Driven (3 page)

“Time to get to work.” I stride over to the donor. He isn’t much older than me. Maybe twenty-five, but his brown eyes are bloodshot and watery, like he’s much older than that. He doesn’t look like he’s a voluntary donor. None of them do. He probably knows the drill better than I do.

The queasiness in my stomach isn’t helping.

Ophelia says to Nico, “How much did he sign up for?”

“Six months.” It’s the first time I’ve heard him speak. His gravelly voice sends an involuntary shiver down my spine which I work hard to repress. I drop a mask of indifference over my face that I plan to keep for the duration.

Ophelia turns to the addict. “Is that right?”

He nods, but it’s such a jerky motion, it could just be the shakes. Or his fear. I can’t tell if he’s more afraid of Nico or us.

Ophelia takes my right hand in hers. The two crossed burn marks show my Guppyhood in striking relief. She strokes my palm, opening and relaxing it, then places it on the junkie’s forehead. He twitches under my touch, then grips the back of his chair, bracing himself.

“Your body will want to pull as fast as it can.” Ophelia’s voice is soft, whispery. Even the addict calms as she strokes the back of my hand and brushes the man’s hair at the end of my fingertips. “You have to narrow the access point. Restrict it. Visualize the energy as a giant pool of water, and your hand is covering the opening of a spigot. You’re stopping it from gushing and draining the entire contents of the pool.”

The addict twitches under my hand. The pool is his life. I can understand why he might not want us to talk about draining it.

“So I just visualize less… gushing?” I try not to sound like a complete beginner, but I need to understand. Mastering this will be key to convincing Valac I’m fully converted to the mob life—or at least that I can manage it. And prove my worth to Kolek, so he’ll keep me alive.

Ophelia presses the back of my hand, making the contact tighter with the man’s forehead. “If you try to resist the gush, you’ll only burn yourself out with the effort. The key is not to resist, but to command. To create a smaller spigot. Visualize the access point as shrinking until only a trickle can escape from the pool.”

“Smaller spigot?” I ask, really not getting this at all. “How about I just use a finger. You know, instead of the whole hand.” Definitely sounding like an idiot now.

She smirks up at me, confirming it. “That’s a good way to lose a finger.”

I swallow. “Okay, spigot. How does that work, exactly?”

“Try.” She presses her hand flat against the back of mine. “It will be easier to show you.”

I’m not quite sure what she means, but I start the transfer anyway. It gushes and heats my hand, but Ophelia pulls the life energy out before it can travel up my arm and hit my brain. I feel her reaching through my hand, and the gush slows to a trickle. I push past the contact point between my hand and the man’s forehead, feeling the infinite pool of life energy that teems inside his body. Ophelia’s presence is there, narrowing the access point of the transfer to just a pinprick that leaks slow dribs and drabs. I focus on that spot, widening it a little; more trickles out. Ophelia pulls back and suddenly the point expands to a wide-mouthed pipe. Life energy surges through again. I close my eyes with the effort, visualizing the pipe narrowing. It helps that Ophelia’s still draining the energy, so my mind stays clear.

“Good,” she whispers. “Play with it. See how much you can control it.”

I open the spigot a little more, and the trickle becomes a wave, lapping heat into my hand, which Ophelia sweeps away. I have to consciously fight my body’s desire to turn the spigot on full blast or pull the energy back from her. I understand now what Valac meant by
impatient
. My body craves the buzz that’s sidetracked into Ophelia; it’s all I can do to resist.

It takes a full ten minutes at this agonizing crawl to drain down the donor’s six months. By the end, the man’s shivers are worse than before. His eyes have black rings underneath. I hope he’s getting some kind of payment from the mob, and they’re not just shaking him down for his life energy. Even if it isn’t voluntary, he should get some kind of compensation for what we’re taking.

The man struggles up from the chair, nearly tipping it, and Nico gestures us to the donor in the next seat. It’s a woman. She’s dressed like a sex worker, but not one of Madam A’s high-end types. The kind that walks the streets.

“I want to try this on my own,” I say softly to Ophelia. Her cheeks are rosy from the hit we just took from the addict. Or rather, the hit
she
took. My craving for it just got worse through the drain. Besides, I want to show her I can handle it.

She nods and asks Nico, “How much?”

“Six months.”

Original. Must be the standard “donation.” The woman looks even more nervous than the man before her, and actually jerks away when I lay my hand on her forehead.

“It’s all right,” I hear myself saying. As if stealing six months of her life is in any way all right.

She lets me touch her. I start the transfer too fast, and it floods my brain with the hit. My palm is on fire, but I fight my way through the buzz to reach just past the point of contact between us. I have to struggle against the pull of my own body and the need for the buzz. I close my eyes again to concentrate and it helps: I can visualize the spigot. I shut it off completely in my first try, then slowly open it again, small, jerky steps at a time. Eventually I get it right, and life energy flows steadily into me, but not too fast. My hand is hot, uncomfortably hot, but not burning. The buzz lights up my brain, but I can still feel my feet. I’m not wild with it.

I pull my hand away when the six months are up. It went faster than the donation with Ophelia, so I’m done sooner, but when I turn my hand over, there’s no burn mark. Ophelia gives me a nod of approval that makes my insides warm. My anger at her starts to wane. Or maybe it’s just the high. I still don’t trust her, but maybe she can make up for betraying me by teaching me something useful.

Then I look ahead. A dozen more people are lined up behind the sex worker. She’s crying: wet streaks mar her makeup. A sick twinge inside me fights against the high. I look away, reminding myself that I have to do this. I have to get through this, manage it, convince Valac that I’m in the game. Or I’m never going to get out of this alive.

The next person in line is another woman. She has a child with her, so small I didn’t even notice before. The girl’s maybe three or four, melting into her mother’s side like she’s glued there.

I frown at Nico. His impassive face doesn’t change. I look back to the woman, suddenly unsure if I can do this.

“How much?” Ophelia asks Nico, her voice having none of the hesitation I feel cramping my chest.

“A year.” I shoot a look to Nico, but his lumpy face is devoid of human expression.

Ophelia eyes me. “Can you handle a year?”

Can I handle a year? From a mother of a child who doesn’t come up to my waist? Before I can answer, Valac parts from whatever business he was doing with the bookie and strides toward us.

“Yes,” I say quickly to Ophelia. “I can do a year. No problem.”

I reach for the mother, but Nico stops me with a dead-pan voice. “Not the mother. The child.”

“What?” My hand freezes mid-air, and my heart seizes with it. There’s no hint on Nico’s face that he’s toying with me.

“What?” the mother echoes me, a cry in her voice. “No! I didn’t agree to that!” She pulls her child fully into her lap, covering the girl’s forehead with her own hand. As if that could stop me.

“Is there a problem here?” Valac asks. He’s standing behind Nico.

“Your henchman has a bad sense of humor,” Ophelia says, giving Valac a look that makes him frown.

“Oh?” Valac asks. Nico shrugs but doesn’t say anything.

“You signed up to donate a year, right? Just from you?” Ophelia asks the mother. She nods fervently.

“Lirium?” Ophelia says, pointing to my hand still suspended in the air.

I glare at Nico, then slowly reach for the mother’s forehead. She keeps her hold on her daughter, which turns into an intense grip once I start the transfer. The girl squirms out of her mother’s arms and hides behind the chair. The mother is caught in the horror of the life energy drain, unable to respond. I grit my teeth, opening the spigot as much as I can, but still keeping control, so it doesn’t burn me. Or send me into an uncontrollable high where I take out my anger and loathing on Nico like I’m imagining in my head. Dr. Brodsky’s words come back to me.
I will take it. But I will not enjoy it.
I clench my hand, the one I’m not transferring with, and I understand those words better now, bracing myself against the buzz I’m forced to take from this woman, even though neither of us wants it.

I focus on being glad it’s her and not the girl.

When it’s done, I jerk my hand free. The woman collapses in the chair, arms bent and hands curled into a simulacrum of death. The little girl climbs out of her hiding spot and into her mother’s arms, gently putting her small hands on her mother’s sunken cheeks.

I can’t watch. I shuffle forward to the next chair, but one of my shoes bangs the edge of the mother’s chair in my haste. I stumble, but quickly right myself. I straighten my shirt and turn to face Valac, because I know he’s watching me.

His blue eyes are neither warm nor cold. They give nothing away.

“Are you going to join the party?” I ask him. “Or are you just observing today?” I manage to keep my voice level. I almost sound calm, successfully masking the raging storm of emotion and high and nausea that churns inside.

He arches one of his blond eyebrows. “Think you can do the whole room yourself?”

I turn away from him. There’s a sea of donor faces watching us. More have filed in since we started. There’s at least twenty now. I swallow.

When I turn back to him, my face is as expressionless as Nico’s. “It may take a while.”

Valac smirks and waves me on to the next donor.

I pray there are no more children in the line.

The Pacific Coast Highway winds like a snake, flirting alternately with the beach and the seaside cliffs as we head toward Malibu. The drive from the city was a blur of crowded freeways and hazy afternoon sun. Here, the ocean breeze wipes the smog away, leaving a seascape that glitters like cut glass. I shy away from the window, eyes slitted to keep out the excessive light. We’ve been in the car over an hour, but the buzz from the casino collection still rages through my body. At this rate, I could be high for days… or at least until I pay out. I don’t even know how much I have to give. I lost track of the number of years I had collected about halfway through the room.

 
Years.

I should be dead. That much collection should have me so high my heart would spasm out of my chest, but Ophelia’s slow drain method kept it from killing me. The buzz still enervates every cell in my body.  Being trapped in the car for an hour means my shaky legs don’t have to hold me up, but it’s hard to hide the effects from Valac.

He keeps stealing glances at me. Which I ignore.

Ophelia curls up at my side, in the middle, between us again. I’m sure she can feel me quiver through her hand on my thigh. Or the other one playing idly with the hair at the back of my neck. I’m allowing it, slowly warming to her again. Thinking how I can convince her to escape with me when the time comes. Wondering if I should even try. But our time at the casino showed how much I can learn from her. If we were out of Kolek’s mob, things could be good. Really good.

Or that could just be the buzz talking.

Ophelia’s high, too, having mopped up the late customers after I’d already collected most of the room. Her touches are pleasantly distracting, but my biggest concern right now is the payout.

“How much longer?” I lean forward slightly, peering around Ophelia so Valac will know I’m talking to him.

“We’re almost there.”

“How much will the payout be?” It’s a reasonable question. And I need to prepare myself. I seriously doubt I’ll be able to pay out all the life energy that took me nearly two hours to collect. I can’t even contemplate the level of gut-wrenching, soul-sucking misery that would entail.

Valac looks like he’s still deciding how much to tell me.

“C’mon,” I say. “We’re going to be there soon. I just want to know how much fun I have to look forward to.”

“Ophelia’s going to do most of the payout.”

“Ophelia?” I protest, even though I’m actually relieved. “I did most of the collecting. Why is she paying out?”

Ophelia cuddles in a little closer, something that helps to soothe my keyed up state. “It’s okay, baby. I can handle it.”

I’m sure she can, but the point is I need to show Valac—and Kolek—that I can, too.

Valac leans back in his seat and stares out the window. “She has plenty in reserve. Besides, Mr. Mayer will enjoy her company more than yours.”

Well, I don’t have much argument against that. “So just one person for the payout? What is he? A billionaire who wants to live a couple of years longer? Or is he just out for the hit?”