Chapter 53

Chapter 53

The pungent smell of chlorine hit the back of his throat. He covered his mouth, choking as his nose was assaulted by the sour scent. It wafted past Darrien as he stepped inside the next room. Ren hung by the door, hesitant to go in when the smell was already so bad.

A blue light glowed from within the room. It was faint, but enough to illuminate a small space in the center of the room. Ren's glut clenched as he took in the room.

Fairly new flat screen TVs were mounted onto the far wall. Some of them were static with nothing playing on them while others were showing what seemed like live security camera. Ren quickly counted the TVs. There were eight of them. Four on top and four on the bottom. Below them was a built in wall desk made out of metal that spanned the entire wall. There were three chairs, all empty, pushed neatly beneath the desk.

To the right of the room were more metal shelves, however, this time they were full of storage boxes rather than cables. They were shoved onto the shelves, some squeezed into tight spaces so much that the sides were caved in.

He looked back at the TVs. Some of the live feeds were places that he recognized. There was the front and back of the building, the hallway that they had come down, and even the frontal view of the offices. But most of them, all of the other feeds, were of places that he didn't know. That he'd never seen before.

The first few were just other parts of the building. A room that was set up with a long table and chairs—maybe a conference room, and another hallway of offices with a person walking down it.

But the next series of feeds were unsettling.

They were hard to make out because the rooms they occupied were dark. What he could make out were concrete walls and floors, steal rods imbedded into the ceilings, and some of them had metal tables with wheels.

"What is this?" Ashton hovered behind Ren.

Darrien walked in front of them. He stood in front of the screens. The glow of the TVs illuminated his face. His shadow was cast onto the far wall. The light above him was more like a lightning bug rather than a real light. The dim room felt as small as the closet.

Ren's mouth had gone dry. His eyes roamed the channels over and over. He scanned them from top to bottom. The person that had been walking through one of the halls was gone, leaving the screens blank for the time being. The rooms with the metal tables and cement walls...he had an idea what went on there.

Darrien pointed to the exact feeds Ren was thinking about. "This is where they bring them."

"Jesus." Ashton turned away. He ran a hand through his hair.

Ren was too shocked to move. It was strange how this wasn't the place where the torture had been delivered, but he could still feel the pain of all those people through the screens of the televisions. It must have been the same when he saw the pictures.

Each piece of technology had captured a sliver of the emotions.

He hated this. He didn't want any of this.

Darrien moved away from the desk and walked over to the metal shelves. He grabbed a box at random and flipped open the lid. "These are what you need."

He pulled out a VHS tape. "The problem is that I don't know which one has a clear picture of our insignia."

Darrien held the tape out toward Ren at first. Ren stared at it. He shook his head. He couldn't touch that. It was bad enough that he could just feel everything that had happened on that tape by just being around it. He didn't want to find out what else he could feel when he actually touched it.

Darrien gave him a strange look before handing it out for Ashton. Ashton grabbed it harshly. He turned it over, reading the side of it. There was a white sticker with bold lettering written in black permanent marker.

"Number 302. April 17, 2015." Ashton's brows furrowed. "This was just a couple months ago. Number 302. How long has this been going on?"

He grabbed the box that Darrien was holding. He rummaged through the tapes.

"April, February, January..." He peered at the side of the box. "This is only this year."

Ren covered his mouth. "I'm going to be sick again."

"Hold it in for a second, will you?" Ashton called from over his shoulder as he grabbed another box of VHSs. He flipped the lid off and started carding through them.

"There's another years worth of tapes. 2014." He looked over at Darrien. "What is the Society doing here? What the fuck is all this?"

Darrien took the tape for Ashton. He walked over to the VHS player and popped it in.

"Don't fucking play it!" Ren ran across the room and shoved Darrien out of the way.

He slammed his hand into the player, but it wouldn't stop. It was already playing.

The beginning was quiet. It played full screen on the flat screen in the lower corner. It was one of the cement rooms. There was a man—a vampire—laying on the metal table in the middle of the room. He was weakly struggling against the metal cuffs strapping him to the table. His head was turned toward what might have been the door.

It opened and closed.

A man walked in. He wasn't Cipher. He wasn't anyone that Ren knew. He was dressed in the Hunters uniform. A black jacket, but the film was too grainy to make out the patch that Ren knew was on the right side of the jacket. That was what they needed to see in the films. If they could find a victim that was both in one of the photos and tapes and also have the insignia showing, then they would have enough to prove that the Hunter Society was corrupt.

Then, they could get the Hunters off their backs.

Ren was frozen as the video played. As the man started to walk over to the struggling vampire, Ren pushed the stop button. The screen went blue and a rush of relief flood through him. His shoulders sagged, but he was still reeling from grief. He pulled his hand back. He stared at it as if it was the source of all his problems.

Partly, it was. But this curse of a power wasn't deterred by touch. It was his entire body that was against him.

"What is this, Darrien?" His voice was weak. He cleared his throat, swallowing what could have been another round of throw up.

He wasn't going to puke again. He wasn't.

"Since the war, they've been searching for the ultimate weapon against vampires. I don't know how close they've come, but the guns we use now are a product of this...research."

"We."

"What?"

Ashton shoved the box back onto the shelf. He stood up straight, giving Darrien a mean look. "You said 'they' were doing research on them. You are included them them which means you should have said 'we' were doing research on them."

Darrien clenched his jaw. "I didn't have anything to do with it."

"You know about it which means that you knew it has been going on. How long doesn't mean anything."

"I'm not like them," Darrien bit out. He grabbed onto the metal shelf, clenching hard onto it.

"Not like them?" Ashton stepped up to him. "You are them. You're their flesh and blood. You don't get to have the benefits of being with them and then not have the consequences for when they fuck up. It doesn't work like that."

"Get out of my face."

"What are you going to do? Alert them? Have them lock us up like all the others and run some sick tests on us?"

"Get away from me," Darrien bit out.

Ashton laughed. "You're not going to do shit."

He stepped back. He moved toward Ren.

"Play it."

Ren couldn't get his hand to move. "I can't watch this."

Ashton placed his hand over Ren's. "Stand in the corner. Plug your ears and close your eyes."

He pressed play, pressing down Ren's finger beneath his. Ren looked at him. Ashton turned his head to meet his gaze. The sounds from the TV were getting louder as the vampire started to cry.

"Hurry," Ashton said. He turned away and looked at the TV.

Ren pulled his hand away. It was burning from Ashton's touch. The soft glow of the televisions had brushed Ashton's face so gently. His eyes had been dark, like voids that were threatening to suck Ren in.

He lowered his eyes, focusing on the dark cement floor. He hurried to the corner of the room. The glow of the flatscreens didn't touch this place. He did as Ashton told him. He covered his ears and closed his eyes. The volume of the TV lowered and his heart skipped as he thought about Ashton doing it just for him.

Behind his eyelids, it wasn't completely dark. He could see the light of the television flickering at the scene played out. The screams of the poor vampire were muffled. He pressed the palms of his hands harder into his ears. It still wasn't enough. He could still hear them.

He was squeezing his eyes shut so hard that stars were beginning to blood in the darkness. The clouds of gray drifted toward him. He imagined he was floating in outer space. He was alone. And while that was frightening, it was also comforting. There was no danger out here. There was nothing.

For that small moment, he felt the weight of all the stresses in his life, float away. In the back of his mind, he knew that this wasn't real. He was just making it all up.

But thinking about disappearing from everything made it possible for him to ignore the screams he could not answer.

"Ren."

He opened his eyes. He lifted his hands off his ears, but he didn't lower them just incase the tape was still playing.

"I turned it off," Ashton said. He was holding the tape.

Ren lowered his hands the rest of the way. He didn't know what to do with them. It felt too awkward to just stand there with them hanging by his sides. He slipped them into his pockets, shoving them deep into his entire fists were covered. The strain on the front of his jeans pressed the gun to his back.

He'd almost forgotten that he was carrying a gun.

"Could you see the insignia?"

Ashton shook his head. "I don't know if I can stomach another one of these tapes either."

"Take it anyway." Darrien moved to the door. "I doubt the meeting is going to go on much longer. We better get out of here while we can."

Ashton pulled out the gun that he'd taken away from Darrien. "There's no we."

They met each other in a stare down. Darrien broke it when he opened the door. He looked out and waved for the two of them to step out with him. Ren pulled out his gun as well.

He flexed his fingers around the handle. He avoided the trigger just incase his bad luck decided to come into play.

They walked out of the hallway and went the way that they had come. It was deadly quiet now. Before, there had been something other than the sound of their footsteps and their breath. It had been a white noise of some sort, but now it was gone. He couldn't tell if it was all in his head—his anxiousness about being caught—or if the quietness was real.

The trek back was at a slow pace. Ren's hands quickly became sweaty. There were multiple times where he had to reposition the gun in his hands because it was getting hard to grip onto it.

Ashton handled the gun more easily even when he could only use one hand. The other one was taken up by the tape. Ren was impressed and wondered if Ashton had handled a gun before if he just had a natural talent for it.

Darrien lead the way. He still looked nervous. Whether that was because Ren and Ashton were still flexing the threat of putting a bullet in his head or if he was scared of what would happen to him if he was caught helping vampires was only something Darrien himself could possibly know.

They came out of the hallway-slash-corridor of cables and into the hallway of offices. They walked swiftly through there and ended back almost at the backdoor.

Then, Ren felt prickling at the back of his neck and the thing inside of him surged to the surface baring its metaphorical teeth.

"They're here!"

There was no other warning before a bullet blazed past them and smashed into the wall. Ren jumped to the side in hopes of avoiding the next shot. He ran behind the corner, cowering out the Hunters' line of shot.

Ashton ran to his side, but Darrien was nowhere to be seen.

"Did you see how many there are?"

Ren shook his head. "Where's Darrien?"

Ashton face went grim. "Where else? He's out there with them."

Ren felt sick again. He was stupid enough to believe that Darrien had seen the wrongness of the Hunter Society. But he guessed that it would make more sense for him to be on their side. They weren't going to kill him like they would if he was defending vampires.

Ren looked behind them. It was a dead end. He didn't know where they were. The back door was somewhere around the other corner and there was no way that he was going to run across the hall with an unknown amount of Hunters with guns.

"Do you think you can shoot them if you have to?" Ashton asked him.

Ren gave him a bewildered look. "Will you?"

He didn't like the look Ashton had in his eyes. It said that he was more than ready to dish out some serious mayhem.

Ashton smirked. It was tilted to one side and he looked more than crazed. "They shot first."

Ren stared at him with wide eyes. He was about to say that that didn't make it right for him to kill them, but he didn't get to voice his opinion. A rain of bullets flew at them and they only managed to duck by a millisecond.

Ren flopped to the ground on his belly. He turned over and faced the crowd that was at the middle of the hallway. He couldn't see their faces. He didn't have enough time. All he could see was their dark figures and their hands raised with their guns.

"Get out of the way!" Ashton grabbed him by the back of his shirt and threw him to the other side of the hall.

His eyes flashed red as he tried to command the Hunters, but it didn't look like he could. They were protected by the same stuff that Darrien had been protected by. Ashton held the gun up and shot into the crowd. The Hunters ducked behind the corner.

Ren frantically crawled to the other hall. The back door was just around the other corner. He looked back behind him as he got to his feet. Ashton was running after him. He grabbed Ren's arm and pulled him along.

"Just keeping going. Don't worry about me."

Ren turned back to the way they needed to go. Ashton had his back turned, facing toward the corner that the Hunters were hiding behind. They were fast on their feet, as much as they could be while being cautious.

Ren rounded the next corner. The rush of hope he had of making it out of there alive was squashed when he saw more Hunters heading their way.

"Fuck," he whispered in shock.

"Ren?"

Ashton bumped into him. Ren pushed him back.

"What's wrong?"

Ren's throat was so dry. "More Hunters."

"Shit." Ashton looked both ways. He grabbed Ren's shoulders. "You've got to shoot. Don't think about it. Just fucking do it."

"I don't think I can." He was shaking now. The weight of the gun was making his wrist hurt. He feared that if he put his finger on the trigger that he wouldn't be able to make it move.

Ashton shook him. "You have to."

Ren spotted a Hunter behind Ashton. He didn't think as he grabbed Ashton and pulled him to the side. He pulled Ashton behind him.

The Hunter held her gun up.

This was it. This was how they were going to die.

But before the Hunter could pull the trigger, Ren's chest exploded with a burst of heat. He screamed as the heat burned so hot that it felt like it was melting his insides. The Hunter was shocked still. She stepped back, eyes wide with terror.

Ren yelled in agony as the thing inside of him burst from the cage of his body.

Red. The walls, the ceiling, the Hunter before him, they all turned red. Everything he saw through the haze of Its eyes was red. He was disconnected from himself. He was floating above his body yet he was still inside of himself, looking through a red lens of a beast that had fully taken over his body.

The woman screamed and Ren didn't know why at first. But then, he felt his mouth opening. His fangs had grown twice as big as they had, elongated down to almost past his chin. He bared them at her.

It was in control again.

And it was pissed.