Sequel

I got part way through this and my headache started. Of course, Rel was going through a headache as well so I thought it was odd then said that he had a headache because I have a headache then I finished writing the bit (short that it is) and cursnortled at all of that all stuff that I never add on purpose but always makes it through anyhow.

I do hope you all enjoy this, and that you all can come to love Rel as much as you love Mik. Course it would do better if Rel was involved with the program, but we're getting there, we are.

Sorry about the short for this. As I said above, my head is killing me.

If, by magic, someone is reading this who hasn't read Partners, I'd suggest you go on over to Partners and start reading, as quite a bit of this makes so much more sense if you've read Partners.

Read, Review and Enjoy.




“I have teeth!” the Sidhe bent over and tapped at his perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth, something that might have been a grin tugging at its lips. His. His lips.

Rel sat on the edge of his seat and stared at the screen, shocked that the government would go to such lengths to cover up the program, only to lay it all out like that.

The camera immediately switched back to Ell and the woman’s face was a micro expression of horror. A flick back to Paw and the Sidhe…

The look on the creature’s face made the hairs on the back of Rel’s neck stand on end. Goosebumps spread across his body and for a moment sheer terror gripped at his stomach and tried to claw its way out of his throat.

All his months in prison, the beatings, the rapes, the fights and Rel had never been afraid. Yet here, this creature of myth and legend was causing such a gut wrenching reaction that Rel just wanted to bolt from the room.

The Sidhe was obviously intelligent. Checking its mouth in the camera? Adorable. Poking the chairs that he and the person, Mik, were sitting in? That had not been a flop down, a feeling of the fabric. The Sidhe had poked and prodded and very carefully checked for any kind of weapon or hidden item. Speaks better than most people, Mik had said. Intelligent, curious. Dangerous.

The camera just caught the edge of the motion that Mik made. A flick of the hand and the Sidhe went from dangerous to unhappy and slouching in its seat. As if. …

Rel had to think long and hard about it.

As if, to the normal view, it had been only a cramp in Paw’s backside that caused him to stiffen and then sink down. Suddenly bored with the interview, Paw stared off at nothing in particular.

Paw. As in. ‘Paw was here’? As in the scrawled lettering in one of the apartments that had been shown on the news months before? The Illuvan patience patter. The granite counter tops, the well groomed plants were all a Sidhe?

The ramifications. The meanings.

“Rel.”

“Gods,” Rel muttered, but stood and followed the guard out and to the visitor’s room. Across from Rahluen, as per usual, “what? Have they decided on an execution date?”

“It’s been put off yet again.”

“Damn it. You’re my lawyer, beat it out of them, damn it.”

“You and I have had this discussion before.”

The nightmares that were plaguing him were too much to take. Nothing like waking up screaming in the middle of the night to earn yourself the nickname of sissy from the other prisoners.

“You don’t know what it’s like in here,” was the only thing Rel could come up with for a response.

His head was throbbing. Between sitting in the activities room and there, he had managed to do something to make the whole right side of his head throb and ache and generally scream in pain. His attention shifted constantly, from Rahluen to the buzzing of the overhead lights to how noisy the PA system was outside the room.

“What you are experiencing is completely normal, Rel, the constant pushing of the execution date is a good thing, it means the court is reconsidering. We could still see you walking free.”

“Before, or after I get shanked again?” Rel muttered, pressing two fingers to each of his temples as he willed, desperately, for the pain to go away.

“I just need a little more time.”

“That is what you have been saying for the past six months,” Rel snapped at Rahluen, coming out of his chair to pace.

A moment later he realised the stupidity of such an action. The whole room spun around him. The floor threatened to jump up to meet him and his stomach was doing a funny sort of lurching thing. Rel moved back to the chair and leaned on the back of it, trying not to show just how much he hurt.

“Six months you’ve been talking about getting me out of here. If you hadn’t come in, I’d be out of here. One way or another. All you’ve done is put off the inevitable. We all die. So.” He lost his thought. Darkness swam at the edges of his vision. Rel blinked it away, “why the hell would you drag me through this…Hell? You either can. Or you can’t.”

“Rel…”

With every breath he took, his chest grew tighter. It was. Like. Bad. Medical. Something.

Rel motioned to his chest and breathed deeper. His head felt light, but there was still that pain up the right side and out the back of his head. Can’t feel pain for bits of him that didn’t exist. Because. It. Just didn’t exist. Why argue about it?

Rel found himself on his back, staring up at the lights. Like he had been half asleep and snapped out of it suddenly. Who had he been arguing with? Who had he been talking to? What. What delusion had his mind created for him?

He had only a moment to wonder these things as his body went into convulsions. Muscles that he had never felt before tensed and relaxed, only to tense once more. Lights flashed before his eyes, all the colours of the rainbow. He was dimly aware that somewhere he was being turned on his side, that vomit was being cleared out of his mouth. Blood pounded in his ears and his head threatened to explode.

Somewhere, like a person calling down a long tunnel, he heard his name being called. Back down that way. But flowing the other way. The other way was calm and peace and grass. Why grass, he didn’t know. He had never been that way before.

Or. No. He had.

When?

Rel moved towards the grass, reaching out to it and the dappling of sunlight across the peaceful little glade.

A hand grabbed hold of him by the back of his neck and pulled him away. He struggled and the hand tightened. A tch tch tch sound went off in his mind somewhere. It was supposed to be tsk tsk tsk.

Whatever.

Spun round and round, Rel tumbled down the tunnel. He heard the roaring of voices and the strange buzz of something high-pitched and demanding attention. The buzz was joined by the jolting sound of something that Rel found vaguely familiar and yet couldn’t quite say where he had heard it from.

Wait. Reality.

In the place called reality that first buzz was a heart monitor gone flatline. Someone was dying? Must have made it to the infirmary then. But the second buzz. That was the sound of the. The. Zapping things. The. The. What was it called?

The hand that had grabbed him reached out and shoved him roughly. He was slammed back into reality, body arched off of the gurney and everything protesting the act of living. His head hurt. Still. The heart monitor began its beep. Beep. Beep.

“He’s stable for the moment, get a drip into him, call the Tahluen immediately, where’s his lawyer. Where’s his god damned lawyer?” The doctor was shouting and walked away from the gurney.

Rel was alone with two guards. One on each side. Both seemed lifeless to him. Like empty bodies simply going through the motions, long abandoned by whomever had lived within them.

He didn’t feel good. And he tried to say as much. But it came out in a croak and he only succeeded in adding his throat to the long list of painful body parts.

What the hell had just happened?


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