The executed, p.19
The Executed, page 19
12
FITRI
Eliseo passing out was a small blessing. I hated seeing him in immense pain. We wrapped his leg up as best as we could to try and prevent him from moving it so much.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the last compound and the remaining five malnourished women there. I was introduced to the ‘flock’ as if I was to become one of them—a shell of their former selves.
The men were kind—too kind. From their touches, to the way their eyes tried to stare through my clothes as if surveying the quality of new merchandise.
When they brought me to the room with a single bed in the middle, I knew it was coming. It happened all too often. I was ready for them, but they weren’t ready for me.
Was it wrong of me to feel elation after slaughtering them all? I was still riding the high The moment I saw the boys—my heart hammering from the adrenaline rush. The way their warm blood tasted on my lips felt like a new sensation despite having fragmented memories of it. New or not, it unlocked something I’d never felt before. I was too afraid to confront it, and was glad we had to move quickly to get out of the compound.
Putting my hand on Eliseo’s clammy forehead, I could feel his body temperature rising and my concern for him grew alongside it.
We stopped for the night with a quarter tank of fuel left. The men found a good hiding spot for us to make camp, and now we were resting up. My body aches had all but disappeared, my mind tumultuous with what other mishap we might run into tomorrow. Expect the worst and hope for the best.
Kissing his forehead, I stared at the blood seeping through the makeshift bandage. He was losing too much. Lying beside him, my hand caressed his chest while I silently prayed for a solution. Eliseo was a vital part of this team and seeing him like this…
“We’re running out of fabric,” Reed stated.
“I know,” I answered quietly, unsettled.
“He needs to change his bandages.”
“How much longer until we make it back?” I tried to digress, wanting to hear good news to ease my soul.
“If nothing goes wrong, maybe another few days. We have to take the roundabout way in case we have a tail. The last group didn’t grow to their size without good reason. To have a large collection of vehicles? They’ve been traveling far to collect the numbers they had. Who knows if we’ll run into one of their groups on a supply run,” Samuel explained.
“What if—” I started as bad-case scenarios ran through my mind. Flashes of biting into Elijah’s neck and the way the blood tasted back at the last compound flitted behind my eyes. I was changing. Something was changing inside of me.
“What if what?” Gunner asked.
Turning and sitting up, I ran my fingers through my hair. The fear of them condemning me still debilitated me at times. I had to remind myself we had been through so much together already, and they would never leave me behind.
“What if… I’m a vampire?” I said weakly, hoping they didn’t hear me, and at the same time, hoping they did.
“Impossible,” Reed retorted immediately without thought. “I’ve run across too many of them to know that much. Could you have vampire blood in you? Possible. But I haven’t seen you go off on any killing sprees when you’ve gotten hungry. You’re still eating normal food like the rest of us.”
“Reed’s right. After the shit we’ve been through? Hell no. You’re still Fitri,” Gunner said with a finality.
My eyes watered over their acceptance. What if I was still changing, though? None of us knew the actual process, because none of us had been privy to this kind of information, living behind community walls. And the crazy doctor wasn’t forthcoming with any of his intel, not unless it benefited him.
“What if I slowly become like them?” I asked, wanting to hint to the team at the direction of my thoughts.
Samuel stood up and added another piece of wood to the fire. Embers danced around the flames. “Even if you did, you think Eliseo is going to let anything happen to you? He’d massacre everything in his path. So would we. You’re part of the team. If we have to leave shit behind, we will. It’s not like we haven't done it before. Hell, you were surviving out there on your own before you arrived.”
Letting out a sigh, I placed my head in my hands. What if Eliseo wasn’t there to protect me anymore? What if this infection got the best of him and poisoned his body slowly, killing him in silence?
My heart constricted at the thought, the pain almost palpable. With a stuttering breath, I was taken back to a moment in the past.
“It’s only been you, Faheema. You know that,” he whispered. “Come on, just a kiss.”
Maverick’s hands rubbed my arms as I rested my face against his chest. Father would never approve of this. I was too young.
“Father would kill me,” I told him.
“Would he? Nah. You’re his only daughter. Not going to happen. Come on,” he coaxed as he tilted my head up to place a chaste kiss on my lips. “He’s not going to find out.”
I had never felt about a boy the way I did him. He had always been there around my family with his dimpled smiles and his chivalry. Maybe Mother would approve. Maybe it would be okay.
The smell of burnt flesh and blood imprinted in my nostrils, reminding me of exactly what happened at my once-home community. The bloodshed and hate pushed me to the brink of drastic fear that Maverick ultimately became a part of the casualties around me. I didn’t know if he was alive. If he was, he would have never forgiven me.
It was my fault for getting hopes up for a future never meant to be mine. Am I setting myself up for disappointment again with Eliseo? My heart ached fiercely, I wanted to tear it out. I didn’t realize I was shuddering until Reed sat down beside me and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me into his strong embrace.
“He’ll be alright,” he comforted. “The old fucker is too stubborn to die.”
I laughed a little. He was probably right.
Reed’s hand went to the back of my neck, massaging it, and I found myself feeling exhausted. How long had we been awake? With all we had gone through, I was surprised we were all still sitting upright.
I could hear the other men’s snores across the fire and it influenced my own mood. My eyes wanted to flutter closed the more Reed made me melt into him with his special hands.
“Fitri…” he whispered against my hair, and my body molded against his further, seeking his heat. Memories of the way Eliseo woke me the last time we made rest beneath the canopy of trees floated behind my lids. I spasmed between my legs, wishing there was something to fill the void, to take my mind off things.
Reed kissed my neck slowly, traveling down to my shoulder, and my heart skipped a beat. His hands moved from the back of my neck, down to the underside of my breast over my shirt, making me pant. My nipples were hardened against the fabric, the cold of the night not helping.
We shouldn’t be doing this, I mentally chastised myself. But why does it feel so good? Why does it feel like it was supposed to be this way? Ever since Eliseo had his way with me, my libido had a mind of its own. I licked my lips, reminiscing the metallic taste on my tongue. I was never one to freely offer myself to men, so what was happening to me?
Has Eliseo’s dominant ways conditioned me? If so, I didn’t hate it. But it couldn’t be right. How often had women been forced into positions for years, still fighting against it to the very end? No, there was more at play beyond my comprehension at the moment. My mind was currently clouded by the warmth enveloping me and the heated trail left behind Reed’s lips on my skin.
He kissed across my jaw lightly until he fisted my hair and slammed his lips against mine. Despite his dominance, his kisses differed from Eliseo’s. There was a rhythm to the way his tongue danced inside my mouth calling me to sweetly submit, but not too quickly. I found myself leaning in, wanting more.
Eliseo groaned, and the spell was broken. I pulled away, disoriented and flummoxed. My lips were swollen from Reed’s kiss as my tongue poked out for another forbidden taste of him. The air around us was thick as we both sat there, breathing heavily.
“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, I’m going to fuck you right here next to him,” Reed threatened with a gravely voice. I didn’t mean to affect him like this… like the way he affected me with his solid presence. How could it feel criminal and marvelous at the same time? I bit my lip, my mind warring within itself as Reed’s pupils dilated, staring at my lips.
“Sili, no. Sili…” I jumped away from Reed, bumping into Eliseo’s arm. Turning, I found him in a fever dream, his eyes flitting back and forth behind his closed lids.
Cradling his face, I leaned in. Reed reluctantly left us as I continued to give Eliseo my full attention, trying hard to tamp down the emotions Reed pulled out from me.
“Come back to me,” I pleaded. “Open your eyes, Eliseo.”
His eyelids fluttered at my request, and hope bloomed in my chest. “Eliseo, please.”
“Sili,” he whispered. He wasn’t waking up, but it seemed he could hear me according to his responses. “I need to tell her…”
Tell her? Tell me? Tell me what?
“Eliseo!” I kissed him all over his face and massaged his shoulders, trying to stimulate him into awareness. What I really wanted to do was shake him until he opened his damn eyes.
He groaned and my trepidation morphed into anger—anger over the shitty hand life dealt me. Lost in my emotions over the injustices in my life, I straddled Eliseo and brought us skin to skin. I needed him. I needed him desperately to keep me sane when all my mind wanted to do was break. He was the strength I didn’t know I had—the only one who saw me for who I was and what I had to offer besides my body. He trained me, built my confidence. He couldn’t leave me now.
I grabbed his face and firmly kissed him, invading his mouth with my tongue, needing him to fulfill the longing Reed left in me earlier.
He groaned, still under the influence of sleep. Without warning, his hands crawled up my leg and grabbed my hips, grinding me against him.
“You’re going to have to wake me up like this every time, Sili,” he mumbled groggily. I laugh-cried against his lips.
“As much as I love your little body taking advantage of me, can you get off for a minute? My leg hurts like a motherfucking bitch.”
Still laughing, I gave him one last kiss before climbing off. We both stared at his right leg and noticed the blood pooling out of the bandage had multiplied.
Eliseo cursed beneath his breath.
Worry threatened to overtake me until an idea popped in and stopped it. Crawling down, I bit my wrist, groaning in both pain and a hint of pleasure against my pierced skin. Pulling my blade out of my boot, I cut away Eliseo’s bandages before placing my wrist above the wound, I squeezed it with my other hand to release more blood. I watched with rapt fascination as my blood dripped inside.
“What the hell are you doing?” Eliseo bit out. “Are you out of your damn mind, Sili?”
He tried to kick me away, but I slammed my hand down on his left leg, holding it in place. Come on, come on. If my blood heals, it should heal him too, right? My eyes prick with tears of hope.
“Do you feel anything? Is anything happening?” I asked Eliseo frantically.
“Woman, if you don’t get your ass up here right now, I’mma feel more than pissed off you did that,” he grimaced.
My skin itched as it stitched itself back together, sealing my life source back where it belonged. I covered my face as I sobbed while my hope shattered. I couldn’t even do something as simple as heal the person I cared about. What good were these stupid abilities?
“Sili, get your ass up here,” he commanded.
Climbing up, I nestled myself against him, crying silent tears as he rubbed my back in comfort. A small laugh escaped over the messed up situation. I should be comforting him right now, not the other way around.
He kissed the top of my head, pulled me across his body so I could use him as a mattress. We laid there until we both succumbed to much-needed sleep.
The next day, we ran out of gas a few miles away. Of course, this would happen. Eliseo had been fully awake thus far, limping along as we trekked the rest of the way back home on foot.
“Sili, I need to tell you something,” he threw out of the blue.
“Yeah?” I took the initiative and threw his arm over my shoulder to help relieve some of the weight on his right leg. He kissed my forehead in appreciation as we continued to follow the other guys ahead of us.
“There was a prisoner at the last compound. A bloodsucker. Female. She’s the one the wings belonged to,” he continued conversationally.
“Okay… why are you telling me this?” I asked curiously, unsure of where this was going.
“One of the men was raping her. I killed him, thinking it was you. When he fell to the side, I saw her leg was getting cut off.”
I was not surprised. They were fucking cannibals.
“What happened after, filled in some of the missing pieces to the puzzle.”
I still wasn’t getting what he was putting down. “What puzzle? What the hell are you talking about, Eliseo? You’re not making any sense.”
“Her leg healed right in front of my eyes, Sili,” he emphasized.
I stopped walking and so did he. We stared at one another intently before I found my voice. “S-she healed? Like me?”
“Yeah, like you,” he said much softer. “She said she was from Clan Sira—they fly among other things. Do you know anything about them?”
Scrunching my nose, I tried hard to remember. “I remember being a prisoner with Clan Cirse. I was promptly marked for execution.” Flashes of the memory played in my mind clearer. “They called me a hybrid.”
“I figured as much. Your blood has to hail from the same clan. But I haven’t seen you in a feeding frenzy so it reiterates half of you being human. The only thing I’ve seen you eat are vegetable sandwiches back in Ashborne. It would explain why you don’t show the same characteristics as the vampires we’ve come across—just similarities. How did you stumble across Clan Cirse if their territory is far to the north?”
I shrugged before we started walking again. Eliseo’s hand rubbed my shoulder to ease my mind. It was full of so many questions and not enough answers. But this was closer to anything I could piece myself—one of my biological parents was a vampire from Clan Sira. Where was my human parent from? Were they still alive? Should I be out looking for them?
Do they even want to be found? They got rid of me, didn’t they?
“Sili, let’s get home first,” Eliseo directed. “Whatever is going on in your head needs to be planned out, okay? Let’s not rush into things before we can get enough information.”
He was right. I was too high on emotions again.
“Alright guys! We’re about a mile out,” Samuel hollered back.
“Thank fuck, I’m tired of walking,” Gunner groaned.
“Quit being a pussy. It’s just a mile,” Reed countered and they shoved each other playfully.
Their spirits were up. We were so close to home. I was filled with renewed energy. We ran out of food a day ago with just water left. We had been sharing and sipping along the way.
The last mile went by quickly. I could tell Eliseo had been trying to tough it out with the way he leaned more of his weight on me toward the end.
The guards at the top of Ashborne’s towers on either side of the gate pointed their guns at us, but the familiar sight still brought me comfort.
“Hey! It’s Samuel!” he called out with a wave. “I got Reed, Gunner, Eliseo, and the kid with us. Open up!”
“Fuck, where the hell have you been? We didn’t see you leave. We assumed you were all dead a week after your disappearance.” The guy at the front rolled his hand in the air and the gates creaked open slowly.
“Fuck, home sweet home,” Gunner grumbled as we all walked through the gates together as a unit.
We crossed the threshold with relieved sighs but my shoulders were still tense.
“Call the doctor!” I hollered before Eliseo could stop me. He gave me a glare, and I glared right back. He was not coming back home simply to die from some stupid infection. I refused to let it happen.
“Welcome back, gentleman! Glad to see you’ve decided to return.” The governor, Sergio, greeted us with a smile more false than this farce of an existence. But I had to admit, the familiar smells of grass and manure made me homesick. A few of the other residents began to come out of their homes to see what the ruckus was all about.
“You’ve brought me something to play with, I see,” the crazy doctor laughed as he parted through the growing crowd.
“Samuel!” Hannah launched herself into Samuel’s arms, kissing him and doing more than she should in the middle of the town. Samuel laughed and pulled her away from the crowd without removing his lips from her. They wouldn’t come back up for air for a while.
“Eliseo, Eliseo. Seems you’ve run into some trouble out there, hmm?” Crazy Otis spoke again. “Hopefully the other guy looks worse.”
“The other guys are fucking dead,” Eliseo stated flatly.
“Even better.” Crazy Otis rubbed his hands together, staring at the infected wound on Eliseo’s leg. He looked too excited for his own good. “Well, come on, I’ll fix you right up—”
“In the house,” I cut in. I was not trusting him in his secret bunker, not with this. I needed him where I, and everyone else, could see him.
He stared at me for a few moments and threw his head back in a maniacal cackle. “Alright. Alright. Take him to my home and put him on the table. I’ll be right there. I need to grab some of my… equipment from the bunker.”
His eyes sparkled as he spoke of his tools, right before he turned and walked away.
“Sili. What the hell? I don’t want crazy Otis near me,” Eliseo hissed as we walked past the crowd, who continued to stare from me to Eliseo and our close proximity.
