Fierce respect swelled inside Hawkyn’s chest, and he foundhimself torn between wanting to comfort her and wanting to fight beside her.
“Hope you’re hungry today,” Drayger said as he held up thebag of food.
“Fuck you,” she rasped, and Hawkyn couldn’t help but admireher spirit.“I’m not playing the puke game with you again.”
“You either eat the food so I can watch you throw it up fromthe pain, or I gut punch you until you throw up bile.Your choice.Personally,I think it’s better to be able to puke something up, but whatever.Dry heavesare a choice, I guess.”
Hawk’s own stomach turned over.How could he have forgottenthat Drayger loved to watch his victims vomit while being tortured?
You know how.
Yes, he did.Like most of hisbrethren,hewas capable of compartmentalizing, separating hisfeelings from his job and locking the bad shit in a virtual box that rarely hadto be opened.Because opening that box could wreck even the most callous ofwarriors and destroy the vital objectivity and distance required to do one’sduty.
Aurora closed her eyes and shuddered.“Why are you doingthis?”
“Because I have to,” Drayger said, his tone chillinglyho-hum.“I’m sure there’s some underlying pathology, some traumatic break Iendured as a child, but what it comes down to is that I get off on causing fearand pain.”
She opened her eyes, the dim light making the exhaustedcircles around them even darker.“That doesn’t mean you have to.”
“Wrong.”Drayger inhaled as if savoring the scent of hermisery, the fucker.“Imagine having nothing to live for.Imagine a depressionso deep you can’t climb out of it.I’m dead inside.Nothing makes me happy.Nothing makes me feel.Nothing except what I do to women like you.Knowing I’mridding the earth of magic-using scum gives me a reason to live.”He droppedthe bag of food on the floor and reached for a scalpel on his tray of tortureinstruments.“Solet’s get started.”
Shit.Hawk had to stop him, but how?He couldn’t very wellpop out of thin air and trash the guy.Of all Memitim rules, harming your ownPrimori was the biggest no-no.An offense so egregious that one could,potentially, lose their freedom...or their life.
Which meant that Hawkyn had to lure Jason away.
Orscarehim away.
Quickly, Hawkyn zapped himself outside and searched for asuitable projectile.As he picked up a rusty crowbar, a bloodcurdling scream,muffled by the metal walls, filled him with even greater urgency.And rage.
Imagining that Drayger was sitting in his vehicle’spassenger seat, Hawkyn hurled the metal rod through the passenger side window.Glass sprayed into the air, but it would have been far more satisfying if theshards had been made of Drayger’s skull.The car alarm blared, drowning out thetinkle of glass pelting the ground.
Still invisible, he flashed back into the cargo containerjust as Drayger heaved open the door and peered outside.Inside, Aurora dangledhelplessly from chains, blood dripping from one partially skinned thigh, and ittook every ounce of control Hawkyn could muster to keep from releasing herright then and there.
Mercifully, she’d passed out, but the fact that shecouldn’t, at this moment, feel pain didn’t make Hawkyn feel any better.Ifanything, his anger level went up a notch, making him tremble with the desireto slaughter Drayger the way he would have if the guy hadn’t been Primori.Damnthe rules.Damn this job.Hawk hated it.He was good at it, but son of a bitch,he despised it sometimes.
The day Hawkyn swore in as a Council member, shit was gonnachange.
Drayger scanned the deepening twilight before he venturedout to turn off his car alarm.Looking as nervous as Hawk had ever seen him,the bastard scurried back to the container, frowned at Aurora as she hunglimply from the chains, and slammed the sliding door closed.
Hawkyn flashed out long enough to watch Drayger take off,and then he went back inside and lowered the female’s unconscious body to themetal floor.The anger inside him raged even harder as he gathered her petiteframe in his arms.She needed medical attention, but he couldn’t take her to ahuman hospital.There would be too many questions, police, and eventually herstatements would lead to Drayger’s arrest.
So what?
The question flashedinhisthoughts a dozen times before logic and duty brought him back to reality.Likeit or not, the scumbag was vital to humanity in some way, and Hawkyn had a dutyto make sure Drayger fulfilled his destiny.Besides, maybe by removing Aurorafrom the equation he could set things right.
Maybe.
Please let this set things right.
Holding her securely and trying not to think about how coldand fragile she felt, he flashed himself to UGH’s underground parking lot andstrode through the sliding Emergency Department doors for the second time in asmany days.Instantly, a hairy male nurse with a snout and a female nurse withtiny horns jutting from her temples jogged over and directed him to a cubicle,where he laid Aurora on a waiting wheeled exam table.
A female in a white lab coat embroidered with a modifiedcaduceus and the name “Blaspheme, MD” joined him and asked questions as theother two prepared IVs and performed checks of Aurora’s vitals.
“What species is she?”Blaspheme asked.
“I’m not sure,” Hawkyn said, “but I’m guessing she’s atleast half human.”
She nodded and gestured to the male nurse.“Run a DNA DBtest, STAT.”
