Chapter 18
Niko stared at the closed door. Dread filled him the moment Landon carried V away. “What are we going to do?” he whispered, looking at the others for guidance.
“We are going to do exactly as V and I planned,” Rio said. “We are going to get the hell out of here while V’s playing hero with papa psycho.”
Niko looked at the two dirty and blood stained mongrels. “Cid and Norris?” He knew those names. He remembered two mongrels with those names from when he was a kid, but their faces…
“Sorry for giving you a false name, Niko,” Norris said. “I was afraid you’d recognize us if I gave you my real one.”
Would he have? Niko wasn’t so sure. Pain and overwhelming fear had clouded his mind when he had first met them.
Rio snorted. “I would have picked a different name. I mean, Bob? What a boring name—“
“Niko is the one who picked the name Bob,” Norris said. “And Bob was not my name. It was Julius.”
“Even worse.” Rio rolled his eyes. “Sounds like a fruit drink. You know, the kind you ask for in skanky restaurant from a snot nosed kid whose mom still lays out his clothes—“
“I didn’t make up the name!” Norris growled, startling Niko. “I took it from one of that Elite’s victims.”
Cid laughed softly, sarcastically. “Dude almost killed that Elite bastard too. Fucker had dragged me and Norris in and when this Julius guy jumps up, free from his chains, and—”
“And what he did means jack-shit because it’s obvious he didn’t succeed,” Rio cut in. “We don’t need useless recounts of some loser’s failure, asshole, so unless you got a story that ends with the villain dying, I’d shut the fuck up.”
“Fuck you, Rio!” Cid shouted.
“Thanks,” Rio said dryly, “but I’m not that desperate.”
Niko looked back and forth from Cid, Norris, and Rio. “You all know each other?” he asked.
“Yes,” Norris and Cid said together while Rio answered, “No.”
“So do you?” Niko asked. “Or don’t you?”
“I don’t consort with losers,” Rio said. “Hell, I wonder if you shit-heads know what the definition of success is.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Cid asked.
“It means,” Rio said, “that if I tell you I got a plan to get us all out of here, will you be ready to face the consequences.”
Niko lowered his eyes and trembled as Cid and Norris looked at him with pity in their eyes. Landon had used him as bait to get the others down to him, but even though the Platinum had set it so that Niko could escape, he had still punished him for running…and Landon had made Cid and Norris watch as he had hurt him.
“I’ll take that risk,” Niko said softly, his voice breaking. “I don’t care what he does to me again. I’ll do anything to get back home.”
Rio grinned. “Good, because it’s you we’ll be betting on to bring back help.”
Norris inched closer. “How do you mean?”
“Why only him?” Cid demanded.
Rio’s lip curled as he looked at Cid. “I should have slit your throat the moment Luke introduced me to you.”
“And I should have snapped your neck the moment I met you,” Cid shot back.
“You don’t have the skills, Bob,” Rio sneered.
“Gentleman,” Norris sighed, “can we please get back to business? Before that freak comes back?”
“What about V?” Niko whispered worriedly. “We can’t leave him.” The look of lust shining in Landon’s eyes… Niko knew what was in store for the mongrel. They couldn’t leave V to that fate, but how could they help him? What could they do?
Rio grimly looked at Niko. “V is going to give us the time to get you out of here, Niko. And we ain’t gonna dis him by sitting on our asses.”
Niko guiltily looked at the door Landon carried V out of. “What if we fail?” Niko asked. “Landon has help. He isn’t the only one down here.”
“I know,” Rio said. “But the Mad Scientist left all his tools down here. There’s more than enough stuff in here to do some major damage.” Rio snidely looked at Cid. “You probably would have succeeded the first time if asshole Bob had used his brain and armed himself.”
Cid lunged at Rio, only to be yanked back down by his chains.
“Fucking stupid bitch,” Rio said, shaking his head.
Confused by the animosity between the two, Niko looked at Norris for answers.
“Cid made a comment about sleeping with his mom the first time they met,” Norris quietly informed him.
Niko didn’t know enough about Rio to understand why that would anger the blond. He didn’t know anything about mothers for that matter. The very concept of a mother was beyond his understanding, it was so alien.
“Got it!”
Niko’s eyes widened as Rio stood, rubbing his restrain-less wrists.
“How the hell did you do that?” Cid demanded.
Rio snubbed the mongrel. “It’s called talent, Bob, something you don’t have.”
Norris sighed. “If we are going to get Niko out of here to call for help, we need to work together. So, Rio, knock off on the insults. Cid, stop being such an easy target.”
“Fine,” Cid growled.
“I don’t say anything insulting,” Rio said calmly. “It’s not my fault his lack of education—“
“Enough!” Niko glared at the blond. “Get us out of these chains.”
Rio grinned. “Baby, I’d be happy take more than your chains off you. And don’t be thinkin’ I’d forgotten about that little leech incident.”
Niko didn’t care if the blond remembered what he had done for the rest of his life. He just wanted out.
Rio made swift work of everyone’s restraints. Niko, shamefully, had to be lifted to his feet and braced by Norris to keep from falling on his face. He hurt everywhere. Niko bit his lip to keep from crying out as Norris’s arm circled his waist to better support his weight. Just trying to balance was exhausting. Fear was the only thing fueling his body, as was the thought of seeing daylight, but seeing Gabriel gave him the strength he needed to attempt another escape.
Whistling, Rio went over to Landon’s surgical table. The blond nodded to Cid to come over and the both of them pocketed something in the table. Niko saw a flash of silver before if disappeared under the tattered remains of their clothing.
Rio turned and looked at him. Niko scowled when the blond blew him a kiss before striding over to the door. Niko had expected Rio to begin picking the lock to get them out, and was surprised when the blond put his hand on the doorknob and turned it.
The rusty metal door creaked as it swung open.
“Tsk, tsk,” Rio said shaking his head. “See what happens when you get too full of yourself? You make mistakes.”
Niko shivered as the blonde’s eyes suddenly turned cold as he swung them around to look at him.
“Mistakes get you killed,” Rio told him. “And if I’m lucky, I’ll be the one to take his life.”
Cid and Norris voiced their agreement, but Niko stayed silent. Did he want revenge? No… He wanted nothing to do with the Platinum ever again. Niko wanted this nightmare to be over and never wanted to think about it ever again.
“Well, kids. Shall we go?” Rio said stepping out the door. Murky water dripped from the ceiling. Parts of the wall was blackened rusty metal and some stone. The lights above flickered and swung in a slow dance.
Niko looked down the three hallways—tunnels—before them. “We need to go left,” Niko said. “I memorized every turn we had taken the first time, and going right had only led us deeper underground.”
“Then left it is for the two of you,” Rio said. The blond waved Norris and him away.
Niko told Norris to wait when he noticed Cid and Rio were not going to follow them. “Come on,” he said.
The blond grinned. “Can’t do that, sweetheart,” Rio said. “Cid and I are going hunting. Like you said, Landon ain’t alone down here.”
Niko opened his mouth to argue, but was shushed by the blond.
“Remember, Niko,” Rio said. “This is all about you getting free and bringing back help. Norris is a scapegoat, and me and Bob are distractions. So and getcha ass out of here.”
Niko’s chin trembled, but he nodded. “I’ll get out, I swear.”
Rio saluted him. Motioning Cid to take the tunnel to the right, the blond took the tunnel going straight. As Niko and Norris limped away he could hear Rio laughingly call out, “Marco!”. Niko shivered as the blonde’s voice bounced on the walls, echoing down the tunnels.
“Come on, Niko,” Norris told him. Perspiration beaded across the mongrel’s pale face. “We need to get as far away as possible from that psycho.”
Niko wasn’t sure which psycho Norris was referring too. The Elite or the blond who seemed to want to be caught and tortured again.
“Gone. He’s gone…”
“No, no. He’s here, I just need to find him.”
“But what if he’s not? What if he’s hurt and crying?”
“He’s not!”
Fidget slapped his hands over his ears and rocked back and forth.
“You lost him. You lost him just like you did when you were a kid. That Elite is hurting him, and you’re not doing anything about it.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Fidget pulled at his hair. The long locks tangled around his fingers.
“He’s suffering,” Fidget whispered. “He’s suffering in the hands of that person, and you’re not doing anything to stop it.”
Fidget’s eyes, blinded by oppressing darkness, darted wildly. “I-I can’t—“
“You can!” he hissed. “Get up and move!”
Fidget squeezed his eyes shut. His nails dug into his skull. The wounds the white-haired Elite had inflicted throbbed and burned. He could smell blood from every laceration on his body. He couldn’t tell what was real and what was not. His mind was in chaos. He couldn’t find anything to grab onto—to steady himself from falling.
“Marcus,” Fidget whispered mournfully, covering his face with his sticky hands. He inhaled the thick coppery scent of blood on his palms. “I’m scared.”
“Be scared later,” he told himself. “They are coming.”
Whispers drifted to him from the dark. Feet running in his direction. Fidget lowered himself to down on the rocky floor and edged backwards into the pool of water he had claimed as his. The chilling liquid seeped into his bones as he slowly moved deeper into the pool.
Inhuman growls and snarls echoed all around him as Fidget tried to hide himself from the monsters hunting him.
“They’ll find you,” he whispered. “They always do.”
How long had it been? Hours? Days? He didn’t know anymore. How long had it been since he’d been thrown in this pit of endless night? Cast out, unwanted, and unloved like a piece of trash? How long had it been since he had killed one of that Elite’s men helping to hurt his brother?
Or was it all a dream? What if he was still in Guardian still being punished for trying to protect what he held most dear to him? What was real and what wasn’t?
Was Marcus real? Or was he a figment of his—Fidget lowered himself until only his eyes were above water, his hands searching the bottom until his fingers closed over a large stone. Fire danced in the night, hovering like a beacon of hope in the abyss. Flames that were anything but a promise of safety.
The fire came closer and Fidget locked on the person that held the torch. There were nine of them this time. Animals wearing human clothing. They inched closer to his pool, sniffing the air like beasts.
Fidget tensed as the torch’s light slithered across the water and wrapped around him.
“There,” the leader sneered pointing the fire at him.
Fidget exploded from the water, snarling he slammed the stone clenched in his fist over the first male near him and then the next when the first fell to the ground. Hands grabbed at his hair and arms, nails ripped at his skin, and teeth bit into his flesh.
Fidget howled as his weapon was pried from his fist, but he still he fought, kicking and punching even as he was overpowered by the sheer numbers of his foes. His arms seized, Fidget bashed his forehead into the closest person near him, then sank his teeth into their exposed neck, tearing out their throat. Fidget laughed as blood gushed over his face before he was wrestled to the ground. Fidget wildly thrashed as hands grabbed his ankles, dragging him.
Then they were gone.
Screams pierced the dark. Fidget watched in the flickering light as his enemies were cut down. Blood splashed across his face and chest, soaking into the dirt. A demon glanced at him when it was all silent, when the only ones left breathing where the two of them. The demon’s copper-flecked eyes glowed eerily in the dark. Blood dripped down Fidget’s chin as they stared at one another.
“Do you remember me?” the demon asked.
Getting on his hands and knees, Fidget crawled backwards till he was at the edge of his pool.
“Do you remember me, Fidget?” the demon asked again.
Fidget coldly regarded the blood stained man. A flicker of a memory penetrated the chaos in his mind. Someone from a life he had once lived in his dreams. “Ghost,” he whispered.
Ghost picked out the torch from the lifeless hand of the fallen leader, and slowly approached him. Fidget growled softly, warning him not to get to close, but allowed the man to sit a few feet away.
“There are more hiding, watching,” Ghost informed him, but Fidget didn’t care. Nothing mattered.
“He can help us get out,” he whispered. Fidget shook his head. “There is no getting out.”
Wrapping his arms around his knees, Fidget rocked on his heels. “There is no getting out…”
Serum – Chapter 17 ★ ～☆ Serum – Chapter 19
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