Why did he make me so... Like I could rest in his arms until all life ceased and we could wander the hills of bliss for all eternity. But he also made me want him. Really want him, in a way I'd never even known I could want someone- NEED someone, because I did need him. I'd needed him even before I'd heard his voice, felt his presence, gazed deep into his cold, icicle eyes. But now that I had had a taste of the bacon, I wanted the whole piggy.
It was a shame he had to be so evil. That was the reason I could NEVER let him know how much he could manipulate me. One tiny touch was all it would take for me to kill for him. My best friend would die by my hand if he wished it. I loathed how weak he made me, but I was also grateful that I had found someone I, I what? Loved? It couldn't be love. Love had to go two ways, I was just a rather irritating bug to Caine. He was the light that drew me in, to his glow that would undoubtedly be my downfall. I hated him for this, but I hated the thing, the creature, the force that had changed me even more, given me my gifts and mutated my DNA, because it was something inside me that made me swoon every time Caine came close to me. He liked to do that, get right in your face if you didn't do exactly what he said. I had to appear as if his very voice didn't make me weak at the knees, so resistance- though the hardest thing I'd ever had to do- was obligatory.
And now Diana knew, Anna, my new only friend. The one I would kill if Caine wished it. Which was why I kept away from people. Also why I had to help any human I came across who needed help. So really it was all down to Caine why I started storing all the food and supplies I figured we would need once everything ran out.
It made me disgusted with people who junked out of cookies and candy and pot and booze when in a few weeks it would all be completely gone, and kids would start to starve, and that was when all order and attempt to build up life would fail. So I made a few orchards and vegetable patches. I started raising a few goats and pigs in the hills just outside of town. Yes I had to feed them but it would be so worth it when Caine- when I could help all the other kids.
His breath was like cold cotton on my neck. My lungs immediately started to fail.
"So you want to provide food for the Coates kids when the world starts to collapse around us?" he asked, a slightly sarcastic tone to his voice.
All I could do was nod in accession. My lips parted slightly to let in more oxygen, and unwillingly my lids dropped. I could see Diana sit up in a chair behind the desk even as my vision wavered, every cell in my body cried out to be joined with Caine's. It was painful, and yet, to be close to his body was enough, but when I felt his cooly seductive breath in my ear, it was all I could do not to swoon pathetically in a feint.
"Caine," Anna started noting my drooping eyelids and rapid rising and falling of my chest.
He raised a finger to quiet her, I saw the wiry muscles in his arm as he extended it past me, I wondered how he looked with his shirt off. That almost made me feint all on its own, but Caine had to make gravity even harder to resist.
He moved his head up, right next to my ear, and put an arm around my waist and another trailing across my collarbone. "And I suppose you are doing this out of the goodness of your heart, nothing you want in return right?" he whispered in my ear. I couldn't even remember what he was talking about. Just keep speaking, I want to hear your voice, I thought breathing hard.
"Caine! Stop!" Diana yelled, but it was too late.
Like a pathetic wretch of a human being, my brain went fuzzy, my legs numb, and the last thing I saw and felt was Caine's alarmed face above me and his strong, steady arms around me, supporting me, holding me.
"You idiot!" Diana shouted at me, loosing her cool for once in her life. "do you even know what you've done?"
I looked at the unconscious girl lying on the table. "She feinted I think." I told Diana, slightly amused by her uncharacteristic behaviour. Diana was usually so calm and collected, I didn't even know she had a friendship with the food girl. That was bad, I had to know things to keep people under me. If diana had any more secrets involving the Perdido beach kids...
"You have no idea do you?" she was yelling "No idea at all! All she was trying to do was help us, why? Because you!"
I looked down at the unconscious Food girl. "I don't trust any of them." I spat "the Perdido beach kids all work for Sam, have you forgotten that Sam wants all Coates dead?"
Diana rolled her eyes "Risa is different."
"No she isn't!" I yelled "They are all the same, and she doesn't even have any powers! Humans at the beach are revolting against the freaks, Bug says it's chaos there."
A look crossed Diana's face, and she looked away quickly, eyes flicking to the girl and back to me in a split second, but I'd known her for years, and I knew what she meant when she lost eye contact.
"She is different," I said staring at her "You said you didn't get a reading, but you lied!"
Her expression stayed hard and cold, but her millisecond of weakness before was enough to prove it to me. "Caine," she began with a patronizing tone.
"No! You lied, if you lied she must be something big, 3 bar? 4 even? Sam and I are the only 4s so she must be a 4. Have you and her had little chats about how great it was to fool me? Did you laugh? Find it funny to deceive me and have your little secrets? Was-"
"She's not a four." Diana said the words so softly I almost didn't hear.
"Oh good. We'd have to kill her if she was."
The look on dianas face told me everything. "higher than a four?" I struggled to keep my shock in control. "how is that even... No one could be stronger than a four... You must be..."
"I'm not mistaken. And I don't lie." Diana snapped "she's beyond anything. She told me after we first met her, her powers are limitless, she can copy any power she sees, fire, telekinesis, she can read levels now, run faster than a bullet, be stronger than Jack even, because she's older. She can do anything, turn it on and off, have more than one on at a time, everything. And she's got only one weakness."
I shook myself out of my incredulity to ask "What is it?"
Diana laughed "always the strategist, Caine. Ask her when she wakes up, if you don't guess before." she moved to the door. "And don't be scared of her, she won't bite you."
I sat in the chair Diana vacated, almost afraid to be on my own in the same room as the Food Girl- Risa, I reminded myself, best not to anger her, just in case. But Caine doesn't get scared, especially not of girls who feint when- I shot up.
Diana's words: "She won't bite you." made sense. And why Risa wanted to help the Coates kids with nothing in return, it wasn't them she cared about, it was ME! I was her weakness. The one thing she could be controlled by, me. I had always found it strange that she was never afraid of me, why her breath came out so fast, because she couldn't help it, she loved being close to me- especially feeling my voice in her ear. Well, only one way to find out if I was right. This was going to be fun.
I was warm. Unusually warm. My bed in the warehouse was never so cosy, had I turned the heating on? Stupid thing to do, it would burn through all the electricity. I should turn it off, thought lazily, but my arms wouldn't move.
"Good morning, love," a gorgeous husky voice whispered just above my ear.
My eyes shot open immediately. "Caine!" I gasped.
"Of course it's me sweetheart, who else would be with you?" he purred, nuzzling my neck.
He was perfect, exactly how I'd always dreamed, him and me together.
I rolled over, and suddenly his scent was everywhere. I gasped and grabbed his shirt, burying my face in his chest. My body cried out to be closer, my DNA itched to be part of him, to please him, make him happy with me.
Caine whispered "You want me so much," into my hair. In the midst of my joy I felt there was something wrong with those beautiful words, but my mind was so full of bliss I couldn't think what.
*He's testing you,* said the awful voice that haunted my nightmares. *And now he knows you cant resist him. Pull away. Now, or I will hurt you.*
As a reflex I jerked away from Caine. My body complained by aching extravagantly but the threat of stabbing knives to my mind was too unbearable to ignore. I kept my back turned to Caine as he sat up, taking deep breaths to calm my over-excited heart. *now lie to him, tell him something believable that explains your behavior. * I hated the way it spoke to me, like it was all my fault I could breathe every time Caine came close to me, when it knew perfectly well that it was responsible for all the crazy mutations happening to kids.
"I haven't been held like that for a long time," I said, hoping my voice sounded steadier than I felt.
I heard Caine ruffle his hair and the desk creaked. "so come back over here," he invited "I can hold you again, I can kiss you even," he was so gorgeous I couldn't turn around for fear of falling into his arms. His husky voice was so sensual and irresistible.
"You know you don't care about me. I'm just the food girl. And I don't care about you either. It was cruel of you to take advantage of my disorientation like that." I turned around and fixed him with the best glare i could muster without collapsing into the beauty of his crystal blue eyes. "The offer to feed the Coates kids still stands, but try another trick like that and you get nothing, and starve." I turned to leave.
"How many powers have you collected?" Caine said quietly and with an icy coldness that froze my limbs.
"What do you-"
"Don't try to deny it Food Girl. I know you can copy powers that you see." I heard him stand, and step lightly to me- immobile in front of the door. "So how many Food Girl? How many kids in the FAYZ have powers? A half? A quarter?"
"A little less than a third." I whispered hoarsely.
"Less than a third! Goodness, so little, but there will be more won't there? More powers are developing, and you know every one."
I nodded, unable to move more than that.
Caine moved close, like he always did, and breathed in my ear "You will serve me, and tell me everything I want to know."
*You failed. He knows everything now.* the Darkness said dryly.
*Oh really? Anything else life changing you wish to inform me of?*
The Darkness was silent, and I wished I hadn't snapped.
*Tell me what to do, please, he'll find out about you otherwise!*
The Darkness was silent for a moment *I will speak through you now* however much I hated losing control over my body, I knew it had to be done. So I surrendered my will to the Darkness.
"Listen Caine," I said coldly in a voice that was perhaps a little too empty and icy to be my own. "I will provide food for you Coates, but that is all. In return, you will leave me alone. I want Drake off my back, help in my fields, and any other kind of help I need. Understand? You will give me what I want, ask no questions, and receive food. Your People will not demand anything, else they will get nothing. Get it, Caine?"
the Darkness turned and stared him directly in the eyes. I could feel my body crying out for him, but under the control of the Darkness it never wavered.
Caine's eyes narrowed angrily, but he nodded.
The Darkness turned and stalked out of the office, past Diana, and away into my pickup, where it released control over me. I promptly lost all strength in my muscles and collapsed over the wheel, gasping hard.
*Your body is too susceptible to him* the Darkness commented *I think it was a mistake making you weak to him*
"No shit Sherlock." I said out loud, and pulled out of Coates Academy. It took me the whole drive hack to the beach to pull myself together.