CHAPTER TWO

Saved from Solitude

The basement office's only windows sat at the top of one of its concrete walls. Grates barred the glass but allowed enough daylight to stave off cabin fever, though that was of no consequence; he was comfortable in his own company. He couldn't deny that he sometimes got lonely, but the occasions were so rare that they weren't noteworthy. He simply wasn't sociable enough to rectify it. Besides, he kept himself busy with his one true passion: work.

These days, he greeted the chill that came with complete isolation as an old friend. That day was no different. He was too consumed with paperwork to crave company. He hadn't even noticed the time, yet he'd been awake for forty-odd hours. Work was only interrupted for moments of contemplation, cigarette breaks, and to refill the jug of water he kept on the corner of his desk. Without tearing his eyes from his laptop's screen, he attempted to pour himself a fresh glass. He would listen to how the water trickled up the musical scale towards fullness, but when the final high notes never arrived, he glared at the empty jug in his hand, disappointed—his glass was half full.

"Perhaps it's time for whiskey instead, then," he grumbled, checking his wristwatch. Nearly eight P.M. was an acceptable time to start drinking the evening away.

As the brown liquor sang its way into the rock glass, he pondered whether he ought to be concerned about his talking to himself becoming a more regular habit.

"Maybe it's madness? Perhaps I'm finally 'old' and gone senile?" He took a swig of his liquor.

"Maybe I should get a dog? At least then, I'd have something to talk to." Aloud thoughts continued to stream past his lips.

Sucking his teeth, he replied, "No, I suppose you're right. It'd just be something else to look after."

His dark eyes surveyed the confined office of his living quarters. The small room was just the tip of the iceberg compared to the vast Compound beyond. As the facilities Overseer, he looked after a great deal of things already without complicating his life with daydreams of companionship. For one, the welfare of all its many residents and accompanying politics, and two, the management of the ground's maintenance and logistics. Both were mammoth tasks that left him barely any time left on the clock to run his private company, REDford.

The Compound was the last bid to save Vampires from slaughter by their current adversary: Mortals, a species by whom they were vastly outnumbered. After centuries of prevailing traditional predator/prey relations, the tables had turned—the mouse had finally bared its teeth to the cat.

Vampires had once confidently infiltrated every sector of the Mortal world, but since the Mortal-Mythical-World War, which had raged since 2008, all Vampires that'd been in positions of influence had been strategically weeded out and eliminated. From politicians, military personnel, corporate businesspeople, and on down the economic chain, every 'threat' had been neutralised by genocide.

The generous sum of money he'd invested into the International Vampiric Government's 'compassionate' scheme had brought him his position. Still, the deal he'd struck with the IVG to oversee the project felt like he'd bargained away a piece of his soul. Money aside, though, as his race's staple food provider, he was an extremely valuable asset to the Coven. If he failed, he'd end up with a lot of blood on his hands, and although that prospect sounded ironically delicious, he wanted the haven to prosper because, behind the scenes, the stakes were much higher. He was the keeper of a secret.

His mentor was the only other person to be privy to the reason he'd wanted sole control over the Compound. He wasn't running the Compound project as racially exclusive as his coven leader or council elders would've liked. If his deception were discovered, he'd undoubtedly be handed a death sentence. However, with the council's eyes focused elsewhere and their trust in him greater than ever, they hadn't sent anyone other than Magnus Va Rossa to conduct their audits. With Magnus in on the deal, all they had to do was keep their story straight and their reports tidy.

He clicked his laptop closed as the clock struck quarter past. Gathering stray charts and reports from around his desk, he tapped them into a tidy pile to begin the day's final task—filing away copious amounts of paperwork.

Before collecting his beverage and leaving his office, the very last thing he did was slip a folder labelled 'South East Watchtower: Patrol Reports' into a filing cabinet.

✷✷✷

"He's jus' bitter cuz he ain't the top dog 'ere like he was back home, d'ya know whadda mean?" One said to the other, some brawny skinhead covered in tattoos with an attitude almost as colossal as he was.

"Nah, I don't see it! Nate isn't that kinda guy. Besides, I bet he'd still win in a fight against Apollo." A Demonic Kin named Kenichi sniggered. He was shuffling a deck of cards one last time before dealing another hand to the table's four occupants. They were sitting in the South East watchtower, gambling away what little money they had.

An Elemental, the weedier of the bunch, scowled and threw his hand into the centre of the table; it was another bust. "Betting on a fight between those two sounds like a better way to win money than playing this lousy game with you punks."

"Yeah, if only Apollo wasn't just another ex-marine with a chip on his shoulder!" The first brutish guy sneered and rolled his eyes.

"He's a Onexus! 'Least he can grow it back!" Kenichi joked at the expense of a race best known for their ability to regenerate their bone matter, some even to the extent of forming solid calcium daggers from their joints—a useful attribute in combat in Apollo's case.

They all laughed raucously, but that was quickly interrupted. Over the space heater's buzzing and the static perverted radio music, a perimeter alarm sounded. It happened once or twice daily, and the frequency only amplified the monotony of the patrols, especially in such a cold climate.

"Hey ladies, knitting circle's over. It's show-time." Nate, a Lycan and the topic of their gossip barked through the door on his way to the Compound wall's South East gate. They'd have to go beyond to see what had set off the alarm.

Nate and Apollo met before the hefty steel gates as they peeled open, allowing their troop to exit into the surrounding wilderness. Checking a console in his hand, Apollo silently directed the task force of seven towards the guilty sensor. A team of three, including the Onexian leader, flanked the right-hand side, and Nate steered the others left.

"So, d'ya' reckon it's another deer?" The Elemental whispered to his comrades as they crept over the ground in stealth mode. Although he was the most feeble in appearance, he was the only one unarmed. What use was a firearm to a Pyromancer?

"Most likely. Why d'you wanna bet on it, Danny-boy?" Kenichi snickered, pulling a black hood over his head.

"Christ almighty, shut the fuck up. Don't you guys have anything better to do?" Nate rolled his eyes, but just then, he spied movement in his peripherals. Rifle up and ready to fire, he hissed, "Movement at ten o'clock." Instinctively, his nostrils flared, sniffing the air to track the disturbance. Yet again, the group employed tactical silence and stalked over the snow.

Out of the pitch-black, several beams of light illuminated her form. Raising her hand to shield her eyes, she squinted to make out three black silhouettes.

Holy shit, that's no deer. Nate identified the girl by her scent as immediately as his eyes homed in on her figure.

People! Her internal voice screamed simultaneously.

Her mind, void of reason or maybe fogged with it, couldn't decipher any of the subliminal babble; her instincts took control. The presence of people meant that somewhere there was a settlement, and surely that was a good thing, but then why did her gut tell her feet to run? Yet, why couldn't she move?

From the guard's point of view, the girl may not have been a doe, but her reaction to being caught was characteristic of a "deer in the headlights", especially when the flashlights attached to their weapons all homed in on her. First, she fawned, as frozen as the snow beneath her, but when they moved, she took off over the snow at full tilt.

The effort was in vain. Quickly, her breathing laboured, and her lungs burned from panting cold air. Trudging through the snow was hard enough without them on her tail. Still foolishly convinced that she could get away, she tried to run faster, and for a while, she successfully evaded them. That was until a branch hooked itself over the instep of her foot and sent her tumbling into the powder. Its chilly embrace was a shock to the system but cleared her mind enough to gain focus on the voices of her apprehended. Men. More than three. Fear of the obvious empowered her to retake flight.

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Meanwhile, watching the girl attempt an escape and fight to her feet when they inevitably closed in on her caused Nate to feel a significant amount of pity. When he'd muttered her description over his radio to Apollo, the hardened war veteran and tactician had ordered them to hang back and wait for her to tire; it would make her capture easier. Now that she was down, they moved in. Two strong arms hoisted her up while she attempted to scramble to her feet, and although she was flighty, ultimately, she was no match for the men who pursued her.

"Take her in, guys," Apollo ordered. "Nate, you sure she's alone?"

"I can't smell anyone else out here." The Lycan confirmed.

Apollo took it as gospel; a lupine sense of smell wasn't something to sniff at.

Constrained by four muscular arms, first, her eyes darted about the darkness frantically, pointlessly, looking for an escape path. There was nowhere to run. Then she looked at her captors. They had guns! Along with all the deadly things that could mean, all she could do was stare helplessly into the chiselled face of the man to her left. Nate met her sad and pretty blue eyes with sympathy. Seven armed men against one tiny teenager seemed like overkill.

Pulled from his thoughts, he heard Kenichi taunt. "Well, well, what d'we have here?" The devious-looking Kin on her other side grinned, showing off a silver canine while he ogled her petite frame.

Nate rolled his eyes and interjected, "Sorry to ruin your woodland stroll, Miss." His kind hazel eyes meant the apology. "But you're coming with us."

"Look at that! We caught a person for once." The Demonic Kin wasn't the only troop member with false teeth. Two golden canines glinted in the glare of the flashlights; little did she know that this fellow was a real-life, defanged Vampire.

"What is she, anyway?" Someone asked as they escorted their catch away.

Nate tensed.

"She smells pretty and Mortal to me," the vampire said, giving her another thirsty evaluation. Nate bristled when he continued under his breath, "I bet she doesn't last five minutes into interrogation," and chuckled darkly.

The Elemental sucked his teeth. "Damn, that's unlucky."

At those words, her hope faltered, but her will to survive held fast. Regardless of the immovable arms hooked beneath hers, she had to fight harder if she wanted to live. She'd have to rely on adrenalin to get her through. Screw it, she psyched herself up. I won't go down without a fight! Writhing this way and that, attempting to be as challenging to keep a hold of as possible despite her exhaustion, she was sure that her foot collided with someone, and now her forehead hurt too.

"Ow fuck! Why the little bitch—" Apollo cussed, wiping his bloody nose. "Call the Boss. He needs to see this one." Hissing, he cuffed her wrists behind her back.

The cuffs didn't dissuade her; they only fuelled her desperation, and she writhed again. An animalistic growl assaulted her ears, causing her to go ridged. Her violence caused the once-kind Lycan to flash her a deadly look that sent a chill up her spine. A warning not to try anything like that again.

Before them, a tall concrete exterior wall, halloed by barbed wire, stretched skyward through the trees. The prison-like façade was the ultimate threat to her freedom. It spiked her anxiety. Her mind worked overtime, going a million miles a minute, jumping from one scenario to a worse one, sprinting towards a panic attack; she felt her breath fluttering, the seconds between her inhales and exhales shrinking.

The steel gates peeled open like the mouth of a breast, eager to swallow her. In the sight of the gaping chasm and the unknown beyond, her blood ran cold; her body squirmed to get away, and though her heels gouged into the ground below, they skidded through the snow uselessly.

"Please! No! I just want to go home!"

Harded to her struggle, her captors ignored her pleas and ushered her forward. There was no escape.

✷✷✷

Exiting the tomb of his office for the first time in days, he yawned and stretched his neck sideways, relieving the tension with a few satisfying cracks. Before his face, breath billowed, condensating in the cold air. When checking the thermostat, it figured the temperature was in the low twenties (Fahrenheit). Sure enough, the blanket of snow on the ground through the window had gotten thicker. Fall seemed to have lasted mere weeks, giving the illusion that winter had held the northern state for months longer than usual. It was a particularly frosty November.

Unphased by the frigid temperature, he didn't bother turning up the heat. His glass of scotch had warmed him a little, but it was empty far too quickly. Another might've left him with a headache, so he abandoned it on the coffee table.

Knees bent, poised to fall back and recline into his leather couch, the ringing of his unit's telecom cut through his calm silence. Grunting in annoyance, he found himself back upright and answering the call from the console by the front door.

"Yes?" He inquired, impatience clipping the word.

"Sorry to disturb you so late, Sir. There has been a security alert at the South East gate," the lilting feminine voice of the front desk's receptionist, Ms. Finch, explained.

"Aren't the guards dealing with it?" Surely, he didn't need to be disturbed for something like this. The sensors were always detecting something, but they worked—that was something to be grateful for.

"Yes, Sir, they have the intruder in their custody." Initially, this pleased him, but she continued, "But that's why I called, Sir. You see, the intruder? Well, they're not the usual sort. I think this might require your personal attention, Sir."

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He'd been working for so long already, but it didn't take him many seconds to deliberate—there was no rest for the wicked. "I suppose if you insist it requires me personally. I'll be up in five minutes. Have the guards bring the intruder to the front desk." He instructed and disengaged the telecom, cutting off the receptionist before she could say anything more.

The night before's frost had hardened the top layer of snowflakes like sugar on crème brûlée. The crisp snow gave way underfoot with a pleasing crunch as he marched towards the Compound's main building. No matter how brief his venture over the courtyard was, he didn't welcome Montana's cutting wind as it whirled around the enclosure of walls.

At his age, using his 'gift' had become second nature. Sometimes, he pulled tricks without realising; closing and opening doors and turning book pages were just small ways he used his gift in everyday life. By reflex, he 'pushed' the air away from his body, creating an insulating vacuum.

Letting himself in through an inconspicuous side door, he ventured down a corridor until the penitentiary atmosphere of the outer halls disappeared and gave way to a homely lounge and bar area. Seeing as the room was a community space, someone was always there, no matter the hour. Tonight, a few youths lurked by the library, where the public computers were stationed. They were taking turns on some old PC game and ignored the Compound's Overseer passing by.

When he let himself in through the reception's rear door, the feeling of home gave way to a spine-chillingly authoritarian atmosphere. Upon entry into the facility, everyone had to pass through the reception, which acted as the Compound's border control. Over the front desk, the thick glass screen created a barrier between one side and the other. Gone were the warm-toned wallpaper, rugs, and blazing fireplace; instead, the white walls and fluorescent lights that flooded the office space felt clinical. In contrast, the receptionist had a pleasant face. Her welcomes were usually warm. The Overseer, who entered behind her, fit the bill of interrogator effortlessly; his aura was suitably aloof.

"Good evening, Ms. Finch."

The blond parted her glossy lips to smile adoringly. About to explain the situation when, Apollo barked, "Evening, Sir." with a respectful nod, and Ms. Finch's otherwise pouty lips twisted into a scowl.

"Good evening, Apollo. I hope this was worth disturbing me for?" Without allowing an answer, he gestured to the bloody remnants on the man's upper lip. "It seems they've put up a fight?"

"Erm, yes, Sir. She, uh- booted me, Sir," Apollo explained bashfully; apparently, his ego was as bruised as his nose.

The Overseer's brow furrowed. "She?"

"Yes. We haven't identified her yet, Sir," Apollo explained. "She has no obvious ID on her person."

Stepping up to the glass, he peered past the Onexus to witness the anonymous adolescent, a petite female drowned in her raggedy and dirty sweatshirt and a mess of brown hair which obstructed her face, writhing violently. Despite being held under her arms by two of the South East gate's strongest guards, Nathaniel Scott and Katou Kenichi, her head and shoulders thrashed, her body twisted erratically, still attempting to yank herself free.

"Feisty."

Abruptly, she ceased to struggle. Panting slowly, her nerve settled; then she lifted her head, and her hair fell aside to reveal her flushed face. Their eyes met, pupils dilating in recognition. Eyes like those were impossible to forget.

Apollo was the first to notice all colour draining from the Overseer's face, along with any expression his lips or eyes previously held.

"Should-uh-should we take her down for interrogation, Sir?" He asked, bewildered by his boss's peculiar reaction.

"No. I'll deal with this visitor personally," He stated plainly, and all while he spoke, his eyes never shifted from the girl.