Leticia (40 page)

“I begged them to help me... Jesus, I even cried, and neither of them,
neither
, would help me. They taunted me,
ate
all sorts of food next to me, drank tea, hot chocolate..
. waved the food under my nose
.
It went on for hours.”

“I’m so sorry,” Nancy sympathised
.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw them. I think I was silenced by shock.”

“Why didn’t you just tell us
?
Leticia wouldn’t have been like this if you had
.”

“I was embarrassed...
I was helpless in that lab. I was their personal, human lab-rat... and there was nothing I could do to stop it...”

“Luke, nobody thinks badly of you because of what you went through. You shouldn’t be ashamed of
it;
nobody could have escaped from that. Nobody human anyway. You can talk to us, all we want to do is help and put an end to all this.”

He looked over at me, sadness filling his eyes again.

“Nancy, could you give us some time alone please?” I asked
.
“I’m not going to hurt him.”

“Yeah
OK
, I better go and make some sandwiches for the scum downstairs.”

“
Shout me
before you take it to them.”

When she had left, I sat facing Luke. “I’m sorry, but I thought...”

“I know what you thought, but I wouldn’t betray you like that. You knew me once,
I might have been through hell
but I’m still me.”

“
OK
,
” I nodded
.

“
So what happens now?”

“I don’t know, I think we need to try and find out what happened to Roger. It seems to me that he is the prick that’s doing all this.”

“But Roger disappeared, what if he’s dead, like Charles?”

“Then I honestly haven’t got an
y
idea who it is
,
” I sighed
.
“It’s
got
to be him, who else could it be, seriously? Who else knew?”

“Just me and you, I swear.”

“Well, I don’t think you could have done this
while
being
strapped
to a bed and I sure as hell know it’s not me. Charles is dead and gone, so it’s
Roger
. Simple as that. All we need to do now is find the bastard!”

“How?”

“By using the guys downstairs.”

“Will they tell you?”

“Hmm, in the end, if they’ve been keeping secrets they will have no choice but to spill them.” I grinned
.

“What are you going to do to them?”

Nancy popped her head around the door to let me know she was about to take the food down. I grabbed Luke’s hand and followed her down with him.
When they saw Luke, they grinned.

“Something funny?” I asked them both.

“Yeah, but, I’m not in the mood to share,” the blonde replied.

“Oh right
,
” I said letting go of Luke and walking close to them. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving!” the brunette shouted
.
“
Y
ou said we would be fed, watered, if we told you everything...”

“Ahh, but you didn’t, did you? You missed out the part where you saw this guy
strapped
to
a
bed, starving and begging for help.”

“You didn’t ask about things like that
.”

“
I
t would have been polite to tell us
.
”

“For
god’s
sake just give us the food
,
” The blonde demanded.

“Oh you mean this food?” I asked, taking the plates from Nancy.

“
Y
eah goddamn it.”

“Oh, erm... no... no definitely not
,
” I turned to face Luke. “
Are
you hungry?”

“A little
.
”

“
H
ere, Nancy
made
some lovely sandwiches, enjoy
.
”

The two men watched a
s
Luke ate their food. Both of them with pained expressions. Once he had finished, I took the plate off him.

“Come on then, we have a lot to do, I don’t have time to spend with these two
.
”

“Wait, wait you can’t do that, you can’t leave us to starve
,
” The blonde panicked.

“Why not? You left Luke to starve. I think
it’s
only fair.”

Nancy walked back upstairs and Luke started to follow. But I didn’t move. When Luke noticed, he stopped.

“I’ll be up in a minute
,
” I told him.

He turned and walked out of sight.

“Please don’t do this to us
,
” The brunette begged.

“
Allow me to make myself perfectly understood
,
” I began, allowing my eyes to change and my teeth become jagged. Both of them were silent and perfectly still.
“I am not the gentle, nice
, patient
person I make myself out to be.
So with that in mind...
piss me off one more time and you’ll die.
.. slowly.
I don’t care what the others have promised you. I don’t care if you feel safe with them even. You are
not
safe with
me
.
I’m
the one
you
need to fear.
I will torture you
and cause you more pain than you could possibly imagine. I will starve you
and
let you dehydrate until you hallucinate from it. I will deprive you of any sleep, and when I eventually get bored of all that
and more
...
I will rip your in
sides out with my own hands and feed them to the wildlife of the hills. Nobody would find a trace of you. Do you understand me?”

Neither of them responded.

“I SAID DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!” I thundered.

“Yes, yes
,
” the
y
both replied, nodding frantically.

“Good
,
” I smiled, returning to normal.

When I turned to walk out of the room, I saw Jackson glaring at me. I walked passed him and up into the hallway.

“Well, I must say,” Jackson smirked
.
“You even un-nerved
me
a little then.”

“Good. Let’s just hope it has more of an effect on
them
.”

“Hmm, the dangerous you
is
kind of appealing, in a... shall we say, erotic, sort of way,” He laughed.

“
Y
ou have a warped mind
.
”

“Yeah I know
.
”

“As much as I would like to continue this conversation with you, I need to talk with Luke.”

“
W
onderful.” He said, the smile fading quickly from his face.

“
D
on’t start that again, besides, you can all come and listen to him. He can’t just keep talking with me.”

“I suddenly feel better.”

“Good.”

“I’d feel
even
better if you told him we were together.”

“I will, just not now.”

He went to get Nancy and
Tristan
while
I sat Luke down in the living room again. He looked a bit nervous when they all walked in, but he also understood that he needed to speak with
all
of us.
I explained to the others what I knew so far, before I began questioning him
.

“Think back Luke, you said Charles seemed to disappear, do you remember Roger saying anything about it or did you overhear anything
?
” I asked
.

“
E
rr... he was in a vile mood for a while, I hear
d
him swearing, calling Charles every name under the sun. Erm, oh, one night
I heard him talking, I don’t know who to, but someone was definitely talking back. He was saying how Charles could have ruined everything he worked for. That he was glad he’d
gone
or
something
like that.”

“What did the responder say?”

“I don’t know it was hard to hear...” he went quiet for a moment
.
“I could be wrong, but I remember hearing something along the lines of
“
W
here is he?”
and
“
W
hy did he do that
?
”
I didn’t hear
Rogers’s
answers though. Not that I remember anyway.”

“It’s
OK
,” Tristan assured him
.
“
You see,
I think
this is what happened. Charles maybe saw the error of his way
s
and wanted to leave. Roger, who
wa
s obviously the domineering one, would
n’t
have it, and so shot him. Stuffed him in that locker and left him to rot. He bribes people who he knows are desperate to belong to something, who need food, shelter and money, to do his dirty work. In this case, killing us, or taking us to him, whatever.
If we find him, this stops and those two bastards in the basement are the key.”

“Can I just ask something, I know it’s going off topic a little, but why do they want
you three
? I know what Leticia is, obviously, but... what are
you guys
?” Luke asked, clueless.

“Jackson and
I
are brother and sister, and we’re what’s known as
shape shifter
s. Tristan is a vampire.” Nancy explained.

“Right, yeah, of course, why not?” he said, shocked and in partial disbelief.

“Do you know what
Shape shifter
s are?”

“Yeah, I’ve watched the films and I’ve read several
fiction
books about them.”

“There are more of us than you think
,
” Jackson told him. “Humans and animals aren’t the only thing to walk this earth.”

“That’s becoming more and more apparent
.
”

“The movies have made us out to be horrible, vial nasty things, but we’re not,” Nancy defended. “We have just as much right to live as you
do, so we’re a little different; our
bodies are more advanced than yours, that’s all, we still bleed red blood, feel emotions... just like you.”

“
OK
.
”

“Anyway, can we get back to the matter at hand?” Jackson asked
.

“Yeah, I don’t know who it
is;
if I did I would tell you. I didn’t even know Charles was dead until earlier today. So do what you want to find them, if I can help I will, and then maybe I can get my life back together again
,
” Luke said in an off tone.

“Sounds good to me. The sooner you’re away from here the better.”

“Jackson stop it!” I
scolded
.

“What’s your problem?” Luke asked him, standing.

“Luke sit down, you’re in no state to be getting on the wrong side of
him.” I
said, also standing.

“Just keep away from Leticia and we won’t have a problem, will we?” Jackson warned.

“
Whoa OK
, Jackson, come with me
,
” Nancy said, grabbing his arm and dragging him out of the room. Tristan followed behind them.

“He’s a dick
,
” Luke snarled. “How can you stand him? And who does he think he is telling me to stay away from you? If I want to try and get you back I will. You’re not his...”

“Actually, I am
.
”

“What?”

“I’m his girlfriend.”

He didn’t respond.