"Is it over with so fast?" he asked, dropping his arms.
"No. It didn't happen."
Z frowned and looked over. "Why not? You gotta do it, man. You heard Havers - "
"She wants you."
" - so will you go in there and open a vein - "
"She'll only have you."
"She needs it, so just - "
Phury raised his voice. "I won't feed her!"
Z's mouth clamped shut and his black eyes narrowed. "Fuck you. You will do this for me."
"No, I won't." Because she won't let me.
Z surged forward, locking a vise grip on Phury's shoulder. "Then you will do this for her. Because it's the best thing for her and because you're feeling her and because you want to. Do this for her."
Christ. He would kill to. He was dying to go back into Z's bedroom. Rip off his clothes. Fall onto the mattress. And have Bella crawl up his chest and sink her teeth into his neck and straddle him, taking him inside of herself both between her lips and between her thighs.
Z's nostrils flared. "God... I can smell how badly you want to do this. So go. Be with her, feed her."
Phury's voice cracked. "She won't have me, Z. She wants - "
"She doesn't know what she wants. She's coming out of hell."
"You are the one. For her, you are the one." As Zsadist's eyes slid to the closed door, Phury pushed, even though it killed him. "Listen to what I'm saying, my brother. She wants you. And you can do this for her."
"The hell I can."
"Z, do it."
That skull-trimmed head shook back and forth. "Come on, the shit in my veins is corroded. You know that."
"No, it isn't."
With a snarl, Z leaned back and held out his wrists, flashing the blood-slave bands tattooed at his pulse points. "You want her biting through these? Can you stand the thought of her mouth on them? Because I sure as hell can't."
"Zsadist?" Bella's voice drifted over. Without their noticing, she'd gotten up and opened the door.
As Z's eyes squeezed shut, Phury whispered, "You are the one she wants."
Z's reply was barely audible. "I'm contaminated. My blood will kill her."
"No. It won't."
"Please... Zsadist," Bella said.
The sound of the humble, yearning request turned Phury's ribs into a cage of ice, and he watched, frozen, numbed out, as Z slowly turned to her.
Bella stepped back a little, keeping her eyes on him.
Minutes became days... decades... centuries. And then Zsadist walked over and went inside. The door closed.
Phury was blind as he pivoted away and went down the corridor.
Wasn't there someplace he needed to be?
Class. Yes, he was going to... to teach class now.
Chapter Seventeen
At ten after four, John climbed up into a shuttle bus lugging his duffel bag along with him.
"Hello, sire," the doggen behind the wheel said cheerfully. "Welcome."
John nodded and looked at the twelve guys who were seated in pairs and staring at him.
Whoa. Really not feeling the love here, fellas, he thought.
He took the empty seat behind the driver.
As the bus started to move, a partition came down so that the trainees were locked in the back together and none of them could see out the front. John shuffled around so he sat sideways. Keeping an eye on what was happening behind him seemed like a good idea.
The windows were all darkened, but the running lights on the floor and ceiling were bright enough so he could get a bead on his classmates. They were all like him, thin and small, though they had different hair colors, some blond, some dark. One was a redhead. Like John, they were all dressed in white martial-arts jis. And they all had the same duffel at their feet, a black nylon Nike bag big enough to fit a change of clothes and a lot of food. Each of them had a backpack, too, and he guessed they had the same stuff in it that he had in his: a note-book and some pens, a cell phone, a calculator. Tohr had sent out a list of required supplies.
John tucked his pack in close to his stomach and felt himself getting stared at. It helped to think about all the numbers he could text-message, so he repeated them in his head over and over again. Home. Wellsie's cell. Tohr's cell. The Brotherhood's number. Sarelle's...
Thinking of her made him smile. They'd spent hours online last night. Man, IM'ing, once he got the hang of it, was the perfect way to communicate with her. With them both typing words, he felt like they were equals. And if he'd liked her over dinner, he was really into her now.
"What's your name?"
John looked over a couple of seats. A guy with long blond hair and a diamond earring had spoken up.
At least they're using English, John thought.
As he unzipped the pack and took out a notebook, the guy said, "Hello? You deaf or something?"
John wrote his name and turned the pad around.
"John? What the hell kind of name is that? And why are you writing?"
Oh, man... This school thing was going to suck.
"What's your problem? Can't talk?"
John met the guy right in the eye. The laws of probability mandated that within every group, there was one alpha-male pain in the ass, and this towhead with the sparkler in his earlobe was clearly it.
John shook his head to answer the question.
"You can't speak? At all?" The guy raised his voice as if to make sure everyone heard. "What the hell are you doing training to be a soldier if you can't talk?"
You don't fight with words, do you? John wrote.
"Yeah, and all those muscles you're popping are really scary."
So are yours, he wanted to scribble.
"Why do you have a human name?" This question came from the redhead in the seat behind him.
John wrote, Raised by them, and then turned the pad around.
"Huh. Well, I'm Blaylock. John... wow, weird."
On impulse, John pulled up his sleeve and flashed the bracelet he'd made, the one with the characters he'd dreamed about on it.
Blaylock leaned over. Then his pale blue eyes shot up. "His real name's Tehrror."
Whispers. Lots of whispers.
John retracted his arm and eased back against the window again. He wished he'd kept his sleeve down. What the hell were they thinking now?
After a moment Blaylock pulled a polite one and introduced the others. They all had odd names. The blond's was Lash. And how flicking appropriate was that?
"Tehrror..." Blaylock murmured. "That's a very old name. That's a real warrior's name."
John frowned. And even though it would be better to get himself off these boys' high-def wide-screen, he wrote, Isn't yours? And the rest of theirs?
Blaylock shook his head. "We have some warrior blood in us, which is why we were chosen to come train, but none of us has a name like that. What line are you descended from? God... are you bred from the Brotherhood?"
John frowned. It had never dawned on him that he could be related to the Brothers.
"Guess he's too good to answer you," Lash said.
John let that one pass. He knew he was tripping all kinds of social wires, setting off land mines right and left, what with his names and the raised-by-humans thing and his inability to talk. He had a feeling this school day was going to be one hell of an endurance test, so he might as well save his energy.
The trip lasted about fifteen minutes, with the last five or so involving a lot of stopping and going, which meant they were going through the gate system into the training compound.
When the bus halted and the partition retracted, John shouldered his duffel and his backpack and got out first. The underground parking facility was just as it had been last night: still no cars, just another shuttle bus like the one they'd come in. He stood off to the side and watched the others mill about, a flock of white jis. Their nattering voices reminded him of the sound of pigeon wings clapping.
The center's doors swung open, and the group got good and transfixed.
But Phury could do that to a crowd. With his spectacular hair and his big body in black, he was enough to make anyone freeze.
"Hey, John," he said, lifting his hand. "What's doing?"
The guys turned and stared at him.
He smiled up at Phury. Then got busy trying to fade into the background.
Bella watched Zsadist pace around the bedroom. He reminded her of how she'd felt the night before when she'd sought him out: Caged. Miserable. Pushed too hard.
Why the hell was she forcing this?
As she opened her mouth to call the whole thing off, Zsadist stopped in front of the bathroom door.