Inferno (Book 4 The Kindred Series) (15 page)

“You have no right!”

“I have every right!” she snapped back,
smacking his hand away when he reached for her again. “You have no
right to be free! Look at what you have done here, the atrocity
that you have created. This world is far better without you roaming
it!”

He shrank back slightly, and then
hatred and fury blazed forth in his eyes. “You have no right to
judge me you traitorous bitch!” he spat. “You’ve turned against
your own kind. You’re an abomination, a monstrosity. A
nothing!”

Cassie felt as if she had been slapped,
she recoiled from him, pressing tighter against the door. She
wanted to cower from his words, wanted to deny them, but there
would be no reaching him, no reasoning with him. He believed what
he believed, and he always would, no matter what her relation to
him was. Before she could say anything more, he reached out and
slapped her with the full force of his might. Cassie gasped her
hand flying to her cheek as her head snapped to the side. Tears of
shock and pain flooded her eyes, but she blinked them rapidly back
as she gazed hatefully back at the stranger across from her.
Because no matter what he said, he was not her father, he was a
stranger.

Straightening away from the door,
Cassie glared hatefully back at him. “Think what you want about me,
I don’t care because you are nothing to me also. But you will not
leave here, and you will not be set free in this world again. This
nothing will make damn sure of that!” she snarled.

His eyes widened in surprise as he took
a small step back. Devon leapt out of the stairwell, skidding to a
halt at the top of the stairs. His eyes were the color of fire,
fury radiated from him as he raked Joey and her father with a
scathing glare. “Are you ok?” he demanded.

Cassie nodded, knowing that the red
mark on her cheek could easily be explained by the attack below.
She had no doubt that Devon would kill her father if he learned
that the man had just slapped her. “Are they locked in?” she asked
softly.

“Yes, but I don’t know for how long. We
need to get out of here.” He strode toward her, shoving her father
and Joey out of the way. His eyes latched onto her reddened cheek.
“What the hell happened?” he demanded.

Cassie shook her head as Julian, Dani,
and Chris reached the landing, their arms laden with boxes of
supplies. “That thing down there,” she muttered, not able to look
at him as she uttered the lie. “Let’s help them.”

Devon tried to stop her, but she dodged
his grasp as she hurried forward to take two boxes from Dani. She
could feel Devon’s gaze burrowing into her back, but she didn’t
turn to look at him again. “Cowards,” Dani hissed at Joey and
Derek.

“Most definitely,” Cassie
agreed.

CHAPTER 8

Cassie sat by the window, her legs
drawn up against her chest, her chin resting upon her knees as she
stared at the silent street. The sun had come up a few hours ago,
but she had yet to speak since they had arrived back here. There
was too much to ask, too much to know, and she didn’t want to know
any of it. She was tired of being surprised, tired of being
blindsided by fate, and she was very tired of being betrayed by
those that were supposed to protect her.

She turned her head, resting her cheek
on her knees as she stared across the room at the man that claimed
to be her father. She had never known him, but she had once loved
the idea of him, the image of what she had wanted him to be. This
man was none of those things, and she greatly wished that she had
never had the displeasure of meeting him. She greatly wished that
he had died in The Slaughter like he was supposed to
have.

He stared back at her, his eyes
narrowed, but ringed with bags from lack of sleep. His arms and
legs had been tied to the chair, there would be no escaping for
him, and she would make sure of that. She turned away from him,
tightening her grip on her legs. In the far back she could hear
murmured words, and from down below she could hear the whispers of
Devon and Julian’s conversation. Joey had been tied up and placed
downstairs, it had been decided that it was best to keep the two of
them separated.

No one was out here with her, having
moved slowly away after the first few hours of her not speaking.
That was something that was mirrored within her father, as he had
not said a word either, despite Luther’s incessant, demanding, and
furious questions. He had remained as silent as she had through it
all. Cassie had the odd feeling that he would speak to her, if she
asked, but she was not willing to ask. Not right now
anyway.

Shadows played off of the street,
skeletal branches danced across the pavement. It looked so lonely
and eerie out there, so cold and desolate. There was no sign of
life, not even a bird chirped in the distance. “My grandmother used
to talk about you and my mother once in awhile,” she said softly,
finally. “Apparently she didn’t know you very well.”

He remained silent for a moment, his
head tilted to the side as he studied her. “Where is Lily?” he
inquired.

A pain tugged at her heart, guilt and
loss swamped her for a brief moment. “Dead.”

He grunted softly. “And I’m sure that
it was one of these monsters.”

Cassie turned slowly toward him,
despising the sight of him. They stared hard at each other for a
long moment. “No, it was another monster.”

“And where is that one?”

Cassie swallowed heavily, her hands
fisted against her legs. “She’s dead. I killed her. A fact that I
am sure Dani has already informed you of.”

He stared hard at her for a moment, his
eyebrow quirked in what appeared to be amusement. “You have your
mother’s spirit. Though I’m sure she is better off dead than seeing
what you have become.”

Cassie recoiled, not wanting him to see
her distress she turned her attention back to the deserted street,
feeling almost as empty and desolate as it looked outside. “My
grandmother was very proud of me, for everything that I did. She
accepted Devon, she welcomed him into her home, and she welcomed
him into our lives. She loved me, and she was proud of me, and she
was the best person I have ever known. She would not be proud of
you however. She had loved you like you were her own son, and she
would despise everything that you are now. I am not ashamed of
myself, of what I am, or who I love, but you should be.”

He remained silent for a long while,
Cassie continued to stare out the window, knowing that she should
leave, but unable to bring herself to move. “How did you survive
The Slaughter?” she asked softly.

He sighed, his feet shuffled slightly
on the floor. “We were all taught to fight. We were all taught to
survive and use our abilities to the best of our
abilities.”

“And you’re a survivor?”

“Yes.”

“And my mother?”

“Was not.”

Cassie winced, unable to stop herself
from shooting him a fierce look. “Did you even love her, or
me?”

His dark blue eyes were fierce in the
small amount of light penetrating the room. “Yes, it is why I have
made it my quest to make sure that these monsters are eradicated
forever.”

“By creating even worse
monsters?”

He was silent as he stared back at her,
his mouth quirked in that disgusted manner. “We were trying to
help.”

“And you created things that are far
worse than anything we could have ever imagined. You made these
things and you destroyed this town. You destroyed hundreds of
people only to have your own creations turn against you. Good job
Dr. Frankenstein.”

He stared unblinkingly back at her, his
hands tight on the arms of the chair. “And you’ve crawled into bed
with a monster. I made a mistake, you made a choice.”

Cassie sighed softly, unraveling her
legs. She wasn’t going to bother to deny his accusation, or defend
herself. Not to him. She was beginning to realize that he was not
entirely sane, or rational. There would be no changing his mind,
and she didn’t particularly care to try. Whatever had happened to
him over the years had completely changed him from the man that her
grandmother had loved and admired greatly.

“What is your ability?’

He grinned at her, shaking his head at
her. “That’s my secret.”

Cassie glared hard at him, but decided
to let it go for now. They would find it out one way or another.
Cassie folded her hands before her as she rested her elbows on her
legs. “The ones down there aren’t the same as the other one that I
encountered. They’re stronger, faster, and they seem even more
blood thirsty. How and why did you make them?”

He was silent for a long time, his eyes
on the window behind her. “We just wanted to do some different
experimentation, to see what would go right, and give us the best
results. Give us the best fighters. There were some failures along
the way.”

Cassie winced at the word failures.
They had been humans, people with families and loved ones. People
that had lived and loved and laughed, until these lunatics had
gotten a hold of them. And now they were monsters, with no rational
thought, looking only to kill and mangle and destroy. “Why would
you keep them alive?”

He finally turned his attention back to
her. “To study them of course, to see if they could be controlled,
and to see how they thought and reacted to things.”

Cassie swallowed back her disgust,
fighting the urge to get up and flee the room, and this monster.
Her father. She shuddered, her hands tightened painfully. “I
thought they didn’t think.”

“Yes they do. They react to
stimulation, to blood, to movement. And they think about death and
violence, and blood. They do think and they do react.”

Cassie stared hard at him for a moment
before nodding slowly. “Where are the children? Did you do this to
them also?” His silence made her heart pump louder, her blood ran
cold and her skin chilled as if an icy hand had grabbed hold of the
back of her neck. “Did you?” she breathed, though she knew the
answer.

“Some of them.”

It took all that Cassie had not to
throw up, or not to fly across the room and attack him in a violent
rage. She remained immobile, for to move would only instigate one
of those two reactions. She shuddered, taking a deep breath as she
tried hard to keep herself under control. She could not stand the
thought of coming across children that were like the other monsters
in this town. She could not stand the thought of having to kill one
of those innocent beings.

“The children were even more unstable
than the adults. We don’t know the reason why but they were not
viable as further candidates in our experiments.”

Cassie gagged, bile rushed up her
throat, but she was able to shove it back down. Her legs quivered
as she climbed to her feet, her knees shook, but she could not sit
any longer. She moved slowly away from him, using the wall to guide
her and keep her trembling legs steady. She couldn’t look at him
anymore; she knew she would kill him if she did. And she could not
be the person that killed her own father, no matter how much she
thought he deserved it.

“How many children are out there,
running free now?” she choked out.

“The children were all destroyed, as I
said they were even more volatile and uncontrollable than the
adults. They could not be allowed to survive. The havoc they would
have wreaked would have been unstoppable.”

Cassie shuddered again, disgusted with
herself for the relief that filled her. She couldn’t have destroyed
a child; no matter what kind of monster it was, she couldn’t have
killed it. And she could not have allowed the others to kill it
either. She hated herself for feeling grateful that none of them
would have to do so. And she hated her father even more for putting
her in this horrendous situation.

Tears shimmered in her eyes; she wiped
them quickly away, bracing herself to face her father again. “And
the other children?” she asked softly. “The ones that you didn’t
put down there?”

He remained silent, and she knew that
he was waiting for her to look at him again. Straightening her
shoulders, Cassie turned slowly toward him, keeping her face as
impassive as possible. Trying hard not to let him see how badly his
words had shaken her. She instinctively knew that he would not
approve of weakness, and would shut her out because of
it.

“They were shipped off.”

“Where?”

His mouth quirked into a sneer as he
studied her impassively. “Like I would tell you. I don’t want you
anywhere near those children.”

Cassie snorted in disgust as she shook
her head. “You don’t have to tell me anything,” she retorted. “I
can just have Julian drag the memories forcefully from your mind. I
am sure that you know very well what he is capable of. I’m also
certain the experience can be very uncomfortable if he wants it to
be.”

Her father paled slightly, and then
nodded slowly. “Yes, I am well aware of what Julian is capable of,
but I will not tell you.”

Cassie nodded. That was fine; she
didn’t particularly care how they got the information, only that
they got it. She was not going to leave those children lost and
adrift in the world, possibly being tortured like their unlucky
friends had been. She would find them, and she would make sure that
they were safe afterwards. She would make sure that they didn’t
suffer anymore than they already had.