NC-17: Adult Themes and Situations

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The young man sat high, in the shadows, on a tall stack of wooden crates, in the entry of an endless alley. Glancing one direction he could see down through the darkness to the alley exit. It was the other direction he watched so attentively. It showed him the well lit, almost empty street. He listened to the night. He could hear the soft sounds of weeping in the distance. He winced at the crash of a body against glass and the curses that followed. He heard the wail of a baby over the shouts of its struggling parents. He sighed at the voice of the pretty, but tired young whore on the opposite corner asking the driver of a late-model BMW if he was looking for a date. He saw her get into the car before it drove away.

He had that rare, impossibly white-blond hair that was most commonly accompanied by pale, crystal-blue eyes and almost transparent skin. His oval face was beautiful, with sharp, slender features and a gentle softness to his expression. His body had a look of late adolescent strength, with sleek, wiry muscles. Already six feet tall, his gangly limbs suggested he had not yet reached his full height.

He sat cross-legged on his perch, elbows resting on his knees. His long slender hands were busy; the tips of his thumbs and forefingers pressed together, thumbs balancing, forefingers resting on his chin. His other fingertips tapped lightly against each other, the only evidence of his unease.

He kept watch.

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The child should have been exquisite; perfect features, alabaster skin, striking sapphire eyes and black satin hair that fell to his waist. Instead, he was dirty and disheveled, his tender form sporting several cuts and bruises from various falls along the way. The terror that poured off him was tangible as he fled down yet another alley, hoping against hope that he could find a place to hide for just one more night.

His pursuers were relentless. And they were closing in.

Somehow he had managed to stay far enough ahead of them until now. At first he had stowed away on trains. If anyone questioned him, he simply told them he had gotten lost and needed to find his parents. He was young enough that they believed him when he said their names were Mommy and Daddy. And that they lived in Texas. That seemed far enough away. When the adults couldn’t find his parents on the train, they agreed to help him get to his home city on the condition that, once there, he would let the police help him find his family.

He let them believe. He knew he couldn’t turn to the police for help. He may have been only six years old, but he wasn’t a child. He had never really been a child. An innocent. No. He had seen and experienced far too much be a child. His innocence was lost before he could walk. He had known pain and terror and lies his whole life. He had learned to mask his feelings so well that no one watching him on film would ever guess that he was the least bit unhappy. He was, though. He was in constant inner turmoil.

The closest thing he had known to peace was alone in his sister’s company. She could always soothe him. Just a simple embrace or a few soft words and his mind would calm. She was not the dominant twin, though. Just the more vocal one. Her features and coloring mirrored his own so closely it was nearly impossible to tell them apart when they were clothed. That was probably why they were so rarely allowed to wear clothes. It wasn’t as if they needed them. Their room was kept warm and locked, opened only to take them to filmings and medical check ups. Have to keep the little star attractions healthy, after all. They were well fed, but constantly watched. They were given toys appropriate to their age. After all, they needed to appear as childlike as possible on film. Rissa had a favorite doll and half a dozen stuffed bears. She only liked bears. She wouldn’t play with any other type of stuffed animal. Somehow, she managed to keep a small portion of the child within her. They were allowed to watch television - whenever and whatever they wished.

That was, possibly, the adults’ mistake.

They watched shows telling them no one had the right to do those things to them. Television told them it was wrong. That they shouldn’t even know what sex was. Not yet.

It told them that they should be children.

He should have told Rissa to keep quiet about it, but he wanted the answers, too.

So, Rissa started asking questions.

They got answers. The Institute had legal guardianship of them both. They even had their scholastic bases covered. The Institute was an educational foundation.

Oh, they got the answers to their questions. The answers were used to crush them. Their parents were breeders and they were property.

Owned. No freedom. No choices. No hope.

Rissa was gone now. They killed her. They made him watch the tape. He could still hear her screams as they tortured her for the camera. They echoed through his mind when he tried to sleep. He had been told in no uncertain terms that she had been killed because the two of them had been uncooperative. They had pegged her as the instigator, so she was the one to die for the entertainment of their customers.

All because he kept silent. All because he let her do the talking.

No. He couldn’t trust the police. They would acknowledge the legal claim of the people chasing him and give him to them.

And he would die. They would kill him.

He knew that, before they killed him, they would make him pay dearly for running.

Escape was his only hope of survival.

So he slipped away from the train station in Fort Worth and into the protective shadows of the streets. His beauty was a curse and a blessing. It enabled him to charm the street people and protect himself, but it was also the reason he was in trouble in the first place. His perfect face was why they wanted him so desperately.

Now they had found him. He wasn’t really surprised. He had known they would never give up.

So he ran.

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The watcher turned to gaze intently down the alley. He felt the emanating waves of terror before he heard the footsteps. The ragged breathing and the pain of running too long and too far were overpowering.

This was why he had been drawn to this spot. This was the reason he kept watch.

He couldn’t see the child’s face clearly. It was contorted with fear. He noticed that, whatever the child ran from, he didn’t waste time looking over his shoulder. He ran in earnest, determined to get away.

In an instant, the watcher lowered himself silently to the ground, still cloaked in shadow. The child did not see him until he ran into him. Strong hands held the child up when the collision cost him his balance. The boy looked up, eyes blank with fear, only to hear quiet reassurance.

"It’s alright. I’ll protect you."

The boy quickly looked over the young man holding him. A look of despair washed over his face, only to be replaced by abject terror as he was lifted into the young man’s arms. He glanced about wildly as they rose high into the air and he was gently deposited on top of the crates. "Be still," the calm voice whispered. He watched in horror as his would-be rescuer leaned in and licked the blood from the cut on his chin. The cut healed.

The young man swallowed the blood as he floated lightly to the ground. Knowledge flooded his mind. He knew why the boy ran... And what he ran from. His beautiful, gentle face iced over. His expression turned cold and his ice-blue eyes went as hard as crystal.

He heard the approaching footsteps.

"He went this way!" A man shouted, as he turned into the alley.

The watcher drew the shadows more closely around him. He was virtually invisible in the night. He waited.

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The boy watched wide-eyed as his tormenters barreled into the alley. He shrunk back into the shadows, trying to disappear. He couldn’t explain why he relaxed when he heard that quiet voice whispering to him again.

"Don’t be afraid. These monsters won’t ever hurt you again. I promise."

He wondered, vaguely, how he could hear the man whispering to him from such a distance, but he pushed the thought away easily. It seemed so unimportant. He was calm and safe now. He had a protector. He knew the price of that protection would be easy to pay. His protector was gentle and kind. His eyes wandered off, away from the alley. He didn’t need to watch. His protector would keep him safe.

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Cloaked in shadow, he waited. His face was tilted downward as his eyes pierced the darkness. He was prepared when the brightness of the flashlights flooded the alley. His sensitive eyes adjusted quickly. The first man went down with out a sound, his neck broken in the space of a heartbeat. The second didn’t see it coming either. Those slender hands contained raw power, unfathomable strength. The last four attacked together. It didn’t help. He was as fast as he was strong.

When only one was left standing, their eyes met and held. The youth approached his frozen prey. He reached out slowly, took the man’s chin in his hand and tilted the head. As he lowered his mouth to the thick neck, his eyes turned from crystalline blue to dark blood red and his canines elongated into razor sharp fangs. They pierced the skin cleanly. The long fangs went straight into the carotid artery and blood gushed into his mouth. He slipped his other arm around the heavily muscled back and held the man up as he drained him. It didn’t take long.

When the man was dead, he ripped the throat open with one sharp fingernail, disguising the death wound. It wouldn’t do for a bloodless corpse to be found with no visible explanation for the blood loss. Then he tossed it carelessly on top of the other bodies.

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