Author's note: Even though it's carrying straight on from the last chapter, I've changed the date because it's early hours of the morning :)
11th October 2013
Ireland looked up at Xav, her mind going wild at the news of him being her soulfinder. Stop it, Ireland, she mentally chastised herself. As if you could ever actually have a future with him. He'll kill you the first chance he gets, you can't trust him. The only person you can trust is your dad. Don't let Xav Benedict in; never let him in.
She took a step away from him, a cruel snarl on her face. "Wow," she folded her arms across her chest. "You know, that look in your eyes is actually hilarious. Do you really think that us being soulfinders means a damn thing to me? Ha! You should be thoroughly disappointed that the universe decided to put us together."
And he was disappointed, she could tell as soon as her words left her mouth. The hope, the only light left in him after the past few days, fizzled out of his eyes and was replaced by a dull sadness. When she'd walked into the room, she had admired him. Even though he was covered in blood and his face was barely recognizable, and even though he was clearly totally exhausted, he had still tensed his body. He'd still looked into her eyes and spoken to her in a snarky, sarcastic tone. She guessed that was what the real Xav was like. However, this Xav... She'd broken him, she could instantly see it. He looked empty, like he had nothing left to live for. But did Ireland care? No. Because she had locked her emotions away in side of her like she always did so that she couldn't let herself care for this boy, so that she couldn't feel sorry for him and want to help him.
She grabbed hold of his arm tightly and started to drag him out of the room. He stumbled behind her but she didn't care and she ignored his groans of pain. She never cared about the people they tortured and she wasn't going to start now.
She refused to change who she was because of some stupid boy who thought he had some sort of supernatural claim to her. No good ever came from soulfinders.
Xav was unbelievably glad when Ireland dragged him into a room straight across from his so that he didn't have far to walk. Walking was killing him, in fact any movement at all was killing him. The pain was excruciating but still, that wasn't what was hurting him the most.
Ireland had rejected him. In all his years of dating, Xav had never been rejected. He was used to girls doing anything for him, falling at his feet as soon as he paid them the slightest attention. He had once even pulled a woman who was at a nightclub for her husband's birthday- having a quickie with a married woman in a nightclub bathroom was not his finest moment, he had to admit that fault, but it was proof that when he wanted a girl, he could get her.
So why couldn't he even get his own soulfinder? True, he didn't look his very best right now, but that shouldn't matter. They were soulmates, they were destined to be together, and she didn't even want him. How could he ever have a happy life now, knowing that his soulfinder didn't want him? The thought of knowing about her yet not being able to have a future with her terrified him.
He tried to console himself by reminding himself that Ireland was a Hawk; she was a murderer, a villain, a criminal. He didn't want that. He wanted a nice, down-to-earth girl that didn't kill innocent people. Why would anybody want to be with someone that had done the sort of things Ireland had?
But still, despite these thoughts, he was still broken-hearted that she wouldn't even contemplate being good, being with him so they could have a good life together.
Xav forced those thoughts to the back of his mind, not forgetting them exactly but not focusing on them. "Uriel!" He gasped when he noticed the young man sat on a chair in the middle of the room. Uriel looked just as bad as he reckoned he did, all bruised and bloody. Uriel was slumped in the chair and looked done for. Xav used what strength he had left to use his power to look at Uriel's life energy- it was weak, but not fading, so at least he knew that his brother wasn't dying. Uriel met his eyes but they didn't have a chance to say anything.
Xav jumped a little when a hand clamped down on his shoulder and he turned his head to see a large, beast of a man stood behind him. Ireland had disappeared. A door on the other side swung open and Oliver Hawk walked in, a smile on his face. He positioned himself at a place in the room where both Benedicts could see him.
"You see, Uriel. I wasn't lying when I told you that I hadn't killed your brother... Yet, anyway. But I'll kill him right in front of you now if you don't tell me what the damn weapon is." Oliver sounded angry and was speaking through clenched teeth, although he didn't raise his voice. Somehow that made him even more intimidating. Uriel glared at the man and didn't reply- this made Xav happy, knowing that his brother was holding out this long just like he was. Hawk sighed. "I thought you might feel that way. So I had my daughter retrieve something. Or I suppose I should say someone. Maybe this will convince you to talk?"
With those words, the door opened again and Ireland walked back into the room. She wasn't alone. Hazel was walking next to her, hands handcuffed behind her back and tape across her mouth. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she looked terrified, the plain white tee she wore clinging tightly to her protruding, round stomach. To say she was five months pregnant with twins, she actually wasn't as big as other women got, but it was still achingly obvious that she was pregnant. Ireland hissed at her to keep moving and Hazel started to slowly walk over to where Oliver stood. As they got closer, Xav suddenly noticed that Ireland was holding a gun to Hazel's head; she pressed it against her temple when they stopped.
Xav saw Uriel shake his head a little, almost as if he thought that he was hallucinating, and gasped when he was sure this was real. "No!" He spoke as loud as he could, voice raspy and croaky. "No, please don't hurt her. She's pregnant, for crying out loud."
"Yes, I am aware of that," Ireland replied, looking quite bored with the whole situation. "She made sure to tell about a thousand times on the way here, but it doesn't make a difference." Xav honestly had no idea how Ireland had managed to kidnap Hazel considering Victor would have no doubt been there. And when somebody Victor loved was in danger, he was a force to be reckoned with and practically unbeatable. How had Ireland got the best of him?
Oliver cleared his throat and began to speak. "So Uriel, we did some research on you to try and find out who you care about. Not very much came up, other than your work colleagues. But then, get this! We found out that this lady here, Hazel Clarrison and the fiancée of your brother, is your ex girlfriend. And something tells me you still harbour an undying love for her. Am I right?"
Uriel was sobbing now and Xav pitied him greatly. The love triangle between Uriel, Hazel and Victor had always been a sore spot for the family and Uriel always seemed to get the brunt of all the pain and anguish. If any of the brothers deserved happiness, it was Uriel, but he never seemed to have any luck and it was clear that he'd lost hope of ever finding his soulfinder.
"Enough of the theatrics," Ireland snapped, frowning at her grinning father. "Uriel, I will shoot this girl in the head whether she is pregnant or not. And then we'll kill your brother, and then we'll kill you. Xavier refuses to speak, but maybe you'll do better than him. We warned you that this would end in death if you didn't give us the information you wanted, so why don't you just tell us and we'll let you go? All three of you. Surely this information isn't worth dying for."
But that was just the thing: it was worth dying for. If 'the weapon' got into the wrong hands, it would mean the end of the savant world and the human world alike and would be the start of an entirely new, and much worse, world. Uriel knew that just as much as Xav did so he could tell that his brother was struggling with this. Uriel wanted to save the girl he loved and save his little brother too, but he didn't want that to be at the expanse of the rest of the world. Hazel was shaking her head at Uriel, trying to communicate to him to not say anything. Xav was proud of her for being so brave, for practically volunteering to sacrifice her life so the Hawk's couldn't get their hands on the weapon.
Xav studied Uriel's face and knew that he was about to spill the truth. And he knew that he would hate himself for it and constantly blame himself, yet another thing to add to the pile of shit he had to deal with on a daily basis. And Xav didn't want that for his brother.
So he spoke up before Uriel had a chance. "The weapon isn't a thing," he blurted out. He took a deep breath and looked only at Ireland as he revealed the secret, both hate and yearning for her in his eyes. "It's a person. A girl called Persephone Carter, she's the cousin of my sister-in-law. We've never met her and we have no idea where she is, none of us do. Her parents have her hidden somewhere. But she's still technically family so we wanted to protect her and stop anyone from using her for her powers."
"What are her powers?" Ireland curiously asked.
Xav shrugged a shoulder. Which hurt a lot. "I don't know. I swear. Look, you know everything now. Please let us go."
"No," Oliver responded in a flat voice. "Ireland, kill the girl."
"What?!" Xav shouted as Uriel swore loudly at the man. "No, you said we'd get out of here alive if we told you-"
"And I've changed my mind. My daughter and I want revenge on your family and this is the perfect opportunity to do that. Why would we turn that chance down? If we kill you, that sends a message to your family and anyone else who thinks they can break us. Ireland, kill the girl."
Xav's eyes flicked back to his dreadful soulfinder and was shocked to see that she'd lowered the gun and was looking at her dad in bewilderment. "But dad, we never go back on our word," she stammered. "It's one of our rules. They told us about the weapon, that's all we needed them for."
Oliver walked over to Ireland and slapped her around the face hard with the back of his hand. The sound of the slap echoed in the room and Xav winced as if he had felt the blow himself. "When I tell you to do something girl, you do it! Who do you think you are to talk back to me like that? Do I need to send you back to the confinement room to think over what you've done wrong?"
Ireland's hand dropped from her reddened cheek and she took a step backwards, pure fear in her eyes as she struggled to meet her father's gaze. She looked like a completely different person to the one that had rejected Xav so cruelly. "I'm sorry, daddy," she said quietly, sounding like a petrified little girl. "No, I don't need to go back to the room. I was simply trying to tell you that I think we should let them go. We'll find the weapon and we'll change the world and the Benedict family will have to live with the knowledge that they are the reason so many will be dead. And then, when they think their world can't get any worse, we'll start killing them off one by one and they will be living a nightmare." Her voice became sterner and more determined as she talked.
Xav's heart sank. For a short moment there, he thought that Ireland was trying to do the right thing by saving him, that maybe she wanted to protect her soulfinder by helping him get out of here. She'd almost looked guilty, like she didn't want to kill any of them... But that guilt had left her expression now and was replaced by a harsh, mean one that looked like it took pleasure in the thought of destroying the Benedicts. All of a sudden, Xav was enraged with true hate for the girl, soulfinder or not.
Oliver was silent for a minute and those in the room all waited tensely, wondering whether his reaction would be a good one or a bad one. Finally, he raised a hand and didn't stop when Ireland flinched a little. Then, he gently stroked her sore cheek and smiled at her. "That's my girl," he said softly. "Just as I raised you, coming up with brilliant ideas. Your mother would be so proud, you know."
"You agree with me, then?"
"I do," he nodded. "We'll let them go. For now. But we'll come back for them, they can count on that."
Blue sat cross-legged on the sofa quietly as the Benedict family fell apart around her. It was the early hours of the morning and Blue had been awoken when she felt how distressed Zed was through the soulfinder bond. She'd come round to their house straight away – still dressed in her pyjamas and surprised to find the whole family there – only to be told that Victor was panicked because he'd woken up to find Hazel gone and couldn't get in touch with her at all, not even via telepathy.
The family were already distraught over Uriel and Xav being kidnapped and it was becoming too much for them. Victor was pacing the living room, calling people for help and trying constantly to reach Hazel. Blue was close with Victor and saw him as an older brother; she wanted to comfort him but had no idea what to say. Besides, he kept brushing away the other family members whenever they tried to talk to him.
She stood up from the sofa slowly, making sure not to wake up Gracie who had fallen asleep resting against her. Blue managed to leave the room unnoticed and headed upstairs to Zed's room. He had angrily stormed out of the living room twenty minutes earlier, slamming the door behind him, but she hadn't followed him. She wanted to give him a little time to calm down, but she couldn't sit in that room anymore and listen to Karla crying and see the usually strong Benedict boys let their pain out in different ways.
When she went into Zed's room, his room was a mess. Everything had been flung out of place, the TV remote smashed on the floor. Zed was sat on the edge of his bed, clutching at his hair and his shoulders shaking with tremors as he cried. "Hey," she crooned gently, pulling his hands out of his hair before he hurt himself and sitting down beside him. "Zed, shh. Everything's going to be okay."
He looked at her and shook his head. "You don't know that. How do you know that?"
"Because that's what you told me after my mum died. I didn't think things could be better ever again, but they are. I know this is a mess and your family is being torn apart, but we'll all get past this. Together, like a family. Your brothers and Hazel will be okay, they have to be. Sitting around crying about it isn't going to change anything," she said, not unkindly.
"I'm so scared, Blue," he admitted quietly, leaning forward to rest his forehead against hers.
He was a mess, so Blue did the only thing she could think of at that moment to take his mind off everything: she kissed him. It was their first proper kiss and she wrapped her arms around his neck and his slid around her waist and they melted into each other. Zed fell backwards on the bed, pulling her down with them and easily turning so that he was on top of her. And still, they kept on kissing desperately, clinging to each other as their lips melded together so perfectly. Blue could almost forget about everything else, she was so lost in the kiss.
Why didn't I kiss him sooner? She thought to herself. This is amazing... So lovely... This is all I want to do for the rest of my life.
When they finally broke apart, both of them breathless, Zed kissed her again once more, softly, before smiling at her. "I've waited for what feels like a long time for that," he whispered. "And still, it was so much better than my fantasies."
"Oh, you've fantasized about me, have you?" She smirked. "I don't quite know how to feel about that."
"Well let's just say, not all of them would have a PG rating," he said cockily. The smile faded from his face then and he went serious. "Thank you. I mean it. For coming over here in the middle of the night just to see if I was okay, for staying in the middle of a family crisis, for making me feel better and giving me hope. You're the best."
"You don't have to thank me. You would have done the same for me," she stroked his cheek. "And besides, that kiss was for me as well as for you. I needed a distraction too."
"Um, guys?" Yves' voice popped into her mind and she got the feeling that he was communicating with the whole family. "I was just watching the security tapes and a white van just stopped at the bottom of the hill, just out of reach of our security measures. You know, the alarms."
"Get to the point, Yves." Victor sounded impatient and cranky as he replied.
"Right. Yeah. Well, they opened the back of the van and I thought that was really weird so I zoomed in. They let three people out of the van and left them on the street before they drove off. They left Uriel, Xav and Hazel on the street. They're making their way to the house now, but Uriel and Xav look pretty bad. They're struggling."
Blue felt everyone's relief and lessened worry through the shared link. "Zed, come downstairs," Victor said. "Me, you and Trace will go and help them up the hill. Yves, get ready to put the whole house on lock-down as soon as we get back. And the Williamson house too, just in case. Come on, hurry up!"
"Go," Blue ordered, pushing on Zed's chest until he climbed off the bed and stood up. "Go on, before he charges out of here on his own." Zed nodded and walked over to the door. "Oh, and Zed? Don't try and do anything stupid and get yourself hurt."
"Now, would I ever do that?" He asked in a jokingly innocent voice, in a happier mood after Yves' announcement.
"Yes. Yes you would actually."