Collins had told them my name. They were probably the ones who told Collins the address where Santo was waiting for me. He’d waited for me with poison, just to see if I could make it. Fucker. I hated him. I wanted him dead. Let him crawl through the city abandoned and wounded and worn out, just to fall into the arms of a man who wanted to kill him. Until he proved interesting, or useful, or prettier than he’d expected.

I took a few breaths. I wasn’t going to let the anger distract me. I was better than this. I was a hunter.

Santo knew my connection to Collins, which wasn’t a secret. Neither was my capture by Lupos. But my name, that was something few people knew. Collins or Louis. If it was Collins, then he didn’t know that much. If it was Louis, then who knew what Santo had found out?

Thinking of Louis reminded me of the dream, the one dream I’d had unless you counted this nightmare. It had seemed so real. Memories were fuzzy things, and dreams of memories even fuzzier. But the dream had been perfect, every detail recalled, down to the little noises Louis made between curses as I’d fucked him. Another goddamn riddle.

If this had been a case I wouldn’t have touched it with a ten foot pole. There were too many unknowns. Who was Santo? What was he? How much did he know about me, and how had he found it out? What was his relationship with the vamps? And who were the vamps anyway, the old set that that in years of vamp-hunting had never even been a blip on my radar?

I’d had such a good thing going. I’d had a dirty job, but damn had I been good at it, and between hunting highs I’d fucked the hottest man I’d ever met until he shouted my name. Nobody had asked any stupid questions about my healing thing, and I didn’t have to worry about anybody except myself. I’d had a reputation to match my skill, and a decent set of contacts. I knew the rules of every engagement. And now everything had been shot to shit.

And there was still that other thing.

I hadn’t come into the hunting business to save lives. I didn’t give a shit about other people. I’d come into the business because I hated vamps. I had been good at killing them from the get go, in ways the vamps never even suspected. I had hardly been a hero.

But still.

It had been horrible, that thing Santo had done to me. And I would know. I’d gotten myself into some deep shit while hunting vamps, and just finished a stint in their care more than a week long. I knew about pain, and torture, and Santo was the worst I’d ever felt. If those awful claws and eyes and that – the thing had been the last thing I’d felt… I wondered if the others had died quicker, or passed out, because they didn’t heal like me. Maybe it hadn’t been as bad for them.

But still.

This wasn’t my problem. It wasn’t my curse. Santo had killed all those people – how many had there been, anyway? – and it wasn’t my job to save them.

I didn’t want to deal with this shit. I didn’t want to be here at all. I wanted my life back. I wanted to go back to my apartment and fuck Louis until we both passed out. But I’d tried running away, and it hadn’t worked out. I had to face this. It was simple, really. I had to figure out what the hell was going on, and then I had to beat it. Same as always.

And I had to do it on a deadline. I couldn’t face that again. The pain, the helplessness – it was even worse afterwards, suffering and delirious for days afterwards. I couldn’t do it.

I stood up. Focus. I had to focus. I couldn’t let Santo get to me. I had to keep my temper, otherwise I would never get to the bottom of this.

“Clara,” I said as I stepped into the room. I went over to the mirror so I could face her, even if it meant looking at my reflection doing things I would never do.

“Are you feeling better, dear?” she asked.

I nodded. “I want you to – would you fetch Santo, please?”

She seemed to perk up at that. “Of course, dear.” And then she left the frame, and suddenly my reflection was staring back at me exactly as I stared at it. It was extremely disconcerting, and I told myself that next time I wouldn’t watch as Clara left the mirror.

Next time? I couldn’t afford to think like that, like I was going to stay here for any length of time. I was on a job. I wasn’t… living here.

I took advantage of Clara’s absence to give myself a good once over in the mirror. I was the picture of health, as always. My hair was rumpled from lying around in bed for so long, but its curliness hid a lot of that. Other than that… I stared at myself and wondered if the fear on my face was as obvious to everyone else as it was to me.

“Don’t worry, you are as beautiful as ever,” came the voice to my right, and I flinched before I could stop myself. Santo was standing at the entrance to the room, although he was inside it, the door still closed behind him. How could he be that fast and quiet? It was impossible unless he was...

“That’s impossible,” I said without thinking. He couldn’t have actually… teleported.

“Nonsense,” he said, and I realized he had misunderstood. “You’ve healed wonderfully. One would never know anything had happened.”

“But *I* know.” I stood rigidly straight as he came toward me, staring at me like I was something he was considering buying.

“Yes.” He looked me in the eye, at least. “More than I do, I warrant.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that, so I didn’t say anything.

“I don’t remember it very clearly,” he clarified. He spoke hesitantly, like he didn’t want to tell me but felt the need to anyway. He was guilty, I realized. “Snips of things, mostly, sounds and smells and the like.”

The smell of my blood and the sound of my shrieking and – “Aren’t you the lucky one,” I said calmly. Focus on the guilt. The guilt was good. I could use it.

“The next time will be better,” he said after a moment. “The last attack came rather suddenly, but there’s no need for you to suffer so in the future.”

I wanted to shout that there wouldn’t *be* a next time, not *ever*, but I stopped myself. Focus. I needed to focus. I could do this. He felt guilty, and that was my chance. “What do you mean?”

“You’ll find out in time,” he said evasively. “Are you hungry? I would enjoy another meal with you, although I would appreciate it if you did not repeat your trick with the fork.” He opened the door and held it for me, like I was a goddamn lady. I glared at him but went through it.

“Dinner would be good.” I considered my next words. Verbal manipulation wasn’t my thing. I could lure a vamp in, sure, but they were usually so busy drooling over the scent of my blood I could have told them I was the queen of England and they wouldn’t have blinked. I was more of a confrontation person. Actually, maybe that was the key. I stopped him, took hold of his arm, looked him in the eye, and tried to sound earnest. “Look, I need you to talk to me. I won’t do anything with the fork – or anything like the fork thing, I mean, but you can’t keep me in the dark.” Which was ironic as hell, because this place was filled with darkness. “You’ve kidnapped me and – and hurt me, and I deserve a better explanation… Please.” It was easier than I would have liked to sound pleading rather than demanding. I hoped like hell it would work, because if not then I’d given up my dignity for nothing.

He looked guiltier, at least. “Come eat with me. I can give you a more thorough explanation this time. Last time I was… distracted.”

It was a small victory, since he’d promised me answers before and had given none, but I felt better anyway. It was a step in the right direction. I followed him again, resisting the flip the bird at the lady in the portrait. The hallway was still as creepy as other. Everything was so deathly quiet, nothing like the city I’d spent my life in.

“I would like something from you in return for the information,” Santo said suddenly.

“Are you kidding me?” He had taken so much already. Where did he get off demanding more? And why now? He hadn’t mentioned any negotiations like this before.

“Nothing too taxing, I assure you. But I imagine many of your questions are about my abilities and situation, and I have similar ones about yours.”

“You mean all your snooping hasn’t told you everything you wanted to know?” It sounded more waspish than I’d meant, and I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from swearing at him. Diplomacy, I reminded myself. Focus.

He smiled at me. “Touché. I must admit the little scene with Monsieur Thiebeaux was quite pleasurable – he is quite the saucy Frenchman, isn’t he – but you were remarkably well protected for an unconscious person.”

“What?” He’d lost me, as much as I hated to admit it.

He looked back at me, still smiling, and then he saw my expression. “You did bring it up, Bello.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

He stopped too, and frowned, and on him the expression was formidable. “Don’t play the fool with me. Surely you know.”

My mind raced, but came up blank. “Just tell me what you mean, ass— Just explain. I don’t— I don’t know.” The words were painful to say, but knowledge was more important. Knowledge was everything.

He looked incredulous. It was a funny expression on him, with those big yellow eyes of his. “Surely you understood. You were so beautifully guarded. If I hadn’t been in such a state I would have stopped to appreciate it further. I assumed it was all that experience with the vampires.”

“You mean when I fought you – tried to fight you off?” Fuck, I was practically choking on the words. And what did he mean, anyway? I hadn’t told him anything when he did that to me, and sure as fuck not about Louis. Did he mean before?

Santo looked at me strangely. “How do you think the vampires communicate?” he asked slowly.

I shrugged, thrown off by the non sequitur. “Talking?” Sure, they had freaky teeth, but they could still talk.

He blinked. He had tremendously long eyelashes, I noticed for no reason. “They can read each other’s minds. Only the old ones bother talking to each other. How did you not know that?”

“What? What do you mean – what? That’s insane.” But it was no more insane than vamps themselves, than all this crazy shit that was happening to me. And the vamps didn’t talk to each other, just used that infernal hissing. I had always thought it strange. But still… mind reading? It was too weird.

Santo laughed. “The only insanity is that you could hunt them for so long and not know about it. How long have you been doing this, anyway? If I had to guess I’d place you in your twenties, but I imagine your regenerative skills would decrease signs of aging.”

“I don’t… wait. You… read my mind?” The idea was too impossible to contemplate. I felt like laughing. It was ridiculous. He couldn’t have read my mind. I would have known, first of all. I would have noticed.

The dream.

Oh god, the dream with Louis.

Crazy as it was, it made perfect sense. It had been an exact recall, and I hadn’t dreamed afterwards, not anything I remembered, and certainly not anything like that. Oh god. Santo had seen that. No one knew about Louis. Had he seen anything else? Would he look again? How could I fight him if he could invade my fucking mind—

“Whoa, calm down. Easy. Breathe easy,” Santo said, like I was a fucking horse or something. But he was right, goddammit. I was gasping, bent over, and I hadn’t even realized. I took a deep shuddering breath, and then jerked away pathetically when Santo tried to touch me. “Don’t touch me,” I warned, even though I knew I couldn’t stop him if he wanted to. He’d made that abundantly clear. For Chrissake, I couldn’t even keep him out of my goddamn head. He was going to keep me here, hurting me and reading my thoughts and I hadn’t been able to stop him. I hadn’t been able to do a goddamn thing.

He didn’t come near me, but I was still frozen. “I can see you’re upset. I assure you I would have tried to tell you more… diplomatically if I had known you were unaware of mind reading techniques.”

“You raped my mind.” My voice was pathetically hoarse. The memory of me and Louis kept playing out before me. It had been nothing, what Louis and I had done. It hadn’t meant anything. But it was private. It was mine. Louis was a goddamn traitorous bastard but the memory had been *mine,* dammit, and now it was his too, along with every other memory I’d ever had, if he wanted them.

“Let’s go get you something to eat,” Santo said, his voice gentle and warm. I heard it only distantly. I felt like I was in shock. He’d raped my mind. Stolen my thoughts. And the vamps could do it too. All those years and I had never fucking known. Had they done it to me? Had they seen my fucking thoughts without me even realizing? At least they were dead. But Santo wasn’t. Not at all. Christ, he’d probably do it again if he got half a chance. And there was nothing I could do. I’d tried so damn hard, with everything I had, and there had been nothing I could do.

“I’m not hungry.” My voice sounded far away to me. My appetite had gone. How could I eat with him looking at me?

“Don’t be silly. I know this may be a shock, but you haven’t eaten in days, and you’ve expended a great deal of energy healing yourself. Come on.” He walked forward a little and then turned, waiting for me to follow.

Fuck him. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. Or if I had to be, I wanted to kill him. I clenched my fists, half in fear and half in anger, and hated him and hated myself. Focus. This was about focus. I had already learned something. I couldn’t give up now, even though all I wanted was to go back to the room and escape into sleep, or run screaming at Santo and tear out his heart with my bare hands. But I couldn’t afford to. I wouldn’t be defeated. I wouldn’t waste any more time. “All right.”

We walked in silence. Then I said, “Why did you take that memory?”

He looked at me and then away again. “I admit I was in a rather carnal state of mind. It suited my needs.” And didn’t that just tell me fuck all.

We didn’t go to the dining hall again. Instead he took me down a magnificent flight of marble stairs, through a wide, beautiful hall, and into an astonishingly large room with an entire wall filled with windows. A moonlit meadow stretched out beyond the glass, and the forest stood forbiddingly beyond it.

“This is one of my favorite places to take tea,” Santo said, and chose a chair near the windows. I took one near him, and looked outside. The glass was tempting. If I just got through the glass and across the meadow, I could lose him in the trees…

“The glass won’t break, and I’d advise you not to try.” Santo’s dry voice brought my attention back to him. “I’m afraid I won’t tolerate any attempts at escape, although I’ve heard you’re quite talented at it.”

That was for shit sure. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d been surrounded by vamps only to get away unscathed. Before Lupos, of course. Before Louis’s set up. Before this.

“That information is free,” Santo said, and then turned as a tray, like the one that had served us before, rolled up. Could it talk too, like Clara? He took out plates of food and set them on a little table between us. All finger food, I noticed, and no utensils this time. I tried to make myself eat, since I knew I needed it even if I didn’t feel hungry.

“I will also tell you that you have free reign of the house. I have told the hallways to let you wander where you please. If you need a guide, Clara will be happy to accompany you – there are mirrors everywhere, and you’ll find them all helpful.” I didn’t really get that, but filed it away anyway. Any information was good.

“I’m sure you’ll find plenty to entertain yourself with. I have few modern amusements, I’m afraid, as I find them dull, but there are numerous rooms for you to explore, as well as an extensive library. And the gardens, of course. If I thought you wouldn’t run away I would let you peruse the grounds as well, but for that we shall have to see.”

That was good to know. If he didn’t want me in the gardens, it meant they presented a viable way to escape. If worst came to worst, I could gain his trust enough to let me into the gardens. It was definitely a worst case scenario, since it meant staying here for a while, lying well enough to prove my trustworthiness, and leaving things untied while I tried to return to the city, but it was better than nothing. Better than having no plan at all other than to face what was coming.

But I was doing it. I was facing this.

“You may also not go to my private wing. I conduct business there that you may learn of later, but I expect privacy in the meantime.”

“What kind of business?”

He arched an eyebrow. “That information is not free.”

“I could find out on my own,” I countered. Breaking and entering was a tool of the trade.

“Maybe. It would come at a much greater cost than what I’m asking for now. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll tell you in return. No one has to go snooping around anywhere, and no one has to invade the other’s thoughts either.”

Bastard. Bastard bastard bastard. I was so stupid to have broken down like that. Now he was using it against me. So much for using his guilt against him. “What do you want to know?”

“You age, to begin with.”

That wasn’t such a bad thing. But I wasn’t giving in easy. “I want to know what you are, first. And why you are… what you are. And I want you to tell me in full detail, none of this vague shit you’ve given me so far.”

He looked wary. “That’s a lot of explanation required. I’d like to know your full name and background, for that. In full detail.”

No. I never talked about that with anyone. Ever. I couldn’t do it. But I had to. It was the best way to get what I wanted. I needed to figure out what was going on before I could do anything about it. Before he took what he wanted from my head, anyway.

And he would be dead soon, anyway. I’d talk to him, and I’d learn about him, and then I’d kill him. This was just a means to an end. It didn’t mean anything. “You first.”

“No, I don’t think so.” He was so aggravatingly calm, so in control.

“Yes. You’re the kidnapping rapist bastard here, not me. You’re the untrustworthy one. You’re the fucking asshole who ripped my thoughts out of my head and promised me answers and didn’t give me anything but—”

“I’m human. Or I was, once.”

I stopped. I didn’t believe he was human, but I was getting somewhere. “Twenty two.”

“So young? How many vampires have you killed?”

I shrugged. “I’ve no idea. What happened to you to make you like this?” I gestured at his face vaguely.

“That’s no answer. But then, I’ve told you the answer to your own question before. The changes in me are a price for the things I do.”

“Things like what?”

“Teleportation, like you’ve seen. Strength, acute senses, mind reading. I can travel to multiple planes, treat with creatures you’ve never dreamed of. I can manipulate matter in certain ways, heal myself and others – with some effort, obviously, nothing like your own talent. There are many things. I am a student of the arts.”

“What does that mean? ‘Student of the arts?’” My mind was reeling too much to cover my confusion. Multiple *planes*? Other *creatures?* He had to be fucking with me.

“I believe the common term is ‘sorcerer.’ I much prefer it to ‘wizard,’ at any rate,” Santo replied with studied calmness.

He had to be joking. Another sick fucking joke in a long line of sick fucking jokes. Did he think I was that fucked in the head? That he’d done this to me and now I’d believe whatever he told me? It was bullshit. This whole thing was bullshit.

I sprang away before I even realized what I was doing, and the expensive chair crashed to the floor. I wasn’t going to stay here and let Santo fuck with my head. I –

Santo pounced on me, faster than I’d thought possible. He was just suddenly there, on top of me, bearing me down to the floor. The scent of him surrounded me, his thick black hair hanging down in my face. My heart jumped in my throat. I lashed out blindly, panicking, desperate to hurt him, to get away, to make him go away. “It’s not true. It’s bullshit. It’s not true. You’re crazy. Fuck you. It’s not true. It’s not it’s not it’s not…”

Eventually I realized Santo wasn’t moving. He was just sitting on my chest, making it hard to breathe, waiting for me to stop. I stilled. “Let me up.”

He stared at me a moment more, his gaze hooded and piercing as he loomed over me, and then moved to the side. I was more relieved than I cared to admit, and sat up. “You’re lying.” He had to be.

Santo didn’t say anything.

“You think you’re some hotshot because you’re so damn big, but I’m not some idiot who’ll believe whatever you tell me just ‘cause you – just ‘cause. You can’t teleport, you can’t read minds, and you’re not a fucking *sorcerer.*” The words felt like poison on my tongue. But fuck, I wanted it to be true. He was just ugly. He was just an ugly man who’d done an ugly thing to me, and I could kill him and leave. He wasn’t a monster, a man who could do *magic,* who’d trapped me in this dark awful house to – to…

“Louis liked to watch the movement of your throat,” Santo said low. I looked at him sharply. Louis? Before it had been Mr. Thiebeaux. “You made him beg when you fucked him. In English and in French. You loved it, didn’t you, you lov—”

I leapt on him in a wordless shout, and he smacked me down like a lion, with a great big swipe. My head hit the floor hard and I was dazed long enough for him to flip me over. He yanked my arms up behind me, hard enough to sting, and then suddenly he was tying them with something. Rope? Maybe, but less scratchy. Something light. Where had that come from?

I realized suddenly how helpless I was, and adrenaline poured through me. I couldn’t be tied up. I had to get free. “Let me go!” I tried to buck up, to roll away, to kick or bite or do anything that would let me get away.

“Breathe, Bello. You have to breathe.” Having tied my hands behind me, Santo had trapped my legs with his, had one arm pressed between my shoulder blades, and was fucking *stroking* me on my shoulder with the other.

“Don’t touch me,” I rasped. “Don’t touch me, you sick fucking alien freak.” I nearly scream with frustration. I sounded so pathetic, so weak.

I heard him mutter something unintelligible. Then he said, “I’m not going to hurt you, and I’m not going to stop until you calm down. Now stop behaving like a child and we will discuss this like adults.”

I panted and cursed him, trying to figure out the weak spots in his hold, to shift his balance so that I could get up.

“You know,” Santo said thoughtfully. “I’ll give you a choice.”

And that makes me still, because it takes effort to twist my head around and glare at him. “Fuck. You.”

Santo acted like he hadn’t heard me. “You can tell me what I’d like to know, since I’ve answered your question about my identity. Or you can give me something else.”

“Like what?”

And then the hand that was petting me like I was a scared puppy moved down to my ass. “This.”

For a moment I was frozen, icy cold and hot at the same time. I knew I should move, should fight, should do something – anything – but fear was like poison in my limbs. “No.”

He stroked my ass lightly. “Don’t be so hasty. I guarantee you’d enjoy it a great deal more than our previous encounter. It would be a small price for information, you must agree.”

“No,” I breathed. Anything was better than that. I forced the words out: “What do you want to know?”

“I told you what you wanted to know. I am a human cursed with physical abnormality, and I have listed the arts I’ve acquired by sorcery. And now you will tell me what you are, and how you came to be it.”

“Let me up, first.”

“Idiot. So unappreciative.” I heard irritation enter his tone. “I’m of half a mind to simply take what I want and get the information straight from the source.” He jabbed at my head a bit to drive the point home.

“No. No, no, wait.” I was trapped. No, I was fucked. I couldn’t afford to make him give up the negotiation. And he’d kept up his side of the bargain so far, more or less. I had information. I knew what I was dealing with. Well, no, I still had no fucking clue how to deal with this craziness, but at least I had a name for it. This was worth it. I couldn’t give this up. “I’m human, too.”

His hand on me stilled, although he didn’t let me up or move to untie my hands. “What about your healing ability?”

“What about it? I’ve always healed like this. It’s just… a thing I can do.” The words sounded so pathetic out loud, like when you finally talked about a nightmare that had frightened you to tears and realized it didn’t even make sense.

“You’re lying. Don’t think I will hesitate to punish you for it.”

“No!” I swallowed, trying to get rid of the panic in my voice. “Really. I know it sounds stupid. But I don’t think about it much. I never talked about it with anyone.”

“Not even your family?”

I snorted. “Of course not.”

“What of your family, then? I could find no records of them.”

I tensed. “You didn’t tell me anything about your family.”

Santo was quiet a moment. “You’ve never done anything to improve or explore your abilities?”

I answered him without thinking, relieved that he hadn’t pressed the family thing. “What? No. What would I do about it? I’ve always just done it. It’s just a thing.” When had I lost control of the information I gave?

“Yes, so you’ve said. But would you like to?”

“Like to what?”

“Know what you are. Understand what you can do. Explore your potential. You could have everything. Haven’t you ever been curious?”

I looked at him again. His weird eyes seemed less human than ever. He looked like a cat with a toy. “What more do I need?”

He smiled at that, his strange mood broken. “Unbelievable,” he said, shaking his head as he let me up. I clambered to my knees awkwardly. “You were really happy living like that, killing and fucking in the darkness?”

A million retorts sprung to mind, but died just as suddenly. “It wasn’t like that,” I said quietly.

He gave me another weird look, and then took my arm and helped me to my feet. “Perhaps I was mistaken.” He snapped his fingers, and my hands were free. I turned, and the rope was gone. Poof. Like motherfucking magic. I could tell Santo was smirking at me. “Here, why don’t you finish your food?”

I stood warily and rubbed my wrists. “I ate already.” I had eaten about a third of what he had given me, and was too shaken up to eat any more. My heart was still hammering in my chest.

“I’ll continue with the tour, then. Come along.” He gestured for me to follow and then walked off, the shadows pulling at him.

I took one last look at the expansive windows, with the open meadow and forest beyond. Freedom.

I turned and followed Santo into the darkness.