Souljacker (7 page)

One tear breaks through the dam holding them
back, sliding down my cheek. I smear it away with the back of my
hand. My voice is so much smaller when I say, “I don’t want to hurt
him. I couldn’t live with myself. It’s stupid. I don’t even know
him! But…” A sob catches in my throat, lodging there. It makes a
strangled sound as it comes out.

“Are you serious about him?” Sync asks.

“I wish I could be. I want to be. Yeah.”

“Maybe you should…tell him?”

I blink at her, my heart clenching at her
suggestion. “I can’t.” Telling him would be suicide. It’s bad
enough that everyone at school thinks I’m a freak. I couldn’t stand
it if Iofiel looked at me with such judgment.

“He might understand.”

“He’d shove me away!”

“I don’t know, Luce. He’s different, somehow.
I think he’d be shocked, but I don’t know. Might be worth a try?
Hint around?”

“No. Just…no. I can’t risk it.”

“Alright. It’s your choice. But you can’t
just leave him out there. Chin up, Luce.”

I climb to my feet and check my reflection in
the mirror. My face is red, but I look okay. I take a deep breath,
stare at myself, and say: “I can do this.” Then, with Sync at my
side, we go back out there to face Iofiel.

He’s sitting on the edge of Hole 17 and jumps
to his feet as we near him. “Are you okay?”

“Girl stuff,” I manage around a tight smile
that I hope looks somewhat natural. “I’m good. Come on. Let’s see
if I can beat your butt.”

We make our way through to the final hole,
which looks treacherous with its seventy degree incline and
flame-spewing robotic dragons. Iofiel whistles low and steps back.
“I’m gonna see how the pro does it first.”

I huff and step forward. And promptly fail.
My ball goes up, up, up…then down and sinks into the slots at the
bottom of the incline. It disappears. Iofiel doesn’t do much
better. “Oh well, at least we had fun right?” he asks as we take
our golf clubs back up to the front desk.

I smile at him. Despite my minor freak out,
yeah. This was the most fun I’ve had in awhile. “Definitely.”

“You wanna go get some ice cream?” He glances
to me, suddenly shy, and I feel my heart do another flop in my
chest. I nod and he grins. “Best date ever.”

“It’s not over yet.” I tutt at him, but he
merely shrugs. We get back on his bike and the night air has a
chill to it, despite it being nearly summer. It blows my hair out
of my face, running cool fingers through sweat-damp strands.

I sigh and relax, my hands resting lightly
against the soft leather of his jacket. What I wouldn’t give to
just slip my hands under his jacket and explore. Instead I clench
handfuls of leather and ignore the Need.

We order ice cream cones and we sit on the
curb to eat them. Sync is resting on the back seat of his hover
bike. Or well, she’s pretending to rest. I know Sync; she’s
actually giving me privacy. I almost wish she was over here as I
lick off the chocolate drips trailing down the edge of my cone.

“So why me?” I look towards him and he pauses
mid-bite. He frowns a little, peeling the label off the cone little
by little and crinkling it up, as if he doesn’t know how to
answer.

“I don’t know. Just…I saw you and something
clicked. I can’t explain it. Besides, I don’t wanna sound like a
stalker or something.” He shrugs a little. “To be honest, I’m not
supposed to see you. Dad would kill me if he found out.”

“Why?”

“Dunno. I guess he thinks I should be
focusing on my career, not a silly relationship that will,
quote-unquote, ‘never work out’. But I can’t help it, Lucy. I like
you…” He gives me a sheepish, freaking adorable, smile.

“A lot, in fact.” He rests his free hand on
my knee, and even though there’s a layer of cloth between us, I can
feel the clenching heat drawing upwards to the surface.

I choke on a bite of cone, my throat
tightening. He pounds on my back gently and it takes everything I
have not to just take his hands in mine and just…breathe him in. In
a bad way. A very bad way.

I pull out of his grip, bounding to my feet.
I cough again, turning away from him. “I’m sorry, Iofiel. I can’t
do this.” I barely manage to get the words out.

“Lucy?” He’s reaching for me and I wrap my
arms around myself. I take a wary step back. “Did I do something
wrong?” His gaze clouds over and I shake my head.

“No. You’re…awesome. It’s me. It’s always
been me.” I let out a barking laugh. “I have to go. I’m sorry.
Sync.” Sync bobs up at her name, flitting over to me.

I hear Iofiel call my name as I sprint off
down the street on foot, my boots making my feet ache with each
step I take, but that’s nothing compared to the ache in my chest,
tearing me apart from the inside out.

This is why I picked the name Lucifer. I hate
the way the Need makes me feel, makes me act. It controls my life
and I never asked for this. I never asked to rip my mom’s soul out
of her body so forcefully that she didn’t even make a sound. She
just dropped to the ground, lifeless, leaving little-me to hover
over her body, unable to cry because the soul—her soul—zinging
around deep inside me made me so happy, so full. So content. It
wasn’t until a week later that I realized she was gone and she was
never coming back.

I sob, my boot catching on the curb. I
stumble but somehow stay upright, and swipe furiously at the tears
leaving hot streaks down my cheeks. Even if I told Iofiel what I
was, and somehow, miraculously, he loved me anyway? I’d end up
killing him. It just won’t work. It’s better this way. Better for
both of us.

I peer down the alley where my hound usually
waits for me. “Freak!” I call, my voice soft and hoarse and tired,
but no one’s here. I sink down against the brick wall, tugging my
knees into my chest and locking my arms around them. I press my
face into my legs and let it come out, despite the traffic the next
street over. It doesn’t matter.

A plaintive whine fills the silence and my
hound nudges my arm, his nose cold and wet against my skin. “Oh,
little freak,” I say on a sigh, dragging my fingers through his
fur. The hound sits down, scooting towards me. I wrap an arm around
his neck, pulling him close, but he doesn’t care. He just wags his
tail, slow and steady.

“I’ve screwed everything up. I like him. I
really like him. But it’s just…not safe. I refuse to hurt him.” It
comes tumbling out of me. I press my face against his head and let
tears soak his fur.

Then my hound vibrates with a low rumble and
I pull away. He’s staring across the street, to where another
cyberhound stands, his hackles and tail raised. His eye glows red
in the darkness and he looks like something off a horror movie.
Freak steps forwards and they exchange growls. I jump to my
feet.

My hound glances back at me, a sort of sad
look on his face, and he drops his head, but doesn’t move. He
stands between me and the bigger cyberhound, as if warning him
away, but it doesn’t work.

In two bounds, the bigger male is on top of
Freak, fangs sinking into his neck. My hound shrieks and growls,
twisting underneath the jaws of the other. I see blood darken
Freak’s coat and I can’t stand to watch.

“Luce!” Sync cries as I lunge towards the
fight, barely dodging the snap of Freak’s fangs. I straddle the
bigger hound, my fingers wrapping around his ears, jerking them
backwards. His real eye, pale blue and cold as dry ice, rolls back
towards me and his lips wrinkle back to show fangs. I kick his
underside with my boot and he tries to get out from under me. I
yank on his ears and scream at him until my throat is raw.

He bucks and I hit the ground hard, the air
whooshing out of my lungs. I swing my fist back, ready to slam it
into the hound’s ugly face, when I’m jerked to my feet. The air
shimmers and crackles with magic, like a Portal, and in the
cyberhound’s place is a lean man with a cybernetic arm, his metal
fingers tight around my wrist.

Holy slag.

He jerks me closer, the human side of his
face still animalistic in its snarl. The other side of his face is
all freaky and metal. “Mind your own damn business,” he snaps, then
shoves me away.

I stagger back just as he spins, turning back
into his cyborg-hound self. Freak gives me a pained look with his
one soulful, suddenly familiar chocolate eye, then bolts down the
street at a gallop. The other hound roars and races after him and I
watch until I can’t see them against the darkness anymore.

Even then, I just stand there, staring into
the night, shock ebbing over me like a slow tide.

If cyberhounds can turn into men with
hollowed robot faces…

Anyone could be a hound. Anyone at all.
Except—

My thoughts fly to Iofiel, to the leather
mask he always wears to cover the left side of his face, to hide
the scarring from an accident in his youth. But what if it isn’t a
scar at all…? What if it’s more than that?

What if Freak is Iofiel?

Chapter 9:

Iofiel

I barely make it out of city limits and
Lylan’s on top of me, his fangs scoring into the back of my neck,
ripping until pain lances through my skin. I stagger under his
weight—he’s at least a hundred pounds heavier than me—and my paws
slide on the gravel. My chest hits the ground hard and I yelp,
twisting to my back. I curl my legs against my belly and offer my
throat with a pitiful whimper.

Lylan’s seething. I can feel his anger
blossoming off him like heat on pavement, hitting me with the
stench of fury. I lay motionless, whistling breaths out through my
nose despite the storm warring in my stomach.

Lucy. What if he goes after Lucy?

His muzzle closes around mine, sharp and hard
enough to bring tears to my eyes, before he gets up. He shifts, his
form shimmering for a moment, the hound replaced by a hulking man
with a shaved head and cold blue eyes. He doesn’t bother to wear a
mask to conceal his true form, so the left side of his face is open
cybernetics.

His metal hand fists a handful of my scruff
and he lifts me up off the ground with insane force, holding me at
eye level. “I thought I’d broken you of this. We aren’t house pets,
Iofiel. We’re to be feared, not adored. Not loved. I’m
sorry
if your brain is wired backwards to the point where you think a
single human girl will give you
any
sort of companionship.
I. Will. Not. Tolerate. It.” His voice is a baritone rumble.

He drops me to the ground and I scramble to
my paws, staring up at him. I half expect his leg to swing back,
his boot to bust my ribs. His fists are clenched at his sides, but
no blow comes. I let out a breath and he growls one word: “Shift.”
So I do. Running away will only mark me a coward to the Pack.

“Come with me.” I hate the disappointment
that laces his voice—it makes me feel like a Very Bad Dog, even
when I’m not a dog at all. I stuff my hands into my pockets and
hurry after him, the moon hanging low in the sky, nearly full and
gleaming against the shining towers of the city. I know where we’re
going. My stomach bottoms out as we come upon a little shack in the
middle of the woods, gooseflesh lining my arms.

The door’s unlocked. It’s always unlocked. I
feel bad for any human that stumbles upon this place. Lylan swings
it open with a creak and I hesitate in the doorway. I open my
mouth, maybe to plead with him, fear lighting up my heart, but no
sound comes out. He grips my arm and drags me through, slamming the
door behind us.

There’s a click and the dark room is bathed
in brilliant fluorescents. The lights showcase a sterile white room
with no windows. In the center of the room is a metal exam table
with cuffs for your wrists and ankles and the floor is made of
grating, to drain the blood that falls off the edges of the
table.

I’ve seen what happens to traitors to the
dark Fae, handed over to the cyberhounds to do their bidding. A
shiver winds down my spine, sickly and terrifying, and I glance to
Lylan.

His face is set in a scowl. “It would be easy
to turn you over to the Unseelie, Iofiel. All it takes is one word,
the press of a communicator button, and you’ll be at their
mercy.”

I’d like to think he wouldn’t, that the stern
Alpha would care for his Pack. We’re a brotherhood, we’re a
family…but Lylan won’t hesitate to weed out traitors, spies, and
weaklings. I set my jaw, grinding my teeth until they ache. I can’t
stop staring at the table, imagining slices in my skin from a whip,
blood seeping up from the wounds.

“I know,” I whisper.

“You’re my Pack, Iofiel.” His face softens
into features that maybe, in a different life, I’d find fatherly.
“But I won’t tolerate misbehavior. We have a purpose in this life
and it doesn’t involve fraternizing with humans. I know you have a
weakness for pretty girls, but pup, I swear to the Fae, if you
don’t screw your head on straight, you’ll regret it.”

I nod, my throat closing as he points to the
table.

“Hop up.”

“Lylan…”

He pins a hard glare on me and I swallow down
my nerves, hoisting myself up on the table. The metal is cold and
unforgiving under my sweaty palms. My heart hitches as he turns to
me, a long syringe gun grasped in his human hand. The needle gleams
maliciously. “Hold still, pup,” he says and I grip the edges of the
table to keep from bolting.

This is a part of life,
I chide
myself.
Whatever punishment he deems necessary, I
deserve.

I press my eyes shut anyway.

I feel the tip of the needle pierce my neck.
Lylan depresses the trigger. It jerks and there’s a thunk and a
flare of pain, but it’s minimal. I’d expected worse. Relief flows
through me and he backs up a step. I move to get down off the table
when I see him palm something.

Pain shrieks through me, a banshee’s cry,
sizzling my nerves and setting me on fire. I spasm, slamming back
against the metal table, back arching up as I try to get away from
the agony ripping my very soul apart. I hear white noise screaming
in my ears before I realize it’s me.