"Nada… what did she say?" I asked."I said you should just call the cops." A window in the front rolled down and Nada was sitting in the front pa.s.senger seat.
"Gah! How long have you been there?" I gave a cry, immediately wiping my face and trying to recover myself.
Nada frowned, ignoring my surprise. "I… wronged you. I know that now. I"m… I"m going back to mom."
I let out a sigh, relaxing my shoulders. "I think… that"s a good idea."
Nada gave a nod and after a moment, started talking again. "It"s an abandoned factory downtown. That"s where you"ll find the Primrose."
"Primrose?"
"That"s what they call themselves. Mostly teenage delinquents… those that couldn"t make it into the academy. They help traffic the drugs, minor extortion, that kind of thing. Their sign is a primrose flower. If you find the flower, you find them."
"I got it." I nodded, the logic simple enough.
"They"re not as hardcore or as man-hating as some gangs," Nada added. "But that"s part of what makes them so dangerous. They"re just a bunch of dumb kids. They"re approachable. Friendly even. Then a few months later you"re eating p.u.s.s.y at market price for another hit…" Nada winced and turned away.
"They took my sister. I absolutely won"t trust them." I responded simply.
We slowed to a stop, and I could see that we were parked outside of Veris"s home. It looked like Brooke had promised to take her home first. Nada patted herself off and stepped out the car door. However, before she closed it, she turned back and looked in.
"I…" Nada lowered her eyes uncertainly.
"The first time we had s.e.x, we had s.e.x because I wanted to," I spoke out. "I don"t hate you. Maybe if you cleaned yourself up… I don"t know… if you came back to the mansion… and stayed, we could… I could put a baby in you."
Nada"s eyes shot up, a look of surprise in her eyes. Clearly, she never would have expected me to offer to give her more seed. This was far, far more than she could ever deserve. Her eyes started to grow teary-eyed, and it looked like she wanted to throw herself at my feet, but our locations in the car prevented it. After taking a deep breath and getting a hold of her emotions, she gave a decisive nod.
"Watch out for Faeri." She gave me a worried look. "She"s… not innocent like the others. She"s violent, manipulative, and hateful. If you can avoid coming in contact with her, it"d be better."
"Nada…" I met her eyes one last time. "Thank you…"
Nada nodded a few more times like she didn"t want to leave, but she regretfully closed the door. She continued to watch as the car pulled away. She stood in the sidewalk until we were out of sight, watching the car that seemed to carry her hopes and dreams.
"Another baby?" Brooke asked wryly.
"If it… keeps her from doing drugs again, then it"s worth it." Brooke raised an eyebrow, so I kept speaking. "We"ve slept together. We"ve shared a bond. I"m not going to be fooled by her again, but that doesn"t mean I want to leave her hanging high and dry. I need sixty women for my harem plan to work, right? Nada used to be an educated woman, she just fell on hard times. She was once pretty. She could be pretty again."
Brooke gave a snort when I finished. "You"re too nice."
"Maybe…" I muttered back. "Or maybe this world is just too cruel."
"It"s the only world we got." Brooke shrugged.
A wry smile formed on my lips, but I didn"t respond. Yeah, this is just how things are. I heard that a lot in my old world too. It was only now that I"ve seen the world another way that I understood how weak and unconvincing that argument was. Things are the way they are because people made them the way they are. If we wanted things to change. We"d had to change them ourselves.
I closed my eyes and leaned back with a sigh. Charlene always remained silent unless responding to something, and thankfully Brooke could read the mood well enough that she also didn"t say anything. My thoughts were mostly on Hannah. Right now, she"s locked in a room somewhere, dark and cold. Worst, she probably hated me. The last time we had seen each other she ran away in disgust because I was giving everyone but her attention. Now, she"s kidnapped and being used to blackmail me.
Would my dear sister ever come to forgive me? I really didn"t know. Part of the reason I left the way I did was because I felt guilty myself. I had betrayed my sister, and I felt that if I was the one who saved her, then at least she wouldn"t hate me. However, even if I saved her, Hannah could still end up hating me in the end. It turned out, my mother wasn"t the only one that I had taken for granted. Just like I a.s.sumed mom could take any abuse, I had a.s.sumed my sister would always be there. I reckoned I could focus on Madison because I had plenty of time with Hannah. Only now did I realize how precious that time truly was.
After we had been driving smoothly for some time, I finally opened up my eyes, and immediately raised my eyebrow. We were outside the city, driving away from it. Was the location that Nada gave us so far outside of the city? I didn"t think that was so. My brow furrowed. However, it wasn"t until I saw a familiar fence and gate coming to view that my eyes shot to Brooke. She had a guilty expression on her face, but she met my eyes defiantly.
"What is going on here?" I demanded.
"I"m bringing you home, kid," Brooke responded.
"Wh-what?" I tried to stand up, hitting my head on the car ceiling and grabbing it. "d.a.m.n it! You said it yourself, we"re wasting time!"
"We already got what we needed," Brooke sighed. "Now you need to stay home and stay safe. I"ve already contacted the authorities. They"ll be waiting to intercept the package at home. Once they intercept it, they"ll make a move at the rendezvous and the factory at the same time. It"s the safest way to protect your sister."
"No…" I shook my head. "Brooke, they don"t care about her. She"s not a man, so they won"t care!"
"Clyburn, I know your mother has filled your head with those kinds of thoughts." Brooke"s voice was strained with a tinge of anger. "But it is their job to protect citizens. You are their priority, so be glad they can know you"re safe while they focus on handling the exchange."
"Charlene," I turned to the other woman, who turned her head away from me, a guilty look on her face also. "Brooke, this isn"t what we agreed on! You were supposed to be my ally."
"I"m supposed to do what no one else will, keep you safe and make sure you don"t do anything stupid! I"m the only one concerned about your best interest." Brooke"s voice was raised now.
"Then, you"re fired!" I shouted back. "It was a mistake to go to you…"
"I refuse!"
"You… you can"t refuse! Charlene, get her out of the car!" Charlene looked out the window, wearing an expression like she wanted to leap through it and take her chances at sixty miles an hour.
"You already put me in your d.a.m.n heresy thing, now you"re stuck with me, and I will do my job to keep you safe whether you like it or not!" Brooke growled.
"You"re out of the harem!" I said, pointing out the door like I expected her to jump.
"Fine… if you"re done with my services, I"ll just take my severance package!"
"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" I shouted as Brooke leaped at me.
"You offered some c.u.m to make my Aiko a baby! Now you better deliver!" Brooke started trying to unbuckle my belt as I fought her off.
"I won"t give it! You can"t make me c.u.m even if you wanted to, you taco b.i.t.c.h!"
"Very well then!" Brooke pulled out a switchblade. "Then I"ll just cut it off and stuff it so Aiko can use it as a toy so she can feel a real p.e.n.i.s!"
"You"re f.u.c.king crazy!" I shouted, fighting with Brooke in the backseat of the car, while Charlene pretended she wasn"t there in the corner.
I reached out to grab anything I could use as a weapon. My hand ended up caught on her blouse, ripping it open and exposing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and cleavage. Of course, her bra was still on, but with her b.o.o.bs exposed, my hands immediately went for them. I grabbed her nipples through her bra and twisted hard.
"Arrrrr… you f.u.c.king kid!" Brooke shouted grabbing my crotch and squeezing until my b.a.l.l.s felt like they were being kicked.
"I… will… not… abandon… my… sister!" I growled through the pain, delivering the most brutal purple nurple I could manage.
"You"re… not!" Brooke snarls through gritted teeth. "I… am… keeping… you… safe. Stop… being an… idiot!"
The car door my head was pushed up against suddenly opened. My upper body fell halfway out of the car. The sudden drop caught Brooke off guard as well, and she fell forward with only my body to grab on to. As a result, her hands grab my shirt and her chest lands on my chin. Flushed and breathing hard, the pair of us looked outside the door, me upside down on the bottom, with Brooke straddling me on top.
"Uh… we"re here…" The driver who opened the door said nervously, trying to keep herself from looking at us while a fiery red blush covered her face.
Nearby, there were siren lights flashing, and two or three police cars sat nearby. It appeared that when the cars were off, they released retractable metal feet like a table that they rested on. There were also a couple of policewomen, and most importantly, Aunt Rose standing worriedly nearby. Everyone was looking with their mouths slightly agape.
Brooke recovered first, rolling her eyes as she got off of me, immediately pulling her blouse over her chest, even though the b.u.t.tons had been ripped off. I turned around and stood up. Feeling slightly dizzy from being upside down for a moment. Charlene had already escaped the vehicle and went to the policewoman to report everything going on. Many of the policewomen were giving me looks, apparently very excited by the scene they had discovered a man in. It"s not every day they saw a man in the middle of foreplay with a woman, and it"d be the talk of the station for weeks.
"Even in a crisis, my nephew is a bit of a deviant…" Aunt Rose muttered slightly.
I ignored her words as I got out of the car. "Aunt Rose, Hannah…"
Aunt Rose raised a hand to stop me. "Yes, I know. You"ve done well. Brooke has told us everything. You"ve made both me and your mother worry greatly. When she gets out of the hospital tomorrow, she"s going to have quite a few words for you."
"No… I mean… I have to go to Hannah…"
Aunt Rose gave me a sympathetic look. "I know you want to help, Clyburn, but the best thing you can do is let the police handle it, okay? You"re not a hero from some story. Just stay inside with us. They"ll get Hannah back."
"That"s what I tried to tell the brat, maybe he"ll listen to reason now."
"You tried to cut off my d.i.c.k!" I shouted, pointing at Brooke accusingly.
"You misheard," Brooke said it with such an absolute straight face that even I almost wanted to doubt myself.
I ignored Brooke"s childishness. She was probably acting that way just to distract me. Maybe that"s why she let me go down on that other woman too. She was just trying to mislead me. Amuse me like a child. Keep me out of any real danger while allowing me to feel just a bit of thrill. In the end, I hadn"t truly accomplished anything. I looked at Aunt Rose"s sympathetic eyes and Brooke"s stubborn looks.
Many of the police ladies were looking at me too. They had the same kind of eyes as the ambulance women. I was like an antelope that had wandered in front of a pack of lions. If it had made my skin crawl before, now it just made me angry. I turned and walked away. As to the direction I walked, it wasn"t like I was being given a choice there. I headed back into the mansion. There was less security in the mansion, but Charlene has resumed her role as my shadow. I was once again trapped in my prison, unable to do anything. I couldn"t protect anyone.
I went into my room and closed the door. At the very least, Charlene wouldn"t follow me in there. However, it was a room with no escape. The door into mom"s adjacent room was locked. The window was actually nailed shut, making it impossible to open. All I could do was lie in bed. As soon as I did, however, I felt something under the covers. I got up and pulled them off. There was a manila envelope sitting hidden. How long had it been here? The police must have not searched my room. Well, there was no reason to. How would someone get into my room when the entire mansion was secure? They were waiting for a delivery to come to the mansion. How would they ever expect the package to already be here?
I picked up the envelope and opened it. Just as expected, a single note came in. The note was in handwriting I recognized. It was written in Hannah"s bubbly script. It also looked to have some stains on it. One of them looked like blood.
Dear Brother,
They told me to write this telling you to come to 4321 Ferris Pine in the city and go into the back alley. If you do, you"ll see me again. Be there by 8:00 pm. No police. If you don"t come, they will… just don"t come, brother… don"t come… don"t worry about me.
Hannah
My hands trembled as I read the note, and a moment later a drop of liquid struck it. I realized that tears were falling down my cheeks. I should have given this to the police. I should. However, this was a world that prized men, not women. They didn"t care about saving my sister. Even if the police girls out front were thinking that if they were the one to save my sister, maybe I"ll f.u.c.k them in appreciation, it didn"t feel like enough. I needed to go there. If I was caught, then the police would spare no expense saving me. I left the note on my bed so they could find it after I left.
I looked out the window. The flashing lights of the police a.s.saulted my eyes. I could see Brooke and Aunt Rose talking to a policewoman who was nodding. My window faced the front of the house, even if I could kick it open, I would be caught by the time I reached the bottom. I needed a bedroom that did not face the front of the house. That"s right, Hannah"s bedroom has a window that faced out the back corner! I headed out my door.
"Clyburn." Charlene gave a nod.
"I"m going to Hannah"s room," I said. "Maybe there is something there that would give us a clue."
Charlene let out a rare expressive sigh. "The police have checked her room."
My hands tightened and I straightened my back. "Even so… look, I"ll go crazy if I can"t do something. At least let me try…"
The desperation in my eyes was genuine even if the words I said were false. Charlene gave a nod after a moment and I let out a silent breath of relief. She took me to Hannah"s room, and once again I closed the door on her. She probably a.s.sumed I"d fall on Hannah"s bed and cry myself to sleep or something. However, I had completely different plans in mind.
I immediately went to Hannah"s window, only to find that it wasn"t nailed shut like my own. It looked like mom only gave me that kind of treatment. Her window opened rather easily, so I carefully lifted it without making a noise. Looking out the window, I let out another surprised noise. It was very lucky. Her window seemed to sit in a little alcove that hid it from eyes. More than that, there appeared to be a trellis structure built alongside the house to hold flowers. It looked scalable. I didn"t hesitate to swing my leg out the window and grab onto the structure. It seemed to creek angrily under my grip, but I still worked my way down it, only getting p.r.i.c.ked by thorns three times on the climb from the second level to the floor. Once my feet hit the ground, I moved into a crouch.
Most of the security patrolled the borders, so they weren"t near the mansion. The cops were in the front yard, waiting on the package, and didn"t seem all that concerned about running security detail. I guess they weren"t expecting me to try to flee. The location I went to was the garage. The garage was detached and actually a ways away from the mansion in a separate building. Naturally, when we wanted to drive, a car and driver were fetched for us, so there was very little reason to have an ugly garage in the same s.p.a.ce as the mansion.
This benefited me greatly today as there was no one near the garage. Better still, the keys to the car were left in the garage. Of course, the garage was locked, meaning I had to smash a window to get inside. I used a rock, unlocked the door, and went to the car key lockbox which was never locked. I had no eyes for cars, so I merely picked the first key I saw. We had three cars in all. The limousine still parked in front of the mansion, a car with high safety ratings that I"m supposed to use to learn how to drive when I turned 18, the legal driving age limit in this world. The last one was my dad"s car. It was wrapped with a dusty car cover.
When I tried to unlock the car using the key, it was dad"s car that beeped. I threw off the cover to find a car that looked very stylish. It had leather seats and blue flames on the side. Best of all, it was dark. I was never a car guy, but it looked like my dad might have been. I gave out a little whistle as I jumped into the driver seat. The security wouldn"t know what to make of this car suddenly bursting out of the property. Noone would expect me to know how to drive, but with 35 years of experience I could figure this out! With luck, I"ll be awhile away before the police even know what happened.
The one big disadvantage of the hover cars I noticed as I turned it on was that to move from the standing state to idle took a good minute. That meant none of the police cars were ready to chase me. Police had to stay hovering in idle when they were waiting to turn on their lights. With the cars off, they were helpless.
I turned the hover car on and started moving out. With the lights off, the car produced very little noise. They were incredibly stealthy in this world. Thus, I was able to sneak past the police blockade without being noticed by anyone. I very slowly drove up to the gate leading out of the property. There was someone at the gate. As soon as I hit the gate, I wouldn"t be able to sneak any longer. I took a breath, but right before I hit the gas, which I didn"t even know if it was called gas in this world, I noticed that the car had a phone system.
A new idea circled through my head, I moved the car into the bushes, and then dialed the number to the security gate which I had memorized one day on a whim. The phone lines were all interconnected, so a.s.suming this was on the network, then I could message any other phone almost like a walkie-talkie.
"Help!" I cried out, trying to give a feminine voice. "Some gangsters have broken through a side gate and are currently descending on the mansion! Everyone to the mansion!"
I held my breath as soon as I finished. If my rouse didn"t work, I"d floor the gas and hope for the best. A moment later, the gate room opened up and the woman inside ran out, her walkie-talkie in hand. With the police coming and Hannah being kidnapped, it looked like she was deprived of sleep and her nerves were frayed. She hadn"t thought to double check before abandoning her post. I let out a relieved breath as she ran by.
I didn"t wait too long though as I hit the gas. The gate actually auto-opened for the right vehicles, so I didn"t need to do anything but approach the gate, causing it to open. There was a proximity sensor that noted the gate was opening, but I didn"t know how much they checked it. At the very least, I bought myself a few minutes. Thus, I slammed the gas and sped out of my home, obtaining freedom once again.
I drove twice the speed limit, blazing down the road. I kept expecting to see sirens blazing from behind as I was being chased, but when the city came into view, I had yet to see anyone. My plan worked as well as I had hoped, and soon I was in the city.
The light was starting to wane, and the sun was setting. It was then I realized that this car had no GPS. I became very lost very quickly. I asked for directions three times. As to seeing a 14-year-old driving a car, not a single woman noticed. The only thing they saw was a man pulling up to them. As soon as they found out they could help a man, they became incredibly excited and helpful. A few pushed their phone numbers on me, and one even suggested we go back to her place. I ignored them all, slowly making my way to the rendezvous point given to me.
When I finally pulled up in front of the abandoned alleyway at the address given, it was nearly dark out. I let out a breath as the last of the sunlight disappeared. I had made it here with a few minutes to spare. Now, it was time to do the only thing I could for my sister. I got out of the car and left it there. Looking down the dark alley, I tightened my fist and followed the path. It was something I had to do.
I heard some kind of movement in the shadows, but I didn"t bring a flashlight to shine my way. In the end, I could only just fall right into their trap. For Hannah… I had to do this for Hannah.
A cloaked figure emerged from the darkness. They had a mask on their face, it looked like a blank theater mask that covered half her face, completely white except for dark eyes. She had midnight black hair, but the rest of her features were completely obscured by the baggy clothing.
"You actually came?" The voice came out distorted, it was the same voice on the video. "What are you, stupid? Hahahaha…"
The voice bent over laughing like my presence was a complete joke.
"I came alone. Where is my sister?" I demanded.
"Your sister?" The mysterious figure tapped the lip of their mask. "I wonder…"
"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I did what you asked. Now let her go."
"Hah? Did we say anything about letting her go?"
I took a step forward. "If you touch her, I swear to G.o.d, I"ll kill you!"
The form started laughing once again. "Hahaha… you"re funny. I like you…"
"I"m not joking!" I growled, my hand pulling out a knife, the same switchblade from Brooke which I had pocketed secretly after our exchange. "Give her back to me! She"s mine!"
For the first time, the figure gasped as I lunged at her with the knife in my hand. She leapt back smoothly, avoiding my slash, but she also looked very fl.u.s.tered and surprised. A man caring so much for a woman in this world might seem strange to some. However, this woman was my sister, I wouldn"t let them hurt her. This woman must have been Faeri. If I could capture Faeri, maybe I could use her to get my sister back.
Those thoughts ended an instant later when something hard struck me in the side of the head. I found myself going from swinging forward to falling to my side. Someone else had been behind me and had used that second to strike. It felt like a bat or something. I stared up dizzily as I felt the knife being pulled from my hand. The masked Faeri was staring down at me.
"Tsk… tsk… you"re an interesting boy, Clyburn. Welcome to your new family. We"ll take good care of you. You and your… Hannah… as well. Hahahahaha…"
My vision finally failed and my mind descended into darkness followed by that maniacal laughter.