Beyond fate, there is choice
by Ainzfern
16
As the moments ticked by, Chey noticed, so too did the tension begin to increase. From his perspective, it seemed to fill the very room like some manner of invisible mist, seeping into the spaces between the furniture, pooling under the coffee table. Even Tahna seemed to be affected. Now that he had finished making a series of rather terse calls to his museum curator, the Elite sat unusually subdued, his huge eyes flicking from face to face as he followed conversations.
They were close. Chey knew it. He could feel it in his very bones. It had been thirty five minutes by his reckoning since Iason had contacted Mace and Hadren with Tahna's information. God willing, Chey mused fervently, the next few moments would see them granted the chance to do something.
Because if Chey was honest with himself – and he usually was, he felt the urge to move, to act. The 'interminable waiting' as Raoul had called it earlier, was just not something that Chey Neeson was built to cope with.
He was a man of action. Right now, his feet itched to run.
And, Chey sighed softly and glanced worriedly across the office to where Raoul Am was engaged in a somewhat intense but low-voiced conversation with Iason and Riki, if Chey was feeling it, then he could only imagine that Raoul must be ready to crawl out of his own skin.
Beside him, Tahna heaved a deep sigh and pushed his wealth of pale hair back over his shoulder with one elegant hand. "Tell me something, Mr. Neeson," he murmured, looking with curiously intent eyes at Iason and Riki. "What is your opinion on that?" he nodded towards the pair.
Chey followed his gaze, lifting an inquiring brow. "What aspect of that, exactly, are you referring to, Tahna?" he asked softly.
Tahna lifted his shoulder briefly. "Oh... the whole 'relationship' business," he waved one airy hand as emphasis, "between Elites and mongrels. I mean, really, doesn't it strike you as oddly incongruous?"
Feeling his lips curve up into a little half-smile, Chey leaned towards him slightly, intrigued by the question and yet still mindful of their conversation carrying too clearly across the room. "Well, let's elaborate on your question a little first, shall we?"
Tahna shot him a flat look. "Must you always do that?"
"Do what?"
"Turn everything into some form of blasted negotiation," Tahna gave an irritated little jerk of his chin. "It's a most vexing habit."
"My senate opponents hate it, too."
"They sound like men of eminent good sense." Tahna crossed his arms over his broad chest, his rich mouth pursing in disapproval.
"Seriously," Chey forced the smile off his face, "When you say it seems incongruous to you, are you really just referring to Elites and mongrels, or are you talking about Elites and any manner of intimate or romantic attachment? I mean, there are a lot of Companions out there now that used to be Pets."
"Which is disturbing just by its very connotation, might I add." Tahna sniffed disdainfully.
"Well, to you, maybe," Chey shrugged amiably. "But not to an Elite who happens to be in love."
"Oh please..." Tahna actually rolled his eyes. "Spare me the saccharine rhetoric."
"All right," Chey sat back again, his gaze steady with Tahna violet eyes. "To me, it seems perfectly normal. In my reality, in the place where I grew up in, the place where I live and work, committed and loving couples are all around us, all the time." Chey smiled once more, only this time it was softer, sincere rather than amused. "I find the kind of intimacy that Iason and Raoul share with their mates is actually very life-affirming; an advantage rather than a hindrance." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "In fact, I used to find the notion that Elites weren't allowed to form such unions a deeply saddening concept."
Tahna blinked at him, honest surprise on his flawless face. "You felt sorry for us?" he stared at Chey as though he'd grown a second head. "That's a bit presumptuous, isn't it?" Tahna paused and then shook his head. "Of course, just look who I'm asking," he muttered sourly, gesturing at the handsome man opposite him.
"I don't know if it was pity, as such," Chey mused quietly. "I don't think 'Elites' and 'pity' go very well together at all. But I suppose I genuinely felt that you were all missing out on something rather wonderful."
Tahna huffed a soft sound of derision, looking back across the room towards Raoul. "It doesn't appear to me to be all that 'wonderful', Mr. Neeson." His expression became almost bleak for a moment. "Take Raoul, for example. Even I can see how much he is suffering... and I don't even like the man." Those beautiful eyes turned his way once more, a strangely serious gleam in them, "You must admit the truth of the matter. If he had not formed a union with his mongrel mate, he would not be in this position now."
Chey nodded, light dawning in the back of his mind. "It's being vulnerable," he murmured, his eyes locked with Tahna's. "That's what scares you about it."
Tahna's gaze suddenly became flinty. "I don't happen to appreciate the implications of that remark."
"Truth hurts, Tahna," Chey smiled almost gently at him. "Besides, you're not taking into account the fact that while loving someone can make you feel vulnerable, it can also make you stronger than you've ever been."
"I don't think I care to continue this discussion." Shifting uneasily in his seat Tahna turned away from him, his shoulders stiff and offended.
"You started it," Chey pointed out mildly.
"And now I am finishing it, Mr. Neeson," Tahna shot back over his shoulder.
Chey's reply was forestalled by the soft trilling of Iason's cell phone. Turning his head sharply, he rose from his chair, staring hard at Iason as the Elite leader listened expressionlessly for a moment before cutting the call and pocketing his phone. He turned to Raoul, a grim smile of his beautiful face. "They've found it," he said softly, satisfaction in his tone.
Chey watched the relief flash across Raoul's careworn face.
"It's located out at the old industrial region on the southern outskirts of Tanagura," Iason continued, "near the warehouses where the Midas space port used to store it's requisitions."
"I know that place," Riki bit his full lower lip unhappily. "It's a fair way out."
Raoul set his broad shoulders, turning smoothly and striding towards the door of the office. "Then we had best move quickly." He glanced at Iason. "Mace's team is ready?"
"Indeed," Iason caught Chey's eye as he walked past, nodding meaningfully at him. "They are waiting for us in the basement lot now."
Returning Iason's nod, Chey looked down at Tahna, a tight little grin on his handsome square-jawed face. "Well? Will you ride with me?"
Tahna's jaw dropped. "I can't go with you," he objected sharply, "I am not about to get embroiled in some manner of overly theatrical high-speed rescue attempt!"
"Well, you sure as hell can't stay here," Chey's grin grew positively beatific. "Witness... remember?"
Seething with disgusted exasperation, Tahna ungraciously rose to his feet. "I mourn the day that I met you Mr. Neeson. I absolutely lament it. You are the most dreadful—"
"Yes, I know... 'backwater philistine'," Chey heaved a tolerantly long-suffering sigh and reached out to take the Elite's elbow. "Now, come along, Blondie."
The main warehouse of the complex on the outskirts of Tanagura was cavernous and grim, all oil-stained concrete and partly rusted iron, with a steel buttressed roof that served as home and roost to a score of softly muttering feral birds. High around the walls ran a metal catwalk, intersected by stairs leading down to the main floor. A series of doors, both on the upper and lower levels, led off from the warehouse to other areas of the complex... empty offices, abandoned resident rooms; staff common areas that once housed raucous laughter and multitudinous male voices now contained no sound but the mournful moan of the wind that sighed through broken windows and wandered down deserted hallways.
There was one entrance at floor level to the outside of the structure, a tall wide opening large enough for a substantial vehicle to access was set at one end of the room. It was open now and one could see, looking directly through it, the reinforced concrete tunnel that led towards the rapidly fading daylight.
At the opposite end of the space, in a low pool of light cast by a single lamp, Blaine Dal sat silent and in deep thought.
He rested for the moment in a simple chair beside a plain desk, little more than a table in fact, that he had placed there some time before. On the surface of the desk were a few items, eclectic yet significant; a remote-linked terminal, a small sleekly made handgun, a framed image capture of a perfect young man, a cell phone - not his own, and a compact radio-transmitter unit.
For now, although Blaine knew each item would play an important part in the climax of his recent work, the objects had mostly been forgotten.
But for one.
Reaching out, Blaine carefully, even reverently, picked up the Tian's picture, holding it in his hands as he stared at that exquisite face. He traced the young man's features with tender fingertips, an action he had repeated so many times by now that he hardly had to think about it.
A deep sigh, slow and somnolent, broke the profound silence and for a second the details of the image capture blurred as the hot sharp burn of tears rose behind Blaine's eyes. But he gritted his jaw, swallowing hard, and pushed them back.
No. Not the time for that. Not the place, either.
Blaine set Tian's picture carefully back on the desk top. He could not give in to grieving now. If he started, the fact was he knew that he would not be able to stop.
And he still had things to do.
He was ready. Everything was in place. Now was the time to reflect for a moment, the calm before the storm - so to speak. He would make contact with Iason tonight, Blaine decided as he sat there. He lifted his hands, rubbing them over his drawn and weary face. He had briefly considered waiting another day, but that notion had quickly been dismissed.
Because the sooner Katze was released, the better.
He could not trust himself to remain civilized around the mongrel anymore. He was... not himself anymore. Blaine's hands shifted as he grimaced almost painfully, pressing his fingertips to his temples. His control, his outward calm, his cool and analytical thought processes; they just seemed to leave him whenever he was in Katze's presence.
He knew he had hurt the mongrel, possibly quite badly. An Elite was capable of doing more physical harm out of mere irritation than the average non-enhanced human could do in a towering rage. And Blaine had been raging when he had set about Katze's person.
It filled him with shame and horror.
He would never have treated Tian that way... and he had owned Tian.
For one short moment, back in the grim room where Katze was imprisoned, Blaine had felt a terrifying fury of lust come over him. And an overwhelming desperation... the dreadful urge to simply sop up his pain and his need with the soft yielding heat that was Katze's vulnerable flesh; to reach oblivion, however briefly.
Thank God the mongrel's wits had not deserted him. Even as he shuddered shamefully away from the very thought of what he had almost done, Blaine was grateful for that.
Thank God Katze had stopped him.
Blaine smiled grimly across the vast space of the warehouse. Soon, he hoped, it would all be over. He would have peace at last. He had no illusions whatsoever that he might survive this night. From the very beginning he had always known that to kill Iason Mink, he would have to forfeit his own life one way or the other. In the greater scheme of things, it still seemed like a small price to pay; the loss of a life that had become unbearable for the chance to settle the score with the man who, through his arrogant and unknowing actions, had made it thus.
He could content himself with the thought that, before Iason died, he would know why.
Behind him, the terminal on the desk began to chirp softly with the steady pulse of an alarm. Turning to stare at it, Blaine felt his eyes widen as he realized what the alarm actually meant.
Some weeks ago, in preparation for this moment, Blaine had set up a series of perimeter sensors along the service roads that lead to the abandoned industrial area where the warehouse stood; sensors that would alert him to any vehicles approaching.
The northern sensor had just been tripped.
Somehow, they had found him. Blaine's gut tightened as he rose to his feet, damping down the brief sharp stab of alarm that rose with a few deep breaths. He did not need to panic. The sensor was far enough out along the road to indicate that he still had some time, some thirty minutes or so before Iason, he instinctively knew, and whatever entourage he had brought with him, would arrive.
Everything was set in place. Everything would go as he had planned, the change in schedule notwithstanding. There was only one task he needed to attend to now, and that would take but a few moments as best. He would still be here, waiting, when Iason arrived outside.
Nodding somberly, Blaine began to swiftly walk towards one of the doors that accessed the main warehouse.
Towards the room where Katze was.
On the hard mattress in the grim and spartan room where he was confined, Katze groaned softly as he painfully moved into a sitting position, easing his legs off the edge and resting his feet on the floor. Shortly after Blaine had left the room, he had literally crawled his way onto the bed, slipping into a restless doze, physical exhaustion and a mild case of delayed shock simply getting the better of him. Now, upon waking, he realized that the pain from a number of injuries that sheer adrenaline had kept him from feeling had returned with a vengeance.
His right shoulder ached like a bitch; Katze winced, pulling his arm in close to his body to try and alleviate the throbbing. It alternately burned and froze and any movement sent a bloom of hot pain lancing down one side. Blaine must have wrenched it pretty badly when the Elite had grabbed him earlier. Similarly his right knee felt hot and swollen, most likely twisted during that same struggle.
Katze gasped sharply as he shifted with his discomfort, a light film of sweat breaking out on his face. His back and buttocks felt all bruised to hell. So did his ribs. Katze actually vented a pained but wry chuckle that filled the silent room for a moment. He figured being slammed against a metal door by a man four times stronger that he was would probably account for that. And, from the sharp sting that he felt here and there on his body, he was guessing that he'd acquired his fair share of scratches and grazes as well.
Katze shook his head, something close to amazement crossing his bruised face. In only a few short moments, Blaine had pretty much managed to beat the shit out of him.
Sure was a strong fucker...
In all honesty, he didn't actually want to think about his face too much at all; not that he could avoid it considering the misery it was causing him. He had tasted blood in his mouth earlier, just after Blaine had left, and not just from the split in his lower lip, either. Careful probing with his tongue had revealed a couple of loosened teeth. Not too much to worry about there, though, Katze thought pragmatically. He touched his jaw carefully as he continued with his physical inventory. His teeth would tighten in their sockets in a couple of days anyway, so long as Blaine didn't take it into his silver-haired head to come back in and knock them out of his head.
He could tell that the left side of his face was pretty swollen now, probably bruised as black as hell too, considering his pale complexion. He kept his questing fingertips well away from his cheekbone, knowing that even the lightest touch was too much to tolerate.
Grunting softly, Katze shifted again, carefully, trying to ease his body into some sort of position that might offer some manner of respite from his stiff muscles and aching bones.
He really wasn't having much luck.
Closing his eyes, Katze sighed deeply, his sweat dampened brow creasing. He couldn't deny that he felt he was owed just a few minutes of feeling sorry for himself. He was beyond tired. He hurt. A lot. He missed Raoul desperately. Katze swallowed hard, a lump coming to his throat as Raoul Am's beautiful face flashed across his mind's eye. Right now, he would give anything to be able to just crawl in Raoul's arms and rest there, safe and warm.
Katze shook his head, his heart aching. Raoul would be going out of his mind with worry right now, he knew; suffering, hiding it from the world and keeping it all bottled up until his anxiety started to become pain.
Katze knew his lover, his Companion, very well. Without him there to coax Raoul out, the Elite had a tendency to internalize his feelings far more than was good for him. For a second, anger flared within him at Blaine, not just for kidnapping him or beating him, but for keeping him here when he needed to be taking care of his Blondie.
And on top of it all, Katze also couldn't deny that he was scared; scared that Blaine Dal would return for yet another round with his battered hostage. Admittedly, the previous visits hadn't been long, but then, they hadn't needed to be. An Elite could deliver a hell of a lot of damage, in a very short space of time, should the mood so take him. And Blaine's mood...
Well, it was pretty clear to Katze, that Blaine Dal was so close to insane that one couldn't tell the difference anymore.
Katze didn't have much fight left in him now. He knew he wouldn't make it through another savaging without incurring serious injury, perhaps even losing his life.
So when the lock in the heavy door of his room clicked, and the door itself swung open, Katze grew very still, listening carefully and watching with almost feral intensity in his golden eyes as Blaine Dal, apparently as unruffled as if he'd just been for an evening stroll, walked into the room.
For a long moment, they simply stared at each other before Blaine sighed, his large gray eyes closing briefly and a whisper of remorse crossing his beautiful face. "I have broken every promise that I made to you thus far, haven't I, Katze?"
Katze simply looked at him, his expression as neutral as he could get it.
"Yes." Blaine nodded as if the mongrel had agreed aloud with him. "I told you that I would not harm you... that you were only needed to play a simple part in my preparations." He smiled, but there was little humor in it. "And look," he gestured with one hand towards the ex-Furniture. "Look what I have done to you. Look what I have become."
Katze waited, wetting his lips as his anxiety began to rise again. He did not, could not, trust this man. Until he was out of here, back at Raoul's side, he knew he was not safe, no matter how fuckin' sorry the Platina seemed to be.
He knew Blaine's story and yes, it was tragic. He knew the Elite had suffered, he knew that the man felt so much pain he could barely function. But this had gone far beyond any consideration of compassion.
For Katze, right now, this was about surviving.
Blaine made no attempt to close the distance between them, seeming almost hesitant to get too close to him; instead he pulled in a deep breath and released it slowly, almost as if centering himself. "Do you think you can walk, Katze?" he asked then.
Swallowing audibly, impossible hope beginning to rise, Katze nodded. "You mean, out of here?" he asked softly. "Oh, yeah. I can walk."
"Then it is time for you to leave."
Katze stared at the Elite. "You're serious? You're really letting me go?"
Blaine's eyes closed painfully for a second. "Yes," he murmured. "Your part is done. You are free to leave."
Tilting his head, Katze's mind began to race. "So Iason is here?" he asked almost breathlessly. His heart began to pound. Wherever Iason was, he knew, Raoul would be nearby.
"Almost," Blaine's gaze became very serious, even somewhat anxious. "There is not much time. You have to leave now. Otherwise, I cannot guarantee that you will survive."
"Survive what?" Forgetting his earlier caution, truly disturbed by the odd light in the Platina's gray eyes, Katze leaned forward. "Please..." he paused searching for the right words, "if there's something that I need to know, please tell me."
Blaine grimaced, then winced and shook his head. "The warehouse is set to explode at my signal," he said urgently, his calm facade cracking as he lifted his hands in a frustrated gesture. "I simply cannot tell you when that may happen, Katze, you must go!"
Painfully, slowly, Katze got to his feet, his battered face blanching.
A bomb. Dear God, it was Dana Bahn all over again.
He felt his resolve hardening, his fear draining away under the utter certainty that he could not allow such a thing to occur. Thinking rapidly, keeping his voice suitably soft and ever so slightly touched with fright, he spoke again. "Please, Blaine, don't do this. It's still not too late. You can still turn back. Seriously, if you give him a chance, I know Iason will understand."
"No, Katze," Blaine shook his head. "It is too late for me," he said, his tone hardening. "It has been too late since the moment I killed Tian."
"If you say so," Katze sighed. "All right then. How far do I have to go to be out of range?"
"Just get beyond the fencing at the perimeter of the complex and you should be safe."
"Thank you," Katze nodded at him, his eyes lowering, his formidable mind working swiftly. "Thank you, Blaine."
"I must leave you now," Blaine was telling him, "When you exit the room, turn left and follow the corridor. It will lead you to the outside compound. The fencing around the perimeter is in disrepair. I am certain you will find a gap to get through."
Silently, Katze nodded again.
Blaine turned away and moved to the leave the room but, as he reached the doorway he paused, turning back to look over his shoulder. "I know that, at this juncture, Katze, you'll probably neither believe nor care... but I am truly sorry."
Looking at him, seeing the real shades of truth in his eyes, Katze gave a kind of mental shrug. It would serve no real purpose now to throw the Elite's apology back into his face. Instead, he sighed softly. "I know you are," he said simply, "I wish things had been different for you."
Blaine smiled sadly at him, a wealth of sorrow and anguish in his eyes. "So do I," he replied, profound regret in his voice. With that, he turned away and left the room without another word.
In his wake, Katze painfully followed, reaching the door and turning left into the corridor as instructed. As he struggled along, limping badly and favoring his injured leg, he used the wall for support and gritted his teeth against the pain. Blaine appeared to believe he would just take the chance to run as far as possible. Shame for the Platina that he hadn't done just a little more research on the nature of mongrels. Katze did, indeed, have every intention of reaching the outside of the warehouse complex, but he would not be leaving it. From what Blaine had said, Iason could still be en-route or he could already be here. And that meant that Raoul would be here, too.
And neither one of them, nor whatever entourage they had with them, could as yet have any idea of how dangerous entering the warehouse would be. And Raoul would enter the warehouse. To find him, Katze knew his Blondie would tear the place apart with his bare hands if he had to.
A cool breeze touched his hot face, the scent of fresh air entered his nostrils and he pushed himself a little harder, faint sounds of distress leaving his throat as his tortured muscles and strained ligaments objected. Damning them, he pressed on and within a few more minutes, he exited the corridor through an open access door into the night air of the outer compound.
Glancing once to his left, panting raggedly, he could indeed see through the shadows, the outline of a broken chain-link fence and, far beyond in the distance, the golden lights of Tanagura.
Turning his back on the far-off city, Katze painfully began to limp along the edge of the warehouse complex, following the line of the building, knowing that it would lead him to the main entrance where, in all likelihood, Iason had already arrived. Lurching in stages, using the wall and the occasional abandoned piece of equipment to support himself, Katze struggled on with rising desperation, forcing his damaged body to move as fast as it could.
They needed to be warned. That was what he focused his entire attention on now. Katze barely heard the harsh sound of his own breathing, the soft low noises of effort and agony that left his throat as he staggered onwards.
Raoul needed to be warned.
Beyond fate... – chapter 15 << >> Beyond fate... – chapter 17